Doing Nothing, and finding balance

Halfway between the past we can't change and the future we can only imagine, we find ourselves in the present. Not just the present year, but the present day; not just the present day, but the present moment.

From Balancing in the Middle Ground:

[Some families] had stopped doing school, and then stopped making their kids do anything, and now their kids were doing NOTHING.

Aside from the idea of the rich potential of their "nothing," the parents had gone from making their kids do everything, to "making them do nothing." And interestingly, it did make them "do nothing," at first. Or at least the parents couldn't see the new things they were doing.

Rather than moving from one edge of a dichotomy to the other, the goal is to move to a whole new previously unknown middle place.

Holly Dodd, and the false sea onion

photo by Holly Dodd in 2009
original post, 2010

Access to tools

Karen James wrote:

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude for the many gifts in my life has taken me from a place of hopelessness in my mind, to one of abundant possibilities. Because my life *looks* more abundant to me, every moment holds more potential. That doesn't mean my life is all wonderful and easy. It does mean that I have access to more emotional, creative, and intellectual tools to help me move toward the kind of life I want for myself and my family.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Amy Milstein

Interesting and good

From 2002:

One of my favorite things about my kids, and what makes unschooling easy with them, is that they're not cynical or critical about the interests of others in the family, or of the neighbors, or of their friends. They assume that everything has the potential to be interesting and good.

SandraDodd.com/halfempty
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't be schooly or schoolish.

Paul McCartney was doing okay musically without knowing musical notation.

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I would hate to even start to imagine how many potential musicians just turned away from the idea of singing or playing instruments because they were pressed to learn music theory and notation at a young age.

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They can just learn. That’s what unschooling is about.

Take away the school, the school language and practices and expectations.

And all that’s left is the learning.

Don’t be schooly or schoolish.

Be UN schoolish.

Chat with Sandra Dodd on Mommy Chats, 4/25/07
photo by Marty Dodd, of a jack-o-lantern he started, and let squirrels finish

Wonderful warm feelings

Brie Jontry wrote:

When we stretch beyond seeing more than only one or two possibilities, our children's worlds become exponentially larger, with more potential for laughter and learning and wonderful warm feelings of connection.

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Cátia Maciel

Finding yourself with your children

Being where you are, in a mindful way, with the potential and the tools to be still and know it, is the portal to a better life. Call it what you want to, finding yourself with your children will put you in a good place.



Finding
yourself
with
✵

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SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Comfortably oneself

Karen James wrote:

I've been reflecting on the idea of potential...

I think, six years ago, I was thinking of the potential to be anything. Now, six years later, as I watch my son navigate his teen years, and as I come to understand him and myself better, I think the potential to be comfortable enough in one's own skin, to be fully and unapologetically oneself, is what is so great.

—Karen James, 2018

Growth and Potential
photo by Sarah S.

Sparkly and wonderful newness

Part of what makes something sparkly and wonderful is the observer being new to it and seeing it as a giant wall of glory and potential.

Be patient and understanding if your child is growing tired or more cynical about an interest or pursuit.

When unschooling isn't as new, it can begin to dull for the parent. Find what you can see as new and sparkly, in your child and his interests.

The first paragraph is a quote from the Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions chat.
photo by Kinsey Norris

Five solid tools

Alex Arnott wrote:

Principles of unschooling that have helped me relate differently with my own highly active nervous system:

1. expanding awareness to include all the joy life offers rather than zooming in on the negative;
2. developing a habit of questioning the assumptions my mind make about potential dangers...learning not to take all my thoughts so seriously all the time;
3. developing mindfulness to slow down when my mind feels chaotic so I can reconnect with my values which in turn helps create the condition to make better choices;
4. learning the joy and privilege of being of service to others...I cannot overstate how vital this has been for my mental health. It’s helped me reconnect to others in meaningful ways;
5. deliberately choosing love, which is a wonderful antidote to fear/anger.

These are just a few examples of what’s helped me learn how to be solid in the face of anxious personality traits.

—Alex Arnott

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Karen James

Funding future learning

If a child isn't interested in college, the parents shouldn't do the happy "we won't have to pay for college!" dance without considering whether there are other ways a portion of that college savings or loan potential could be applied to helping the child toward learning and experiences they couldn't have partaken in as younger children, and which might also lead to a career.

If your child wants a camera or art supplies, a musical instrument or skis or a better computer, don't see it as a toy, but as a tool and as an entrée into a community of people from whom they can learn more.

from the "Interesting Alternatives to College" section of
The Big Book of Unschooling, page 304 (263 of first edition)
photo by Chelsea Thurman

Just being

There's little so sweet and grounding to me as being loved for who I am and appreciated for all I choose to spend my time doing. If we want our children to really know what that feels like too, we should stop standing on the sidelines, and start joining in.

