Finding yourself

I was asked recently, "When do you find time for yourself as an individual?"

When children are very young, their lives ARE the mother's life. The more time the mother spends with the child when he's young, the easier it will be for him to separate freely on his own. It goes against some of the assumptions of traditional parenting (although it might not in India, and my comments might be too western here), to suggest that fulfilling all of a child's needs will make him more INdependent, but when a child is needy and feels ignored, he will be more demanding, not less.

As my children got a little older, I found other families to trade time with. Their kids would play at my house while the mom shopped or something, and she would reciprocate. If a mother is encouraged to look for more and more time without her children, though, it can make her feel unhappy thinking she's doing something wrong and should "find herself." Rather than encourage mothers to feel they have lost their individuality, I've found that helping them become the sort of parents they're proud to be can make them feel much better than outside interests might have. As children get older, mothers have more time, until someday the children are grown. People say it and hear it all the time, I know, but when they're little it seems it will never happen, and when they're older, it seems it took no time at all.

The more people one's children know and trust, the easier it will be for the parents to find some separate time, but I don't think time apart should be a high priority.

The graph was created for this article:
SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely

"How should parents teach?"

Each family should live a rich life of thoughtful exploration.

Most people think of "exploring" as going to new places, but exploring ideas, music, foods, games and each other's experiences and stories, within a family or group of friends, creates an environment of learning. Exploring new places is good too, even if they're in your own neighborhood. Taking a different route or going to a different shop will spark learning in a child.

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The writing above was in response to a question from a reporter,
and it seemed worth sharing.
photo by Holly Dodd
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Eating

Food and stress should never go together if it can be avoided.  My suggestion for today is:  Lighten up.     

Even if you feel that you've overcome all your prejudices and fears about where, when and how children MUST eat, there might be a few lingering concerns. Let one go. Maybe let two go. One way to think about it is that they will live for a long time and what they eat this week doesn't matter much, or they won't live much longer, in which case what they eat this week doesn't matter at all.

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Confidence grows

Any child who has learned to read without "being taught" (and I have three of them) cannot doubt that he can learn other things without finding a teacher and following a prescribed course.

If a child is past this point when unschooling begins for that family, there might be another skill instead of reading that will fill the need to see natural learning. For those whose children are younger, parents and children together can learn things in ways that don't involve reading. Parents can learn to recognize learning in its natural habitat (outside of books), while children develop confidence in their own ability to decode and decipher systems and situations large and small.

Confidence in children grows from looking back at what they've learned. Parental confidence grows from seeing in their own children what they've only read about, or heard, of others' children.

Top quote from: The Deeper Effect of a Child Learning to Read: Confidence (SandraDodd.com/r/deeper)

photo of Sophie, by Holly
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Where are you?

How do unschoolers learn geography? Better than I did in school.

The world is all a-swirl with music and maps and photographs of interesting architecture, costumes and ancient weaponry and technology. Gypsy carts and camel caravans and steam locomotives have their places on the planet, and nobody has to memorize anything to sort them out into their times and cultures.

Some families travel. Some stay in one place, and come to know that place well. Consider your resources, histories, friends, relatives and where they live, and why. All those stories, images and artifacts, gradually gathered, will expand your child's view of his own personal world.

SandraDodd.com/geography
Photo of a Tapas bar I saw in Cardiff, in Wales. Click to enlarge.
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History in your hand

By seeing the same old things in new ways, you might discover a world of riches in the same old stuff you already had. Take, for instance, a deck of playing cards. What might seem too mundane and common to you isn't so common to someone else. And maybe your parents or grandparents thought cards were sinful, but playing dominoes or something else was okay. My dad's family was that way.

Playing card games has social benefits and leads to learning and all, but playing around with the cards themselves leads to dozens of things too! Compare aces and art from different decks. Consider the manufacture of cards, the traditional colors, the etiquette of card tables, shuffling, cutting, directions of play.

Cards connect to history, art, statistics, logic, geography, religion, law, entertainment, paper manufacturing, printing technology... well they don't connect to more things than everything else does, but they're an easy way to see how things connect!

Some of this is from SandraDodd.com/game/cards
Image from a Wikipedia article.

Other images and fun trivia are here:
History found in Playing Cards, on the Thinking Sticks blog
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Doesn't yet...

I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

That came from this...

We've used this "someday you will" or "you just don't yet" about all kinds of things, from reading to caring about the opposite sex to foods. Holly doesn't like green chile yet. She figures she will ("When my taste buds die" she jokes), because her brothers didn't used to and now they do. Kirby lately started liking mushrooms. Marty still doesn't like spinach yet, but we haven't branded him "a spinach hater," and I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

...which is at the bottom of Encouragement and Confidence about Reading.



Those aren't the mushrooms Kirby eats. These are in our back yard after it rains.
photo by Holly
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