Looking, where, and how

Karen James wrote:

When you look at your children, see *them*, not the ideas of peace, joy, success or failure. Notice what your children are engaged in. Join them when you can. If one of your children is cutting paper, quietly join in, even if only for a moment. When another child is playing Lego on the floor, get down there and put a few pieces together with her. One girl is drawing, do some doodles. One girl is playing Minecraft, notice what she's building. Ask her about it (if your question doesn't interrupt her). As you join your children you will begin to get a sense for what they enjoy. Build on what you learn about them.

There will be some conflict, and there will be times when you don't get it right. See those moments, learn from them, and then look toward where you hope to go. Whenever I'm driving on unfamiliar roads, I tend to look at the road right in front of the car. The twists and turns come up so quick, and I find that my grip on the wheel tightens and my heart races. I panic until I remember to look at the horizon. It's so remarkable how much more easy driving becomes when I take in a wider view of where I want to go. Take in a wide view of where you want to go, making little adjustments as necessary. It'll feel less frantic and less like you're at the mercy of every little bump or turn that suddenly appears. The ease and confidence that will gradually come will make for a smoother ride, for you and for those lovely little passengers you've been gifted to travel this journey with. 🙂

—Karen James
on "Always Learning"

SandraDodd.com/look
photo by Cally Brown

New chances, all day

Su Penn wrote:

A couple of months ago, my four-year-old and I had been wrangling all day—we just couldn't get into each other's groove. He was fussy, I was impatient, he was whiny, I was cranky. We were struggling and struggling. Finally, it was time to cook dinner, which he always likes to help with. I got out whatever ingredients I needed, and he pulled his stool over to the kitchen counter, and we started measuring and stirring and slicing. I was standing half behind him, and he suddenly leaned his head back against my chest and said, "We're having a good day, aren't we? I like cooking with you. We're having fun. We always have fun." It transformed the whole day for me to hear that he was experiencing it so differently—or that that moment of cooking together had redeemed the whole rotten thing.

You've talked before, Sandra, about this idea of thinking about moments instead of days and it has maybe not changed my life but it has changed a lot of my days. I used to decide by, say, 11 a.m. that we were having a "rough day." Anybody ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? Now, no matter how rough the moment gets, I remind myself that the next moment is a whole new chance at something good. And it's amazing how often magic comes two minutes after I was thinking I was going to have to chuck the whole thing and go back to bed.

—Su Penn

SandraDodd.com/badmoment
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild

Doing Nothing, and finding balance

Halfway between the past we can't change and the future we can only imagine, we find ourselves in the present. Not just the present year, but the present day; not just the present day, but the present moment.

From Balancing in the Middle Ground:

[Some families] had stopped doing school, and then stopped making their kids do anything, and now their kids were doing NOTHING.

Aside from the idea of the rich potential of their "nothing," the parents had gone from making their kids do everything, to "making them do nothing." And interestingly, it did make them "do nothing," at first. Or at least the parents couldn't see the new things they were doing.

Rather than moving from one edge of a dichotomy to the other, the goal is to move to a whole new previously unknown middle place.

Holly Dodd, and the false sea onion

photo by Holly Dodd in 2009
original post, 2010

Just a moment

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Today, in the car, as we drove to the swimming pool, I was talking to David about how I can't think of the last time I would write off a day as a bad day. There are bad moments, but I don't think we've had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in, well, a very, very long time. Looking at tense moments as moments instead of as the great swath of time that a day can be makes a huge difference in how I respond to something. Or how I offer myself. Or how I respond to Simon or Linnaea when they are having a difficult moment.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Sandra Dodd, from an upstairs window in Derby, Derbyshire, of men at a lawn bowls club across the road. That ball was in the air for just a moment, in early June 2011, and I'm glad I caught a photo of it. Thanks again, Elaine.

Your child is not you

Meredith Novak wrote:

"Your child is not you"—that one stopped me cold, way back, when I was resisting, thinking it All sounded odd and crazy. It was a gigantic "well duh" moment in the best way. It was so obvious! And yet I was using my adult needs and fears waaaaay too much to make decisions about what my kids "needed" or "needed to learn".

—Meredith

SandraDodd.com/crazy
photo by Cátia Maciel

Kindness and lightness and joy

It's very easy to control food when you have a home of young children. Most young children aren't going to question the choices you make regarding food, they will eat what they like of what you've offered. The really big challenge is when kids start asking for other things and how you choose to respond to those things.

