Mysteries and clues

Mysteries and clues can be nice, on a day when it's okay to decide which way to go on a whim or a coin toss. Even when "random" isn't on the schedule, be open to unexpected new directions.

SandraDodd.com/open
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Trust can grow

"There are many things one can trust as one begins unschooling. Draw on what you know about your child, your partner and yourself to nurture confidence. Trust in unschooling will deepen and grow as one gains understanding and experience. Oh! Which reminds me! I trusted that others who had unschooled their children successfully before me knew some things (a lot of things, it turned out) that could help me. That trust grew as I tried some of the things people suggested and they proved to be very useful."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames/trust
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Discovering ways to help

I do love words. I love their history. I love their sounds, and their power. I love the way they can reveal fears and other emotions, and prejudices and confusions. It's not that I like to see those things revealed, but when people are looking for clarity and we're trying to help them, it's good to see where they're limping or hurting, as it were.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A little more

A little more time. A little more patience. A little more joy. A little more calm.

SandraDodd.com/calm
photo by Janine Davies

What big eyes you have!

Since I was little, I have loved the line, "Grandma, what big eyes you have," from Red Riding Hood. It's a good line.

What can you see if you look far away or close up, or with your eyes closed, "with your mind's eye"?

The New Mexico State Museum of Natural History has microscopes. I took a bug there. If you click that, I think you can get an image you can zoom in on to see his eyes, his toes, his wings. How can you see that? Other people helped you see.

SandraDodd.com/seeing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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More than they seem

All the entertainment, office tools, art, music, trivia and humor that used to take people two or three rooms to store can be accessed with a tablet computer now, or a smart phone, or a laptop. They are lit-up windows to people, places, languages, recipes and sites to order the ingredients and cookware.

You can make photos and video, sound recordings, send art, letters, old photos, to family, friends and strangers. The Jetsons' video phone wasn't nearly as good as Skype is.

Be grateful for your wifi and the sweet things you can find and share.



SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Alive and breathing

There is a depth of understanding, and a practice of many years, that make unschooling work well. Joining a group, or subscribing to a magazine, or going to a conference (or a dozen conferences) isn't what it's about. Unschooling lives (is alive; breathes; functions) where the learning is happening. The learning is supported and fed by the relationships between the parents and chidren.



SandraDodd.com/change/not
photo by Karen James

Again, again!

“No-one is ever likely to read my whole website and I don’t ever need them to. It’s not written to be read from one end to the other any more than a pharmacy is intended for someone to start at one end and eat, drink or inject every substance in the whole room. If you find a page that does help you, guess what? It will help even more if you read it again after a year or two. And if you read it after you’ve been unschooling for five years it will seem that the first time it was a black and white postcard and now it’s a technicolor movie. Because you’ll understand it better and you’ll see the subtlety and the artistry of what people wrote and maybe you’ll wish you’d been able to understand it better sooner.” ~ Sandra Dodd

Changes in Parents (episode of Pam Laricchia's interview podcast)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Energy and joy

I have noticed how much energy unschooling parents are willing to put into their kid's joy.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Megan Valnes
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Interesting, wet and chilly

From Deb Lewis's list of things to do in winter:

I have found so many interesting things to do around our little town just by talking with people and asking questions. I ask everyone questions about what they like to do, etc. I have met so many people with interesting hobbies who have been happy to share what they know with my son and show him their collections.
. . . .
Cool things are everywhere, summer and winter. David and Dylan went to the tennis court on Sunday and tried to play with snow balls. There's no snow now so what ever we do this weekend will be wet and chilly, but we'll find something.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Heather Booth

Electric guitars, or Egypt

What aspect of some particular subject involves objective truth? What is folklore or mythology? What literature or fantasy has come about based on that subject or item? Consider dragons, or India, or snakes, or rainbows. Checklist Abe Lincoln, the discovery of fire, or the depths of Lake Superior. Plot WWII, Japan, electric guitars, or Egypt.

SandraDodd.com/checklists
photo by Sandra Dodd, in a pawn shop
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Still

Sometimes, be still. Don't be still all the time—kids and life are busy, busy, busy! Notice moments of stillness, and breathe there. Music without any quiet parts can turn into too much noise.

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Beauty and softness

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

It's such a big part of our culture to get it done now, fix it all now, make it happen now, do, do, do, do. Sometimes what life really requires is calm and patience. A very valuable thing to learn in life is to how to take care of ourselves and others during times of stress and times that aren't ideal and wonderful.

I think that's part of "stopping and smelling the roses." If you don't take that time, you miss some pretty wonderful bits of life. When there is stress and other negative influences happening around us, it's even MORE important to take that time to seek out the beauty and the softness and the sweet and light and happy things.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Not what was expected

Life is like this:

Some things that used to be easy become more difficult.

