Real, present, thinking children

Sandra Dodd, 2014, commentary on criticism:

How parents can ignore their own real, present, thinking children in favor of vague negativity and scare stories is a mystery.

Unschooling is not synonymous with anything. There are people who "unschool" except for…", and who "unschool mostly," but if their priorities are learning and peace, then arbitrary rules and decisions made on fear are less likely to seem like good ideas.

If an 11 year old is bummed, it might be worth really looking at his side of things. Being a child's partner in exploring the world is valuable in more ways than people can imagine, if they haven't done it. If the parent sees the child as an adversary who should be limited and made to wait until he's grown even to spend his own money, there will be more problems than they can imagine.

SandraDodd.com/partners/child

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I've added that to the page Look Directly at your Child

The full text with background and discussion is here on Always Learning.

photo by Lydia Koltai

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

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

Respected and supported

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

When kids know their parents are on their sides, when parents help them find safe ways to do what they want to do, then kids do listen when we help them be safe.

When kids feel respected, when they've experienced a lifetime 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.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Roya Dedeaux

An individual (listening)

a mom wrote:

I like how you wrote that I need to be my child's partner not the program's partner. I will listen to my child and my heart each step of the way.

—mom of a Down Syndrome child
(original, at SandraDodd.com/special/program)

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Cátia Maciel

Support

Supporting someone or something requires strength and confidence.

Support is holding something up.
Support is upholding something.

Support your child. Lift him up above you.

New words, relating to older ideas:
SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd

Together; partners

If the only right choice is the mother's choice, then the mother will win when she gets her way, but the child will lose. The only way for the child to win would be for the mother to lose. That's what adversarial relations look like.

Be your child's partner, not his adversary.

Choose partnership many times each day.

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Amy Milstein

Say yes when you can

My kids are great at delayed gratification, all of them. They have saved money, earned money, bought small things, and large things, waited for friends to visit, waited for holidays and parties, and because they're busy and secure people, they could always find something to do. But they were also generally sure that as soon as it WAS possible, they would do it, or have it. That's because they had lived their lives with parents who were their partners and who helped them, rather than thwarted or frustrated them.

Some kids get to 18 and they're sick and tired of waiting, and they don't want to wait anymore for ANYthing. Some turn to drugs, drinking, partying, charge cards, driving too fast... When parents have a choice of saying yes or no, and they choose 'no' because they think it's good for their child, they are putting that pressure and tension in the bank to gain interest.

Say yes when you can, especially if it's about something that will help your child learn. If you can't decide, think "Will he be happy and learn? Will this help with unschooling?"

2013, Sandra
of kids who were in their early- to mid-20s then

SandraDodd.com/no
photo by Holly Dodd
of herself wearing a top from the 1970s that I handed down to her, with an orchid plant rescued from a trash can

Help your children glow.

Fireworks, candles and seasonal decorations create glowing moments marking the passing of time. None of them will last, but your memories might.

Help your children glow. See the light in them. Time is passing. Childhood won't last, but your memories might.

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd,
of Devyn's first jack-o-lantern, 2015

Happy and safe

With my kids, it was a posture I took, partly physical, partly mental, in which I accepted and recognized that I had the power to make them unhappy, and the easy ability to allow them to be in danger (from me, in part) if I wasn't really mindful and careful to focus on their safety, comfort and joy.

Some of the same relatives and friends who were greatly in favor of my partnership with Keith seemed critical of our kindness to our children. There is a wide stripe of anti-child tradition in the world. I didn't treat my child as a real person. I acknowledged from the beginning that he WAS a real person. I recognized and nurtured his wholeness and tried not to screw him up. I became his partner, rather than acting like his partner or "treating him" as a partner. It's not just semantics, though it is semantics. It's about the power of words to show, affect and clarify thought and belief.

An idea, expressed in words, changed my life. "Be your child's partner, not his adversary."

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Julie D

Real vs. acting, or practicing

Writing done in school is practice writing, mostly. That "math" done in school is the calculations of other people's math. It's all at least two steps from "real world," while saying "this is the real world."

