Thoughtfully and respectfully

Cara Potter wrote:

Having the concepts of authenticity and freedom foremost in your mind doesn't help unschooling - they're freighted with political meaning - actually, all sorts of meanings -that have little to do with unschooling. Better to instead think of helping your child make choices - choices that take others into consideration, (which is respect).

What we as unschoolers are doing is helping our children learn to make choices so that they can live and thrive in the world. You can do that without getting tied up in knots about authenticity and freedom.

There'a an Annie Dillard quotes that always makes me think of this process - "How we live our days is how we live our lives."

If you live your days being kind to your family and helping your child make choices that take other's feelings and expectations into consideration you'll be helping him learn how to have live thoughtfully and respectfully in the world.

—Cara Potter

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Colleen Prieto

Ideas, changing, carefully

Take a little time to try out new ideas up next to your old ones. Thinking about why you are where you are, thoughtwise, is a good tool in deciding where you might rather be.

SandraDodd.com/better
photo by Jihong Tang

Clarity and choices

Karen James wrote:

Freedom is a lovely word. It’s a huge concept. It has a very meaningful place in our society. It is important to a lot of people for very honourable and very real reasons.

Freedom is too big a focal point for unschooling though. It’s not that it can’t be celebrated and talked about. I believe it can. But if our aim is to have clarity in unschooling, our focus seems better directed at more succinct and relevant concepts to grasp and implement. Concrete ideas that can carry us forward through all of the stages, through any situation, and into a healthy, productive adulthood.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/choices/
photo of an airplane by Sandra Dodd
(click the image and zoom a bit if you can't see the plane)

Calm and thoughtful joy

What advice do you have for families who are new to homeschooling?

Don't spend money at first. Read, meet other families, let your children have time to do what they're interested in, or what they weren't allowed to do before because of school. If they want to read or play in the yard or ride bikes or watch movies or draw or paint or play games, make that possible for them.

While the children are recovering, the parents can learn about what they want to do and why, and how. There is more online about homeschooling than anyone could ever read. Find the writers and ideas that make sense to you, and pursue that. Don't rush into anything. Parents should learn to be calm and thoughtful instead of panicky and reactionary. It's better for health and decision-making, and it sets a good example for the children. Don't live in fear when you can live in joy.

SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Cátia Maciel

Very random

Try to embrace "very random" so unschooling will work optimally! 🙂

Even for kids who are in school, the more parents talk and joke and wonder with them, the more learning will happen, and the better relationships will be.

Webs, nets, connections
photo by Cátia Maciel

Seeing and doing better

Deb Lewis wrote (in 2008 or so):

We have all made mistakes. I still make mistakes despite trying really hard not to and my kid is almost sixteen and always unschooled. I don't see any value in beating myself up over mistakes and *I don't see any value in comforting myself about them either*. They are mistakes, things to be avoided in the future if I want to continue to have this great relationship with my kid. I can *always* do better.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/mistakes
photo by Ester Siroky

What could be better?

Being the sort of parent you wish you had had, and providing an environment you would like to have had as a child, is probably the easiest and most direct way to move toward being a good unschooler.

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Karen James

Choose to have choices

A person can choose to have choices. A person can choose not to choose; still a choice, but they think of it as "no choice" or "have to."

Make the better choice
photo by Sandra Dodd

Plain and good

Plain milk tastes WAY better if it's your choice than it does when it's plain because someone else wouldn't let you put chocolate in it.

Without free choice, how can a person choose what is plain and good?

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
(I painted the stripey glaze;
Holly did the spots in the same colors,
when she was four or five.)

Slowly, then...

Someone said one time that she counts to ten and then she's still mad so what should she do, and a couple of people said "Count slower."

Angrily holding one's breath and counting to ten in a hostile fashion isn't the "count to ten" that's recommended. Breathing to ten is way better.

Breathing can be done in an overt, hostile "I'm breathing so I won't hurt you" passive-aggressive way, too. That cancels it right out.

The quote is from an online chat, but a good link is SandraDodd.com/breathing.
photo by Destiny Dodd, of sunlight coming in the top of a cavern
(repeat from 2018)

Sorting through examples

An online friend, in response to a photo of my family, when I was a teen (me in the middle with stripes):

I'm looking at that pretty young girl and thinking "does she have any idea just how many lives she is going to touch for the better?"

I responded:

There are people in that photo who said and did things, before that, and after that, that became part of my motivation and direction. There were bad examples, and good examples. And not just them, but other relatives, friends, friends' parents, teachers, strangers, authors.

Everyone can, should, sort through the bad examples and good examples around them and move choice by choice toward whatever their own images of "better" might be.

That's all. 🙂

---

On Facebook, for those with access, with explanations and commentary from ten years back, 2014

For those without facebook: SandraDodd.com/better

I don't know who took the photo; sorry.
We were in Roby, Texas, probably 1968.