This is a biggie and it applies to EVERYthing, not just food. Are you going to be a mom that reacts big and opinionated to these questions and inquiries and curiosities? Or are you going to be a mom who helps her kids explore their questions and inquiries and curiosities? This is the very basis on which parents build the foundation of unschooling, if that is indeed the goal.

In each moment of questioning, or inquiry, or curiosity, you get to choose how you respond. You can respond in such a way that a child's question, their learning, is honored, with kindness and lightness and joy, or you can shut that down with your own opinions and ideas. The more a parent can honor a child's curiosity, the more that child will genuinely listen to their parent's ideas about the world. It's the only way that I've seen that kids really truly are influenced by their parents. All other attempts are seen and felt as control, manipulation, coercion, unless of course you have a child that is VERY easy going. But trust me, there will come a time when even that child will challenge you, and the more easy going you've been about their ideas from the beginning, the more influence you will have when that time comes. . . . . Emotional health and emotional well-being are as important, if not more so, as physical health (from food, etc.).

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/eating/control
photo by Sarah S.

Calmly and peacefully

What I...do, is to help people live calmly and peacefully. It always interests me when people want me to stop doing that, to take it back, to say that indignation and fear are as good as joy and a feeling of abundance.

And it's not just my opinion, that anger and stress are unhealthy for people biologically, and socially. And it's not escapism or irresponsibility for me to say that when people feel grateful for things in their lives (food, running water, safety, roofs that don't leak) that they will have a happier moment, hour, day, sleep. I didn't make that up. It's self-evident AND backed up by even the slightest knowledge of biology and psychology.

SandraDodd.com/news
photo by Cátia Maciel

Odd realities

Many years ago I had a profound moment, watching a family therapist/psychologist on Phil Donahue's talk show. He said many family problems come from two extrovert parents having an introvert child, and thinking something is wrong with him. Or two introvert parents having an extrovert child and thinking he needs to be medicated or something.

IF (if) that situation is at play, and IF (if) the parents aren't able to get out naturally and comfortably, school might be a good tool—not to present it as the place to "get an education," but to use it as a place for the child to meet and be with lots of other people. If it gets old or irritating, let him come back home.

This is an older article, but some truths might still be gleaned. 🙂 SandraDodd.com/schoolchoice

What if your child is an introvert?
photo by Cátia Maciel (in Morocco)

Generosity and appreciation

Holly drove me to a neighborhood near her house where she has seen peacocks, roaming. We spotted four, but this one was up high in the sunshine.

Schuyler Waynforth once drove me where she was pretty sure we would see kangaroos. There were many; I was in awe.

I have driven visitors to see prairie dogs, and to find tumbleweeds.

What is commonplace for one person might be a memorable moment of beauty for others.

SandraDodd.com/happiness
photo by Sandra Dodd

Enjoying who they are

Just breathe.
Don't waste a moment of enjoying who they are by worrying about who they might become.

—Judy Vastine

SandraDodd.com/game/tales

Also quoted here: SandraDodd.com/mindulness

photo by Roya Dedeaux

Philosophy and priority

Questions come up about how a parent can help teens do things they want to do. Here is an example from when I had two teens and one nearly a teen.

It has to do with philosophy and priority. I think the way I discuss whether one of my teens can go to a movie or not under the circumstances of the moment is as true and deep a life-building experience as when he asks me what squares and square roots are about.

2024 note: Truer and deeper than facts that can be discovered anywhere, anytime. Looking back, I see its importance more clearly.

One day we had from seven to seventeen kids here, in various combinations and not all at once. It was a madhouse. Seven was my low count because there are still seven here at the moment. At one point two were gone and were coming back, one was half-expected (and did show up) and Marty wanted to go to the dollar movies to see "School of Rock" with a subset of the day's count. Holly didn't want to go; her guest from England did. Kirby half wanted to go; the girls coming back wanted to see him particularly. So the discussion with Marty involved me helping him review the schedule, the logistics of which and how many cars, did he have cash, could he ask Kirby to stay, could we offer another trip to that theater the next day for those who'd missed it today, etc. I could have said "yes" or "no" without detail, but it was important to me for it to be important to Marty to learn how to make those decisions. Lots of factors.

That's part of my personal style of radical unschooling.

Today: The day this is scheduled to go out, Keith and I will have three grandkids from 8:00 to 1:00, and then the other two at night. There are logistics involved. The oldest grandchild is being paid to come back and help at night. Drivers, food, activities, re-staging between... Same goals as in the 2003 story above—fun, peace, contentment.

