Spooky for fun

Interesting mysteries are like amusement-park rides for our brains. Once in a while, think spooky thoughts, and come back happy.

SandraDodd.com/t/monstermania
or
SandraDodd.com/mystery/
photo by Karen James

"Try not to learn"

I was once asked:

Since unschooling is a lifestyle, how can a family wanting to embrace these ideals begin the process? What encouragement would you offer?

Part of my 1998 response:

Play. Joke. Sing. Instead of turning inward and looking for the answer within the family, within the self, turn it all inside out. Get out of the house. Go somewhere you've never been, even a city park you're unfamiliar with, or a construction site, or a different grocery store. Try just being calm and happy together. For some families, that's simple. For others it's a frightening thought.

Try not to learn. Don't try to learn. Those two aren't the same thing but they're close enough for beginners. If you see something *educational* don't say a word. Practice letting exciting opportunities go by, or at least letting the kids get the first word about something interesting you're all seeing.

---

The "Try not to learn" idea inspired Learn Nothing Day ten years afterwards (and 18 years ago, now).

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Holly Dodd

in French

Pleasant and happy

Deb Lewis wrote:

People talk about modeling behaviors for their children here and I really believe we have to model good cleaning up behavior too. We have to either find a way to do our work happily, as a gift to our families, in which case the likelihood of them helping us out from time to time is greater, because it's a pleasant experience, or we have to pay someone who's happy to have the job.

And remember, you don't get another chance to be the mom to these kids right now, today. When they are grown and gone from you you can have the cleanest house in the neighborhood. But what is the most important thing today? What will you be happier remembering in your old age; that your house always looked nice or that your kids were happy? What will your children be happy to remember about their time with you? Dirty houses always wait for you to get around to them. Children don't, and shouldn't have to.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/chores/joy
photo by Sandra Dodd

Patience, acceptance and food

Here's the link that didn't work yesterday (working now):

The 1st biggie for me was the food issue. I read 'let them eat what they want' & thought people had lost their minds. So, I tried it!

...and the rest of it

---

I noticed one morning I was really patient with my irritating cat. That was cool, and I announced to one of the discussion lists that I was going to work it into my talk about things that surprised me.

We've long been sweeter with our current dog than we ever were with a dog before, and somewhat the cats too, but usually I hiss at the cat to get away from me when he gets in my face early in the morning. This morning I told myself that the cat can't open a can, and he's excited that I'm awake, and the dog probably ate their canned food, so I just very calmly followed him in there and fed him and he was very happy.

I doubt it's my last frontier, it's just my current frontier.

SandraDodd.com/pets
photo by Sandra Dodd, of someone else's cat

Calm acceptance

Sometimes the smallest thing can make a child extremely happy. Sometimes parents can find joy in relaxing around fears and pressures. Without dress codes and early-morning school bells, or other kids to ask "Why are you wearing that?!", there can be leisurely days of choices and creativity, while parents practice saying "yes" and children play without worries.

Jenny Cyphers once wrote:

"The big upside of unschooling, in my opinion, was that it also created an unexpected peacefulness, fulfillment, and happiness for all of us."

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Julie Markovitz

What is liked and appreciated

A child is older every moment, and moments cannot be reclaimed and polished up and made happy later.

Don't be apathetic. Don't be negative. See what your kids like and appreciate that you have live, curious, able children. Many people would like to, but don't. Many people would like another opportunity to be gentle, supportive parents, but the chance was wasted long ago.

SandraDodd.com/look
photo by Cátia Maciel

Overflow is good

Having a happy home comes from the creation and maintenance of happy conditions! Produce as much as you can. You'll fill yourself up and it will overflow, and your family might even have enough to share with friends and strangers!

SandraDodd.com/cup
photo by Janine Davies

Lasting happiness

"Fun is serious. Fun is important, especially for kids. Don't underrate fun. People who are not happy as children seldom find easy or lasting happiness as adults."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/t/cartoons
photo by Susan Burke

Understanding without pressure

Lyle Perry wrote:

Knowing facts and understanding facts are two very different things. School (for the most part) requires knowing facts and the ability to state those facts on demand, but doesn't necessarily require understanding the facts. I think most people make it through school memorizing enough facts to keep the teachers happy, but have very little understanding of those facts until much later in life, if ever. There's not enough time for understanding in school. The schedule doesn't allow for it.

Unschooling gives a person the time to understand, without the pressure of memorization and schedules. It's learning in an un-pressurized atmosphere.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lyle/definition
uncredited image, floating around
Facts about the YMCA (some of which you might already know)

Upward

It can be a happy spiral upward, when feeling better about being a good mom makes one a better parent, and the child smiles and laughs, and the mom relaxes more.

SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a spiral Rex Begonia

Sparkly, happy, random thoughts

Humor is a great warm-up for any thinking. If one's mind can jump to get a joke, it will be easier for it to jump to synthesize any ideas, to make a complex plan, to use a tool in an unexpected way, to understand history and the complexities of politics. If a child can connect something about a food with a place name or an article of clothing, parents shouldn't worry that he hasn't memorized political boundaries or the multiplication table.

The more that fun, divergent thought is discouraged, the more quiet and dark those minds will be. The more that sparkly, happy, random thoughts are encouraged, the brighter that home will be.