Understanding it, not acting it

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It usually takes a long time before people new to unschooling stop looking for new rules to replace old ones. The more people are discouraged from skimming a surface understanding of unschooling, discouraged from relying on meaningless reassurances that going through the motions of unschooling with crossed fingers and assurances everything will be fine, the better for their kids.

Unschooling is a paradigm shift for most everyone. That shift doesn't happen by acting like other unschoolers. It comes slowly, bit by bit, as understanding of what unschooling is grows.

—Joyce Fetteroll
(original)

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Karen James

Learning by watching

Problem:
My son spends a lot of his time playing video games. I have accepted that this is his passion... and maybe very well play a part in his career path. but lately he's also been watching videos of other people playing video games on YouTube! Please help me see a reason that this is not just a waste of time... I know you'll have a good way to look at this latest passion.

An idea:
Musicians watch videos of other musicians. Athletes watch videos of other athletes. Chess players have even been known to watch other people play chess with something approaching awe and rapture. Woodworkers watch woodworking shows. Cooks watch cooking shows. Dancers watch better dancers and learn like crazy!

[and there was more, ending with...]
Don't worry about what kids choose to do. Make sure they have lots of choices, and don't discriminate between what you think might be career path and what might "only" be joyful activity and self-expression, or what might seem to be nothing more than relaxation or escapism. Let them choose and be and do.

SandraDodd.com/mha
photo by Sandra Dodd

More joyful ways to live

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

The first step is finding something that's better than what you have.

The second step is wanting to change.

The third step is figuring out how to change.

So, as you read along, you may wonder why I suggest that parents basically make life more difficult for themselves. The reason is because I believe it leads to a much better place. And that better place is a more joyful life for our children and our families.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Children and media discussion
photo by Janine Davies

New and better

Lean, one choice at a time, one conscious thought at a time, until your choices and thoughts are solidly in the range where you want to be, and you no longer lean that other way so much.

Your new range of balance will involve better choices and options than your first attempts did.

Sandra, from a talk on being partners
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

Easier lives for children

I would like to discuss unschooling in ways that it can apply to anyone and everyone.

I'm concerned only with what makes children's lives easier, not what makes their mothers feel more important or martyrly or special. SandraDodd.com/martyr

---

Nothing has ever made me feel better about me than the feeling that I was being a good mom. SandraDodd.com/peace/mama

photo by Roya Dedeaux

Emulation

The people I respect most have become little voices in my head, and I "consult" them when I'm making decisions in their specialty areas. I have friends who are more patient than I am, more generous with time, and I think of them clearly and try to emulate them when I am making choices in those areas. Some cook better and are more organized, and I think back to things they have said, or to things I have seen them do, or I try to induce in myself the presence and mood they have when they're cooking or straightening. I don't want to be them, but I want to be more like them in the ways they have that earned my respect.

—Sandra Dodd
from longer writing here

Future Grandparents
and/or
SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Fitting dinner into the day

It's not uncommon (historically) for children to eat first, and separately, and food kids like, and then for the adults and teens and guests to eat a little later, at leisure, and not have to worry about whether their food is something the kids would like.

I have more energy in the morning but I don't always want to use it thinking about dinner. When I do, I do better. 🙂 If I start bread and put something out to thaw, or better yet mix up a casserole or put something in the crock pot—at least a sauce or something easy like ground beef or chicken in barbecue sauce—then dinner is easy and if plans change, the thing that was started earlier can go in the fridge. . . . .
We've never made our kids wait for dinner. If they're hungry, they can snack.

—Sandra, when kids were still home

SandraDodd.com/eating/dinner
photo by Sandra Dodd

Reading (parts of) everything

"What unschooling really is" can't easily be defined, because some people use it vaguely, admitting they don't understand.

Parents need to understand their own unschooling clearly enough to defend it. It might take a while, and discussions can help people see it better, but discussions are about information and resources, so read everything you can find, and hold every piece of info up to the light, overlay the ideas on your own family and beliefs, and adopt slowly and carefully, any changes you make.

---

What's above was adapted from a recent facebook post. I was referencing that particular discussion, and by "read everything you can find," I meant the links left there, which are mostly from my site and from Joyce Fetteroll's.

Reading everying you can find would work well with Just Add Light and Stir. If you're reading e-mail on a phone, click under "You can read this post online." There will be a randomizer, at the bottom.

Better yet, open the blog from a computer and use the randomizer or the image tags. Tags will let you see many of whatever you've chosen—posts good enough to repeat or re-run; gates; waterfalls; paths; cats doing cool things; kids doing cool things; dads; playgrounds.... The tags are a beautiful and soothing randomizing feature.

My favorite definition of unschooling is:

Unschooling is creating and maintaining an atmosphere in which natural learning can flourish.

---

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Cara Jones

Help learning flood in

Find ways to make your lives better, happier, cheerier, if you want learning to flood in.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Jo Isaac