More careful than "authentic"

Once upon a time in 2007, I was responding to a mom who was being dismissive (of her children) and defensive (of the discussion):

---

She:

I think that because of the tool we are using here to communicate that something is lost in translation.

I:

Don't try to use a saw as a hammer.

The tool we're using here can be used very well, but it takes thought and practice. No one is preventing reflection and proofreading. It's fine (and would be good) for you to hold a post and edit it carefully. Those who choose not to shouldn't complain about reactions.

She:

As powerful as words can be, the right attitude and heart behind the mistake can change how the words were perceived.

I:

Words can harm children forever. You're very unlikely to traumatize any of the moms reading here, but we can help you learn not to traumatize your children, and to think and write more clearly, if you want.

She:

Sandra also said, "Watch your thoughts, because without doing that you can't really learn to choose better reactions."
I agree with this in part.

I:

IN PART?

SandraDodd.com/authentic
photo by Rosie Moon

Tools and opportunity

Robyn Coburn wrote:

I remember the first time I watched six-month-old Jayn solve a problem creatively using logic. I had placed a variety of cards around her field of vision on her blanket on the ground as she lay on her belly. One card was partially hidden behind a teddy bear. She gazed for a while. Then she slowly stretched her arm out, picked up the offending bear, and placed it aside. She then reached to the limit of her fingertips to grasp the desired card. Two weeks later she worked out that she could get the donut rings off their stander by tilting it. All the encouragement she needed was the tools and no one doing it for her.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/robyn/creativity
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Kirby—
different six-month-old,
different bear

Other options

Glenda/wtexans wrote:

If the dishes piling up is a bone of contention for you, what can you do to ease that? Maybe use disposable plates, utensils, and cups. Have more one-pot meals. Consider no-cook / low-cook options: sandwiches; hot dogs (the weiners can be grilled outdoors or broiled indoors on foil); crackers + cheese + fruit; cereal + fruit/juice + boiled eggs (you can boil a bunch one day then stash them in the fridge to grab as needed throughout the week) + heat-n-serve bacon; etc.

—Glenda/wtexans

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Sandra Dodd, yesterday

Clearly powerful words

In a discussion unrelated to this, I had written:

There are no "preschoolers" when you're not planning to send a child to school. There are young children. In the same way that it's better, for unschoolers, to say a child is eight than that he is a third grader, the designation "pre-schooler" is jarring.

Tina Bragdon wrote:

Thank you, Sandra for posting this! More and more I am beginning to understand what you say about the power of our words, the semantics of them, and what they reveal about our thoughts deep down. I used to think long ago this was a bit nitpicky, but really can see what you mean when I really stop and think about it.

SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Annie Regan

The danger of having a teacher

Robyn Coburn, on Jayn learning very young how to swim:

I think homeschooling as a plan crystallized for me when Jayn was about two and a half years old and she had some swimming lessons. We had this very nice lady that came to our house. Jayn loved the water, we had a swimming pool that was part of the apartment complex. She was playing with the lady, it did not seem like she was learning to swim. It was all about putting her face in the water which she did all the time anyway. I thought, well, I do not actually know if she is getting anything from this. You can tell this was before I started unschooling or I would not have even started with it.

After about roughly five or six lessons it did not look like we were doing anything. It seemed like we were spending money unnecessarily and I said, "You know (winter was coming too), I think we will just stop with the lessons." Then the following summer, I just played with Jayn in the pool and she learned to swim by herself with just playing over the course of the whole summer.

Then somebody said to her, “Oh you are such a good swimmer,” and she said, “Yes my swimming teacher taught me.” My jaw hit the floor. I was like, “WHAT?” I said to her, “No she did not. Where did you get that from? You did this yourself.”

So that just crystallized to me the danger of having a teacher. That not only will the teacher take credit for your learning, you might give the teacher credit for your learning. It struck me that maybe this is something Jayn was susceptible to and so at that point I really became determined to unschool in a way that I had not been quite as determined before.

—Robyn Coburn

From an interview by Pam Laricchia—
you can read the beautiful intro, and listen to the whole thing here: SandraDodd.com/robyn/interview
photo by Bea Mantovani, of her daughter
(used here in 2015)
Both girls are grown now, but these are about their childhoods.

How will they learn everything they need to know?

"How will they learn everything they need to know?"

Do the best of the high school graduates know everything they need to know? No, and at some point, ideally, they start learning on their own. Some fail to get to that point, though. Unschooled kids have a head start. They know how to find what they need to know, and they have not been trained to ignore things that won't be on the test.


SandraDodd.com/seeingit
photo by Sandra Dodd

Ideas, pulled in

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Teaching is pouring knowledge over a child. Whether a child takes it in is not in the teacher's power. Which is why teachers punish and reward to make not taking in an idea less pleasant.