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That is from a discussion about the depth of being, rather than of acting like a child's partner. Examples were used, and tangents were taken. The longer collection is at:
"Partners," examined

photo by Holly Dodd

Thinking more clearly

This picks up in the midst of something, but endure the first two sentences and it will make sense.

'How do "we"' is a problem. The person is asking (I think) whether WE will support HER limiting her child. Each of us acts after consideration of what we know and believe, what our priorities are, what other factors (partners, grandparents, home-owner/landlord, religion, local laws)... But I acted with and toward my children as a partner in the way, in each moment, that seemed sensible and helpful to me, as much as was in my power in that moment. If I didn't do great, I would plan to do better in future moments. If I was happy with my actions, I'd try to remember what I was thinking so I could do that again in the future. But there wasn't a "we" except me and the child I was dealing with.

SandraDodd.com/radiation
photo by Colleen Prieto

Protect your little partner

Me, in a discussion of what was okay for a young child to mess up, in a public park, and how to explain it to him:

If you can't explain something to a four or five year old, just say no. Part of being partners, and being on the same team, is that what he does you're doing too. It's not okay for a mother and child to be doing something others don't want them to do (namely, the owners or managers of a place) and for the mom to shrug wide-eyed and point to the kid and say "He did it."

Gravel, rock and mulch play (on Always Learning)
photo by Sandra Dodd

More or less

The more you do for children, the less needy they will be.

(When your choice is "more or less," go with more.)

Being your child's PARTNER, not his adversary:
SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sarah Elizabeth

Over, under, in between

Where we are in relationship to others changes all the time, with physical realities of space, place, size and age, mood, waking and sleeping. We move; they move.

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Pam Sorooshian wrote:

"Unschooling is more like a dance between partners who are so perfectly in synch with each other that it is hard to tell who is leading. The partners are sensitive to each others' little indications, little movements, slight shifts and they respond. Sometimes one leads and sometimes the other."

—Pam Sorooshian

Being your child's PARTNER, not his adversary
photo by Jo Isaac

Lucky Kirby!

Kirby, my oldest, was born in 1986. I went to La Leche League (LLL). There I learned a crucial concept: my child and I were partners, not adversaries. What was good for him was good for me. At that time I had been going to Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings for a little over a year, and there I learned that we need to avoid repeating our parents' parenting mistakes, and that by raising our own children gently and respectfully, that we would heal our own hurts.

Lucky Kirby!

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingworks 2002
photo by Ester Siroky

Supporting the soloist

What is your relationship with your child? The boss? The friend? VARIES depending on project—sometimes I'm the coach or the lead. Sometimes I'm not.

Sometimes I'm a stagehand. Sometimes I'm the soloist. Sometimes my child is the soloist.

What happens with partners is that when one is the soloist, the others still sing backup, or sit in the audience supportively, and meet them at the stage door, figuratively or literally.

Some thoughts about partnerships
photo by Roya Dedeaux

See the good; reflect it back

"Get to know your kids' strengths and set them up to succeed at using those strengths in all kinds of ways. Don't burden them with the perceived shortcomings you find. Let them navigate their own challenges while you focus on their potential. See the good in them and reflect it back. That seems to have been the best gift I've given my own son so far."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/partners/child.html
photo by Gail Higgins

Things change

Being a child's partner rather than his adversary makes the balance of knowledge unimportant. Nowadays my children drive me around, help me out, read small print and get things off high shelves. For many years, I did those things for them.

SandraDodd.com/partners

SandraDodd.com/balance

Learning first, and partnership and being present close after, and all the other things flow in around it.


Part of a longer response to an odd question: The other things flow in around it.
See also "Snapshot" on this blog
photo by Karen James

Tales of "Oops"

Advising about an easily frustrated child, Brie Jontry wrote:

Talking about your own frustrations and talking through your own "mistakes," etc, in a light way—not *to* him, but around him, where he can hear you—might be helpful.

I did a lot of: "Ooops! I meant to cut the carrots length-wise instead of into circles. No big deal..." or "Hmmmm, I think next time, I'll do X first instead of Y" or whatever—talk to yourself, to your friends, to your partner about how you learn by doing. Short, light observations. No long drawn out monologues.

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd