Surprising waiters

We have surprised waiters in many restaurants by turning to our children questioningly when the waiter asks the adults "Would you like to see the dessert menu?" They're even more surprised when the kids say, "No thanks," or "I'm full," while making friendly eye contact with the waiter.

SandraDodd.com/freedom/limits
photo by Sandra Dodd
(couldn't find one of my kids, young, in a restaurant)

Comfortable, interesting and thoughtful

Karen James wrote:

I was a little nervous about what to expect when Ethan entered the teen years. My own teen years were kind of difficult. I have just loved being a part of Ethan's life at every stage of development, and this one is no exception. As we walked side by side at the art gallery the other day (him noticeably taller than me now!), I felt more than ever like I was with a good friend. Our interactions were comfortable and the conversation was interesting and thoughtful. I hope he felt that way too. I'm feeling more confident. It's like when he took his first steps. I knew that meant things were going to change, but I was excited to see where his next steps would lead.

—Karen James, 2016

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Doug James, the dad, I'm guessing

Languages, words, history

Whole language involves language as communication, rather than separate parts (writing/reading/spelling). First language, then details later.

With unschooling, children will learn from the language you use and they use, from the words they see around them, from using games and computers, from signing greeting cards or playing with words. There's no need for any school-style structure at all. For those who have wondered about phonics and reading and spelling, please don't press that on your children.

Some languages are simpler than English in that the letters and sounds match pretty consistently. French and Spanish come to mind. German. But because of something that happened in 1066, and because of the history of The British Isles, and because of the isolation of some English speakers and the migration of many others, English has complexities and a crazy-large vocabulary. Our basic grammar and language are Germanic. The majority of our vocabulary is from French (look up 1066 if you don't remember what happened) and Latin, though the everyday words we use are from Anglo Saxon, which had borrowings from half a dozen Germanic dialects.

If that was a painful paragraph to read, never mind it. If that paragraph was fun for you, then you can help your children spell by looking up what language a word is from and figuring out why it looks the way it does in written English.

SandraDodd.com/phonics
photo by Caroline Lieber

Peaceful rough-and-tumble

Connie Coyle wrote:

Something that I have seen with both gentle parenting and attachment parenting is that those ideas have been used as a means of coercion and control. No matter how you disguise it, some things are still controlling.

As with anything, I think that how a person defines certain things can have a big impact on whether or not it might interfere with unschooling. The closest example I can think of is the notion of gentle parenting getting in the way of a mom being rough and tumble and wild. If a kid is super physical and needs to get really rough, then a parent might shy away from that because it is not perceived as gentle. If my memory is correct, I think I have seen that brought up in conversations before.

I also thought of the page about peace on Sandra's site: Great Big Noisy Peace [SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy]

Gentle can be screwed up the same way as peaceful in that a person can gently control you and manipulate you.

—Connie Coyle

SandraDodd.com/otherideas
(Gentle parenting advice as a hindrance?)
photo by Christine Milne

Fun and wonderful

Once someone chose the subject line "Battle with candy", in a discussion, and one response was (from me):

The candy isn't fighting back. It's a battle with fear and control, if it's a battle at all. But it's not a battle with candy.

Also me, there:

A focus on what is fun and wonderful is better than a focus on discomfort. Candy can be fun and wonderful. A parent saying "no" and calling joy "strung out" isn't nearly as fun or as wonderful.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Cally Brown

Figuring out when and where

To a mom asking about why a store wouldn't let her kid climb on the employee's stairs, or ladder, I wrote:

Always saying no is bad.
NEVER saying no is just as bad.

Helping children figure out when and where they can do things is great.

YES children can run and should run, but ANYwhere? No.
YES children should be able to climb up and look around, but ANYwhere? No.

"Yes, somewhere else" can be a good answer, but then the parents need to find that somewhere else QUICKLY, soon, that day, not a month or a year later.

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Cathy Koetsier


see also Up

Yet another shift

Jen Keefe wrote:

Sydney (7) wanted to make sure she was spelling "Girl Scout Cookies For Sale" correctly for her sign, so she asked Siri how to spell it.

I went over to offer my help to make sure it was giving the correct results for her (thinking any number of results could have come up in the search). "No mom" she said "I just look at what I said. Siri types it out every time."

Yet another shift in how I see things and I found myself shaking my head in amazement.

I thought you might appreciate that story 🙂

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/digital
photo by Jen Keefe

A problem with chess...