From longer writing, third comment at
SandraDodd.com/unschool/radical
photo by Kim Jew Studios
in those days, but not that day

Try joy.

Perhaps happiness shouldn't be the primary goal. Try joy.
....
Enjoyment—that word itself is hardly used. Enjoyment is seen nearly as a sin for some people. "You're not here to have fun, you're here to work." Why can't work bring joy? Any tiny moment can be enjoyed: the feel of warm running water when you wash your hands; light and shadow on the floor; pictures in the clouds; the feel of an old book. If you see an old friend, that can bring pure, tingly joy for which there are no words.

SandraDodd.com/joy
photo by Theresa Larson

Relax into the next step

Leah Rose wrote:

I have come to see that it helps peace and learning to notice when we are clinging or tightening around an identity, an idea, or even a hope. I think that's why breathing and baby steps are such useful suggestions for new unschoolers. Both help us to stay in the moment, to relax right where we are rather than leaping ahead or getting mired in "shoulds." They help us cultivate soft, open ground upon which we can rest with joy, and know enough confidence to take the next step.

—Leah Rose

---

Note from Sandra:
That quote is the bottom of longer writing by Leah, on how she moved from rules to "no rules" which wasn't the best direction, and found a better path in living by principles.

---

Leah's writing is about the sixth quote down, at
SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Karen James

Providing for needs

Sometimes when a child is recovering from paucity, he hoards.

Sometimes when a parent has been changeable and inconsistent, a child can seem clingy and grasping when attention/supplies/input are available, thinking the famine will return at any moment.

Thinking of attachment parenting, infants and toddlers, a baby needs as much milk as he needs, and when he's done he'll turn away. A toddler needs as much holding and carrying as he needs, and when he's done, he will wiggle down and take off.

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Sandra Dodd

(original writing)

Purposes and choices in the moment

When someone questioned "purpose," I responded:

I didn't say "live your live with a purpose," though. Not a singular overriding goal that would cause any other outcome to be failure. That's what some people mean when they say "a purpose," but I didn't say "a purpose." It makes a world of difference.

I was talking about individual situations, projects, days, ways to decide. Not about a whole life.

People do that with decisions, too, sometimes. 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.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Janine Davies, of a stile in England

Right for your child

Rather than look at labels that try to pigeonhole people into being this sort of parent or that sort of parent, be the parent that is right for your child in each moment.

—Laurie Wolfrum

SandraDodd.com/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

The smallest things

"Everything you do now, when your kids are young, matters. All the little kindnesses matter, every little moment of sweetness between you, every time you choose to be thoughtful of the smallest things."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
photo by Jo Isaac

Attention as an investment

Karen James wrote:

It might not seem like it now, but those early years pass fast. I love all the happy memories I've made with Ethan these past 13 years. As he's growing more and more into his own interests, I can see the little boy he once was twirling on a trampoline for the twentieth or more time saying "Watch me now!" landing with pride every time. I can hear the breathless laughs of a child who rooted for the hundredth time for Tom the cat to catch that too-clever mouse Jerry. I know the brave spirit of that little person exploring the dark night and caves of Minecraft. I was there for all of it and more. Thousands of hours of dedicated focus. I don't regret a single moment. If anything, I wish I'd given more. I still have time, thankfully.

It did take a lot of my time, attention and energy, and there were times when I was really, really tired at the end of the day, and mornings when I was slow to want to embrace the day. But I see all that time and energy and attention as an investment—in my son, and in my own future. If I get to grow old, I hope these are some of the moments that bring colour to my winters.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Denaire Nixon

Smiling, kindness and peace

When someone smiles, even if no one sees them, it's better than not smiling. And if others do see it, it can be calming and contagious.

If someone is kind, it makes him a kinder person immediately, right then. No one has to endorse or approve it. It's done; it's already happened.

Every bit of peace one adds to a situation adds peace to the world, that moment and forever.

SandraDodd.com/lawofattraction
(I'm not promoting that "law.")
photo by Gail Higgins,
of Broc, his smile, and his shadow

Access to tools

Karen James wrote:

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude for the many gifts in my life has taken me from a place of hopelessness in my mind, to one of abundant possibilities. Because my life *looks* more abundant to me, every moment holds more potential. That doesn't mean my life is all wonderful and easy. It does mean that I have access to more emotional, creative, and intellectual tools to help me move toward the kind of life I want for myself and my family.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Amy Milstein