Feel full

If you dwell in the empty half of your glass, life will feel empty. If you dwell in the full half of your glass, life will feel full.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Abundance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Interesting information

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Take them to the grocery store.

...While you're there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

How about a pineapple—bought one fresh, lately? Talked about Hawaii? Just say, "Aloha," while handing the kids a slice. Or, maybe you'll get really into the whole idea of Hawaii and you'll see connections everywhere—Hawaiian shirts at the thrift store, flowers to me leis, someone playing a ukelele, a video of a volcano exploding (maybe that will inspire you to want to make your own volcano with baking soda and vinegar).

I'm not saying to prepare a lesson on cactus or coconuts or pineapples. I'm saying that if you're not already an interesting person with interesting information to share with your children, then you'll have to make an effort to be more interesting. The way to do that is to develop your own sense of curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm.

—Pam Sorooshian

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Escape, Relaxation, Stories

Escapism isn't a bad thing.

Relaxation is a great thing.

Taking in stories and ideas is a healthy human thing that's been happening since cavemen sat around fires (or since Adam and Eve started comparing notes about what they might've seen or eaten that day, if you prefer that).


When I came to see whether the quote above had been used,
I searched for "cavemen" and found
Elvis, Barbie and Rebellion.
The quote above is from "Safe on the Couch"
photo by Jo Isaac

The river of newness

Emily Strength wrote:

"The pop culture of today is the history of tomorrow."

I responded:

This is true of music, clothing, food, hairstyles, slang, cars, kitchen design, dishes, shoes, musical instruments (think of pianos or guitars you have known—which were from the 19th century, maybe, or early 20th, or 1970's, or recently made by Yamaha which kicks musical... butt).

Any of those topics could lead to very many trails involving technology, international trade, cultural borrowings, religion (why didn't I say "kicks ass" above? It would have disturbed some people, and now it still can; sorry), superstition, money...

The science of today is the "What were they THINKING!?" of tomorrow [as we shake our heads and roll our eyes about scientific fallacies of the past, until they are (many of them, individually, sometimes randomly) shown to have been fact after all].

The proper language and punctuation of today will irritate those not yet born, in 35 years.

Find this river of newness becoming history that's flowing right around and through us all, and learn to ride it openly and happily if you can!

—Sandra Dodd

History and Unschooling
photo by Amy Milstein

A very peaceful quiet

Esther Maria Rest wrote:

At first I thought we should go out and do something somewhere today, to do some kind of 'activity', but then if I felt into what I really wanted it was just to spend time in the garden and with my boys, and they were fine with that. When we were all outside, one in the hammock, another one observing the frogs, and me weeding and planting I remarked on how quiet it is, and my oldest said, 'yes, but it is a very peaceful quiet'. And we all enjoyed our very peaceful, quiet day, studying what interests us, playing games, laughing, thinking, and just being quiet, together.

—Esther Maria Rest

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Lydia Koltai
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Inside the learner

Joyce Fetteroll wrote, on Quora:

Here's a good collection of thoughts on the difference between Teaching vs. Learning. The primary difference is where the focus is. When the focus is on what's happening inside the learner, it doesn't matter what the source is. It can be TV, a mother, an activity, a mistake. It doesn't matter. When kids are engaged, they're learning. When the focus is on the teacher (or source) it shines a spotlight on the presentation rather than the effect. If the students aren't engaged, the teacher might as well be singing and dancing in an empty room. Engagement is what matters, not teaching.

What Teaching Never Can Be

—Joyce Fetteroll

Can those who didn't/couldn't/wouldn't "learn", teach teachers anything?
photo by Lisa J Haugen

Rational responses

There's a very old joke about a man saying "Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this," and the doctor replying, "Well don't do that."

When someone comes to a radical unschooling discussion to complain about their children's response to bedtimes or limits or "having to" read, they won't get the help they think they want. They will get advice to stop doing that. People will point out that the parents' actions and expectations are the problem, and the children's responses are rational and maybe inevitable.

Where is the edge of unschooling?
(quote from page 38 or 41 of The Big Book of Unschooling)
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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It's not magic.

