A respected child

I really believe unschooling works best when parents trust a child's personhood, his intelligence, his instincts, his potential to be mature and calm. Take any of that away, and the child becomes smaller and powerless to some degree.

Give them power and respect, and they become respected and powerful.


This is a good one to read in context: How to Raise a Respected Child
photo by Sandra Dodd

A bigger payoff

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Think about what is REALLY important and keep that always in the forefront of your interactions with your children. What values do you hope to pass on to them? You can't "pass on" something you don't exemplify yourself. Treat them the way you want them to treat others. Do you want respect? Be respectful. Do you want responsibility from them? Be responsible. Think of how you look to them, from their perspective. Do you order them around? Is that respectful? Do you say, "I'll be just a minute" and then take 20 more minutes talking to a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible?

Focus more on your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Vibrant, healthy and active

I can see how vibrant, healthy, and active both of them are. They love to go outside, run with their friends, ride bikes, dig in the dirt, go swimming, catch fireflies, climb trees, and tons of other things. And they also love watching TV and playing computer games. I can look at them directly, without any fear, and see that they are whole and that our relationship is remaining intact because I respect the things they love and support choices they make."

—Susan May

Either/Or Thinking and "Screen Time"
photo by Sarah Dickinson

The children described aren't the same as those pictured,
but they're all unschoolers.
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Transcendental moments

Remember that your children will also experience flow.

If you interrupt them while they're playing Rock Band or drawing or spinning on a tire swing, you might be disturbing a profound experience. So interrupt gently, when you must. Treat them with the respect you would treat anyone who might be in the midst of a transcendental moment.

page 207 (or 240) of The Big Book of Unschooling, on Flow
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
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"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil

Understanding is more important.

Respect and acceptance are more important than test scores and "performance." Understanding is more important than recitation.

page 72, The Big Book of Unschooling (79 in new edition)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Plain and good

Plain milk tastes WAY better if it's your choice than it does when it's plain because someone else wouldn't let you put chocolate in it. Without free choice, how can a person choose what is plain and good?

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
(I painted the stripey glaze;
Holly did the spots in the same colors,
when she was four or five.)

Credit

Every little thing a parent does goes into the plus column or the minus column. Each parent is gaining credit or losing credit. Everything counts—words, tone, patience, generosity, interest, kindnesses and thoughts. It takes more to build your credit back up than it does to waste it, so be careful.

You might like to read about respect,
though the quote was from a facebook discussion in 2013
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a kinetic sculpture a person can affect,
at ¡Explora! ("Ballnasium," by George Rhoads)

Breathe. Smile.

If you're just starting to homeschool I have a few words of advice: Breathe. Smile. Your kids will be sharing your stress and fear, so move quickly to get over them. Meet experienced homeschoolers and model your practice on families you like and respect. Deschool yourselves, and the kids will follow easily.

SandraDodd.com/pinkcrayons
photo by Sandra Dodd

Whole people, now

Your children are not works in progress. They are whole people, now and from the day they were born. If you can try to see that, rather than think people are not finished until they're finished, it might help you.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Adam Daniel picking out a souvenir shirt
at the Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque
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Finding abundance

Neediness expresses itself differently with different kids. Abundance expresses itself similarly in all.

A family can learn to find abundance rather than lack, even if they're not wealthy.

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
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See your child

See all that is good about your child.

SandraDodd.com/respect
Holly Dodd, self portrait in a gas cap
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Respected and loved

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

When pretend violence exists without the other issues (parenting, school, neglect) it just doesn't have the effect that people fear it will.

For kids who are respected and loved, all sorts of aspects of life that they wouldn't want in their lives can be interesting to visit through fantasy. When you know you'd have to give up the things you value in life to have the "fun" of a violent life as well as the real life consequences, why would anyone choose it? It's only the kids who are growing up severely lacking in love, understanding, support, respect that see violence as a means to something better.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/logic
photo by Sandra Dodd, of an interesting window in a thick wall at Fort l'Écluse
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Contagious good parenting

Being a good parent makes a person more attractive to the other parent, and makes the other parent grateful and respectful. Gratitude and respect make it easier to have compassion and patience.

page 270 (or 311) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Principles instead of rules

The idea of living by principles has come up before and will come up again. When I first started playing with the idea, in preparation for a conference presentation, I was having a hard time getting even my husband and best friends to understand it. Really bright people local to me, parents, looked at me blankly and said "principles are just another word for rules."

I was determined to figure out how to explain it, but it's still not simple to describe or to accept, and I think it's because our culture is filled with rules, and has little respect for the idea of "principles." It seems moralistic or spiritual to talk about a person's principles, or sometimes people who don't see it that way will still fear it's about to get philosophical and beyond their interest or ability.

Rules are things like "Never hit the dog," and "Don't talk to strangers."

Principles are more like "Being gentle to the dog is good for the dog and good for you too," or "People you don't know could be dangerous." They are not "what to do." They are "how do you decide?" and "why?" in the realm of thought and decision making.

The answer to most questions is "it depends."

What it depends on often has to do with principles.

from page 42 (or 46) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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John Holt

John Holt's writing is different, and inspiring. He involved himself in schools and saw problems and successes from a different perspective than anyone else I've ever read.


John Holt had no children so he himself wasn't an unschooler, but he inspired others to do things differently from school, to avoid testing and rote learning. He encouraged people to respect children and to give them a great range of experiences and opportunities.

John Holt wrote about learning outside of schools, for about ten years. Since then, many families have raised children to adulthood without any school or schooling at all. I wish he could know Roya, Roxana and Rosie Sorooshian. I wish he could spend some time with Kathryn Fetteroll. How cool would it be if he could pop in for the day at a big unschooling conference in San Diego and meet a couple of hundred twenty-first-century unschooled kids all in the same place?

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Holly Dodd, of herself, taken with a camera that was new
when John Holt was teaching school.
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Not so many rules

"Rules within the home tend to be entirely for the children to 'follow,' whereas Principles apply to everyone in the family, and to other people with whom we all interact. Principles are ideas like Kindness, Safety, Respect, Honesty."

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/robyn/rules
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Ideaflow

I was studying education in the early 1970’s, having wanted to be a teacher since first grade. The university was a hotbed of radical new thought about learning, spirituality, the value and valuing of the human life and spirit. I was in my late teens, and eager to take my turn at trying to change the world. We read all the then-current discussions of classroom failure—James Herndon, A.S.Neill, Jonathan Kozol and John Holt—and I lived and breathed in their hopeful vision of the future of free schools and open classrooms. I taught hard, and after six years I quit. I never did quit learning, though.

Newer John Holt books were waiting for me fifteen years later, when my firstborn son was expressing his distaste for organized activities and formal learning.

While I was making him little medieval costumes and taking him to feasts and tournaments where I set him down to play with his collection of could-have-been-medieval wooden and clay and metal toys, he being part and parcel of that ongoing work of performance art which is the Society for Creative Anachronism, I started to think that maybe school wasn’t going to benefit a child who was resistant to group control and already surrounded by learning opportunities which my distant impersonal gurus of education would have approved. Homeschooling seemed part and parcel of the respect for individuals and the attachment parenting which had flowed so freely from my previous experiences.

SandraDodd.com/HippieShirt
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Respect and admiration

On the topic of learning courtesy and responsibility from video games:

When a more experienced player helps a newer player, that rarely has to do with age. When an adult can take advice and assistance from a kid, or a teen can take advice from a young child, that's an all-new opportunity for humility, respect and courtesy, all three of which are lacking in many lives.

People have long valued the character-building sportsmanship and integrity involved in athletic games. "You never really know a man until you've played golf with him," I've heard. Tennis courts, swimming pools, public greens and sports fields all have rules and traditions.

Multi-player games provide opportunities to practice, improve and use one's interpersonal skills in many ways, with a chance to earn real-world respect and admiration.
from page 55 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A Mindful Lifestyle

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Although unschooling is often described as a homeschooling style, it is, in fact, much more than just another homeschool teaching method. Unschooling is both a philosophy of natural learning and the lifestyle that results from living according to the principles of that philosophy.

The most basic principle of unschooling is that children are born with an intrinsic urge to explore—for a moment or a lifetime—what intrigues them, as they seek to join the adult world in a personally satisfying way. Because of that urge, an unschooling child is free to choose the what, when, where and how of his/her own learning from mud puddles to video games and SpongeBob Squarepants to Shakespeare! And an unschooling parent sees his/her role, not as a teacher, but as a facilitator and companion in a child's exploration of the world.

Unschooling is a mindful lifestyle that encompasses, at its core, an atmosphere of trust, freedom, joy and deep respect for who the child is. This cannot be lived on a part-time basis. Unschooling sometimes seems so intuitive that people feel they've been doing it all along, not realizing it has a name. Unschooling sometimes seems so counterintuitive that people struggle to understand it, and it can take years to fully accept its worth.

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This was the description at an online discussion for many years—at the UnschoolingDiscussion list.

SandraDodd.com/lists/description
photo by Sandra Dodd
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