A bigger payoff

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Think about what is REALLY important and keep that always in the forefront of your interactions with your children. What values do you hope to pass on to them? You can't "pass on" something you don't exemplify yourself.

Treat them the way you want them to treat others. Do you want respect? Be respectful.

Do you want responsibility from them? Be responsible. Think of how you look to them, from their perspective. Do you order them around? Is that respectful? Do you say, "I'll be just a minute" and then take 20 more minutes talking to a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible?

Focus more on your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd

Respect makes sense

Joyce wrote::

When kids feel respected, when they've experienced a life time of their desires being respected and supported to find safe, respectful, doable ways to get what they want, kids won't push the envelope into craziness. That behavior just doesn't make sense to them.

Kids who've been controlled focus on pushing against that control, sometimes focus on the hurt of not being accepted for who they are, and do things just because they're not supposed to.

— Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Caren Knox

Focus on others

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wanting your family to be happy, joyful and learning seems a perfectly fine goal! But you won't get there by focusing on what you want. You'll get there by focusing on what they want.

What are your kids interested in? What do they want? How can you support that?

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/deschooling has a bit more of that, near the bottom
photo by Sandra Dodd

Immersion

Robin Bentley wrote:

Seeing kids immerse themselves and being okay with their immersion can be enlightening for a parent!

—Robin
(original)

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Rosie Moon

Unique and interesting

Learning to respect that people are different makes us better people.

Assuming a child will (if you don't screw him all up) grow into a unique and interesting person with a lifetime of connections is a cornerstone of really successful unschooling.

Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions (chat transcript)
https://sandradodd.com/chats/bigbook/page186-191_focusHobbie.html

photo by Roya Dedeaux

Small steps

Good bits lifted from a 2015 post:

Too often “do the best you can” is used to excuse letting things slide.
Think more about the children than about how you feel about thinking about them. It will help you when they feel better.

...read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch...

Don’t think you can change all at once, but if you see how much difference small steps can make, perhaps you can focus on not making anything worse, and stepping gently but steadily toward a more confident presence.

—Sandra
(original)

Small, simple steps
photo by Janine Davies

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)

Seeing learning

If beginners don't go through a phase in which they REALLY focus on seeing learning outside of academic formalities, they will not be able to see around academics.

SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Lisa Jonick

Connection and trust

Leah Rose wrote:

Unschooling, deschooling, parenting peacefully, all of it called to me, deeply, but it felt like a huge risk, a giant gamble. But I'm so glad we didn't pull back, that we continued down the path. ...

Learning to parent mindfully, keeping my focus in the present, making choices towards peace, towards help and support, is not, as it turns out, much of a gamble or a risk. It is the surest path to connection and trust.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/guarantee
photo by Marin Holmes

Optimistic happy people

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

Surround yourself with optimistic happy people. Do not engage in conversation when people are complaining about their children or husbands. If a friend comes to complain about her kids I try to turn around and point out to them how that characteristic could be good or some other great thing about their children. Or I change the subject.

Look at what you have, not what you do not have. If all you focus is in negative things that is all you will see. If you always look for the positive slowly you will, more and more, see the positive and the beauty around you and that will become who you are.

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/alex/optimism
photo by Cathy Koetsier

How to help

About how to help kids follow their interests:

Sometimes help is just encouragement or acknowledgment, but sometimes it might need to be transportation or procurement or something physical.

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Megan Valnes (of Holly Dodd)

How much?

Unschooling doesn't need to be expensive, but anyone choosing unschooling simply to save money is making a mistake. If parents don't want to spend any money on games, toys, museums, out-of-town trips, books, or whatever it is the kids might be interested in, then unschooling will not work at their house.

One doesn't need to be rich to unschool, but it takes dedication and focus, creativity and resourcefulness.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingcost
photo by Jihong Tang

Rational perspective (cool!)

Deb Lewis wrote:

My mom was a kind person, but she was a negative person. Something was always wrong, something was always going to bring about the next big war, the end of the world, the destruction of human kind. As she saw it, we were all about to be thrown into chaos every day I can remember from my childhood. It wasn't good for me. I can tell you that it hurt my relationship with my mom, and made me resent, and mistrust her. Don't do that.

Even though you know there are worrying things in the world, even if you're sure you're right, every time you laser focus your attention on whatever those problems are, you're super heating your worry, and chances are you're losing rational perspective in all that steam.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/indignation
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

Focus on the relationship

Create a situation where the children are calm and at peace and glad to be there.

More "calm and at peace" posts

The quote above is from the end of Learn Nothing Day - A Conversation with Sandra Dodd, from July 2024. The title words were spoken by Cathy Koetsier, my interviewer in the podcast linked here.
photo by Cátia Maciel

From the inside

Debbie Regan wrote:

From the outside, unschooling may look like no chores, no bedtimes, no education, no discipline, no structure, no limits, etc. But from the inside, it's about learning, relationships, living with real parameters, partnership, navigating turbulence, making connections, joy, curiosity, focus, enthusiasm, options, following trails, fun, growing understanding, opening doors...

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Ve Lacerda
___

An aha! moment

Sylvia Woodman wrote:

When I first started going to LLL (La Leche League) meetings there was one mom (not a leader) in the group who was very gung-ho about boycotting Nestle and other companies who were connected with evil formula companies.

And I remember so vividly the leader very gently saying something to the effect that she could never keep track of all the companies she was not supposed to support and she found it much simpler to just spend time every day supporting moms who wanted to breastfeed and that eventually that would have a greater and more positive effect on the world she lived in.

It was an aha! moment—don't focus on the negative or how awful the situation is—take small steps toward positive change. Denying my kids Nestle chocolate isn't going to bring the formula industry to its knees. But helping my neighbor who just had a new baby, bringing her a meal or unloading her dishwasher are small things that I can do that will make a huge difference for my neighbor.

—Sylvia Woodman

SandraDodd.com/factors
photo by Sandra Dodd

Generating joy

When you learn to give, it starts to flow, and the others around you are soft and giving and a family can generate a lot of joy!

Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions, transcript of a chat
photos by Sandra Dodd,
of Keith Dodd's ice display

Thought, emotion, awareness

from a discussion on eye contact:

When someone recommends turning full on toward the child, that means don't keep reading your newspaper or your computer screen. Pause the video. Put down the gardening tools. It doesn't mean stare at the child until he finishes his story. It means to be WITH him, with him in thought, and with him in emotion if needed, and with him in awareness.
. . . .
I think being side by side with someone is a good way to focus attention away from eyes yet still on them, so they can speak without the intimidation and confusion of your face right in front of them.

Leaning on a Truck is an article about communicating with children in that way.

SandraDodd.com/eyecontact
photo by Wesli Dykstra
in North America

but it's a lot like yesterday's photo which was taken
two hemispheres away

Even simpler

From some questions after a conference:

Q: When your child asks about something, for example "How do you write this letter?" do you focus on that until they are bored and let them bring it up again, or do you work on it over the course of days, weeks, months, until they are satisfied?

This was a written question, so I didn't get to ask whether by "letter" a piece of correspondence was meant, or a single figure. Same answer for both, though. I would just answer the question, sketching one example, and then see if the child wanted more information or not.

But if a single was meant, this morning (9/8/02) Holly asked me "What's the best way to make a 'q'?" I wrote four different ways, not knowing what she was asking. She was wanting the plainest printed "lower case" letter. So she picked the one that best matched the lettering she was doing, and she was happy. Total "lesson," fifteen seconds.

SandraDodd.com/questions
photo by Holly Dodd

Fun and togetherness

Focus on fun and togetherness, and see the learning start to show itself.

SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Sandra Dodd