Joyce Fetteroll wrote, on quora.com:

So much stress could be avoided if parents had realistic expectations of their child's development. If a child's actions say, "I'm not ready yet," they aren't ready.. . . .
It’s important to note that you aren’t seeing a random sample of children at restaurants. The wise parents of kids who aren’t yet ready to handle a restaurant meal don’t bring them to restaurants. It’s not magic. It’s wisdom.

—Joyce Fetteroll

(Question about children in a restaurant)
photo by Jill Parmer
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The mom I wish I'd had

"Being the mom I wish I'd had has been very healing. It's been the closest thing to having that mom I could achieve with the cards I was dealt."

—Jessica Hughes

SandraDodd.com/healing
Sydney Andersen's Guinea Pig
photo by Jen Keefe

Different and ever-changing needs

"'Unschooling' bed time and meals is about responding to each child's different and ever-changing needs."

—Holly Blossom

Learning that children's needs are different and ever-changing is the path to mindful parenting. If a parent can be aware and responsive in one area, it's easy to expand into others. Some parents understand it first with "academic learning" (before they accept the connections in all learning). Some understand it first about food, or clothing. It will all connect, though, the same way the trivia children learn will coalesce into a body of knowledge.

The Holly Blossom quote is from writing newly added to the Bedtime page.
photo by Ester Siroky

Temporary elephant

Talia Bartoe:

This picture reminded me of all the interesting pictures in the "just add light and stir" posts. The kids had big smiles for the "elephant cloud."

Sandra Dodd:

Seems it would have a trumpeting sound! :-) It's very cool, and lit up!

Talia Bartoe

The lighting was perfect. It was funny to us as we had spotted elephant statues earlier at a new-to-us park.

SandraDodd.com/connections/
photo by Talia Bartoe

Informal and natural learning

I don't really know the magic words to get people to be calm and realistic about expectations and results. To proceed without looking into the school-windows-of-their-minds all the time.

There is no switch I can flip. Just as with other teaching/learning situations, all the learning takes place inside the learner. None can be inserted by a teacher.

If budding unschoolers will look at how they learned things outside the classroom, and use that as a model and a goal, that helps. They don't really have to hunt down other unschooling families, although it doesn't hurt. A family isolated from other unschoolers might do well to brainstorm examples of things they've learned informally and naturally, and to look around for other people learning things in the same manner.

An Interview with Sandra Dodd by Emily Subler, 1998
photo by Ester Siroky

Nine Years of Adding Light

September 2 is Just Add Light and Stir's anniversary! Thank you for reading.

Nine was one of my favorite age, in childhood. I was able to do new and bigger things. I liked my teacher. I felt strong, and smart. If you have a nine-year-old child at your house, think of me. 😊

If your only or oldest child is younger than that, this blog will be filled with posts and photos you've never seen! Have fun. There is a randomizer, on the web version, upper right. If you usually read this on a phone, consider spending some time at a computer, where the format and colors are nicer, and there are resources in the sidebar.

Having forgotten I had written and scheduled the tasteful, quiet note above, I came in and worked long on the following fizzy-whizzy post. The one above is better, but I hate to throw all this out. So, BONUS! I'm sending both as one.

I didn't make a cake this year. 😊 It would have been a good year for it. I have a granddaughter who spent a lot of the summer learning to decorate cakes, but I didn't plan ahead.

Last year, on the 8th anniversary, there was a cake photo and I wrote "May the richness and riches of this trove of words and photos seep into your soul and give you sweet dreams and good ideas."

At the end of Year 7, I posted from the Free to Be conference, in Phoenix. There's a photo of me and some others there. I wrote, in part, "I hope some of the posts have helped you be patient, and to smile. Thanks for reading!"

For the sixth anniversary, in 2016, I confessed to having not noticed the fifth.

Fourth anniversary, another homemade cake. My shared message that day is still good:

"Thank you for looking, for reading, for thinking. Thank you for being a conduit for peaceful ideas."

