Happily and successfully

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking.
. . . .Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Janine Davies

Appreciating, or enjoying

Pam Sorooshian:

What do I regret? EVERY minute that I spent worrying over whether the house was clean. That would be my biggest regret. THAT was wasted worry. And there were bad times between myself and the kids over it. I'd get angry that they weren't helping enough. I wish I'd learned earlier about how to enjoy taking care of household stuff and let it go when it didn't get done.

The other day a 15 year old girl wrote on her facebook that she was miserably doing dishes because that was her chore this week. I am going to talk to her about dishes. Because I have learned to LOVE doing the dishes. I don't DO them without enjoying it. I either enjoy it or don't do it. Appreciate or enjoy or at least feel pleasant - I don't have to be deliriously happy . So - sometimes they don't get done. But usually they do. And nobody in my house ever has bad feelings about dishes anymore.

Sandra Dodd:

So if I were a hostile critic of your airy-fairy lifestyle, and said "What does this have to do with unschooling," what's the quick kind of answer others here might use when it happens to them?

Pam Sorooshian:

If we believe kids are born with an innate urge to learn, that they don't need to be forced to learn, then, logically, that should not apply to just reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, but also to all other aspects of life.

Turns out, the more that unschoolers have expanded their understanding of how children learn, the more we've discovered that, indeed, they DO learn best without coercion.

SandraDodd.com/chats/pamsorooshian
photo by Cátia Maciel
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Safe, supported and believed in

Karen James, January 3, 2017
(Ethan was 14 in that story)

Last night, I went downstairs where Ethan has his computer room set up. I asked if I could try the new VR set we got for him over the holidays. He set it up for me. He turned off all the lights, moved the cord out of my path, put the headset over my eyes, put the paddles on the floor behind me and said, "There you go. Now find the paddles. They're behind you." Then he went upstairs to make himself a burrito.

Frozen in place, I called out, "Don't leave me! I don't know what to do!" but he was already gone. I'm sure he heard me, but he knew I was safe and trusted I would discover what to do. I soon did. I slowly turned around, surveying my new environment. I looked down, and there were the paddles in my view! I picked them up. Now what? I started clicking and pulling and jabbing air. I began walking carefully around. I found the walls. I found out how to move beyond them. I discovered how to open new programs—new worlds and new things to explore.

Ethan returned with his burrito, and ate it far enough to not interfere with my play, but close enough to be able to watch and listen to me. I could hear him. I told him how excited I was. I played for a good long time. I tossed a stick to a robot dog in a meadow in Iceland. I caught planets in their orbits around the sun, looked at them, then tossed them into the surrounding stars. It was magical.

A good part of the magic was in what I learned along the way and the confidence that grew from each new discovery. The fact that Ethan left that magic intact by not telling me everything ahead of time struck me as thoughtful, insightful and trusting. I felt it was significant how certain Ethan seems that a person will learn what they need to know when they're safe, supported and believed in. His understanding of and respect for the personal nature of that learning moved me too. This is an interesting journey.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Karen James
I couldn't show anything like what Karen saw, but this might be the dark room.

Changing, building, and understanding

JoyfullyRejoycing

SandraDodd.com/unschooling

Those sites exist so that people can explore unschooling, but reading those pages doesn't make anyone an unschooler. Only changing one's own thoughts and beliefs and actions and reactions, and building a relationship with one's children based on those understandings can make unschooling work in a family.

There is a "there there" tradition among women. I've referred to it as "teaparty" talk in the past, and then made a page to illustrate what I was talking about. It *sounds* like support, but it's really more like "let's all avoid real thought together!" Unschooling takes real thought, and a desire to change. Any desire to be supported in staying the same will be a problem.

SandraDodd.com/support

Less entertaining, but easier to read from a phone:
"Support" messages all in one list
photo by Jo Isaac

Understanding it, not acting it

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It usually takes a long time before people new to unschooling stop looking for new rules to replace old ones. The more people are discouraged from skimming a surface understanding of unschooling, discouraged from relying on meaningless reassurances that going through the motions of unschooling with crossed fingers and assurances everything will be fine, the better for their kids.

Unschooling is a paradigm shift for most everyone. That shift doesn't happen by acting like other unschoolers. It comes slowly, bit by bit, as understanding of what unschooling is grows.

—Joyce Fetteroll
(original)

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Karen James

How unschooling works

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Schooling works by pouring expertly selected bits of the world into a child. (Or trying to, anyway!)

Unschooling works by the child pulling in what he wants and needs. It works best by noticing what the child is asking for and helping him get it. It works best by running the world through their lives so they know what it's possible to be interested in. . . . .

Real learning travels the child's path of interest, from one bit of information that interests them to the next. Real learning is self testing by how well it works in the situation the child needs it for. Real learning is about understanding enough to make something work.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/how
photo by Roya Dedeaux

From the inside

Debbie Regan wrote:

From the outside, unschooling may look like no chores, no bedtimes, no education, no discipline, no structure, no limits, etc. But from the inside, it's about learning, relationships, living with real parameters, partnership, navigating turbulence, making connections, joy, curiosity, focus, enthusiasm, options, following trails, fun, growing understanding, opening doors...

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Ve Lacerda
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Native habitats

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It's important to observe radically unschooled kids rather than kids in general because kids in general are shaped by the relationship they have with their parents and their freedom to explore. Kids who are controlled behave very differently from kids who are supported in their explorations. They are as different as zoo animals kept in cages are different from animals who grow up in their native habitats.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Understanding Unschooling
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Confidence and logic

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

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.. . .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.

