What is not a clock?

I do love clocks and calendars and the history of time measurement, but it is good to remember that we are not clocks, and our children are not clocks.


The clock is not hungry
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a sundial in Chichester
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Purposes, on purpose

When we talk about making decisions within unschooling discussions, it's not something like "I made the decision to be an unschooler." It's small decisions in the moment, right before each action or response, about what to have for lunch, where and how and why. Consciously making choices
Knowing WHY you want to make lunch can make all the rest of it a series of mindful choices. (Unless the "why" is a thoughtless sort of "because the clock hands pointed up".) Choices in Parenting, Unschooling and the rest of Life

SandraDodd.com/purpose
photo by Brie Jontry

Sleep, choices, jobs

[A] common question is whether someone who grew up without a schedule and a bed time and could ever hold "a real job." The assumption, I think, is that "real jobs" require getting up very early and at the same time every day. Marty did that for over a year when he worked at the grocery store near us. He worked Monday through Friday at 6:30 a.m. He had no problem with that schedule.

Looking up through the list of jobs, I will give as many shift-starting-times as I can remember, and you might wonder if someone who had grown up with a bed time and a regular schedule could ever hold a job.

AM

6:30 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00

PM

1:00 3:00 4:30 5:00 6:00

---

Since this was written, the starting-times of jobs for my kids has gone around the clock, with Kirby starting sometimes at 11:00 at night (at Blizzard, like a hospital graveyard shift), and beginning at 5:00 a.m. (one of his computer support jobs when he moved back to Albuquerque). When Marty worked stocking shelves at Target, at Christmas season, he was there at 4:00 a.m. a time or two. Probably more.

SandraDodd.com/jobs/bigbook
photo by Janine Davies

But WHY?

Knowing WHY you want to make lunch can make all the rest of it a series of mindful choices. (Unless the "why" is a thoughtless sort of "because the clock hands pointed up".)

What and Why?
photo by Rosie Moon
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Helping them share

The problem I see with measured turns is that the quality of game play is compromised. If someone sees the clock and that's when they have to stop, they won't play as thoughtfully. They're less likely to look around at the art or appreciate the music. If they're starting to read, they're less likely to take a moment to look at the text and see if they can tell what it says.

The benefits of game play will not come to full fruition if kids' time is measured that way, and they're not learning to share.

If they only have an hour, they will take ALL of that hour, just as kids whose TV time is limited will.

It they can play as long as they want to, they might play for five or ten minutes and be done.

SandraDodd.com/sharing
photo by Sarah S.

Connect and assist

An expression of boredom is a request for connection, for input, for assistance with the world.

Bored No More
photo by Sandra Dodd, but Holly put the clock in the tree years ago

The clock isn't hungry

Perhaps "eating by the clock" has roots in European manor houses filled with servants, where the lady of the house got to choose the times of meals (within the narrow window of what was considered right and proper). In more modern times, eating by the clock has to do with factory lunch breaks and with school bells.

Don't be the clock's mother. Don't watch the clock to see if it's time to eat. Watch your child. Or watch the clock to see if it's time to offer another snack, but don't let the clock say "not yet" or "Must EAT!"

It isn't good parenting or self control for an adult who has reproduced to be looking to a mechanical device to make decisions for her. Clocks are great for meeting people at a certain time, but they were never intended to be an oracle by which mothers would decide whether to pay attention to a child or not. Your child knows whether he's hungry. You don't. The clock doesn't either, never did, and never will.

from page 163 of The Big Book of Unschooling (page 182 of newer editions)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Restful

If you get to sleep for a long time, be glad. If your sleep is interrupted, try to be like a cat, and just accept it. Measuring sleep and being angry about the clock will lead to neither peace nor rest.

Children will wake you up. Breathe in love and remain restful.

SandraDodd.com/peace/
photo by Janine Davies

What is not a clock?

I do love clocks and calendars and the history of time measurement, but it is good to remember that we are not clocks, and our children are not clocks.


The clock is not hungry
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a sundial in Chichester

Live here and now

[Historically...]

Nobody kept their kids home for 18 or 20 years just discussing life with them, hanging out, playing games.

We probably wouldn't be either, if it weren't that we're biding time until the clock runs out on compulsory education.

