Food, shelter, pizzazz

Seasons change, and creatures look for a place to be, near something to eat.

If you're providing food and shelter for your children, good job! If you can look cool while doing it, with a bit of style and pizzazz, bonus for everyone.

Fill your shelter with peace and patience.

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Karen James

Time flows

Every ghost town used to be alive.

Every "haunted house" was once new.


An abandoned car started with good tires, a running engine, and a happy owner.

Each adult was a child.

The flow of history
photo by Karen James
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Looking, where, and how

Karen James wrote:

When you look at your children, see *them*, not the ideas of peace, joy, success or failure. Notice what your children are engaged in. Join them when you can. If one of your children is cutting paper, quietly join in, even if only for a moment. When another child is playing Lego on the floor, get down there and put a few pieces together with her. One girl is drawing, do some doodles. One girl is playing Minecraft, notice what she's building. Ask her about it (if your question doesn't interrupt her). As you join your children you will begin to get a sense for what they enjoy. Build on what you learn about them.

There will be some conflict, and there will be times when you don't get it right. See those moments, learn from them, and then look toward where you hope to go. Whenever I'm driving on unfamiliar roads, I tend to look at the road right in front of the car. The twists and turns come up so quick, and I find that my grip on the wheel tightens and my heart races. I panic until I remember to look at the horizon. It's so remarkable how much more easy driving becomes when I take in a wider view of where I want to go. Take in a wide view of where you want to go, making little adjustments as necessary. It'll feel less frantic and less like you're at the mercy of every little bump or turn that suddenly appears. The ease and confidence that will gradually come will make for a smoother ride, for you and for those lovely little passengers you've been gifted to travel this journey with. 🙂

—Karen James
on "Always Learning"

SandraDodd.com/look
photo by Cally Brown

Looking more closely

Karen James wrote:

The best thing I did for my relationship with my son, which, consequently, added to his ease of learning naturally, was to look away from what all of my friends were doing, and look more closely at what my own son was inspired by.

—Karen James

That quote continues at: SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Holly Dodd

Learning Patience

Karen James wrote:

When we are consistently patient with a child, in time the child will learn patience. The child will come to understand the relationship of patience to him/herself by experiencing and witnessing what patience feels and looks like. When we are consistently impatient with our children, we make it nearly impossible for the child to learn patience *from us*. They learn impatience. That's the relationship. We can't talk it into being something different. We can't will it into another form.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Debra Heller Bures

Climbing

Karen James wrote, in part:

A few weeks ago my husband, son and myself went for a bit of a hike. My son wanted to climb a big, steep hill that overlooked the ocean and had rocks at the top that he could climb and sit on. I looked up that hill and thought "Oh crikey! That's a steep hill." (I'm not in as good a shape I used to be.) But I could see that Ethan really wanted to climb it, and he really wanted us to join him, so I smiled and said "Let's go!" He's thirteen. I don't know how many more years I'll be invited (or have) to join him on his adventures. I choose to relish them now, while I still have the health and the opportunity to do so.

Ethan ran ahead, excited. My husband followed closer behind him. I took a deep breath and began walking too. Instead of looking all the way up the top of the hill, I looked at the ground as I climbed. I looked right and left and relished in the little details I found. Seeing the ground move steadily beneath my feet was encouraging, and made the climb seem not so steep. ....

It might not seem like it now, but those early years pass fast. I love all the happy memories I've made with Ethan these past 13 years. As he's growing more and more into his own interests, I can see the little boy he once was twirling on a trampoline for the twentieth or more time saying "Watch me now!" landing with pride every time. ...

Read the rest here:
Mindfulness in Unschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel

Carefully-thought-out ideas

It's easy for people to "yeah, but..." themselves way off track. It's harder to relax into considering that maybe those who did successfully deschool, and who unschooled well for years, are offering carefully-thought-out ideas for very good reasons.

SandraDodd.com/stages/materials
photo by Karen James

Human beings

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Most parenting approaches either treat kids like they're alien beings or like they're fellow adults.

Radical unschooling supports treating kids like human beings while taking into account their differences.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce
photo by Karen James

Invaluable confidence

Karen James wrote:

Being able to understand and talk about unschooling well, with anyone, is invaluable. That kind of confidence helps in families, at doctor's offices, at the dentist...nearly anywhere and everywhere one might find oneself being asked about homeschooling. It helps one's own family, but it also helps make things a bit easier for future unschooling families by hopefully easing some of the skepticism and prejudice about learning naturally.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Karen James

Relax into the next step

Leah Rose wrote:

I have come to see that it helps peace and learning to notice when we are clinging or tightening around an identity, an idea, or even a hope. I think that's why breathing and baby steps are such useful suggestions for new unschoolers. Both help us to stay in the moment, to relax right where we are rather than leaping ahead or getting mired in "shoulds." They help us cultivate soft, open ground upon which we can rest with joy, and know enough confidence to take the next step.