—Pam Sorooshian

Understanding Unschooling
photo by Holly Dodd

Learning not to teach

For years I have recommended that new unschoolers stop using the word "teach" and replace all statements and thoughts with phrases using the word "learn" instead. I've gotten much flak back from people saying it doesn't matter, or that's "just semantics." What started as a theory with me became belief and then conviction. Unschoolers who cling to the idea of teaching will handicap their own understanding of how learning works.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Annie Regan
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Deeper layers of understanding

Lissa wrote, in response to Jenny C... (link below to more):

I know exactly what you mean. There's getting (intellectual understanding) and GETTING (putting ideas into practice). Sandra, your onion metaphor is apt. I am getting to deeper layers of understanding all the time. It's a very sweet and savory onion and it makes life taste delicious.

— Lissa in San Diego, mom of 5

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thought and belief

Terminology reflects thought and belief.

Sometimes just a slight shift in terminology will release the mental block that keeps people from understanding unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/parentalauthority
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning by watching

While you're understanding your children's interests, and getting over any initial embarrassment about your own, remember to have compassion and understanding toward other adults in your life, and what they are learning by watching.

SandraDodd.com/watching
Coconut art by Ishan, from Sri Lanka, whose "fiverr" name was funnymad.

If you can't see a video, Plan B: Coconut (on youtube)

Happy to see the day

When people insist that "all unschooling is" is just homeschooling without a curriculum or without lessons, I don't disagree. They should take it out and put it on billboards. Lobby to get it into the dictionary. Whatever. But when families come to ask how they can make unschooling work, it does no good to say "Just don't have a curriculum. See ya!" It takes layers of understanding, it takes recovery from school, and a desire to have a relationship with a child in which learning is flowing and easy. It takes working to create an atmosphere in which children and parents wake up happy to see the day.

—Sandra Dodd, in 2004
fourth post on this legacy page

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SORRY the link above didn't work in e-mail; I've restored it, I hope!

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SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Spiritual growth

Where the spirituality comes in that, I think partly is the trust that your child is an organism that wants to learn—that that’s how people grow. There is physical growth that takes water food and rest, there’s mental growth which takes input—ideas, things to think about, things to try, things to touch. And then there’s spiritual growth, which takes more and more understanding—an awareness that it’s better to be sweet to other people than not, it’s better to be generous with your neighbours than hateful, better to pet your cat nicely than to throw it around.

At first it’s a practical consideration but later on, as the children are looking at the world through older eyes, they start to see that no matter whether the neighbour noticed or not, it made you a better person. No matter whether your cat would have done your stuff damage or not, it made you a better person. So I think there’s a spirituality there of respect given to the children being passed on.

Improving Unschooling
SandraDodd.com/radiotranscript
photo by Brie Jontry

"When Jayn Reads"

Robyn Coburn wrote:

There is no doubt that one day, in the fullness of time and at the right time, Jayn will become a reader. I have no doubt that she will slide into reading with the relatively effortless grace that so many other Unschoolers report of their children as they gain literacy with their parents’ support in their text-filled environments.
. . . . Without any pushing, independence will come at the right time for Jayn’s needs. Without any pushing, her only struggles will be with her own impatience—not any of mine. At the right time Jayn will launch herself into the world of independent discovery through solitary reading, and I will see less of her. I will have to wait to be invited into her private world that presently is a place that is always open to me. And I will treasure the memory of when I was as essential to her understanding as I hope to always be to her heart.

She will be a reader. But I’m in no hurry.

—Robyn Coburn

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When Jayn was seven, her mom wrote that (and more, and it's beautiful: When Jayn Reads). Jayn is 24 now, and earned a university degree with honors. For the follow-up about Jayn's reading, you can listen to (or watch) this interview of Robyn, by Cecilie and Jesper Conrad: Robyn Coburn | From Doubt to Devotion - The Unschooling Transformation

SandraDodd.com/robyncoburn
photo by Jayn Coburn

Gradually understanding

Don't do anything you don't understand. Figure out gradually how and whether you want to change what you're doing. Don't do anything because you vaguely think unschoolers "have to." THAT is wrong.

Read a bit now and then, and let it seep in gradually.

Lifted from something at
SandraDodd.com/bedtime
photo by Sandra Dodd

Wade in and understand it

It's okay to change gradually. It's okay to say "I'm working on something," or "We're looking into something," or "We're going to try this for a while." It's good to wade in and understand it before trying to defend it fullscale.

Action and understanding
photo by Tam King

"I feel it in my fingers..."

Karen James, on math:

I took the leap and we began homeschooling, with me trusting that like walking, talking, reading, writing, and all the other things he had managed to learn through his play and exploration and with our active support, he would come to have a meaningful understanding of math too. When I came to a greater understanding of unschooling, I suspected we had not made a error in judgement. As I have watched Ethan's relationship with math grow and deepen, I knew we had not.

What I didn't realize when I was worrying about how to bring math to Ethan, was that Ethan had already found math. He found it on his fingers. He found it in the seeds of an apple I had cut open. He found it in the peas spread over the tray on his high chair. He found it in every repeated drop of his cup or spoon. He found it in the music we listened to. He found it in the timing between jumps on his jolly jumper. He found it in the balance he needed to take the next step. He found it in the distance between steps. It was everywhere already, and he was already finding the art in it. I just needed to stop my worrying and start having fun.

So I have.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/math/found
photo by Belinda Dutch

The title isn't from the quote, it's from a 1967 Troggs song.


In 2023, Ethan James is newly grown up and working at a video game company, at least for a while.

What he learns

Don't look at what can be learned. Look at what IS learned. If the parents can change their point of view and expectations and understanding well enough, they will see learning all the time.

There's no advantage in looking at what you wish or hope a child will learn. Look at what he learns.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd
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