Your own certain knowledge

Vague interest can turn to trust in others' accounts of learning and of parenting successes. Trust in those stories can give us courage to experiment, and from that we can discover our own proofs and truths to share with newer unschoolers, who might find courage from that to try these things themselves. Faith in others can only take us a little way, though, and then our own children's learning will carry us onward.

Some ideas become theories. A few theories might turn to convictions. Some early thoughts will be abandoned; others will gain substance. After much thought and use, what is left will be what you believe because you have lived it.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Cátia Maciel

Higher level considerations

Someone wrote:

I just really wish I could be confident that I'm making the right choices for my children.

I responded:

Nobody can be confident that she's making "the right choices."

The best you can do is to gain courage in your own judgment and in making good choices given what you knew and what was available to you at the time. There aren't single "right" answers to life situations. There are ranges of options, and better and worse answers.

It helps to always consider an option or two when you make any decision. It's not a choice if you didn't consider two or more paths and then choose the one that seemed best. Gradually as you do gain strength of conviction and the ease of experience, the choices will come more easily and be of higher level considerations.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Cátia Maciel

Courage to be accommodating

IF an unschooling mom is letting her child play video games while she makes him food, and if someone else says "You're being a martyr," it doesn't mean she's being a martyr. It means the other person wants to control her. It means the other person (who is probably also a parent) wants her to be a little less accommodating, so as not to wreck the curve and make other parents look bad.

That's what I think. It's an idea I'm going to carry around a while and see whether it holds up.

SandraDodd.com/martyr
photo by Dan Vilter

An interested and interesting adult

Someone wrote to me: "I’m starting to see why you admire John Holt. Will you tell me more about him?" I responded:

I admire his courage and his writings. ...

He wasn't married. He didn't have kids. What he learned he learned from other people's kids in classrooms and when visiting in their homes, and he was SO interested in kids that their lives were different just for his being there, so what he saw often was how a child is in the presence of a really interested and interesting adult. That's the part I want to emulate.

Because John Holt was SO interested in children, every time he interacted with one, he saw a child interacting with a fascinated adult. THIS is one of the things unschoolers need to remember. When the adult brings boredom, cynicism, criticism and doubt to the table, that's what he'll see and that's how he'll see it, and it will be no fault of the child's whatsoever.

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Sandra Dodd

Why not?

Creativity and courage are useful for unschooling, and they are traits that an unschooling environment nurtures, in both kids and adults.

Consider why something is or should be. The range of useful and acceptable options is very likely wider than you first thought. What is the purpose? What's the principle?

If you're tempted to say no, out of habit or convenience, first think "why not?" If you don't have an honest, good reason to say no, perhaps it's time to say something like...

Let's try it, or
I'll help you, or
Okay, yes.

SandraDodd.com/principles/
photo by Sandra Dodd
(chain guards and other details, India)

Courage? Confidence.

Courage is sometimes about making life bigger, more sparkly, about living in the world, about creating a good nest.

I think of it as confidence. They're similar. Confidence grows from the inside, though, while courage can be reckless. . . . .
When you're thinking about what unschooling can bring into your life, don't forget confidence, or courage. And do things to build that, so your children's lives and worlds expand.

Slightly edited from Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Janine Davies

In full flow

Waterfalls are made of streams of water, made of drops, of molecules, that were up in clouds a week, a day, or a minute ago.

Confident parenting, in full flow, is made of courage born of successes of big choices and small decisions that were once tentative, and before that you hadn't even considered them.

Enough improvement and ease can cause good options to tumble and flow all around you.

Considering Decisions
photo by Rosie Moon

Expanding with confidence

When you're thinking about what unschooling can bring into your life, don't forget confidence, or courage. And do things to build that, so your children's lives and worlds expand.

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sarah S.

Gain courage

Fearful schoolishness hasn’t ever helped unschooling yet.

When you are schoolish, or fearful, or both, move toward courage.

