Surprising waiters

We have surprised waiters in many restaurants by turning to our children questioningly when the waiter asks the adults "Would you like to see the dessert menu?" They're even more surprised when the kids say, "No thanks," or "I'm full," while making friendly eye contact with the waiter.

SandraDodd.com/freedom/limits
photo by Sandra Dodd
(couldn't find one of my kids, young, in a restaurant)

And then what?

A dad new to a discussion wrote:
Kids who spend more time watching TV (both with and without parent and siblings present) spend less time interacting with family members.

Joyce Fetteroll responded:

In unschooling families?

And what criteria did the use to define "interacting" for the study?

My daughter and I have done a great deal of interacting as a direct result of TV. It's tied into her other interests in story telling. Without TV she wouldn't have the huge collection of comics she's written. Without TV we wouldn't have discovered manga. Without TV we wouldn't being going to Anime conventions together (I even dress up).

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/logic
image and card by Joyce Fetteroll

A kind of P.S.—what Joyce wrote in May 2015, when she shared the image of a card she wrote for unschoolers, on top of a scene from "Healer":

We're off to Chicago to see Kat. 🙂

One of the most connecting valuable things I did was get involved in Kat's interests. Manga, anime, drawing, writing, music. We still talk about writing and music especially. Carl connected through running, football and other sports. Of course we'll be seeing the Cubs and he and Kat will be going to the White Sox and then the hockey game so they're still connecting. 🙂

Languages, words, history

Whole language involves language as communication, rather than separate parts (writing/reading/spelling). First language, then details later.

With unschooling, children will learn from the language you use and they use, from the words they see around them, from using games and computers, from signing greeting cards or playing with words. There's no need for any school-style structure at all. For those who have wondered about phonics and reading and spelling, please don't press that on your children.

Some languages are simpler than English in that the letters and sounds match pretty consistently. French and Spanish come to mind. German. But because of something that happened in 1066, and because of the history of The British Isles, and because of the isolation of some English speakers and the migration of many others, English has complexities and a crazy-large vocabulary. Our basic grammar and language are Germanic. The majority of our vocabulary is from French (look up 1066 if you don't remember what happened) and Latin, though the everyday words we use are from Anglo Saxon, which had borrowings from half a dozen Germanic dialects.

If that was a painful paragraph to read, never mind it. If that paragraph was fun for you, then you can help your children spell by looking up what language a word is from and figuring out why it looks the way it does in written English.

SandraDodd.com/phonics
photo by Caroline Lieber

Yet another shift

Jen Keefe wrote:

Sydney (7) wanted to make sure she was spelling "Girl Scout Cookies For Sale" correctly for her sign, so she asked Siri how to spell it.

I went over to offer my help to make sure it was giving the correct results for her (thinking any number of results could have come up in the search). "No mom" she said "I just look at what I said. Siri types it out every time."

Yet another shift in how I see things and I found myself shaking my head in amazement.

I thought you might appreciate that story 🙂

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/digital
photo by Jen Keefe

Trust and faith

A mom trying to persuade another mom to let kids have choices wrote:

But children don't die from eating too many Oreos or spending a whole day watching Kipper videos. They might get sick, or feel headachy, or be grumpy, but it's not life-threatening.

I responded:

They're entirely UNlikely to be sick, headachy or grumpy from those things. They are very likely to feel smaller, and worse, from parental restrictions and from hearing "no," though. And if the mom's dire warnings of doom turn out not to have been true, then trust and faith fall and are hard to restore.

Trust and faith are the most powerful tools parents of teens have. Too many parents squander those trying to control toddlers and young children.

SandraDodd.com/choice
photo by Sandra Dodd

Help to relax

"What helped me relax was focusing on our relationship with each other and fostering GENUINE interest in each others' interests."

—Tina Bragdon

SandraDodd.com/learningfromourkids
photo by Holly Dodd

Tangents are the good parts

Even two people reading the same book are gleaning different things from it, or maybe one is just looking at the photos. Marty and I pulled down several books with sections about The Black Death of the 14th century. We weren't "reading the books," we were using them as reference materials for details and stories. But as sometimes happens, other interesting parts jumped out at us, just from having the books in our hands and using the index, or flipping through.

The tangents are the good parts.

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Sandra Dodd

Meeting needs

If the child isn't hungry, tired, afraid or feeling unloved, there should be no problem with curiosity and the desire to experience other things.

SandraDodd.com/maslow
image amended by someone in the U.K., 2013, uncredited, probably not an unschooler, but I like it!

Learn Nothing Day

Shhhhh.... don't scare him.

photos by Holly Dodd
Almogordo, 2009

Limits? Focus elsewhere.

Carol Brown, responding to the comment "Not being able to read can limit them":

They are also limited by their lack of height—but I'm not going to stretch them on the rack each night, to try and fix that.🙂 They are limited by not being able to drive—but I wouldn't let a 6 yo drive my car to the library! Reading is just one of many things they are limited by. I have found it is better to focus on the things they can do, or can nearly do, and help where they want help, rather than try to make / bribe / tempt / cajole / whatever / them into trying to learn things they aren't ready for. And many kids, especially boys, but some girls too, simply aren't ready for reading until later.

The main problem for a late reader is the negative input from others. Homeschool kids can be protected from a lot of that—providing the parents aren't the ones exuding the negativity!

—Carol Brown

SandraDodd.com/r/carolbrown
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp/Ripandeep Saran
(her boy, not one of Carol's)

Choosing fruit

Bernadette Lynn wrote:

My son isn't restricted in what he eats. He came into the kitchen yesterday to ask me if there were any biscuits (cookies), but stopped mid-sentence when he noticed a melon on the counter and asked for that instead. So he ate a whole honeydew melon, instead of biscuits (which we did have). It's the second one he's eaten since I bought them at the weekend.

The melon was sitting next to his uneaten Easter egg, but he ignored that.

—Bernadette Lynn

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo of Holly Dodd by Trevor Parker,
text added by Holly later

Watch and learn

It is my long considered opinion, my eventual conviction, that trying to control TV based on the mother's judgment of what the child seems to be learning is

1) saying more about the mom than the TV or the child

2) putting a value on TV that treating it like any other book or toy or piece of furniture can never create

3) betraying the claim to believe learning is everywhere

4) usually indicative of the parent's NOT watching TV with the child.

I have watched Ninja Turtles cartoons, and movies. I have watched Power Rangers, and analyzed plots and characters with kids.

Power Rangers would not have been my first choice.

Being with my kids and seeing the world from their viewpoint and trying to help them figure it out was my first choice.

SandraDodd.com/t/debate
photo from a workshop Rose Sorooshian ran at an unschooling symposium where she let people choose TV shows, and put up what could be learned from them

Everything else

Remember that if your “unit study” is the universe, everything will tie in to everything else, so you don’t need to categorize or be methodical to increase your understanding of the world. Each bit is added wherever it sticks, and the more you’ve seen and wondered and discussed, the more places you have inside for new ideas to stick. A joyful attitude is your best tool.

SandraDodd.com/latenightlearning
photo by Alex Polikowsky

"Self-regulation" (I object)

Sometime between 1795 and 1811, Jane Austen wrote (in Sense and Sensibility):

Elinor's security sunk but her self-command did not sink with it.

It's about the character masking her emotions and responses, when another young woman was trying to make her jealous.

I wanted to add "self-command" to the list, which was up to now

• self-regulation
• self-control
• self-discipline

None of those are as helpful as learning to make the better choice.

---

Another outside quote:

Because “self-regulation” sounds modern, therapeutic, and enlightened, it can obscure the lingering assumption that the child should eventually internalize adult priorities.