Learning is a child pulling in ideas. Those ideas are most full of life when those ideas connect to other ideas the child is fascinated by. It makes no difference if those ideas connect along a particular path. Which is why natural learning looks so chaotic and meandering compared to school.

It makes it hard to create an environment for a child to explore freely and pull in what fascinates them when someone is unschooling through a fog of TEACH.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/teaching/problem
photo by Amber Ivey

Knowing, instead of being told

SandraDodd:
I remember when I was a kid being told repeatedly in school that humans had no instincts left. So why would it even have occurred to me that I would "know" anything like that I was full? Seriously...

But my kids won't eat a single nut more than they actually want. It's stunning, really. It still surprises me.

SandraDodd.com/chats/food

Easier to read: SandraDodd.com/instinct
photo by Cátia Maciel (in Morocco, that day)

Access to information

Little by little, years ago, I started to see that each little idea that had changed my own family had the potential, if I could explain it clearly enough, to change another family. Just a little was enough. As more and more families shared their successes and joys, the world changed. As more information was gathered and put where others could find it, the rate of change increased.

When I was first unschooling, we waited two months for a new issues of Growing Without Schooling. There was no internet discussion at all. When that began, a few years later, it was user groups, not even e-mail or webpages yet. Today someone can get more information about unschooling in one day than existed in the whole world when my oldest was five. I'm glad to have been part of honing, polishing, clarifying and gathering those ideas, stories and examples, and keeping them where others have quick access to them.

Interview with Sandra Dodd, Natural Parenting, 2010 (Section #5)
photo by Sandra Dodd


in French

Passing through the space between

Sandy Lubert wrote:

This place between schooling and unschooling, this place that we often refer to as deschooling, it really is a wonderful place to grow and learn. It’s the place where change occurs, where we unburden ourselves. It’s where we look at old definitions with new eyes and say, perhaps for the first time, “That definition just doesn’t work for me and my family.” ....

...I was privileged enough to watch my son, who is an artist, rediscover his passion. He had become seriously depressed at school and had completely stopped drawing, something he had previously done for hours at a time. As he grew more and more accustomed to the unfettered feeling of NOT being at school, NOT being told what should be important to him…as he began to heal, he started to draw again. His art had been gone from our lives for nearly a year, and I had no idea how badly I’d missed it, until it came back. So, in that place between schooling and unschooling, one of the many gifts I received was the return of my son’s imagination.

—Sandy Lubert

from "Unschooling and deschooling, and changes"
SandraDodd.com/sandylubert.html
photo by Karen James

Slipping through the cracks?

Lyle Perry wrote:

Deschooling is all about letting go. Letting go of your schoolish ideals, and even more important than that (in my opinion) is letting go of your expectations for your kids. When you expect something, it's so easy to set those expectations too high, and that can lead to feelings of failure, for both you and your child. No two kids are alike, and they should not be treated as though they are just another face in the crowd, and that is what happens in school.

There is no one-size-fits-all educational system that works, contrary to what any public school advocate will tell you. How many times have you heard about children "slipping through the cracks" at public school?

With unschooling, no child slips through the cracks, because the cracks don't exist.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lists/lyle
photo by Janine Davies

Seeing what learning is

When a newcomer was very confused, Meredith Novak wrote:

The basis of unschooling comes from seeing learning as a substantial human drive and seeing that learning depends absolutely on the perceptions of the learner. The second part is what makes everything tricky - you can't control what someone else learns. At best you can work on seeing the world from another person's perspective and try to create an environment which helps that person learn.

It can help a lot to think about how people learn via their hobbies. In a way, that's what real life unschooling looks like: people learning through hobbies. It usually involves a lot of playing around - and the playing around parts are just as important to learning as the parts where you need to go look something up, or network with another hobbyist, or take a class or workshop to improve a skill.

One of the common parenting/educational myths is that it's possible to imbue children with "good habits" by making them do certain things over and over. It Seems like it Should work... but when you look at adults there's no evidence it does. The results are pretty random. It's not a strategy that helps people learn about the world.

—Meredith Meredith
July 2012

SandraDodd.com/meredithnovak
photo by Carolyn Vandenbusch Neves

Meeting needs

After physiological needs, Maslow says people need to feel safe and secure. Next comes the set of belonging, affection, and positive regard.

The application to unschooling is that if the child isn't hungry, tired, afraid or feeling unloved, there should be no problem with curiosity and the desire to experience other things.

SandraDodd.com/maslow
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Demons (avoidance of)

If a family thinks that "having no junk food" in the house will ensure a child's health for eight or nine decades, they are incorrect in that belief. If the mother thinks that it will absolve her of any blame in future dietary choices, she is also incorrect.