Becoming Courageous
(The quote's not from there, but that's a better resource!)
photo by Gail Higgins

Choose to have fun!

"Choose to have fun! Fear will hold you back. Guilt and shame will set in to cloud thinking and stunt progress. Having the courage to have fun in whatever pursuit thrills you most will most likely lead you to places you never expected to go." —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/videogames/seriously
photo by Lisa Jonick

Courage and reason

"Once a fear has created a movement, it's easy to cynically say, 'Follow the money.' And it's not that fear hasn't been created then exploited to make money. But sometimes it begins with a circle of fear and comfort that supports the fear. Only later does it lead to money."

—Joyce Fetteroll

The quote is from
SandraDodd.com/foodfear
but two other nice destinations are Becoming Courageous and Logic
photo by Ester Siroky

Be the calming comfort

Sometimes life is spooky and frightening. Sometimes children are afraid.

Be the comforting, safe partner. Don't be another source of spooky discomfort.

Practice being braver and calmer so that when life is scary you have enough courage and confidence to share.

SandraDodd.com/nest/
photo by Karen James

Quiet courage

Deb Lewis wrote:

There was a study...that found babies could quickly learn the names of objects they found interesting but not of objects that didn’t interest them. And if they heard only the name of a boring object but could see an interesting object, they attached the name to the interesting thing.

Unschoolers have been thinking about the importance of interest to learning for years.

—Deb Lewis

from "Becoming Courageous", by Deb Lewis
photo by Abby Davis

Flower Bath

I lifted the title of this post from Lydia Koltai's name for this photo she took. Naming these posts is fun but sometimes difficult, as I try not to duplicate even those I've borrowed from years ago. I like to hope that someone who doesn't open the e-mail, or read the text, might still be inspired by the title. "Flower bath" qualifies in that way.

Combine things that haven't been combined at your house. Do something that has never been done in your life before.

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/courage
(The words above are Sandra Dodd's, new today,
but the link is to "Becoming Courageous," by Deb Lewis.)
photo by Lydia Koltai

Happy heroes

Courage, real or imagined, can make a person bigger—larger of soul and of confidence. "Big hearted," it once meant.

When a parent has the heart, and soul, and confidence to stand heroically between a child and fear, that takes courage. Defending a child from criticism and negativity (even from our own) makes us bigger.


SandraDodd.com/deblewis/courage
(The words above are Sandra Dodd's, new today,
but the link is to "Becoming Courageous," by Deb Lewis.)
photo by Julie D

Choose to have fun!

Karen James wrote:

Choose to have fun! Fear will hold you back. Guilt and shame will set in to cloud thinking and stunt progress. Having the courage to have fun in whatever pursuit thrills you most will most likely lead you to places you never expected to go."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/videogames/seriously
photo by Lisa Jonick

Your Own Certain Knowledge

Vague interest can turn to trust in others' accounts of learning and of parenting successes. Trust in those stories can give us courage to experiment, and from that we can discover our own proofs and truths to share with newer unschoolers, who might find courage from that to try these things themselves. Faith in others can only take us a little way, though, and then our own children's learning will carry us onward.


Some ideas become theories. A few theories might turn to convictions. Some early thoughts will be abandoned; others will gain substance. After much thought and use, what is left will be what you believe because you have lived it.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Leon McNeill

Courage and confidence

When you're thinking about what unschooling can bring into your life, don't forget confidence, or courage. And do things to build that, so your children's lives and worlds expand.

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Holly Dodd

Respect for the wholeness of children

When humor exists at the expense of children's dignity and self esteem, when humor is an indicator of the jokester's true feelings about the wholeness and value and intelligence of chidren, that undermines children's worth and their chances of being seen, heard and respected as the full and important humans they are.
. . .
Yes, jokes are funny, and yes, people need to have a sense of humor, but people also should have a sense of their own beliefs and courage and the future of mankind. Is that overstating it? Maybe and maybe not.

SandraDodd.com/notfunny
photo by Sandra Dodd