Some things that used to be difficult become easy.

Things we thought would be around forever are gone.

Things we never could have imagined would exist are here.


SandraDodd.com/impermanence
chalk lettering and photo by Sandra Dodd
(There's my first cellphone, for scale—I liked that little flip phone.)

Easier, more manageable

Deb Lewis wrote:

The more you're aware of how good things are when they are good, the easier it will be to wade through the times when things are less good. If you're aware of how lucky you are, everyday problems by comparison can seem smaller, and more manageable."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/nature
photo by Janine Davies
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Geek intelligence

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has a category that explains serious hobbyists, gamers, and comic-book collectors:

Naturalist intelligence involves recognizing and categorizing things. Birds and clouds, certainly. Trees. But it also applies to flags, heraldry, automobiles, computer components... the talent for recognizing a widget or a seed seems to be the same.

If your child knows all the Pokémon and their stages, a hundred Minecraft tricks, or the history and evolution of My Little Pony, this is a strong ability to discern the nature of things—to identify and analyze. Each child will have other intelligences, too, and those blend together to help him or her learn easily and to make fun connections.

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
(The middle paragraph is on that page, the rest I added here just today!)
Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions
photo by Andrea Quenneville

Life changes

Impermanence is irritating, but can also be a relief.

A few centuries ago, people believed strongly in the wheel of fortune—that circumstances would change, and did change, and that nothing good or bad would last forever.

You can't keep air, or save rain. Clouds are wet and wispy.

The weather of the soul
photo by Sandra Dodd

Trees let the light in

When the shady days end, deciduous trees do us a favor and let the sun shine through to help keep the ground warmer.

If you've seen this happen 20 or 40 times before, remember that to children it's exciting and wonderful. Slow down and see what they're seeing.

Happy Springtime to readers in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.

Equatorial folk, keep enjoying your tropical flowers and birds. Know that you live with beauty that most others will never see in person.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Andrea Justice

Oxygen

Get oxygen into that part of you that fears the tiny monsters.

SandraDodd.com/TinyMonsters
photo by Gail Higgins
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Luck in life

People come and go and we change each other. We amuse each other if we're lucky and frustrate each other if we're not so lucky.

SandraDodd.com/philosophy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning about food

Moms feel self-righteous when they worry. And they sometimes feel fantastic when other moms approve of their concerns. While the moms are congratulating each other about being so controlling, the poor kids are sad and hungry.

Chat transcript, discussing the pages on food in The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by JR Terry

Purposes and principles

Something that inspired me to choose principles over rules:

We were at my mother-in-law's house and I offered to help with dishes, so she set me to dry, as she washed. The dish towel got so wet it wasn't doing any good, so I asked for a dry one. She said "Just use that one."

I continued to "help," but it was NOT helping. I was just wiping a wet cloth on already-wet dishes, which wasn't drying them at all.

If the principle of helping is to make things better, and if the principle of drying dishes is to wipe them dry, I was twice removed from what I had intended to do.

SandraDodd.com/rulebound
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Effects and causes

I liked the shadow this basket was making on the wall and floor of my bathroom. You can see inside the basket which part the light shone on to make the pattern. Every bit of the shadow corresponds to part of the basketweave, and to the angle of the light.

What you do shines on, and sometimes through, your children. You affect them, and others can see the effect.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Sandra Dodd

Live here now

Live with your children in the moment, and the moment is not in the past.
Live with your child in the moment, in the world where you are.



SandraDodd.com/reality/
photo by Megan Valnes

Everything is better

The better people have examined and come to peace with their childhoods, the better they are in every moment. Not just with children, but with other adults and alone with themselves. Sleep is better, eating is better, everything is better.

SandraDodd.com/deschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

New eyes

Joyce wrote:

Don't teach. Just look at *everything* with new eyes....

Just live life amazed.

—Joyce Fetteroll

To read the long middle part I left out, go to:
SandraDodd.com/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Really out there

Ronnie Maier, years ago:

The collected minds on unschooling.com were my primary inspiration. Actually, my first reaction was, "These people are really out there!" But as I read a lot (LOT) of information about homeschooling, those unschooling voices kept calling me. The seeds were planted, and I began to see in our lives—even while our kids were in school—what the people "out there" were talking about. By the time we officially pulled our kids out of school, I was 80% an unschooler. One math lesson after that, it was closer to 90%.

—Ronnie Maier

SandraDodd.com/day/meme
(The message board named was once marvelous, but is long gone.)
photo by Chrissy Florence