The value of joy

Parents and teachers Don't KNOW, when they look at a six-year-old, what fields of expertise will develop and be needed in the next twelve or twenty years.

The world is changing fast, and one of the best things kids can have is curiosity, openness to newness, and calm confidence that they can pursue their own interests.

If parents are looking at children's interests as school checklists, unschooling is escaping them. Often unschoolers look at children instead of looking more at their own beliefs, and their awareness of what learning looks like in the wild, and how valuable JOY is in a family.

The text was new in a discussion yesterday, but this is a better link:
How to Be a Good Unschooler
by Pam Sorooshian
photo by Christine Milne

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 life-enriching choice

Pam Sorooshian, the end of something great, linked below:

My suggestion is that you ask yourself really honestly, is there something more I could be doing for my child that would enhance my child’s life? If the answer is yes, then make the choice to do it. Then ask this question of yourself again and again and, each time, make the life-enriching choice. Apply this to small things and to big momentous decisions. Small things – could I make something for dinner that would be special and interesting? Did I see a cool rock on the ground outside – could I bring it in and wash it and set it on the table for others to notice. Big things – would my child enjoy traveling – can we take a family vacation that involves exploring things my child would find interesting?

In unschooling, “lazy” means not thinking about enriching and enhancing your child’s life. You change this by doing it – one choice at a time.

—Pam Sorooshian
Unschoolers are Lazy?

See also: Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Robert and Robbie Prieto

Wonderful wonder

Pam Sorooshian, of something she learned before she was unschooling:

It really makes a huge difference how the parent is feeling about what the kids are doing.

My sister inadvertently taught me this when her now-24 yo son was only about 4 years old. They had old very beat-up furniture and her son, Alex, was standing next to a couch with holes in it. He was pulling out little bits of stuffing and rolling it in his fingers, feeling the texture, stuffing it back in, pulling out another tuft, feeling it, and so on. He had a faraway look in his eyes and was clearly really focused on experiencing the sensation of the texture of those tufts of couch stuffing.

She and I walked in and saw him at the same moment. MY reaction would have been to stop him from pulling stuffing out of the old couch. Julie stopped and smiled and said, quietly to me, "Look at that — he is having such a deep sensual experience just with a bit of stuffing from an old couch. How wonderful!"

Another parent might have complained, "My kid is so bored he's literally pulling the stuffing out of our old couch. That's the best thing he can find to do?"

This might sound sort of phony or silly and unimportant - I'm just recommending that people look at what their kids ARE doing and see if they can change their own thinking about it - see it in the best possible way. It doesn't change what they're doing, but it changes the "tone" in the home and that is so all-important it can't be overemphasized.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Belinda Dutch

Prevent regret

Jenny Cyphers, quoting and commenting:

I ran across this little bit this morning, from Pam Sorooshian:

Self-recrimination is self-indulgent and not helpful to your children. Be fully present in the here and now. That's the antidote to regret.

Something I like about Pam is that she says so much in so few words! That one packs a punch! Or a soft hand on someone's shoulder, really.

When people talk about doing unschooling right, to me, this gets at the heart of it! Go and BE WITH your kids, don't let days go by in which regret happens, because the opposite of that is where the magic happens!

—Jenny Cyphers

More by
Jenny Cyphers and Pam Sorooshian
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Confidence and reason

Pam Sorooshian, in a discussion in June 2011:

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. I gathered ideas from a lot of people, including you (Joyce) and Sandra (but all of us still had young kids back then, so there was no evidence of older kids or young adults yet).

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. Well, that and actual trying things out in our own family and paying attention to what happened and, again, thinking for myself. This whole unschooling journey was very very much an intellectual process for me—a process of developing deeper and deeper understanding by reading and listening to others, thinking hard about what I'd read and heard, applying what made sense, paying attention to how things were going, waiting a little, trying out other ideas that seemed to make sense, and continuing that process for all the years I had children—taking in input of others ideas and experiences, considering and analyzing, acting on my own conclusions, observing my own family dynamics—all at the same time.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Karen James
of Ethan's early art

Two days until Learn Nothing Day

Experiences and conversations

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling is not leaving kids to their own devices until they show an interest in learning a given subject.

Unschoolers do not expect interests to arise out of nothing.

As an unschooling parent I offer ideas, information, activities, starting points, and material to my children as opportune moments arise, not out of nothing, but out of the experiences that are created by mindful living in the world—walking in the woods, visiting museums, watching movies, reading books, going to the theater, swimming in the ocean. Every moment in life offers opportunities for learning and investigation.

