Learning to live

You don't know exactly what your children need. They won't know either, if they're never allowed to live in such a way that they will learn to pay more attention to their bodies than to a book or a menu, calendar or clock.


SandraDodd.com/eating/purpose
photo by Sandra Dodd

Quickly but gradually...

Instead of just going from lots of control to "do whatever you want," a really sweet way to do it is quickly but gradually. Quickly in your head, but not all of a sudden in theirs. Just allow yourself to say "okay" or "sure!" anytime it's not really going to be a problem.

If something isn't going to hurt anything (going barefoot, wearing the orange jacket with the pink dress, eating a donut, not coming to dinner because it's the good part of a game/show/movie, staying up later, dancing) you can just say "Okay."

And then later instead of "aren't you glad I let you do that? Don't expect it every time," you could say something reinforcing for both of you, like "That really looked like fun," or "It felt better for me to say yes than to say no. I should say 'yes' more," or something conversational but real.

The purpose of that is to help ease them from the controlling patterns to a more moment-based and support-based decision making mindset. If they want to do something and you say yes in an unusual way (unusual to them), communication will help. That way they'll know you really meant to say yes, that it wasn't a fluke, or you just being too distracted to notice what they were doing.

SandraDodd.com/eating/control.html
photo by Cátia Maciel

Sounding off

Patti Schmidt wrote:

It seems to me that "phonics" essentially serves the purpose of "teaching" a child to read before he's ready and fully grasps context and meaning. I know that I can read Spanish, which is a much more consistently phonetic language than English, complete with accent and everything, and literally not understand one bit of what I'm saying.

I remember being tested separately for "reading" and reading comprehension. If one can't understand the words and phrases, then isn't it just decoding with an internalized phonics decoder ring?

Turning script to sound is one trick, but the reading that people want will turn marks to meaning. The same way that musical notation (and a musician who can decipher and play or sing it) can bring music into the air, so can the written word becoming lively language again.

Patti discovered, as many unschooling parents have, that while some children appreciate phonics hints, or figure phonics out on their own, others learn to read in their own other ways.

More of Patti's story of children learning differently:
SandraDodd.com/r/patti
photo by Sandra Dodd

The photo was taken of the insde of a church door in Durham, in England. "The draught is dreadful" cannot be read easily with American phonics (or sight reading, or look-say). But it's cute, and it's alliterative, which is an ancient tradition in the English language, and in the naming of the alter-egos of comic-book super heroes.

Flexible uses

Creativity and intelligence are seen in the ability to use a tool or an object for something other than its intended purpose. If you see your child (or your cat) doing something "wrong," set rules aside long enough to consider principles.

Sleep is important. Curiosity leads to discovery and to new connections. Shade can come from things other than trees or roofs.

Let your mind leap and frolic.

CONNECTIONS: How Learning Works
photo by Belinda Dutch

the Purpose of Cake

A mom once asked a long question, ending with:

The cleaning up of making a cake is just part of the whole process of cake making—isn't it? Am I making any sense?

Joyce Fetteroll responded:

Yes, your question makes perfect sense.

It might help you see it more clearly if you ask yourself what your goal is. Is the goal to have a clean kitchen or the experience of making a cake? If the goal is a clean kitchen, then it's better not to have children! 😉

There was more, and it's good. Sweet and messy.

SandraDodd.com/chores/cake
photo by Sandra Dodd, of little Devyn's cupcake art

Purposes, on purpose

When we talk about making decisions within unschooling discussions, it's not something like "I made the decision to be an unschooler." It's small decisions in the moment, right before each action or response, about what to have for lunch, where and how and why. Consciously making choices
Knowing WHY you want to make lunch can make all the rest of it a series of mindful choices. (Unless the "why" is a thoughtless sort of "because the clock hands pointed up".) Choices in Parenting, Unschooling and the rest of Life

SandraDodd.com/purpose
photo by Brie Jontry

Natural instinct and sensible logic

Allow children to reject food they don’t like, or that doesn’t smell like something they should eat, or doesn’t look good to them. Don’t extinguish a child’s instincts because you-the-parent seem sure that you know more, know facts, know rules.
. . . .Instead of looking for exceptions to knock my ideas away with, read a little (of this or anything else), try a little (try not forcing food OR “knowledge” into children), wait a while (and while you’re waiting, ponder the nature of “fact”) and watch for the effects of the read/try/wait process, on your own thinking, or on the child’s reactions and responses, or on the relationship.