It's a simple gift we can all give to our children that will have the potential to last a lifetime.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames/beingwith ("A Simple Gift")
photo by Cass Kotrba

Actual paths, and other choices

I love the potential in this photo. There is too much to explore, but the options are up, down, through, around. It reminds me that we live in the moment that connects the past and the future.

The world is too big for anyone to see everything. History will never all be discovered or known. The best we can do for ourselves and our children is to view their surroundings with wonder and curiosity. We can help them experience small things and large, old things and new.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sukayna
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Advice for a newlywed

To have a more peaceful, loving relationship that has the potential to last for a lifetime, don't count and don't measure.

Don't divide anything "fifty/fifty." Forget that concept. Give what you have. Do all you can do. Give/do 80% when you can, but only measure it vaguely, at a squint, and then forget about it. If you aim for half, there will be resentments. If you aim for 100%, small failures will seem larger than they need to be, so don't do that. You can succeed at "lots" without measuring.

If each of you gives as much as you can, your shared needs will be fulfilled more quickly, more easily, and more often.

Be generous with your patience. Life is long. People change, and more than once.
I wrote that for a young friend getting married, and I quoted it here:
Becoming a Better Partner
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

See the good; reflect it back

"Get to know your kids' strengths and set them up to succeed at using those strengths in all kinds of ways. Don't burden them with the perceived shortcomings you find. Let them navigate their own challenges while you focus on their potential. See the good in them and reflect it back. That seems to have been the best gift I've given my own son so far."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/partners/child.html
photo by Gail Higgins

Many gifts

Karen James wrote:

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude for the many gifts in my life has taken me from a place of hopelessness in my mind, to one of abundant possibilities. Because my life *looks* more abundant to me, every moment holds more potential. That doesn't mean my life is all wonderful and easy. It does mean that I have access to more emotional, creative, and intellectual tools to help me move toward the kind of life I want for myself and my family.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Amy Milstein

What if a parent is afraid?

Part of my response to a request for advice to fearful parents:

Turn away from the school and look directly at your children. Look at them as individuals, rather than as students, or third graders or eight-year-olds. Look at their potential, their interests, their sweetness, and find ways to preserve and nurture those.
. . .

Don't do school. Do life as though school didn't exist. Live to learn; learn to live. If after really trying it as hard and as honestly and fully as you can for an extended period of time you can't get it to work, then you can always go back to a curriculum.

School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Sandra Dodd

How had I done this?

Little by little, years ago, I started to see that each little idea that had changed my own family had the potential, if I could explain it clearly enough, to change another family. Just a little was enough. As more and more families shared their successes and joys, the world changed. As more information was gathered and put where others could find it, the rate of change increased.

When I was first unschooling, we waited two months for a new issues of Growing Without Schooling. There was no internet discussion at all. When that began, a few years later, it was user groups, not even e-mail or webpages yet. Today someone can get more information about unschooling in one day than existed in the whole world when my oldest was five. I'm glad to have been part of honing, polishing, clarifying and gathering those ideas, stories and examples, and keeping them where others have quick access to them.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/naturalparenting2010
photo by Lisa J Haugen
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The abundance of possibilities

"Unschooling is about living in the abundance of possibilities, not in fear of somehow not fitting the mold. It's been remarkable to me to see where natural learning can take a person. For me, after ten years of unschooling our son, it has become a kind of celebration of human potential."

—Karen James

The abundance of possibilities (longer writing)
photo by Ester Siroky
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High, low or average... (Don't ask.)

Of all the things I believe strongly, one that has changed my life as profoundly as any one other belief is my personal knowledge that test scores can and do (can't fail to) affect the treatment a child receives at his parents' hands. High scores, low scores, average scores—no matter. Parents cease to treat the child as his original, known self and color him soul deep with that number.

My life would have been different. My husband's life would have been different, without those 5th and 8th grade ITBS scores. I venture to say without even knowing who is reading this that your life would have been different, and specifically I believe your life would have been better, had not you been branded with a number on your "permanent record" (there's a big mean scary joke, the "permanence" and important parts) as a young innocent ten or thirteen year old full of potential, at some unknown point on a learning curve that might soon be at its settled-out level, or might just be beginning.

SandraDodd.com/testing/tests
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Finding yourself with your children

Being where you are, in a mindful way, with the potential and the tools to be still and know it, is the portal to a better life. Call it what you want to, finding yourself with your children will put you in a good place.



Finding
yourself
with
✵

---

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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