—Leah Rose

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Note from Sandra:
That quote is the bottom of longer writing by Leah, on how she moved from rules to "no rules" which wasn't the best direction, and found a better path in living by principles.

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Leah's writing is about the sixth quote down, at
SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Karen James

Connecting and learning

Kelly Schultz, at the end of a longer account of learning from Barbie

Everywhere we go, we meet women who have loved their Barbies, young babysitting-age girls, grandmas with collector editions, women at the toy store commenting how they still love to get their Barbies out. Barbie-lovers are everywhere! Who knows when this shared interest will help them connect with someone down the road?

Who would have imagined - design, construction, dramatic narrative, social skills, a little bit of history mixed in - it's really a wonderful learning experience!

—Kelly Shultz

SandraDodd.com/barbielearning
photo by Karen James
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Snags and lumps and deschooling

Think of some specific things that changed in you, about you, when you were deschooling. Think of a time when you hit a snag, a lump, an un-deschooled part of you. What happened? What did you do?

Deschooling is a process that can't be sped up, I think. I could be wrong.

The path to unschooling
photo by Karen James

Doing (not not-doing)

If a person's life is compartmentalized into learning and not learning, then they have a part of them that is "not-learning."

"Not learning"
photo by Karen James

Slowing down

Karen James wrote:

I have spent the past three years trying to get unschooling faster. It has only been this past year, where I have slowed down, that I feel like I am really starting to get it, or at least see more clearly where I am still stuck, and work out those knots with a bit more clarity.

I quoted Karen from her comment at
"You can't test out." (2011)
photo by Hema Bharadwaj

Completely engaged

Stephanie E. wrote:

It came to me the other day that Jason is more engaged then if he were doing puzzles in a book or being read to. When he plays a video game, it is a whole-body experience. I can see his mind working—he is completely engaged. He is constantly strategizing, thinking about the next step, figuring out how to solve the next level, experimenting with options. He is also very active—jumping up and down, yelling, running in to show me his latest accomplishment.

—Stephanie E.

GameCube and Little Boys
photo by Karen James

Quietly alert

If you can choose to be more aware over less aware, that will help.

One aspect of awareness is working on your ability to be quietly alert, like a mother hawk, aware of the location of your child, her mood and your surroundings.

A Loud Peaceful Home
photo by Karen James
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Exuberant learning

Karen James wrote:

When Ethan was around three. I left the room very briefly to answer the phone. We had been drawing. As I was talking I heard, "Circles. Circles." I came out to see what he was doing to find him drawing big circles on a freshly painted wall. His circles I could paint over at any time. I still had lots of that colour of paint. That pride at drawing big beautiful shapes I could never recapture at any cost if I had have chosen to scold him. He turned to me all smiles. He had discovered circles. I had rediscovered what exuberant learning looked like.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/art/stories
photo by Karen James
with different circle; the story of that art is also at the art/stories page

Foggy confusion

I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of "self-regulation." Regulation has to do with rules—creating and enforcing rules. I like the idea that children will find a balance. And it has helped me in moving from kneejerk what-would-my-mom-do (when my kids were babies I worked consciously to make decisions a better way) to try to avoid using phrases of children that I wouldn't use of adults. I don't say my husband self-regulates his leisure time, or that my friend self-regulates her diet or that my sister self-regulates her housekeeping.

People will come [to a discussion] and say "I've given him freedom, when will he self-regulate?" and I think (though I've never asked) they mean "When will he somehow do what I would have made him do if I were making him do things?" Some newer unschoolers are similarly waiting for their kids to ask to learn biology, or to wake up one morning eager to write a book report.

SandraDodd.com/self-regulation
photo by Karen James

Am I doing enough?

Karen James wrote:

I asked the same question a few years back. I got an excellent, but unexpected reply. I was told if I thought I wasn't doing enough, then to do more. Now, if our unschooling days start to feel a bit stale to me, I try to make them lively again by using what I know about my son to introduce something(s) fresh to our experience. Doing this has never lead me astray. It might take me in a completely different direction from what I had in mind, but, to me, that's a big part of the fun of this life.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/enough
photo of Holly Dodd, by someone with her camera, in 2008

Attention as an investment

Karen James wrote:

It might not seem like it now, but those early years pass fast. I love all the happy memories I've made with Ethan these past 13 years. As he's growing more and more into his own interests, I can see the little boy he once was twirling on a trampoline for the twentieth or more time saying "Watch me now!" landing with pride every time. I can hear the breathless laughs of a child who rooted for the hundredth time for Tom the cat to catch that too-clever mouse Jerry. I know the brave spirit of that little person exploring the dark night and caves of Minecraft. I was there for all of it and more. Thousands of hours of dedicated focus. I don't regret a single moment. If anything, I wish I'd given more. I still have time, thankfully.

It did take a lot of my time, attention and energy, and there were times when I was really, really tired at the end of the day, and mornings when I was slow to want to embrace the day. But I see all that time and energy and attention as an investment—in my son, and in my own future. If I get to grow old, I hope these are some of the moments that bring colour to my winters.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Denaire Nixon