Reading science; food, and instinct
information on a situation in which
Twinkies are better food than alfalfa sprouts,
and when lettuce might be very dangerous

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

Photo by Sandra Dodd of bell peppers (which I don't much like) stuffed with things lots of other people don't like or can't eat. I didn't do it on purpose, the recipe was just all beef, onion, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, pine nuts...

Purposes and choices in the moment

When someone questioned "purpose," I responded:

I didn't say "live your live with a purpose," though. Not a singular overriding goal that would cause any other outcome to be failure. That's what some people mean when they say "a purpose," but I didn't say "a purpose." It makes a world of difference.

I was talking about individual situations, projects, days, ways to decide. Not about a whole life.

People do that with decisions, too, sometimes. When we talk about making decisions within unschooling discussions, it's not something like "I made the decision to be an unschooler." It's small decisions in the moment, right before each action or response, about what to have for lunch, where and how and why.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Janine Davies, of a stile in England

Knowledge, real and useful

A mom posting as "Scooter," in 2001, wrote:

I personally believe that most knowledge, no matter how trivial or useless to anyone else, is just as important as what most people consider useful knowledge.

I responded:

This is dangerously radical thought and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

If one person builds muscle under the direction of a coach using gym equipment, and another builds muscle chopping wood and doing yardwork, which is better? Which muscles are more real? Which muscles are more useful? Which are more moral? What does the person need muscles for? Was the activity engaged in for the purpose of building visible, oilable muscles?

When schools teach to the test and drill kids on "useful" information, what happens inside and outside the school, the teacher, the student, the parent?

archived, about a dozen posts down there
(sorry I can't link more directly)
photos by Ester Siroky

Purposes and directions

Have purpose, don't just go through thoughtless motions.

---

That was a comment by me/Sandra in a discussion on facebook once but a good match from my website is
Mindful Parenting.
photo by Renee Cabatic

Distant visions

I love being able to see, and to share, pictures of things I have seen, or have NOT seen, in this blog. Jen Keefe's family went to New York City, and the technology of the day allowed her to share some of the things she saw. Her generosity lets me pass it on.

When I was a kid, our teachers encouraged us to have pen pals in other places. The purpose was to broaden our knowledge of foreign states and countries, but there weren't photos involved, and certainly not videos with sound! Messages weren't quickly exchanged.

Being able to see and hear other people, places, accents, languages, birds, animals, trees, foods... appreciate this as the recent miracle it is! Our worlds have expanded, even from inside our houses.

Your Own Model of the Universe

photo by Jen Keefe

Social obligations

Probably in every culture there are ceremonial and social meals. There are times when eating food with other people creates or strengthens bonds, or when sharing bread or a drink has spiritual significance. One taste of a wedding cake is better than turning down wedding cake altogether, because it's the ceremonial blessing of a marriage. If people are toasting with alcohol and you don't or can't drink alcohol (ever, or at that time), at least join the toast with water. To refrain from joining a toast is worse than an insult; it's like a public curse. One who pointedly fails to toast is standing up against the crowd and saying "I hope your project fails horribly" (or whatever it might be). So let your children know those things.

In the absence of a social obligation to eat at least a token amount, let your children choose not to eat if they don't want to. If the purpose of food is the sustenance of the body and the mind, then let that principle override schedules and expectations and traditions, most of the time. Your children will be more willing to eat to be polite if you only press it on rare occasions.


From "Social Obligations and Oddities," page 168 (or 190)
of The Big Book of Unschooling
which recommends SandraDodd.com/eating/humor
photo by Cátia Maciel

Food and its purpose

[When my children were little...] I always put the kids' needs ahead of dinner. Dinner happened after or around nursing babies and such.

You might have to do away with the idea of a peaceful mealtime for a few years. Maybe re-thinking meals would be the way to go.