SandraDodd.com/connections/jokes
photo, sign, found uncredited, "out there"

Focus on others

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wanting your family to be happy, joyful and learning seems a perfectly fine goal! But you won't get there by focusing on what you want. You'll get there by focusing on what they want.

What are your kids interested in? What do they want? How can you support that?

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/deschooling has a bit more of that, near the bottom
photo by Sandra Dodd

Happiness, harmony and joy

Nicole Kenyon wrote:

When I first talked to Jo Isaac I was like "that sounds nuts" but some of the things she said made me realise that my perception or ideas were copied and not mine. It made me stop and look at things from different angles.

I changed, became softer and let go of a belief system that wasn't mine while observing my son and our family. Are we happy? Do we live in harmony? What can I do to bring more joy?

—Nicole Kenyon

Not so crazy after all
SandraDodd.com/crazy
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Simple fun

We just had our 33rd wedding anniversary last week. Someone wished me well on my page and said she hoped we did something fun. I said we had transplanted mint and pulled some weeds (or something), and she said (nicely, joking) she meant MORE fun. But maybe the way to stay happily married for many years is to have fun transplanting mint...

—Sandra Dodd
(married over 41 years now
and that mint is still happy)

SandraDodd.com/laundry
photo by Sandra Dodd
of some of that mint, off season

It's fall, today. In early summer, that mint is thick and happy. We planted it around three or four rocks. Over the years Keith has added more cool rocks.

Deschooling...is to sit and think

Nicole Kenyon wrote, December 25, 2020:

My husband came home the other day saying he had the perfect Christmas present for our 9 year old son - a gel blaster toy gun. He was beaming and so happy. My first thought was "oh no, not a gun!" ... [and then I've left out the angsty part, and the Swiss-army...gun story, and the mom's transformative thoughts...]

Deschooling for me is sometimes not to act straight away but to sit and think about it. Is it a pattern the media has fed you? Where is the "no way" coming from?

While I wrote this story my husband and child are down in the living room and enjoying life, making little cardboard targets, laughing and having a great time. ❤

—Nicole Kenyon

Toy Guns
SandraDodd.com/peace/guns
You can read what I left out, and if you can get to facebook you can read (linked from that page) comments at the time.
photo by Supriya and Aseem's Mom

Q&A—Agenda

Question:

Are we teaching anything or learning side by side or allowing them to self express?

Sandra:

Those aren't your only choices. They're learning, we're learning, we're all expressing ourselves, and when life is very rich and lush, learning grows like crazy.

Question:

Can you go into detail about the idea of making things available and having an agenda?

Sandra:

Is "making things available" a reference to dance and karate classes and social opportunities, or to toys and music and books and cash and games? We've tried to give our kids lots of access to people and places and things. The agenda was that they would learn and be happy.

SandraDodd.com/panel
photo by Cátia Maciel

TV, games, or any video media

Years back, a group of families traded babysitting. Kirby had a favorite family to visit, where there were several kids who knew and liked him. When interviewed ten years later, I responded:

When Kirby was four or five, they had a Nintendo and we didn't, but [they] kept it up in the closet. Once Kirby played it, he always wanted to play it when he went over. Our simple solution to that was to buy him a Nintendo. After that, when he went to their house, he played in the yard.

They only used their TV for the Nintendo (when it was out, for a measured session) or for videos (sometimes, not much). When those kids came to our house, they only wanted to watch TV.... If TV has never been limited or demonized, it will never be so mesmerizing.

There is another factor that will make it mesmerizing for children: depression and a need to escape. Kids who hate their lives are better off focusing on the TV so strongly that they don't even see the wall behind it. Sometimes it's their only way out of the room. ... But if the TV is just one of a myriad of interesting things, and the room is a happy place, and there are others watching TV and it will lead to conversations, singing, research, drawing, play-acting and dress-up, it's not so mesmerizing.

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Kirby (middle)
playing with a five-year-old, in 2014 or so

---

That day, what came out to the interviewer was "Kids who hate their lives..." but any kid who is stressed and stuck might need such an escape; it's not unhealthy.

More than one chair

Deb Lewis wrote:

If your daughter doesn't want to leave something interesting to go to the table to eat, take food to her. Sit with her and eat together. That's the same kind of sharing you could do at a table. Food eaten in front of the TV or computer with a happy mom who is interested in you is much better than food shared in grudging silence and anger. Wouldn't you be grateful to a friend who brought you food if you were in the middle of something important? I'm always grateful when my husband brings home a pizza or Chinese food when I'm having a really busy day.

Get another computer as soon as you can. If you had only one plate wouldn't you get another? If you had only one chair, wouldn't you get another? Don't fight over life's conveniences. What a terrible waste of time.

—Deb Lewis

That's the end of something good, and longer, at
SandraDodd.com/deblewis.
photo by Jihong Tang

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

Optimistic happy people

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

Surround yourself with optimistic happy people. Do not engage in conversation when people are complaining about their children or husbands. If a friend comes to complain about her kids I try to turn around and point out to them how that characteristic could be good or some other great thing about their children. Or I change the subject.

Look at what you have, not what you do not have. If all you focus is in negative things that is all you will see. If you always look for the positive slowly you will, more and more, see the positive and the beauty around you and that will become who you are.

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/alex/optimism
photo by Cathy Koetsier