Demonizing food creates a demon. Being calm creates more calm.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Sandra Dodd

Never heard of such a thing

Christine Macdonald wrote that she and her daughter had walked to the grocery store once to pick up milk they needed for a recipe:

I had brought a ten-dollar bill (no wallet) I told her we'd have about six dollars left and she could get whatever she wanted with it—she wanted a pomegranate or three artichokes (neither of which we had enough money left for) I told her we could come back later with my wallet and get them or get them now skip the milk and come back later for the milk to finish our cake. She said come back later for the artichokes. When we were at the checkout I said why don't you just get a candy bar or something for the walk home she said no thanks. A mom behind me in line was shocked at the idea of a kid not wanting candy if offered said she never heard of such a thing.

—Christine Macdonald

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Jihong Tang

Friendly, calm and welcoming

Sandra Dodd, May 6, 2008, from a conference follow-up question:

Won't they end up lazy?
Do they expect other people to make their life good?

We visited our oldest son, Kirby, last weekend. We met nine of his regular guys. His friends and co-workers and his roommate really, really like him. Today I helped him format a resume, to get it all on one page. Twenty-one and his resume was two pages. Here's something he wrote:

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Active Imagination, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Retail floor operator, Summer 2000 — 04/11/05

Constantly advanced the sales quota while upholding a friendly, calm and welcoming atmosphere in the store.

---

He did! He's good at creating and maintaining a friendly, calm and welcoming atmosphere. No one who knew him when he was five or younger would ever have predicted that.

More at SandraDodd.com/hena08/lazy
photo by Holly Dodd

In fun ways for real reasons

From a 2003 article, "Some Thoughts on Homeschooling," by Sandra Dodd

My children learned to read without phonics lessons, without programmed readers, and without pressure. Kirby had two and a half lessons, and that cured me of doubt. I had taught reading, years before, and laying those two experiences side by side made me aware of the damage that whole mindset does. So I read to him, played word games with him, sang with him, watched movies with him, bought him video games and magazines to go with them, and from Nintendo gaming guides and magazines, he learned to read fluently when he was nine.

My other two read at ten and eleven. I was more relaxed, and though I was surprised that Holly read "late" (for a girl, I thought, unfairly), a year ago she wasn't reading and now she reads very well. It comes almost suddenly, once they "get it," and I'm convinced that it comes suddenly at school too, but teachers who want job security and paychecks disguise the process with years of exercises and read-alouds and worksheets until those loom large and the child is lost within. At some point a child either reads fluently or has given up trying.

Because my children learned to read without having been taught, they have no doubt whatsoever that they could learn anything else. Few things are as important or as complex as reading, yet they figured it out and enjoyed doing it. If I thought I had taught them, they too would think I taught them, and they would be waiting for me to teach them something else.

They have never been criticized for "not showing their work" when they do calculations in their heads. Mathematics, too, they have learned in fun ways for real reasons.

—Sandra Dodd, 2003
(Holly has read well for over 20 years)

SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Denaire Nixon

Gifts without toil

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

David and I were talking about gifts tonight as we were making dinner together. He said that he doesn't work at our marriage, none of the things he does for me are work, because those things are gifts. And if he can see them as gifts then toil is no longer a part of it. He's right. When I fold the laundry with the image of Linnaea dancing in her dress of choice it isn't labor at all. Or when I wash the dishes thinking about how much easier and more pleasant fixing the next meal will be, it is less about the toil in that moment and more about the joy in the next. But if I think about how many times I've done the dishes recently and how I don't want to do them tonight and I'm tired and why can't someone else do this and I always do them... it is all about labor.

—Schuyler Waynforth

Serving Others as a Gift
(SandraDodd.com/chores/gifts)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Touch

A mom once wrote, of babies:

Not only have they never seen, touched or experienced anything in our world—they also have no way of communicating thoughts, feelings or desires with anything more than frustrated cries, screams and babbling.

I responded:

There is touch. There is gaze. Have you never just looked into the eyes of your child, communicating? Have you not touched them soothingly, and felt them touch you back sometimes? They can tell the difference between an angry look and a gentle look.

Parents who didn't know touch was a real way to communicate could practice on babies, and then use it with older children, and partners.

For children to learn language, they need opportunities to hear words, and for people to pay attention to the sounds they make. Mimicry is good, with babies. Even before they can articulate consonants, they can probably copy your voice going up or down, and you could copy them back. Singing little made up two-note songs can be a good tool for communicating with babies. Copying touch is good, too. (Don't return rough touch with rough, though.)

SandraDodd.com/babies

Guarantee

There are no guarantees, but we can always do a little better.

SandraDodd.com/guarantees
photo by Laurie Wolfrum