Some people play chess well,
     but it's not for everyone.

In 2006, a mom wrote:

I still can't play chess or behave well.

My response:

Hey!
I don't like chess because there's no storyline, no characters. 🙂 And when in the ancient days I was in school, my worst grades were always in conduct. I failed to make the Honor Society in high school not for grade average, but for... conduct. 🙂

I wouldn't have changed it. They rewarded dullness and conformity. They honored meekness.

— Sandra

SandraDodd.com/lists/excision
scanned image by Sandra Dodd
Scanner Art

Trust and faith

A mom trying to persuade another mom to let kids have choices wrote:

But children don't die from eating too many Oreos or spending a whole day watching Kipper videos. They might get sick, or feel headachy, or be grumpy, but it's not life-threatening.

I responded:

They're entirely UNlikely to be sick, headachy or grumpy from those things. They are very likely to feel smaller, and worse, from parental restrictions and from hearing "no," though. And if the mom's dire warnings of doom turn out not to have been true, then trust and faith fall and are hard to restore.

Trust and faith are the most powerful tools parents of teens have. Too many parents squander those trying to control toddlers and young children.

SandraDodd.com/choice
photo by Sandra Dodd

There is no trick

Renee Cabatic, July 2010:

We were at a bar-b-q party and a 5-yr-old friend dug into the cooler, pulled out a Coca-cola and asked his Ma could he have it.

She said, "Heavens no, especially with that chocolate cake on your plate."

She then looked at me, asking, "How do you do it?"

I told her, "I don't restrict what my kids eat," and pointed to their plates. ]XuMei had watermelon, strawberries, green beans and chocolate cake on her plate. Xander had chosen salmon, corn on the cob, watermelon, strawberries and a root beer to drink.

Later I was telling Chris (my spouse) the story and Xander, who I thought was asleep in the back of the van, perked up and said, "The trick is, there is no trick."

—Renee Cabatic

SandraDodd.com/eating/candid
photo by Christine Milne

New answers to old questions

PamG wrote:

We went out to eat at Olive Garden last night and the boys got this activity sheet/menu to do while we waited. It had a crossword puzzle on it and we were doing it. I was reading the questions and the boys were answering. Questions like "Spaghetti is a _________." Well, the last question was "Clean your __________." My boys had no idea what that could be that would deal with food.

I gave them the answer, then looked at Jackson. We were both brought up hearing that phrase every day. I am so glad my boys have never heard it.

—Pam G.
(Posted on the
unschooling discussion list,
June 19, 2003)

---

Sandra Dodd later:

Holly Dodd asked me to read this page to her one night, and she said she would have guessed "Clean your hands" would be good advice about eating, and restaurants.

—Sandra

For those born in the 21st or late 20th century, the "right" answers were probably "pasta" and "[clean your] plate."

SandraDodd.com/eating/humor
photo by Sandra Dodd

Growing art

Something pretty is growing in our yard. The cone grew grass last year, too. Keith could move it and mow, but it's prettier as it is.

This year, the gate that no longer opens or closes has a Virginia Creeper growing up and through it.

When life is still, I enjoy seeing what will happen, sometimes. Our contributions are giving it water and letting it grow—that and stalling about the gate repair. It won't be this way forever, but it was pretty at the beginning of August, 2026.

SandraDodd.com/surprise
photos by Sandra Dodd,
close, far, and morning light



Click to enlarge.

No guarantee

Someone wrote:
I guess I need more reassurance so it doesn't seem like such a huge gamble.

I responded:

Would school seem like less a gamble to you?
Would buying a curriculum seem like less a gamble?
Moving to a fancier neighborhood, or to a country not involved in any wars?

I cannot make my children's lives good. I can't ensure their success. I cannot make a tree grow. I can water it and put a barrier near so Keith doesn't hit it with a lawnmower, and ask my kids not to climb in it while it's young.

I could destroy that tree, all kinds of ways. I could do it damage. I could neglect it. But I can't predict where the next branch will grow, or whether it will double in size this year or just do 1/3 again of its height. Not all years' growth are the same.

I could mess my kids up and make them unhappy and keep them from having access to things, but I cannot make them learn. I can't make them mature. I can give them opportunities and room to grow, and food and water and a comfortable bed.

I can't guarantee anything for anyone else, nor for my own family. I know what does damage, and I know what might help.

from the page "Huge Gambles (or small gambles)"
SandraDodd.com/guarantee
photo by Cátia Maciel

Meeting needs

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
image amended by someone in the U.K., 2013, uncredited, probably not an unschooler, but I like it!