By then there were way over 1000 posts. Somehow I hadn't projected very far out into the future. I do think more in words than in numbers. 😊

I didn't remember the third anniversary, but I made a post worth remembering. When I went to get the link, I stabilized and repaired the photo a bit too, so good! How will you be?
Second anniversary, I wrote "Thank you for reading, for trying these ideas at home, and for sharing them with your friends." I set up a gift exchange. I should do that again for the 10th anniversary! Postage outside the U.S. has become very expensive, though. I might need only flat gifts outside the U.S. I could probably do well with that, if I plan ahead, though! This cake, I bought:


On the first anniversary, I wrote about my methodology and concerns, and everything there is still true.

And the first post ever, about having created the blog at someone's request: The Very First Post, and why, September 2, 2010.

Best wishes to all readers, and to those who will randomly come across this in the future!

About Unschooling (site news)
photos by Sandra Dodd (photos are links)
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Peaceful communication

Peace, in an exchange, has to do with tone of voice, eyes, posture, attitude, intention, compassion—all the non-verbal communications that go with words and actions. Don't underestimate your child's ability to read beneath and around and beyond your statements. You would do well to try to read behind his words, too.

Parenting Peacefully page of The Big Book of Unschooling
(Page 243 of new edition; 209 of older version)
photo by Sandra Dodd, at an old house in France

Learning however and whenever

Learn however and whenever you can, and remember no one person has everything you need.

That's what I wrote about what I took from the film "Searching for Bobby Fischer," from 1993. If you haven't seen it, consider watching it with unschooling in mind. The image is a still from that movie.



It's based on a true story, and the actor (Max Pomeranc) was a highly-ranked chess player for his age. They cast a chess player so he wouldn't need to pretend to be playing chess in the film.

If you want to know more about the person he was playing, and what happened in later years, the real Josh Waitzkin wrote this: The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance. He tells some chess stories, but the book is largely how he became a martial arts champion in his twenties. He reads his own audiobook. I've heard it. His ideas about formal learning are not as unschooling-friendly as the story in the movie is, but hearing it (or reading it) from an unschooling point of view won't change your satisfaction about what you and your children are learning.

Just in case films and audiobooks make you feel guilty, there's a new page on my site:
What about Audiobooks?

One peaceful moment

There is a song from the 1950's that is sometimes sung in churches and meetings, and the first line is "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." Every bit of peace makes the world more peaceful. If you can engineer one peaceful moment, you can have two or ten.


from "Comforts," page 12 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Gail Higgins
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Words and thoughts

Words and thoughts are what you will use to change your beliefs and behaviors.

Mindful of Words

Live well

Don't "model" and "teach." Live. You will be a giant step nearer to radical unschooling if you can see that difference.

SandraDodd.com/being/
photo by Samuel Siroky

Inevitable needs

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Reading is inevitable in a nuturing atmosphere where the person sees a need to read.
. . . .
Teachers, even specialists in a particular field of learning, are experts *only* on schooled kids who have school goals to meet by a specific age. They don't realize that those kids aren't natural kids. They don't realize that school is a huge contributing factor in the children's behavior because school, like oxygen, is apparently universal. They have no idea what a natural child is like.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Some Thoughts about Learning to Read
photo by Brie Jontry
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Willing to learn

One of the best things about radical unschooling is how much parents can learn, if they are willing.

Sometimes, a little examination
photo by Joyce Fetteroll

Impermanent beauty

The peaceful beauty of a sleeping child, a young woman, beautiful food, a flower, a building—nothing lasts forever. Beauty might only last a moment, a day, a year, and will change.

See what is lovely.

Love what is loveable, and remember to expect it to slip away.

photo by Karen James, of found art
and another, found by Lisa Jonick
(backup)

Now that I think of it, though, most photos are of found and fleeting art.
I'm grateful to all those who have let me share their photos here.

Choose to have fun!

"Choose to have fun! Fear will hold you back. Guilt and shame will set in to cloud thinking and stunt progress. Having the courage to have fun in whatever pursuit thrills you most will most likely lead you to places you never expected to go." —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/videogames/seriously
photo by Lisa Jonick

Being appreciated

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Be someone they want to do things for. We can't make people appreciate us. But we can become people they feel appreciate them and they will want to return that appreciation.

