Saving up peace

Emotions are kind of like banking, in a way. If you deposit peaceful times and kindness and positive thoughts and joy, then you build up a stronger account of hope and all that.

Happy goes in the bank.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Kate Leach, who had taken this photo in Scotland in the morning before she saw yesterday's post

Wholeness and health

Someone asked:

Why does it have to be so hard to let go and just let our kids make their own decisions and be who and how they want to be!!

I responded:

It doesn't have to be hard.
SandraDodd.com/haveto

If your priority is to keep the peace with friends or relatives who are harsh with and about kids, then it will be difficult.

If your priority becomes the relationship with your child, it will become easier to choose toward the wholeness and health of your child.

Sandra Dodd, 2012

original, on Always Learning
photo by Christine Milne

Moving toward peace

It’s worth remembering that the energy that anger is built on accentuates a separation from other people—an us vs. them, or a ME vs. YOU/them/every-damned-other-person, and none of that can be healthy.

The quickest dissipation for anger is breathing.

Unschooling parents’ choices need to be between a more peaceful choice and a less peaceful choice, several times a day.

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd

One little choice at a time

Jen Keefe wrote:

I abandoned the stuff I thought we "had" to do and disrupted our peace, and filled it with stuff that made us happy. This was all one little choice, in the moment, at a time.

The healing and effect this has had on both my husband and me is immeasurable. Being the parent to my kids that I needed when I was younger has wrapped my own self in a comfort I never got to have before.

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/being/allin
photo by Cátia Maciel

Peace is all about choices.

If you want to live peacefully, make the most peaceful choices.

Peace is all about choices.

Choose to breathe consciously.
Choose understanding over ignorance.
Choose to make choices.
Choose awareness over oblivion.
And make choices based on the principles you live by.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo and art by Marcia Simonds

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

Light and shadows

"Light" can refer to levity, in English, and also to illumination. So it can be sweetness, humor, and clarity all. One of the best places to live lightly is in the kitchen, with and around food.

Avoid shading or shadowing what works best when bathed in light and lightness.

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Smiles and kindness

Cynicism is poison. It erodes relationships. It saps one's spirit and dissolves faith and hope. I will choose cheeriness over pissiness anytime I can manage to do it, and I hope most of those reading here are able to make that choice too, for the sake of themselves and their families. For their neighbors, for their dogs. For safety while operating motor vehicles and other machinery. For success at work, and joy while grocery shopping.

Negativity sucks. It sucks the possibility of a joyful life directly out of a person, and if it's not stopped, it will spread to others.

Smiles can spread, too, though. Kindness can be contagious. You choose a hundred times a day to smile or to frown, to breathe in joy or to suck in resentment.

Live responsibly, especially while you have children in your home.

Smiling, kindness and peace
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Exciting and alluring? Good!

Once a mom was afraid, and wrote:

My kids are almost 7 and 4.5 and they received an iPad. Now all day long they want to use it. I freak out. I am so afraid that they will not play anymore or go out or do anything apart from that. Would you regulate screen time?

There were good responses; part of mine was:

They ARE playing.. . . .

If kids are "almost 7 and 4.5" (meaning they are four and six years old—padding doesn't change anything except to indicate, maybe, that the mom has higher expectations of them)... if they are getting along well, sharing an iPad, that's sweet and good. If they're taking turns well, also good.

If that iPad is so exciting and alluring that it's disturbing the peace, consider getting another one. They will NOT live there forever, but they might be so excited about them at first that it seems to the parent they will never look away from it.

I have two very profound pages for parents to read who are having similar fears. One is by Pam Sorooshian, about principles of economics. The other is a collection of nonsensical statements made by real parents in public. Science and the exposure of non-scientific thought. 🙂

Economics of Restricting TV Watching of Children
Pam Sorooshian

"If I let him, he would..."

SandraDodd.com/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd

The easy way

When someone wrote "I may be taking the easy way out by just waiting until my son is older...," I responded (in part):

TAKE THE EASY WAY!!!

Make people’s lives easy. Don’t think there’s virtue in allowing difficulties to continue.

Make his life easier, if you can do it in some simple way.

The world will provide obstacles and difficulties enough. Let it be your duty and joy to provide a haven.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Abby Davis

Your words matter

In response to

I see the cause of the issue but struggling with finding solutions.

Do you WANT to keep struggling? Or do you want to live more gently and peacefully?

SandraDodd.com/battle

Your words matter, to your thinking, to your soul, to your relationship with your child.

Negative approaches to peace

Unschooling shouldn't involve battling, struggling, fighting.

—Sandra Dodd
(more context)

photo by Sandra Dodd
(of the cow above the cow catcher;
Keith's in there by chance)

A world of partnership

In a world of choices, every choice that moves one toward positivity (hope, optimism, joy, sweetness, peace) and away from negativity (cynicism, anger, disdain, dismay, pessimism) is a solid step toward "better" (IF the person wants to be more positive).

In a world of partnership, when one partner is more positive, the partnership is more positive.

In a home with a mother, when the mother is more positive, the family's life is more positive.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
of Kirby, Keith and Marty
35+ years ago

Compassion INside

To have peace in your house, be more peaceful.

Some parents wear their compassion on the outside and say we need peace in the whole world first. That's a little like saying the ocean should be drained before we take the water out of the basement. Does every war have to stop before we can stop hitting our kids? Does every bit of urban violence need to end before we can stop yelling at our kids? Do lions have to stop eating gazelles before we stop harassing our kids? To think in those terms is to justify our own lack of peace. It seems to me that a child who has known strife at home won't blink at it outside.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Cátia Maciel

Resting

If you get to sleep for a long time, be glad. If your sleep is interrupted, try to be like a cat, and just accept it. Measuring sleep and being angry about the clock will lead to neither peace nor rest.

Children will wake you up. Breathe in love and remain restful.

SandraDodd.com/peace/
photo by Ve Lacerda

Casually more attentive

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

You can casually be more attentive without forcing yourself on him. Do it in a thousand different ways by thinking of him throughout the day and doing some little thing for him. I just went to my daughter's room and got a pillow off her bed and put it under her head (she's on the couch nearby). She smiled sleepily at me and said, "I love you, Mommy." She's 18.

Maybe just take him a soda into his room - or a monkey platter of little things he likes. Show him by your little actions throughout the day that you love him.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Cátia Maciel

Variable, thoughtful lunch

Some days lunch is medicinal—one child is sickly and could use soup or juice. One is off to a sports event, and carbohydrates are a good idea. One is sad, and would like comfort food. One is bored, and her sandwich could use a face.

Be as loose as a dancer, as variable as an actor, as thoughtful as a chessplayer, when you decide what to make for lunch sometimes!

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Hinano

The words are from Little meals make big memories

Finding depth and clarity

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

When we started unschooling, my mom kept saying that she was worried I would "lose myself" in it—that I wouldn't have time for myself. She was very very wrong. I found myself and very very deep meaning to life and a much more clear sense of what's important.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Denaire Nixon

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

---

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

Joy, gratitude, abundance and peace

I'm not interested in helping people battle or fight or struggle. I want to help them find joy, gratitude, abundance and peace.

Fighting a lack of peace isn't creating more peace.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Chrissy Florence

Your part

Make the world more peaceful by being a peaceful part of the world.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Eva Witsel