—ChatGPT, 5/14/25
🙂

SandraDodd.com/self-regulation
photo by Sandra Dodd

Playing as a game

I'm living without a piano these days, but this was true for years, mostly with Clementi, or Bach:

I have said that I play the piano like playing a video game. But what that means for me is that sometimes when I'm passing by the piano, I'll sit down with a piece of music I know fairly well and play it "until I die," which is the third mistake, just to see how far I can get. Or I'll play something harder and go until I'm just stuck, maybe go through that hard passage a few times, take a running leap at it, see how it goes, and then go back to doing whatever I was doing before. Laundry or whatever it was.

When I do that it feels like a timer, and a challenge, and a goof. It's an investment in keeping my fingers operational without "an hour of practice" or any of those thoughts. It's playing with the piano, more than playing the piano. It's a game. I don't have to.

—Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/force
Image is the cover of a thin music book, published by Schirmer, 1967.

Word tree

SandraDodd.com/words
Image by an engineering student in the UK whose Fiverr name was Spartali, in 2014

Partnership, joy and fun

Chris Ester wrote:

What bothers me most... (about a questionable definition of unschooling) is that it is all about the parent and their level of comfort. Focusing on what the parent can 'bear' at the possible expense of the child irks me....

Thank you Sandra, et al. for the clarity that you provide. The talk of partnership and joy and fun with clearly stated principles in mind is challenging to the status quo and stretches many of us, but it is certainly much more helpful.

—Chris Ester

Appropriating the word Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
(a tied game against Keith;
newer than the writing)

Random words, or CHOSEN words?

In an unschooling discussion, once, someone commented just this:

Evidently this is a place to choose one's words extremely carefully.

I responded:

YES!!
Yes, it is.
This group is a place to choose one's words carefully.

One wonderful thing about that is that if one practices that here, and sees the value in it, maybe she will begin to choose her words more carefully when speaking to her children, or her partner. Her other friends and relatives probably wouldn't mind if she chose her words carefully when speaking to them.

And in other groups, too—a humor group, or Korean drama group, Viking crafts group, puppy-training group—wouldn't it be best to choose one's words carefully?

SandraDodd.com/mindfulofwords
photo by Sandra Dodd

Understanding without pressure

Lyle Perry wrote:

Knowing facts and understanding facts are two very different things. School (for the most part) requires knowing facts and the ability to state those facts on demand, but doesn't necessarily require understanding the facts. I think most people make it through school memorizing enough facts to keep the teachers happy, but have very little understanding of those facts until much later in life, if ever. There's not enough time for understanding in school. The schedule doesn't allow for it.

Unschooling gives a person the time to understand, without the pressure of memorization and schedules. It's learning in an un-pressurized atmosphere.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lyle/definition
uncredited image, floating around
Facts about the YMCA (some of which you might already know)

Quickly, slowly, connections are made

Joyce Fetteroll, in "Five Steps to Unschooling":

Forget the linear approach to learning we grew up with. For instance, we learned that the way to learn is to read "all the important" stuff about a subject gathered and packaged for our convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package of information.

Sure, sometimes an interest will cause kids to gather up a huge chunk of learning all at once. This is easy to see. And easy to overvalue as the "best" way to learn.

More often kids will slowly gather interesting tidbits, making connections as things occur to them to create a foundation. They'll add pieces here and there over the years to build on that foundation. This is not so easy to see going on. And very easy to undervalue.

So, if we can train ourselves to see that process we can help it along by valuing the times when they see Thomas Jefferson on Animaniacs and then later on the nickel and then still later on Mount Rushmore. Those moments will establish a feeling of recognition and familiarity. Then the more tidbits they gather about Jefferson, the more interesting he becomes. And the more interesting he becomes, the more they want to know about him.

It took at least two years and a lot of posts by very patient unschoolers (and a lot of questions by other newbies who were equally confused) for me to finally "get" unschooling. Hopefully, these five steps will make your transition to unschooling easier than mine was!

—Joyce Fetteroll

"Five Steps to Unschooling"
by Joyce Fetteroll, published in Home Education Magazine in 2000
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011
(Adults keep picking up trivia and making connections over the years, too.)