A path around obstacles

A Joyce-quote today:

One thing that keeps me responding after all these years is because I understand. To me it makes perfect sense *why* parents get stuck on certain thought pathways. I understand why they can't see the view the child sees, why school colors their vision, why fear colors their vision. I enjoy helping them see the walls they thought trapped them are just obstacles. I enjoy helping them find a path around the obstacles.

But it can't work unless people see the obstacles aren't part of who they are, unless they can step back to observe the obstacles objectively so that they can let go and move around them.

—Joyce Fetteroll

"It's not Personal"
photo by Karen James

"Why do we do this?"

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"

Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

Investing in foundations

"More and more I'm discovering it's not so much about giving, as it is about building, and, as Sandra has said, investing. You are setting the foundation for your daughter's future interactions with the people she will come to hold dear (yourself included)." —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/barbiekaren
photo by Cátia Maciel

Life is a gamble

I cannot make my children's lives good. I can't ensure their success. I cannot make a tree grow. I can water it and put a barrier near so Keith doesn't hit it with a lawnmower, and ask my kids not to climb in it while it's young. I could destroy that tree, all kinds of ways. I could do it damage. I could neglect it. But I can't predict where the next branch will grow, or whether it will double in size this year or just do 1/3 again of its height. Not all years' growth are the same. I could mess my kids up and make them unhappy and keep them from having access to things, but I cannot make them learn. I can't make them mature. I can give them opportunities and room to grow, and food and water and a comfortable bed. I can't guarantee anything for anyone else, nor for my own family. I know what does damage, and I know what might help.

SandraDodd.com/gamble
photo by Ester Siroky
__

Whirl and twirl

We have made good use of making patterns in the slots of a revolving rack of poker chips, and then with poker chips out on the table. I have set out photocopied pictures and cheap water colors, lots of brushes, and had side-by-side painting by the hour. Whichever kids or visitors wander by will be drawn in and as they play or paint they talk and share and think.
. . . . Working on patterns in silence allows one’s mind to whirl and twirl.

SandraDodd.com/truck
scanner art by Sandra Dodd

Think well of them

"Think well of them, all the time. Be grateful."

—Schuyler Waynforth
about partners,
but it works for kids

SandraDodd.com/goldcoast
photo by Cátia Maciel

News or nostalgia

Today, something different. It's an invitation to smile, and probably to laugh. I'm sharing my secret stash of favorite cheer-up videos, collected for the days I need them. Dancing babies, mysterious Japanese philosophy, auto-tuned glory, Yoda, and the words of "a desert hobo" might make you think thoughts that remind you of the first time you thought them, or might make you wish this wasn't the first time you had sung along.
SandraDodd.com/fun
Please take some time to share smiles and create memories with a loved one.

Loving presence

Each child, in the moment, doing something interesting in the presence of a loving parent... that works the same for anyone.

Being your child's PARTNER, not his adversary
Marta Venturini saved this and quoted me in 2012.
photo by Ester Siroky
__

Find ideas you like

Find ideas you like, but remember that all parenting happens at your house, not online, not in groups, but within the parent. Your relationship with your child doesn't need to be approved by strangers. It needs to be the best you can do with your child, yourself, at your house. If you need ideas, the world is overflowing with good ones, and bad ones.

SandraDodd.com/nest
(Thanks to Robin Bentley, for quoting me on May 22, 2013.)
photo by Sandra Dodd

When to whine

If you notice you're angry or complaining, back away a bit, physically or mentally or emotionally, and see how big the problem really is, from a different perspective.

There is a cloud...
photo by Sandra Dodd
Abundance

Peace is all about choices

If you want to live peacefully make the most peaceful choices. Peace is all about choices. Choose to breathe consciously. Choose understanding over ignorance. Choose to make choices. Choose awareness over oblivion. And make choices based on the principles you live by.

SandraDodd.com/choices
(Thanks to Heather Newman for quoting me, May 22, 2011.)
photo by Sylvia Woodman

Nature and construction

Nature, culture, ancient engineering, curiosity, a moment of still wonder...

People love bridges. Think back to bridges from your childhood, the oldest bridges you've seen, the simplest, the most elegant.

Think of memories, or images, of people and of bridges. Beauty and wondrous crossings, over water, over canyons, over little streams and ditches. I think this must be one of the most iconic motifs in human history.

a bit about bridges
photo by Annie Regan

Shame free

I didn’t expect unschooling to create a shameless life, but one day I said to Holly, joking, “Aren’t you ashamed?”

She didn’t know what “ashamed” meant. She was twelve; maybe thirteen already.


People used to say “you should be ashamed” lots, to and around me, when I was young. And I was, I just hadn’t found the reason for it yet. Shame is like an indwelling virus that surfaces when we’re weak, in those who caught it.

I didn’t know people could grow up without having a wad of shame inside them, waiting to surface.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Gail Higgins

Quiet focus

Moments of quiet focus, and photo evidence of those, are both a bit magical.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Ester Siroky
__

Janine Davies, photos and some words

Janine's photos and a bit of text.

Gail Higgins photos

Another collection!?
I'm getting well, but have two unexpected separate house guests, from two different unexpected situations.

Please enjoy some beautiful photos by Gail Higgins.
(A couple have Gail-Higgins quotes and photos by others.)

---

photo by Gail Higgins
__

A fun person

"Treat her like a fun person rather than like a kid." —Angela (NYCitymomx3)

Fron a longer list at SandraDodd.com/howto/advice
photo by Chrissy Florence