Safe and simple

Someone fearful of "media violence" wrote, "I know this is a complex topic."
Joyce Fetteroll responded:

Only when it's mixed in with traditional parenting, school, disconnection.

In unschooling families it's simple: we help our kids explore what interests them in ways that are safe. And the side effects are that they find being loved and trusted and accepted for who they are is a whole lot more attractive than hatefulness and meanness. When their lives are full to overflowing with love, they don't need violence to get something they're lacking. All they need is to ask and they have a parent who will help them get it.

It's really that simple! Not complex at all.

Logic and Parenting
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Simple, warm and homey

Any moment or memory that is simple, warm and homey is a success.

Peaceful moments can be very simple.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Caroline Lieber

Simple

"Create a rich environment. Support and feed their interests. Connect with them." —Joyce Fetteroll

Joyce added that my site could have been just that—one page, simple—if natural learning were easy to trust.

Read the rest: SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Karen James
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A simple gesture

Taking food to someone who is reading or playing a game or watching a movie and just putting it where he or she can reach it without any instructions, warnings or reminders is a great gift. It is a simple gesture, and a profound service.

SandraDodd.com/eating/monkeyplatter
photo by Sandra Dodd

Just being

There's little so sweet and grounding to me as being loved for who I am and appreciated for all I choose to spend my time doing. If we want our children to really know what that feels like too, we should stop standing on the sidelines, and start joining in.

It's a simple gift we can all give to our children that will have the potential to last a lifetime.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames/beingwith ("A Simple Gift")
photo by Cass Kotrba

Sweet and grounding

"There's little so sweet and grounding to me as being loved for who I am and appreciated for all I choose to spend my time doing. If we want our children to really know what that feels like too, we should stop standing on the sidelines, and start joining in. It's a simple gift we can all give to our children that will have the potential to last a lifetime." —Karen James

A simple gift
photo by Karen James, too

Simple beauty

If you can see the beauty in plain and simple things, the world will be more beautiful.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Simple and beautiful

"I think unschooling has done as much for me as it has and will have for my son. When you get down to it it's just so simple and so beautiful. It's helped me to reconnect with my older kids too and make amends for all the times that I made mistakes. So many things that you don't even know will be changed when you start living that different kind of way."

—Jessica Sutton

Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling
photo by Karen James
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Simple and life changing

Unschooling is not as easy as some people think it is. It can be fun, and simple, and life changing, if it is done deeply and thoroughly.

SandraDodd.com/video/doright
photo by Cátia Maciel
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Simple and profound

Taking food to someone who is reading or playing a game or watching a movie and just putting it where he or she can reach it without any instructions, warnings or reminders is a great gift. It is a simple gesture, and a profound service.


Monkey Platters
photo by Sandra Dodd

Grand and simple

Of natural learning, Ren Allen wrote:

By choosing to unschool, I am giving my children the ability simply to enjoy the journey rather than to seek some unknown destination that falsely promises an end product. My children’s lives are their own; their dreams and passions belong to them, and in gathering the bits that matter, they are showing me that natural learning is grand and simple all at once. The light that emanates from them awes me to silence.

—Ren Allen

Crystallized Learning
photo by Lydia Koltai

Simple magic

Remember these moments, when simple things make the normal world magical.

Provide for the possibility of these moments.

SandraDodd.com/water
photo by Janine Davies
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Small, simple steps

There are people whose lives have been transformed because they wanted good relationships with their children and they took small, simple steps to get there.

SandraDodd.com/change/ (Thoughts on Changing)

SandraDodd.com/change.html (How Unschooling Changes People)

SandraDodd.com/gettingit (Unschooling: Getting It)

Those three pages are an impressive collection of the powerful difference a deep understanding of unschooling, and its practice in a home, can make to parents as individuals.

SandraDodd.com/oneonone
photo by Cátia Maciel

the simple truth

"I have seen, again and again, the simple truth that the more a parent plays with, listens to, and includes their child, the better their relationship."

—Claire Horsley

SandraDodd.com/being/with
photo by Holly Dodd
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Simple but gigantic

One of the best first steps a family can take toward moving a giant step toward being more positive is to note and back off about anyone or anything they've called "dumb" or "stupid."

It's simple but gigantic.

If things (music, ideas, jokes) are allowed the dignity of being potentially accepted as perhaps good in someone's estimation, lights come on all over that world.

Sandra, on Always Learning, in 2008
photo by Holly Dodd

Love; generosity; a haven

Wash dishes because you want to. What would make you want to? Love. Generosity. A desire to have an available kitchen, a clean slate, a fresh canvas. The wish to do something simple and kind for yourself and others. The wish to keep peace in your house. The preference of singing and feeling warm soapy water over accusations and threats and tears. The intention to build loving relationships rather than antagonism. The hope to make a haven of your home, rather than a dangerous trap everyone would love to escape.

from page 201 of The Big Book of Unschooling (page 177 of the older edition)
related ideas online: Serving Others as a Gift
photo by Colleen Paeff

Stance and viewpoint

If there is a method to unschooling it's certainly not a simple one. It involves changing one's stance and viewpoint on just about everything concerning children and learning. That's not "a method." That's a life change.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/definition
photo of "the rock house" (small, at 10 o'clock), from Sandia Tram,
by Sandra Dodd

Strewing might ring a bell

Once Colleen Prieto wrote:

Yesterday, a neighbor offered me something that looks sort of like a cross between a bell and a gong, a stand to hang it from, and a mallet. It was interesting and I figured we'd find some sort of use for it, so...

In the less than 24 hours it's been in the house, my 9 year old has:

• Experimented with the different sounds it can make (soft hits, hard hits, hit in different places)
  
• Used it to call us all to attention so he could announce important things (like "I'm hungry" 🙂)
  
• Told our elderly friend about it, and in turn checked out the links she sent to websites that have photos of gongs that are bigger than people, Tibetan singing bowls, etc.
  
• Added The King and I to our Netflix queue after my mother said she thinks they use gongs to summon dancing maidens in the movie
  
• Looked for other things in the house to bring into the living room to make it look "even more Avatar air temple and less ordinary living room" 🙂
  
• Put Avatar episodes on in the background and made up his own air-bending moves while they were on
  
• Wondered why a mallet is called a mallet and is not called a hammer
  
• Asked me to find the bell collection we used to have out, so he can play with the bells again

The fun (and learning, and connections) that can come from exploring one simple item can be amazing.

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/strew/strew
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Something about math

Unschooling is simple but not easy, and it's not easy to understand, but when math is a normal part of life then people can discover it and use it in natural ways and it becomes a part of their native intelligence. All that's left is for them is to learn the notation, later, when they need to.

Mathematics (written for a German magazine; the translation is linked there)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Slowly being

"Being there for and with the family" seems so simple and yet many parents miss out on it without even leaving the house. Maybe it's because of English. Maybe we think we're "being there with our family" just because we can hear them in the other room. There is a special kind of "being" and a thoughtful kind of "with" that are necessary for unschooling and mindful parenting to work.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Evelyn Torrales (Celeste Burke's mom)
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