Be someone people will want to show appreciation for—and much of this applies to how we treat our spouses (and friends) too!

—Joyce Fetteroll

Getting kids (and spouses!) to appreciate what you do
photo by Gail Higgins

Some ideas for beginning

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


Though homeschooling is becoming more common, it is still confusing to outsiders. That's understandable, as it can be quite confusing from the inside.

Don't do what you don't understand.

Beginning Unschooling: Some ideas
photo by Lisa Jonick
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Better, kinder tools

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Someone said that principles can be summed up in one word. Rules can't. I'm not sure if I can always do that but it's a helpful distinction to get someone started on figuring out the difference.


For instance a principle might be kindness. A rule is "Don't hit your sister." If there's a principle of treating each other kindly then there isn't a need for a rule that says "Don't hit." "Don't hit," only says "Don't hit." Kids do pick up that it doesn't say don't pinch, don't poke until she cries, don't pull hair ... But as a child is helped to find better (kinder) tools to use to get what they want and their understanding of kindness grows it's understood that anything that hurts someone is unkind so there isn't a need to spell out every hurtful thing that kids aren't allowed to do.

—Joyce

SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Sandra Dodd

Save some tickets.

...it's the idea that when a baby is born, the parents get a coupon book of "NO" tickets. After they're gone, they're gone. Some parents say "no" so much to a baby and toddler that she's through listening to them by the time she's three. You need to save some for the big stuff, when they're teens, and the big win is if the child grows up and the parents never used 300 Serious "NO" tickets.

---

Someone quoted me in 2011, with the words above. I don't know where I wrote it, or spoke it. Sometimes I've said 200 tickets, for that story.

Save some tickets. 😊

Don't use up all your tickets
and
Rationing "No"
photo by Ester Siroky

No food fights

“Child-led weaning” and all the food awareness that went with that did a world of good for us, too. We never had fights over food with our children. They wanted to try what grownups were eating, and they were never pressed to eat anything they didn’t like the look or smell or taste of. They were free to spit it in my hand if they wanted to.

I’m sure the common La Leche League phrase “child-led weaning” resulted in the phrase “child-led learning” which many apply to unschooling, but after nearly 20 years of unschooling, I think “child-led learning” is a detrimental concept that keeps parents from creating and maintaining busy, rich lives with lots of choices.

About attachment parenting, in this interview from 2009
monkey platter by Robyn Coburn

Reading will happen.

Reading will happen, and if it takes longer for your child than you think it will, keep them happy and distracted in the meantime. As their experience and vocabulary grow, their reading will be that much more effortless the day they're fully equipped to understand the written word.

Three Readers
photo by Quita Gray
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Hobbies and interests

My children’s interests affected mine, and ours affected theirs, and so there’s not a great dividing line between my hobbies and interests and friends and theirs. They have friends of all ages, as do I. I have hobbies I’ve had all my life, some of which one or more of my kids have picked up and some of which are still just mine.


Acceptance
photo by Ester Siroky
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Happiness and joy

Cynicism and pessimism are poison and will destroy families and learning.

Happiness and joy will create more happiness and joy. Families and learning and the individuals within the families will be better off!

20 Unschooling Questions: Sandra Dodd from NM, USA
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Changing focus

"I focussed on making sure that my son's life was better, bigger, more sparkly, and had none of the 'have to's' that my life had." —Jo Isaac

The path to peace
photo by Jonathan Medina
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Set the stage

Radical unschooling works the same way for every child. Pay attention to what he's interested in. Don't force things. Provide interesting items and situations, be patient and loving, and learning will happen. The more it happens, the more it will continue to happen.

Kids want to learn
photo by Roya Dedeaux
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Curiosity reignited

"Once I started to see how interesting so many things are, it reignited my curiosity about life. Now, my kids and I have a great time following our own, or mutual, curiosities together and one thing *always* leads to another. Always!"

—Jen Keefe

Connections
photo by Ester Siroky
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