Confidence and reason

Pam Sorooshian, in a discussion in June 2011:

I didn't get to observe radically unschooled kids before coming to the conclusions I did about how children learn. I'm sure it helps build confidence to see grown unschooled kids—that's why my kids and I make ourselves available. But it isn't necessary. For me, it required confidence in my own logical thinking ability. I reasoned things out and did what made sense to me. I gathered ideas from a lot of people, including you (Joyce) and Sandra (but all of us still had young kids back then, so there was no evidence of older kids or young adults yet).

My willingness to think for myself—to analyze, critique, to be open-minded, and to trust my own conclusions—that was how I came to understand unschooling. Well, that and actual trying things out in our own family and paying attention to what happened and, again, thinking for myself. This whole unschooling journey was very very much an intellectual process for me—a process of developing deeper and deeper understanding by reading and listening to others, thinking hard about what I'd read and heard, applying what made sense, paying attention to how things were going, waiting a little, trying out other ideas that seemed to make sense, and continuing that process for all the years I had children—taking in input of others ideas and experiences, considering and analyzing, acting on my own conclusions, observing my own family dynamics—all at the same time.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Karen James
of Ethan's early art

Two days until Learn Nothing Day

Magic gopher

Someone once asked:

My son (14) asked how Magic Gopher works. He tried several times to stump them, with no luck. He wanted to know the mathematical method for "guessing" the numbers. I'm sure it's a very simple and logical process, but I have no answer. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Joyce Fetteroll knew and explained it at length, so I saved it here: SandraDodd.com/math/answers
Maybe play the game first, before looking behind the curtain. Have fun!


SandraDodd.com/math
image capture of "Magic Gopher" starting screen

Better?

"What will make the situation better?" That might be a good mantra for family changes. Anyone, no matter how young or frustrated, can think of each action in light of "Will it make the situation better?"


SandraDodd.com/unschooling
(quote from an outgoing e-mail)
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Find things she CAN cut

Sometimes parents think unschooling means kids do anything they want anytime, anywhere, to anything and anybody, and the parent doesn’t have the right to an opinion. That makes no sense.

Be your child’s partner. Don’t let your team be a bad team.

Fitted sheets are expensive. Your team cut a sheet. You, the older, smarter, ranking team member, screwed up.

She had scissors around a sheet. Problem.

IF when she cut the sheet you “tried to talk to her about why it was not okay” instead of expressing honest surprise and frustration, you will lost trust by being dishonest.

How will she learn the difference between expensive sheets and clothes, and scrap crap, if the mom uses a sweetie-pop poodle voice both times?

The original is on Always Learning
where I had linked to the page about tone of voice:
SandraDodd.com/tone
photo by Sandra Dodd
(here, on facebook)

I had no photo of a young child cutting things she shouldn't but remembered a photo of a clean fitted sheet.

Changing; healing; hope

Often people have been resistant about the idea that unschooling involves anything more than just letting their kids play. They don't like to think it involves changing themselves.

Gradually, freedom for the children creates a new looseness in the parents, though. And as one increases, the other does too. When a parent hits a hard spot, where they feel jealousy and resentment, it's often a sign that there's a painful childhood memory that hasn't been laid out to dry yet.

When we're tempted to say "no," and we have that little internal conversation about "Why not?" that can be healing. When I'm there, I think of my mom saying no, and then I picture her having been open enough to say yes more, and I picture my childhood self having a thrill of freedom and approval. There was some freedom, and some approval, but I can imagine up a lot more of it, and shower it on my children.

Sometimes I picture my granny telling my imagined young-girl mom "Yes" a lot too, and I think maybe if my mom had had more freedom she would have more to spread around. And I hope my children will not have to think so hard when they say yes to their children.

Others have mentioned feeling lighter and less bound by "have to." It doesn't seem to matter whether they start with "educational" issues or general parenting issues, it all builds together. All the relationships get better.

SandraDodd.com/healing
photo by Janine Davies

Highlight now

Our parents grew up in a different time, with different pressures and realities, and there's no profit in trying to persuade them they should've had the sensibilities you might have now (or that you're developing or would like to have). If you focus on what you want to do with and for your own children and why, the rest of the family can begin to fade in importance.



Customized, thoughtful choices
photo by Sandra Dodd