Comfortably and happily

Just like ALL learning, learning how to live comfortably and happily are really wonderful things. It takes a focus on turning away from what you know you don't like and turning towards something else—that something else that creates happy learning and living. Unschooling really is a shift in thinking and then acting on it.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/unschool/definition
photo by Colleen Prieto
__

Click on by

Nothing; take a break.

not a good day for a link

Look and see

If you're traveling or if you're in a familiar place, the things you see are viewed though your own windows, or doors. You see through your own eyes, and experience. *You* see.

The world you see where you are today will not be what you could see ten years ago, or twenty.

What your child sees and what you see will probably be different, and continue to change.

Keep looking.

SandraDodd.com/awareness
photo by Ester Siroky

Safe, respectful and empowering

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Unschooling is the opposite of both authoritarian and hands-off parenting. It's neither about creating rules to remote parent nor about letting kids jump off cliffs. It's about being more involved in kids lives. It's about accompanying them as they explore, helping them find safe, respectful and empowering ways to tackle what intrigues them.

—Joyce Fetteroll
2009

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

Full, curious, free life

So what is unschooling? It's learning by living life. It's living a full, curious, free life with parents who support, encourage and help their kids pursue what interests them (while making opportunities available to expand their interests).

Unschooled children learn as a side effect of doing.

—Joyce Fetteroll

JoyfullyRejoycing.com/first-questions
photo by Diana Jenner
___
❖

See everything

When parents see how and what their children are actually learning instead of just scanning for the half dozen school-things, unschooling will make sense to the parents. If you wait for school to congeal from a busy life, you'll keep being disappointed. If you learn to see everything instead of just school things, unschooling will start working for you. When you see it you will believe it.

SandraDodd.com/seeingit
photo by Ester Siroky

Learning is learning

Learning is learning whether or not it's planned or recorded or officially on the menu. Calories are calories whether or not the eating is planned or recorded or officially on the menu.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/unschool/moredefinitions
photo by Robin Bentley, of exotic German... (not French fries, but something)
__

Learning effortlessly

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

School is to unschooling as foreign language class is to learning to talk. The first is orderly, thorough, hard and hardly works. The second is chaotic, random, effortless and works like a charm."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/definitions
photo by Sandra Dodd

To begin with...

Until a person stops doing the things that keep unschooling from working, unschooling can't begin to work.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sylvia Toyama

Enough to share

Energy is shared, and that's how unschooling works. Whether I'm excited about something new, or my children are excited about something new, there's still newness and excitement enough to share.

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Chrissy Florence
__

Important little things

"Listen and watch when they want to show you something. It might seem like a little thing to watch what your child wants to show you, but it’s important to them and it matters to them! The little things are the big things!"

—Laurie Wolfrum

Trust can grow
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Descriptive and unlimited

I think that an unschooler's checklist should look more like the five senses and past/future than like "science, history, language, math, maybe-music-art-physical education."   Because that model is prescriptive and limiting.  And the other is descriptive and unlimited.

SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Sandra Dodd

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
__

Into her world

Karen James wrote: Helping facilitate a good experience is different for each person. It depends on what they are interested in and why. It depends on how they want to explore whatever it is. Bring some of her interests into her world, not by suggestion, but by learning enough about her interests to be able to converse about whatever-it-is. Maybe even try it yourself. Find places or folks to visit where those interests are practiced, where she might have a dabble too. Maybe she'll want to dive deeper. Maybe not. —Karen James

Being your child's PARTNER, not his adversary
photo by Amber Ivey
__

A better tongue twister

Any better's better than no better.


Ideas, Quotes and Affirmations
photo by Robin Bentley
__

Familiar and unfamiliar

If everything is unfamiliar, it's hard to think about what it is at all. If everything is too familiar, it can escape notice and conscious thought.

Learning happens best at the edge, where something familiar has a difference. Something is not the same, in an otherwise understandable scene.



Angle
photo by Ester Siroky

What and Why?

The when is now, the who is you,
the where is where you are.

The remaining questions are
what are you doing, and why?

If you don't know what you're doing, it might be good to relax and reconsider. Start fresh, and with purpose.

If you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, that could be reason enough to take a break.

SandraDodd.com/5ws
photo by Lisa J Haugen