I think it helps rather than to live by the idealized traditional model of dinner at 6:00, all at their seats, dinner conversation that could be reported to the media as an ideal mix of news of the day and philosophy, etc, to think of food and its purpose. People need to be nourished physically and it's uncomfortable to go to sleep hungry. THAT is the purpose of evening food, not the appearance of a well-organized dinner.

SandraDodd.com/eating/dinner
photo by Sandra Dodd, of one of the former Dodd babies

Why not?

Creativity and courage are useful for unschooling, and they are traits that an unschooling environment nurtures, in both kids and adults.

Consider why something is or should be. The range of useful and acceptable options is very likely wider than you first thought. What is the purpose? What's the principle?

If you're tempted to say no, out of habit or convenience, first think "why not?" If you don't have an honest, good reason to say no, perhaps it's time to say something like...

Let's try it, or
I'll help you, or
Okay, yes.

SandraDodd.com/principles/
photo by Sandra Dodd
(chain guards and other details, India)

Side effects

The purpose of unschooling is not to change the parents; it's to provide a personalized learning environment for each child. Doing that does change the parents, though, if they do it wholeheartedly.
SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Cátia Maciel

Absent witnesses

In a discussion about mothers of young children imagining their actions are being witnessed, I wrote:

I did that early on with my favorite La Leche League leaders. I invited them early, into my super-ego, to talk to me when they weren't there. 🙂 Trying to keep their voices in my head made me remember that I wouldn't want to do things that would keep them from feeling good about my progress and their assistance.

I think it's the purpose of saints (imagery in the house or worn on the body) or amulets or other religious or superstitious objects. I mean I think it's natural and ancient, among people, to have absent witnesses. The feeling that ancestors can see what we're doing is common in some cultures (and, honestly, ours—it came up at my house on Tuesday at a memorial for a dead friend, even though most there were atheists; it can be soothing, and inspiring).

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo by Jihong Tang

"N" is for Nest

This photo is the background for the "N" in "Learn" on the newer Learn Nothing Day logo.
There's a basis, a foundation, on which confident, workable unschooling is built, and most of it involves confidence, and confidence can't come without examination of one's purpose, priorities and principles. It takes a while to figure those things out, and while they can be figured out at the same time unschooling is unfolding, and will probably continue to evolve (maybe even after the kids are grown), it's not "nothing" to do that.

from SandraDodd.com/nest

The photo first appeared here in 2020: Be positively positive!
Thank you, Shonna Morgan.

Lamplight and color

I like facebook because I can see photos of my grandkids, of more distant relatives, of friends who live near and far, some of whom I've met in person and others I've known for twenty years or more without being in the same physical place.

This week, Karen James (probably with the help of her family) painted a couple of these walls different colors. I know this because she shared it on facebook.

Before the new colors came, though, I had snagged an image of lamps, thinking of the interactions of those various lights on Karen's art projects, her snacks, views of her husband and son, and her cat. I thought of how each light had a purpose, and a history.

Now, to all of that, add the thought of new colors. What is commonplace this year—seeing others' homes at a distance in color, grandparents seeing grandchildren asleep in their own beds without leaving our own—is new, on Earth. Appreciation and wonder are appropriate reactions to these marvels. Try not to take wonders for granted.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photos by Karen James

Count to ten, but WHY?

About calming down by counting to ten...
Counting to ten only works if you're breathing slowly and deeply and looking at (or thinking of) the sky or something else airy and big and peaceful. The purpose of counting to ten is to let the adrenaline pass and to think of some good options from which you can choose. If you count to ten holding your breath, holding your frustration, with a roaring anger in your ears, the adrenaline isn't dissipating—it's just being focused into a beam of extraordinarily dangerous power.

While you're breathing, you might want to think, "I love these people," or "whatever I say could last forever." Think of what you want to be and what you want to create. See what you want, and what you don't want.
A Loud Peaceful Home
photo by Sarah Elizabeth

Different uses for things

For fun, or for practice, be flexible enough to use items for things other than their "intended purpose."

In the 1970s, I was told that it's a sign of intelligence, if a person can creatively use an object well for something it was not designed for.

Following cats might lead you to new ideas: Just Add Cats...
photo by Colleen Prieto