Contentment is Peace

For learning to happen in ANY situation, safety and some peace are required.

Can there be too much peace? For learning, yes. Learning requires mental arousal. If an environment is so still and barren that one's curiosity isn't sparked, then people might be closer to a state of sleep than of excited curiosity. Life can be too dull and quiet for learning to spontaneously happen.

Can there be too little peace? Yes, and in many ways. There can be too much noise, stimulation and chaos. So finding the balance place and the comfort level is part of creating a peaceful home.

Peace is a prerequisite to natural, curious, intellectual exploration.

What is peace, then, in a home with children? Contentment is peace.

Is a child happy to be where he is? That is a kind of peace. If he wakes up disappointed, that is not peace, no matter how quiet the house is or how clean and "feng shuid" his room is.

Peace, like learning, is largely internal.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Choosing more peace

There will never be perfect peace. We can't even define "peace."
There can be a closer approximation to ideal peace. People can come nearer to the way they would like to be, but only incrementally, choice by choice.

If you want to live peacefully, make the more peaceful choice.

Peace is all about choices.

To have peace in your house, be more peaceful.


SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
doodly art by a younger Holly Dodd

Choosing More Peace

There will never be perfect peace. We can't even define "peace."
There can be a closer approximation to ideal peace. People can come nearer to the way they would like to be, but only incrementally, choice by choice.

If you want to live peacefully, make the more peaceful choice.

Peace is all about choices.

To have peace in your house, be more peaceful.


SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
doodly art by Holly Dodd

Creating and protecting peace

Peace precedes learning.

Peace is a pre-requisite for unschooling to start working. It doesn't need to be constant peace (and won't be) but it needs to be increasing peace, and the attempt and intent to create and protect more peace.

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Feeling Peace

If we raise the level of peace our children expect, they will know what peace feels like.

Adults need to know what peace feels like too, though, and some feel it for the first time when they really start to understand unschooling.


SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
I know I've linked to this page more than once, but I don't mind pointing to the important things a second, third, or fourth time. Peace is it.

photo by Sandra, in Old Town, in Albuquerque
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Peace might not be so quiet

In English there's a phrase, an idiom, a lump of words: "peace and quiet." People speak wistfully of "peace and quiet" as though one requires the other, but I haven't found that to be true in practice.

Is quiet always peace? I can think of lots of times I held my breath to be quiet, out of fear. I've seen families where people passed through the house quietly, out of nervous avoidance. Sometimes "Quiet!" can be very scary and dangerous. Some families live in fear and quiet, not peace and quiet. Quiet anxiety is not peace at all!

A Loud Peaceful Home
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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Peace and joy and love

Children need peace and joy and love. If the parents are going to be their sole providers in this home environment of learning, they need all the peace and love they would need from their parents and they need all the peace and love they were going to get from their teachers.

When a family is very negative, with a very cynical parent, they’re sacrificing the chance that maybe the teacher would have been happier than they are. So they need to be twice as peace-and-love as they might have been if they weren’t unschooling.

Changes in Parents
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Don't Be Cruel

On verbal abuse, one thing that has worked here is to remind them that it's their own reputation and self/soul that they're hurting when they're mean. If someone is cruel, it makes him a cruel person. It might hurt the other kid too, but it immediately hurts the one who was mean for meanness' sake. And it disturbs the peace of the others around them. If two kids are fighting, the third kid isn't having peace either.

SandraDodd.com/peace/fighting
photo by Sandra Dodd

(I lifted the title from an Elvis song; if you want to hear it, here y'go, and here's some history: Don't be Cruel.)

Choosing "better" better

Jen Keefe wrote:

Choosing peace over anything else seems so obvious. Except when I didn’t know there were more peaceful options I thought I was choosing them. I guess I thought the least unkind or least chaotic choice was choosing peace- if I even realized there was a choice, or that peace was a goal.

Last night the kids and I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. watching The Office. We typically go to sleep earlier than that but we were so into the show (we are binge watching and are at the place where Robert California took over).

We stayed up later so we slept later. So we went and got subway for lunch and brought it to the pool. The kids got chips and cookies and soda. That’s not a big deal anymore, but it used to be.

Now they are swimming so happily while I sit here typing this and chatting with them. It’s so... peaceful. As much as I loved my kids and was learning to parent gently this is not the way I was headed. I wouldn’t have had this moment, or the moments last night, or those moments this morning when we snuggled in bed right after we woke up, watching more of The Office. I wouldn’t know who my kids are.

This is better. It’s just better.

—Jen Keefe
(March 2018)

There is a bit more of that at Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Janine Davies
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No conflict

In response to an inquiry about priorities among principles, and whether learning should come before safety, peace, kindness or a strong marriage:

For me, safety is big.

Peace doesn't conflict with learning; it aids it.

Kindness doesn't conflict with learning; it bolsters it.

Learning, peace and kindness make marriages better.

SandraDodd.com/priorities

Photo by Sandra Dodd, of a spider in a window of the Winchester City Mill, in Hampshire. I was glad their priority wasn't to vacuum constantly, because seeing that dead spider was one of the best things of the day.
We were in the room over the millstream.
It was raining.

A danger to your children

If you don’t have any peace in yourself, how are you going to allow your kids to have some? Because if you don’t have any peace and you’re angry and you’re not sure why and you’re just waiting to see what made you angry, then your kids are not safe, they won’t have peace.

From a new transcript of part of an old talk at SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully, bottom of the page.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't be cruel

On verbal abuse, one thing that has worked here is to remind them that it's their own reputation and self/soul that they're hurting when they're mean. If someone is cruel, it makes him a cruel person. It might hurt the other kid too, but it immediately hurts the one who was mean for meanness' sake. And it disturbs the peace of the others around them. If two kids are fighting, the third kid isn't having peace either.

SandraDodd.com/peace/fighting
photo by Sandra Dodd

(I lifted the title from an Elvis song; if you want to hear it, here y'go, and here's some history: Don't be Cruel.)
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Happier and more positive

When people ask about being happier and more positive, the answer can't help but be the same. BE happier. BE positive.

But as with any accounting (think a bank account), withdrawals deplete your reserves. Every negative word, thought or deed takes peace and positivity out of your account.

Cynicism, sarcasm—which some people enjoy and defend—are costly, if your goal is peace. Biochemically / emotionally (those two are separate in language, but physically they are the same), calmer is healthier. I don't know of any physical condition that is made better by freaking out or crying hard or losing sleep or reciting fears. I know LOTS of things that are made better—entire lives, and lives of grandchildren not yet born—by thoughtful, mindful clarity.

It's okay for mothers to be calm. There are plenty of childless people to flip out. Peek out every few days, from your calm place, and check whether their ranting freak-out is making the world a more peaceful place. If not, be grateful you weren't out there ignoring (or frightening) your children while helping strangers fail to create peace from chaos.

SandraDodd.com/factors might be helpful.

SandraDodd.com/issues might, too.

Source of writing, on facebook
photo by Karen James

Stir up some peace

Sandra Dodd (in 2017—general discussion, not unschooling):

There is a natural need in people to know the "us" and the "them." Those who want an inclusive, multicultural, liberal, accepting life will still have a "them." It's easy to revile "the enemy." It might be impossible NOT to have the idea of "other." But creating a "culture" or nation that is created of a combination of others won't save any individual from their own instincts.

Deb Lewis wrote (in the midst of other things):

You can't clean up a pile of shit by shitting on it.

Sandra Dodd, to that:

The people who are cleaning up can feel hatred for those who keep shitting on it (whatever the "it" is they're cleaning up).. . . . Hating those other people makes you hateful.

There isn't a final solution, but there are things to make it (the big pile of shit) worse, and ways to make our own moment in time better. Enough good moments might make a good day. Don't collect shit unless you want a shitty day.

Back to nowadays...
I know it's not the most uplifting quote, but a reminder that negativity is negative might help parents of children who are still at home to be positively sweet and present. Stir up some peace.

SandraDodd.com/antagonism
photo by Holly Dodd

Warmth

You know the game of finding something in which other players will say, "You're getting warm," or "You're getting cold"? You need to get warmer and nearer and closer. You don't need absolute peace; you need more peace. You don't need to live in perpetual peace; you need to live with more peace.

SandraDodd.com/gettingwarm
photo by Amber Ivey

Regular mysteries

Some things will be a mystery to most people.

It's good to accept that we won't understand everything, because here's a fact: No one understands everything. There are mysteries. Don't let that disturb your peace.

Practice saying "I don't know" to children is good practice for saying it to ourselves when the children aren't around.

SandraDodd.com/acceptance
SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Ester Siroky

Photos don't have to be upright

Photos don't have to be upright, but I usually like for them to be.

I'm sorry for the glitch with today's post, and it's not yet fixed. I've written to Photobucket. For a while I was making errors because of Blogger changing, and now there's a Photobucket problem.

There was one photo by Holly that was sideways on purpose so the words would be the readable direction.

I know my writing is always about peace and goodness and living lightly and being open to what happens. I know my photos are often of trees or trucks, the view through a hole in a wall, or doorways, or fires or flowers. I like rooflines, and plants growing in odd places. I like light coming through glass—refracting, reflecting and projecting its shadows and colors. I like round things.

(The cake photo is by Cathy Koetsier, and Holly Dodd took one or two of them.)

Thank you for reading. You don't have to read these, so thanks for choosing to do so. I don't have to make them and send them out, but I like to.
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Creating more peace

I'm not interested in helping people battle or fight or struggle. I want to help them find joy, gratitude, abundance and peace.

Fighting a lack of peace isn't creating more peace.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Joy, gratitude, abundance and peace

I'm not interested in helping people battle or fight or struggle. I want to help them find joy, gratitude, abundance and peace.

Fighting a lack of peace isn't creating more peace.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Chrissy Florence

Results of Unschooling

I can't really speak to any "end results," because they're still growing and experiencing the newness of many firsts in their lives. If there is ever an "end," the results won't matter anymore. But as long as life continues, the results unfold.

Are my children better friends and better employees because of the freedom they had? It seems so. What kind of managers will they be when they're in positions to make decisions about other people's employment?

When they marry will they be good partners? Would that be an "end result"? What kind of parents will they be?

What kind of neighbors will they be? How will their long-term health be affected by their early freedom to make their own choices? Will they be more or less likely to be binge eaters, substance abusers, or hypochondriacs? When they're old, will they still be active and interesting? Will their early freedoms affect their geriatric physical and mental health? I don't know, and probably won't be around to see.

In this window of time, though, I am satisfied. The peace and joy with which they live attests to the success of our attachment parenting and unschooling. Our lives are entwined and growing. The end result of twenty-one years of parenting as mindfully and as peacefully as I could is that I am content with the outcome. Someday I might report on the end result of twenty-five or thirty years of parenting, as life burgeons on.

SandraDodd.com/magicwindow, 2007
photo by Sandra Dodd
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