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

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

Where do you look?

How do you apportion your patience, attention, courtesy, time, money, material help, respect?

Those sorts of decisions make you who you are.


SandraDodd.com/eyecontact
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Action, patience and observation

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Reading does nothing without action. Action does nothing without patience and observation. When you know a little, more of the readings will make sense.

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Tessa Onderwater

Fill up your family

"You can't give what you don't have," some people say, and if you want your children to give generosity and kindness and patience to others, you should give them so much they're overflowing with it.

It works with respect, too.


SandraDodd.com/spoiledkids
photo by Julie D, of Holly and Adam

More or less

Leah Rose wrote:

I've been thinking about that saying "All things in moderation." Next time someone says it to me, I think I might just ask them: "Do you mean we should have joy in moderation? Should we have peace in moderation? Kindness in moderation? Patience in moderation? Forgiveness? Compassion? Humility?"

Honestly, I used to think it sounded like a very wise and balanced philosophy. Now, the more I think about it the less sense it makes.

—Leah Rose

Moderation
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Gratitude and respect

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 Brie Jontry

Patient, generous, kind

Sometimes an antique is still in use.

If you remember how exciting a little mechanical ride could be when you were a child, try to keep some coins on hand to indulge your young children.

If you don't have young children, consider keeping coins for offering rides to other children whose parents are tired or don't have what makes those little rides go.

If you don't remember being very young, for just 20p (or 50¢, or your local equivalent), if you're lucky and open to growth, you could live vicariously through another young person.

Patience, generosity and kindness make a person better.
A patient, generous, kind person makes the world better.


Plus or minus
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011, in Bristol

On changing

A mom named Sara P. wrote:

This is still an ongoing process for me. I had to re-train myself in a lot of ways. I had to learn a new language. I had to learn to SEE again. I had to learn how to communicate. I had to learn patience. I had to learn how to put others first. .....WOW! Sometimes an old thought will creep in. Sometimes I find myself answering a question in *teacher tone*...but it is so few and far between, and I am so quick to catch it that nobody ever notices except me!

—Sara P

SandraDodd.com/change/stories
photo by Marin Holmes

Softer, sweeter moments

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

It's such a big part of our culture to get it done now, fix it all now, make it happen now, do, do, do, do. Sometimes what life really requires is calm and patience. A very valuable thing to learn in life is to how to take care of ourselves and others during times of stress and times that aren't ideal and wonderful.

I think that's part of "stopping and smelling the roses." If you don't take that time, you miss some pretty wonderful bits of life. When there is stress and other negative influences happening around us, it's even MORE important to take that time to seek out the beauty and the softness and the sweet and light and happy things.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Cátia Maciel

Doing real things

There is a sweetness about children having the opportunity to do real things that older people do. Having the patience to let them try things in their own way, and acknowledging their success, even if it's smaller than they had hoped, causes growth in all involved, and makes the relationship stronger.

That's true whether the child is a toddler, or any age. There are useful things that older people do all through life, that younger people watch, think about, and might eventually try.

SandraDodd.com/growth
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Understanding wonderful things

One of the wonderful things about unschooling is that we come to understand that children are learning all the time. Knowing that, we can make thoughtful choices about how we'd like to influence that learning. We cannot control what is learned, but we can create an environment in which joyful learning can thrive.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Sarah S.

Smiling, patient, gentle

If you feel helpless, you are.
If you feel powerless, you are.

Make conscious choices, in little ways, in ways that make your family warmer and more comfortable. Not a few big decisions, but a hundred little decisions in the next 20 hours. Tone of voice. Smile/no-smile. Patience/rush. Gentle/jerky.

Help yourself find the power to make your family's moments better.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Elise Lauterbach

Imaginary magical gifts

From an article about coming-out parties for unschoolers:

What if you could give magical gifts? How about the ability to change bodies long enough to see the world as your children see it? Perhaps just a few doses of magic to make time stand still, just a little while. More time and space? Unlimited patience! Friendly neighbors. A perepetually well-running van in the mom's favorite color. Intuitive knowledge of child development would be a good gift for homeschoolers and all their friends, neighbors and relatives. If you figure out how to produce such gifts, please remember me after your friends have all they need.

Unschoolers' Coming-Out Parties: Wishlists for Unschoolers
photo by Lydia Koltai

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The link above is full of of actual practical non-fantasy ideas, but it was written in 1999. If you read it, think of current and future supplies and gifts for children.

Bonus link: Abundance

Controversial topic

When a family stays together, and when the marriage is improved and solidified, it's not just good for the children. It's good for the grown children, and grandchildren. It's better for holidays and family events, for estate planning and inheritance. It's better for being able to leave photo albums out, and photos of children with their parents still out on the wall, without trying to revise history to keep from offending new wife, new husband, girlfriend, boyfriend. It's better for casual stories like "Remember when we went to White Sands?" It's less likely that a story will need to be abandoned midway or trailed away from because someone who was there, and fun, is now estranged from the family.

I didn't know, years ago, that unschooling could strengthen a marriage. I did know that a good marriage would strengthen unschooling.

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SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by a waiter, with my camera, 2011

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P.S. Why is that controversial?

I have been criticized, over the years, for encouraging people to be kind and compassionate to partners or spouses. I have also been thanked by people whose marriages became stronger because of those ideas, or by the use of unschooling principes in general.

Although I am sympathetic to people whose marriages have failed for reasons beyond their control, there are divorces that could have been avoided, and there are relationships still in the future that could benefit by being bathed in sweetness and patience, humor and positivity.

With patience and with gratitude

We can't change what happens to people, life is unsure, and we're all getting older. Please continue to help encourage others to use unschooling's peaceful principles to make life sweet and good while we have it. We can't live as we are forever, but we can try to live with fewer regrets, and with patience, and with gratitude.

Be as good as you can be as often as you can be.

Like real life
photo by Cátia Maciel

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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Subscriptions, and gratitude

Dear subscribers:

Thank you for your patience while Vlad is building a mailing program around us. The new format is beautiful and full of links to good things. I'm very grateful to Mr. Gurdiga for his clever and very generous help.

Some days, some of us got doubles, or posts repeated. I'm sorry for the confusion, but glad for the abundance!

I had wanted to quote part of something I wrote about abundance, but found that
1) the whole thing was required for it to make sense,
2) I had posted it before, in 2013, and
3) the original post had comments and links to two things new that day, about abundance and gratitude.

Please enjoy: Gratitude and Abundance

photo by Sandra Dodd

Building an epic nest

If you want to unschool, there's no curriculum to buy and you and your children will be discovering the secret passages and magical destinations without a schedule or a map.

To help you prepare for or strengthen your own heroic adventure, there are three tools you need, and a checklist of seven nest-building items for you to collect and protect.

Equip yourself with: confidence experience good examples Build your nest with food shelter love patience enthusiasm curiosity joy

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Quick! They're gone!

Older moms say "Appreciate your kids. They'll be grown before you know it."

Younger moms think it's rude, and wrong, and can hardly endure the endless days of damp, stinky babies and toddlers, and messy, destructive, needy three and four year olds, and...

Life is made of stages that can seem long. I've had young children and felt sticky and crowded and exhausted. I've had teens I started to miss before they were gone.

Wherever you are, breathe and be patient and loving.


SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Ester Siroky

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This is a re-run from only a year ago. I usually wait longer, but I feel that this could help some parent (or many) every month. Please continue to be as kind and as appreciative as you can be, even when the world outside isn't helping. You could be the best part of someone else's day.