We went to the Rose Parade and my 12 yo daughter wondered aloud why it doesn't smell like roses even when you're right up close to the floats. There was a great opportunity to talk about plants being grown for various purposes—and how that is done—tomatoes raised for transportability rather than taste, flowers for longlastingness rather than aroma.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/learningworld
photo by Catherine Forest

Simple and very difficult

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

An unschooling parent needs to be fully present with their kids, sensitive to their kids' needs, and extremely respectful of their kids' interests. This is simple and very difficult, at the same time. It is so simple, it really asks so little of us, as parents, to pay attention to what "is" right in front of us. But it is very very difficult to do, sometimes, especially when what our kids are presenting to us appears to us to be negative or dull or unproductive.

—Pam Sorooshian
(more, with examples)

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Jihong Tang

Facilitator and companion

I’ve been credited with the description below, but it was written by Joyce Fetteroll and tweaked by Pam Sorooshian and me before it was published at the UnschoolingDiscussion site, on googlegroups:

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 which 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.

—Joyce Fetteroll, aided by
Pam Sorooshian
and Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/unschooling
photo by Clare Kirkpatrick

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

Brain food

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Human brains are voracious and will feed on whatever is available. Unschoolers should be offering interesting experiences, ideas, stimulation, music, logic, conversation, images, movement, discovery, beauty, etc. Brain food in abundance. It requires effort. It requires attention to qualitative and quantitative aspects of learning. Depth and breadth—creating a lifestyle in which kids are offered the opportunity to learn a lot about some things and a little about a lot of things.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/learning
Thanks to Marta Venturini Machado for finding and sharing that quote.
photo by Meghan Pawlowski

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

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

Real learning is bigger

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

The idea that learning to read is learning to sound out or recognize words, that learning to write is learning to draw the letters correctly, that learning math is learning to carry out algorithms by rote—such ridiculously low goals. As if that is what kids are capable of. Those are not real reading, writing, or math.

—Pam Sorooshian

What Teaching Can Never Be (chat transcript)
photo by Cátia Maciel

Not following a script

Sandra Dodd to Pam Sorooshian, in a sort of group interview:

You've been communicating closely with all kinds of homeschoolers, not just unschoolers, for a long time now. Thinking back to the best of them and the families in which things were strong and good, what traits in the parents or families do you think helped most?

Pam Sorooshian:

Hmmm - the best of them.... I think it is that they aren't treating their kids the way they think they are "supposed to," but are looking clear-eyed at their own real children and treating them as the individuals they are. I mean - they aren't following a script. They are authentic. They don't punish a kid because they have some idea that "kids need to be punished" - they think about what their own real standing-in-front-of-them kid is probably feeling and thinking and they respond to that reality. How many times have we seen a parent yell or be harsh with a kid that was already upset? Without regard to what was upsetting them.

Parents who get really in touch with their kids - who let themselves think what their kids are thinking - who aren't afraid to imagine what their kids are REALLY feeling and thinking...... those are the good ones.

Sometimes I'm amazed at what parents tell themselves that their own kids are thinking or feeling. The really awful ones make all kinds of terrible assumptions about kids' intentions.

—Pam Sorooshian
2009

Chat with Pam Sorooshian
photo by Cátia Maciel

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

Living in a learning world

"My kids think learning is what life is for. And I agree with them."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/learningworld
photo by Sandra Dodd

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

Learning in all directions

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Some kind of learning is happening all the time — but not all learning is good. Learning how to sneak food, learning that parents can't be trusted and counted on, learning to think of oneself in negative ways, all sad. Learning that life is boring, hard work, sucks, hurts, is unfair, also sad. Not what unschoolers are trying for.

Human brains are voracious and will feed on whatever is available. Unschoolers should be offering interesting experiences, ideas, stimulation, music, logic, conversation, images, movement, discovery, beauty, etc. Brain food in abundance. It requires effort. It requires attention to qualitative and quantitative aspects of learning. Depth and breadth — creating a lifestyle in which kids are offered the opportunity to learn a lot about some things and a little about a lot of things.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Colleen Prieto

The whole set of everything

We didn't have problems with our unlimited turns, but it's because nobody ever played longer than he really wanted to just to keep another kid from getting on. Not even nearly. If Kirby knew he wanted to play for a really long time, he would offer Marty a turn, knowing Marty couldn't last so long. Sometimes I would appeal to one of them to trade out, but it was for real reasons every single time. "Kirby has to go to karate, so can he go now and you can play all the time he's gone?" or "Holly's pretty sleepy anyway, and wanted to play Zoombinis. Can she have her turn soon?"

As with so many other things (every other thing, maybe) in our lives, though, it wasn't that single slice that "worked," it was the whole set of everything. They trusted me because I had spent years being trustworthy. They knew there was no secret agenda, and that I really did want them to all have fun things to do, and that they WOULD get to be on the computer uninterrupted, soon.

---

That was in the dial-up days. The world is better now, with more computers in homes, with wifi, with tablets. At the link below you can also read how Pam Sorooshian handled sharing a different way, when she had three children at home.

SandraDodd.com/sharing
Helping Children Share
photo by Sandra Dodd
(re-used, because it's from the days of the writing)