So even as we unschool now (and I'm not talking about people with toddlers who aspire to become unschoolers over the years), it's in reaction to the culture around us, it's finding a way to live in an alternative fashion within this culture.

People can't actually leave the planet and can't actually go back in time. The only place we can live is the here and now.

SandraDodd.com/reality
photo by Ester Siroky
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P.S. A few people have left the planet for a while, but they don't get very far, and no unschooling family has yet done so.

Myths and alarm clocks

A myth and boogie-man:

"If children are allowed sleep as late as they want, they'll never be able to get up and go to work."

I have three children (at this writing 16, 19 and 21), all of whom have had jobs, none of whom has failed to learn to use an alarm clock and good judgment, none of whom has ever been let go from a job, all of whom have been free to sleep or get up for 16 years or more (depending). If there were no other refutation of the myth above than this, it would be sufficient.

It's also worth noting that none of those jobs have been "regular hours." Shifts have started as early as 6:30 a.m. and ended as late as 3:00 a.m. Good thing they were well prepared by years of irregular sleep!

SandraDodd.com/myths
That was written ten years ago, so my "children" this month are are 26, 28 and 31.
They have had even MORE jobs with odd hours, and sometimes "normal" hours.
photo by Janine Davies

Coincidence and confluence

I don't believe in magic, but I find joy in wonderful coincidences and confluences. I like looking at a digital clock right at 11:11, for its pattern and symmetry. When planets line up I'm happy, even though I believe it to have no effect whatsoever on humans on earth outside the happiness they might have if they know about it.



The quote is from Magic Window,
which was written about my kids about this time ten years ago,
when they were 16, 18 and 21.

photo by Chrissy Florence

The clock is not hungry

Little children know nothing of the clock or "tomorrow" or "later."

It will help for parents to learn to live in the moment rather than by the clock, too. The clock is not sleepy. The clock is not hungry. Look at what your real, immediate child needs in the moment, and find ways to adjust your thinking so that it is not always too much for you. SOMEtimes maybe you can't. But if you never can feel the obligation or justification to take a breath and do what he wants instead of what you want, then school might be better for them than any sort of homeschooling—especially than unschooling, which is all about living in the immediate now.

SandraDodd.com/clock
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Living with food

You don't know what your children need. They won't know either, if they're never allowed to live in such a way that they will learn to pay more attention to their bodies than to a book or a menu, a calendar, a clock, or to their parents' fears and prejudices.


SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd
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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

Without measure

Sometimes people measure too much. Try not to go by the clock or the numbers or the calendar so much as you go by the emotional and personal and physical needs of your child. It will pay you back. It will be a good deal.

SandraDodd, "Unschooling—How to Screw it Up"
photo by Jasmine Baykus

Resting

If you get to sleep for a long time, be glad. If your sleep is interrupted, try to be like a cat, and just accept it. Measuring sleep and being angry about the clock will lead to neither peace nor rest.

Children will wake you up. Breathe in love and remain restful.

SandraDodd.com/peace/
photo by Ve Lacerda

Just discussing life, hanging out...

Nobody kept their kids home for 18 or 20 years just discussing life with them, hanging out, playing games.

We probably wouldn't be either, if it weren't that we're biding time until the clock runs out on compulsory education.

SandraDodd.com/context
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Pleasantly surprised

I was asked:

Did your kids have rules like bedtimes, no candy before dinner ... that sort of thing?

I wrote:

We didn't have those rules, but our kids went to bed every night and didn't eat candy before dinner. It seems crazy to people who believe that the only options are rules or chaos, but our children slept when they were sleepy, and ate when they were hungry (or when something smelled really good, or others were eating), and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they were able to know what their bodies needed. I grew up by the clock, up at 6:30, eat quickly, bus stop, school, wait until lunch, eat, wait until dinner, go to bed. I had no idea that sleep and food could be separated from a schedule like that, but they can be.

Not so crazy after all
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Years or an hour

"Gauge how much to do and when by your child’s reactions. Let her say no thanks. Let her choose. Let her interest set the pace. If it takes years, let it take years. If it lasts an hour, let it last an hour."

—Joyce Fetteroll

Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd