Open gates to peaceful places

Once when a mom wished her child didn't love "Barney," I said I didn't love "Rugrats," but I went on to write:

Any program can be the springboard for sincere and helpful exchanges between parents and children **unless** the mom condemns and rejects a program in such harsh terms that the children aren't even able to discuss it with her for fear of criticism or rejection. Then the mom has cut off her kids. And "I hate X" is not an open gate.

"Hate" is a set of biochemicals that will not let love and open acceptance in until hate settles down, so moms hoping to build a peaceful learning nest for children should be using the best materials they have, physical or emotional or otherwise. Hate, jealousy, resentment and those sharp and separating emotions are not nesting materials.

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I'll leave links to the original writing, to a newer page on positivity, and on "Building an Unschooling Nest."

"I hate to play!"

SandraDodd.com/positivity

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Replacing a canvas

Dawn, in Nova Scotia, wrote:

Ok, I think I'll share my newly-thought-of philosophy of housework here. It started when my sister was over and chasing the kids around. I was straightening up the livingroom and had just finished piling up blocks (big cardboard ones; we have, in all, ten or eleven different kinds of wood, plastic and cardboard blocks. I feel so wealthy. 🙂) when my son (2) ran into the room, saw the blocks and immediately tore down the pile. I smiled and shook my head. My sister, who'd arrived in time to see this, sternly said, "Harry! Your mother just finished putting those away!" When she said that I felt offended. Didn't she know I only pile those blocks so that Harry can knock them down? And there was the Aha! I looked around the room at the clean living room and realized that was why I did any cleaning.

We don't clean up messes to have a clean house. We clean up messes so there is room for more mess!

Now I think of cleaning up after my kids as replacing a canvas. I do it with the thought that by giving them room again and a bare floor and organized toys to pick from, I'm handing them the tools to write another mess onto our house. It's meant that at the end of a day, or sometimes a few days in a row, I just let the mess stay, because really, it's a work of art or a story. Maybe it isn't finished. Maybe it's too interesting to be gotten rid of so soon. It also clears up my feelings of resentment about doing the bulk of it. I like being the one to reset the house so that we all can live another, different mess the next day.

Anyway, thought I'd share since it's really helped me bring more joy into the housework!

—Dawn (in NS)

SandraDodd.com/chores/intro
photo by Sarah S.

Positivity, gratitude, optimism

If someone wants to unschool well, positivity is better than negativity. Gratitude is better than resentment. Optimism is better than pessimism.

SandraDodd.com/better
photo by Cátia Maciel

Maybe not too late

Pam Sorooshian wrote in 2007:

I never "got it" about chores until it was really almost too late....

What I regret is that I didn't figure out ways to do stuff like this when the kids were younger. I wish I'd made housework entirely optional, but then made it enticing for them to do it with me or with each other, so that they'd have still helped out, but without the tone of it being demanded. These days, when one of my daughters and I wash dishes together, it is fun, because they really know that they have a choice, that I won't be annoyed if they turn me down, so no resentment on their part. Very very worth the extra work I had and often still have to do.

—Pam Sorooshian

Making the Shift!
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Choosing to

I think the elimination of "have to" is the first step toward peace.

Thinking you "have to" do the dishes feels oppressive and entrapping.

Realizing you don't "have to" is freeing.

Only then can you choose to do your dishes.

The best way to make it easier is to see it as a gift given in joy, rather than "a chore" done in resentment.

It's a huge investment in the future, to be generous today.


Chores, and serving others as a gift
(a chat transcript)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Creation (by accident)

You can create more resentment by trying to prevent all resentment.

SandraDodd.com/resentment
photo by Sandra Dodd

Compassion and Understanding

The patience that parents need is more like compassion and understanding. To be "impatient" with a person is a cocktail of frustration and resentment, often involving bad planning on the part of the impatient person.

What will look like patience will probably involve learning about your own child's needs and preferences and finding ways to meet and consider those, along with gaining the decision-making skills to be consciously breathing and considering your best options for a few seconds. That will appear to be, and will eventually become, patience.

SandraDodd.com/patience
but the quote is from page page 272 or 315 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Roya Dedeaux
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Honest and true

If you offer service with the hope of reward or praise or indebtedness, it will create resentment in you and in those who received the service. If you offer service without sending the bill, anything others say or do will be an honest expression of gratitude, not the last-minute submission of the bare minimum payment for services rendered.

A "thank you" that's scripted is just noise. A "thank you" you didn't expect is true communication.

Serving Others as a Gift
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp (or someone with her camera)

Three layers down

In a response to the Always Learning discussion list, I wrote "The principles of unschooling and natural learning work the same regardless of a child's talents or abilities, but parental posture (emotional, behavioral postures) can keep unschooling from working well."

During a discussion with half a dozen other unschoolers, some from France and some from England, I said that much of my writing was untranslatable because it had to do with English. This might be such an example.

The word "posture" is usually used to tell a child to sit up straighter or to stand more gracefully and impressively. But posture can be relative to something else—a wall, a chair, or another person. Posture can be very subtle, too. Posture can be biochemical. It's possible to read anger in another person's hands or the speed of his facial movements. It's possible to see love in the way a mother picks up or touches a baby. Or it's possible to see frustration, or resentment, or fear, in a parental reaction.

I don't think this will be easily translatable into any other language, but for unschooling to work, the relationship of the parent to the child needs to become so clean and clear that the parent is being, and not just acting. This might involve physical posture, but also thoughts and feelings, reactions and clarity.

It won't happen all at once, and it can only begin to happen when the parent understands that some postures are better, and others are harmful to a better relationship with the child.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Gail Higgins
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Pollution you might not notice

This was written and first published in 2011; there are more readers now.

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Someone wrote elsewhere, about Just Add Light and Stir:

I really didn’t like Sandra’s blog, sure there is a lot of useful information, but the “cheerful” tone creeps me out!

A lot of useful information would be sufficient, I think, for a daily blog with over 800 subscribers. But I'm creeping someone out with a "'cheerful' tone"?! First, it's not "cheerful" in quotes, not allegedly cheerful. It actually *is* cheerful. 🙂

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.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sandra Dodd, in the alley behind the house, in 2011
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Right there, right then

Pour kindness and generosity out, and there will be more kindness and generosity right then.

SandraDodd.com/resentment
photo by Chelsea Leigh Thurman
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Some things are better

If someone wants to unschool well, positivity is better than negativity. Gratitude is better than resentment. Optimism is better than pessimism.

Choices in Parenting, Unschooling and the rest of Life
photo by Cass Kotrba
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Creating problems

The idea that one can make a sacrifice to assure future success is ancient among humans, isn't it?

Deprivation doesn't create appreciation. It creates some or all of desire, neediness, curiosity, fascination, resentment, obsession, anger...

What have you sacrificed?
photo by Karen James

Worth the work

Pam Sorooshian, in 2007:

I never "got it" about chores until it was really almost too late. My own issues about housework, etc., kept me from being able to embrace whole-heartedly the idea that any kid would ever actually step up and help out without it being required.

I see a HUGE difference, now, though, since I stopped demanding housework a few years ago.. . . .

What I regret is that I didn't figure out ways to do stuff like this when the kids were younger. I wish I'd made housework entirely optional, but then made it enticing for them to do it with me or with each other, so that they'd have still helped out, but without the tone of it being demanded. These days, when one of my daughters and I wash dishes together, it is fun, because they really know that they have a choice, that I won't be annoyed if they turn me down, so no resentment on their part. Very very worth the extra work I had and often still have to do.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/chores/shift
photo by Janine Davies

Guidance means...

Robyn Coburn wrote:

Every time you feel the urge to control a choice, you can ask yourself "why?" and begin to question the assumptions (or fears) about children, parenting, learning and living joyfully that you are holding on to.

Intentions matter. Guidance offered from the place of partnership and Trust has a different feeling, avoids rebellion, and is just plain less focused on the trivial. Guidance means optional acceptance instead of mandatory compliance. Guidance means parents being safety nets, not trap doors or examiners. Guidance facilitates mindfulness. Directives shut it down, and may even foster resentment instead.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/option
photo by Janine Davies
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More happy childhood

There are things I would love to go back and redo, but though I'm not completely satisfied, I'm not ashamed either. When I said "okay" to Kirby I was saying okay to the little Sandra inside me who might otherwise have built up some jealous resentment about this new kid getting to do things I never got to do. It was healing to imagine that if my mom had been fortunate enough to have other influences and better circumstances maybe she would have said yes to me more often too.

... By sharing my children's lives, there has been more happy childhood in my own life.

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
photo by Sandra Dodd
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This is a repeat from February 2012, because midnight arrived and for me and Cinderella, that's a serious deadline.

Still cheerful

Five years ago, someone wrote, of Just Add Light and Stir:

I really didn’t like Sandra’s blog, sure there is a lot of useful information, but the “cheerful” tone creeps me out!

Below was my response at the time. Nothing has happened in five years to make me doubt my stance. There are twice as many subscribers now.

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A lot of useful information would be sufficient, I think, for a daily blog with over 800 subscribers. But I'm creeping someone out with a "'cheerful' tone"?! First, it's not "cheerful" in quotes, not allegedly cheerful. It actually *is* cheerful. ☺

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.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Chrissy Florence

An outpouring of love

How can one get from resentment and rigidity to an outpouring of love? Too mushy? It happens.

Making the shift
photo by Sandra Dodd
I first credited Holly. She says she put the rose in the bottle,
but I'm the one who took the photo. It's been a while.

Softer emotions

Ren wrote:

Anytime I feel resentment building up I try to look at the activity or situation in the light of death. If the one I loved were gone, cleaning up after them or reminding them of something for the thousandth time might seem endearing, rather than irritating.

—Ren Allen

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Huge and wonderful choice

Robyn Coburn wrote:

Intentions matter. Guidance offered from the place of partnership and trust has a different feeling, avoids rebellion, and is just plain less focused on the trivial. Guidance means optional acceptance instead of mandatory compliance. Guidance means parents being safety nets, not trap doors or examiners. Guidance facilitates mindfulness. Directives shut it down, and may even foster resentment instead.

The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers. Unschoolers are making the huge and wonderful choice to renounce our legal entitlements to be the authoritarian controllers of our children's lives, and instead choose to be their partners.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/choicerobyn
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a long-ago Kirby