Showing posts sorted by relevance for query safe. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query safe. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Kind and safe

Parents get pretty good at noticing when a child is tired, hungry or frustrated. It's important to see those things in yourself. Keep your family safe from your more dangerous moods and states. If you're too hungry or too tired to be kind and safe, ask for help. Or admit you're feeling stressed, and be more careful. Don't use your mood as an excuse to be harsh or dangerous. Learn to do what you need to do to stay in a workable, safe zone.

SandraDodd.com/mentalhealth
photo by Destiny Dodd

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Safe and happy success

Eva Witsel wrote:

I can spend my energy on limiting my child's world so that he will be safe and happy or I can spend my energy on helping my child learn the skills to navigate our world himself so that he will be safe and happy. I think the latter has a better chance of success in the long term.
—Eva Witsel

SandraDodd.com/energy
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Safe inside

If it happens that there are dangerous things outside the house, try to keep the inside safe and comfortable.



Happy, safe and comfortable
photo by Gail Higgins

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Safe at home

"He should be safe in his own home" is a good thing to remember about a child. It can be said to visitors, to siblings, and reflexively to oneself when making a decision. An adult partner should be safe in his own home, too.

SandraDodd.com/safety
photo by Julie D

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Happy, safe and comfortable

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

There are so many small generous happy-making things that parents can do for their kids throughout the day, and week, and month and year.

When kids are accustomed to feeling happy and safe and comfortable, they can move through life knowing that life is happy, safe, and comfortable, and that even when it sometimes isn't, they can always come home to find it and feel it again.
—Jenny Cyphers


Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Thursday, January 10, 2013

The same and the safe


My favorite "new rule" has always been that learning comes first. Given choices between doing one thing or another, I try to go toward the thing that's newest for my kids, and most intriguing. "New and different" outranks "We do it all the time, same place same way." But there are comfort-activities, and to be rid of all of them would be as limiting as to only do routine, same, safe things. So we find a balance. Or we tweak the same and the safe, changing it enough to make it especially memorable from time to time.

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Holly Dodd

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Safe place


If your relationship with your child is about you leading him along with you instead of pushing him away, you will be his safe place.

Make yourself his safe place.

SandraDodd.com/safety
photo by Sandra Dodd

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Safe and happy—how?


Eva Witsel wrote:

I can spend my energy on limiting my child's world so that he will be safe and happy or I can spend my energy on helping my child learn the skills to navigate our world himself so that he will be safe and happy. I think the latter has a better chance of success in the long term.
—Eva Witsel


SandraDodd.com/energy
photo by Sandra Dodd
(color photo, in daytime,
though it's spookily dark)
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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Self-awareness

Parents get pretty good at noticing when a child is tired, hungry or frustrated. It's important to see those things in yourself. Keep your family safe from your more dangerous moods and states. If you're too hungry or too tired to be kind and safe, ask for help. Or admit you're feeling stressed, and be more careful. Don't use your mood as an excuse to be harsh or dangerous. Learn to do what you need to do to stay in a workable, safe zone.

SandraDodd.com/mentalhealth
photo by Sandra Dodd

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Longterm safety and happiness


"I can spend my energy on limiting my child's world so that he will be safe and happy or I can spend my energy on helping my child learn the skills to navigate our world himself so that he will be safe and happy. I think the latter has a better chance of success in the long term."
—Eva Witsel
SandraDodd.com/energy
photo by Cátia Maciel

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Limits


"Conventional wisdom" (those truisms that too-often aren't true) says "children need limits," and that good parents have lots of limits (the more limits the better the parent). We've all seen (and some have been in) families where stifling limits caused the very problems they were expected to prevent. But without a counter-mantra to "children need limits" it's easy for parents to fear that it must be true or people wouldn't keep saying it.

If by "limits" people mean "safe boundaries," sure! If by "limits" people mean "someone to watch and care," absolutely! But what people usually mean by "limits" is parents who say "no / don't / stop / forget it / when you're older."

When unschoolers discuss limits they're often discussing arbitrary limits, trumped up to make the parents feel good, or used as magical talismans to guarantee that their children will be creative, healthy and safe. What creates much more magic is to help children discover and do and be.

SandraDodd.com/limits
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, November 27, 2014

Safe, respectful and empowering


Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Unschooling is the opposite of both authoritarian and hands-off parenting. It's neither about creating rules to remote parent nor about letting kids jump off cliffs. It's about being more involved in kids lives. It's about accompanying them as they explore, helping them find safe, respectful and empowering ways to tackle what intrigues them.
—Joyce Fetteroll
2009

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, July 31, 2020

Right here, again


Holly Dodd wrote a warm memory:

I am seven years old. I am sitting comfortably with a convenient, safe place to rest my face. Safe. On my father's lap . . . Knowing it is not only ok, but expected of me, to fall asleep. Right here where I already am. My dad will tuck me in when he is done holding me, and it will hardly be my business.

I left out the middle. There is more at: Sleep-related memories
photo by Holly Dodd
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Saturday, June 25, 2022

Safe, busy and happy


Be with your kids and make sure their lives are safe and busy and happy.

SandraDodd.com/youngchildren
photo by Cátia Maciel

Thursday, November 17, 2011

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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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Pleasant and safe

I think putting a child out for turning 18, or 20, or 21 is as arbitrary as putting a child in school for turning five.

If home isn't pleasant and safe, a young adult will leave with just anybody. If "anything is better than home," that creates a dangerous situation.

The quote is from a discussion on facebook,
but here's a cousin-link: SandraDodd.com/youngadults
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, March 20, 2014

Memories


"I am seven years old. I am sitting comfortably with a convenient, safe place to rest my face. Safe. On my father's lap. I can feel the heat from a fire. I can hear voices—I can recognize many of them. I hear singing. I feel singing. The vibrations of my dad's baritone voice through his wool clothing…"
—Holly Dodd


Read the rest at SandraDodd.com/sleep/memories
photo by Sandra Dodd

Monday, April 24, 2023

Safe and fed and warm

Pam Sorooshian:
Learning requires a sense of safety.

Fear blocks learning. Shame and embarrassment, stress and anxiety—these block learning.
Principles of Unschooling


Sandra Dodd:
So don't pressure, coerce or confuse your children.

Smile and laugh and provide.

Keep them safe and fed and warm and they will grow all sorts of ways.
Principles of Learning (chat transcript)
photo by Belinda Dutch

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Safe explorations


In unschooling families it's simple: we help our kids explore what interests them in ways that are safe.
—Joyce Fetteroll

Logic and Parenting
photo by Ida Marie Stenild Coltau

Monday, August 12, 2024

Safer thinking

When a rules-based environment causes rule-breaking, and failure, or balking and resistance, those things are not safe—not physically nor emotionally.

Be expansive in thinking about safety. That's safer.

SandraDodd.com/safe
photo by Cathy Koetsier