Accommodations

The more that parents can accommodate children's simple desires, the calmer and happier those children will be.

Nice, and patient
photo by Destiny Dodd

Curiosity and beauty

You can't see beauty without wanting to see some. Once you're looking through curiosity-tinted glasses, you will see a thousand interesting things.


(a little longer, on facebook)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sorry... here's news

I've missed a couple of days. I could tell stories, but the highlights would be:

• computer damage (it's in the shop, but that's where the photos are for this)
• new granddaughter named Tommy (she's in NICU, but she is okay—preemie, but healthy)
• remodelling had some problems that stressed me (back on track now)

There have been other frights and frustrations, but everyone is alive and mostly healthy. I was unable to get in here, and might be gone another few days, but I'll be back! Probably. 🙂

Good thing there's a randomizer. Good thing there are way over 3,000 posts you can peruse, revisit, frolic in.

Best wishes, and be happy,

Sandra


photo by Sandra Dodd

Don't always finish what you start

The only things that should be finished are those things that seem worthwhile to do. . . . .
Wanting your children to learn to ignore their own judgment in favor of following a rule is not beneficial to them or to you. It will not help them learn.

Thoughts about finishing what you start
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Look at the moon

I don't look at the moon enough. Sometimes when I do, it amazes me.

Sometimes the moon seems to be the same old moon. Sometimes it doesn't show at all. Sometimes it shows in the daytime.


Perhaps, look at your child more. Sometimes when you do, it might amaze you.

SandraDodd.com/look.html
photo by Gail Higgins

Big world, and full

"When we can we should always do more, offer more, think more, and make our bit of the world as big and full as we can for our kids. Our kid's lives get bigger and better when our thinking gets bigger and better." —Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/quotes/
photo by Jo Isaac

The same but different

Some things are the same at a distance, or when the details are unimportant.

Up close, even things that are "the same" can be very different.

What you're doing, what people think you're doing, what you wish you were doing, all might be very different. By careful comparison and contrast, we can clarify our vision. Save the effort for things you care about, though.

Comparisons
photo by Cass Kotrba, who wrote
"These beets I grew are such beautiful colors! I have never seen a white beet before. They came from a beet mix from Seed Trust."
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Laughing and playing and singing

I did my time in and around school, and learned things painstakingly and grudgingly that my children later learned while laughing and playing and singing. I have guarded my children's freedom and given them happy choices that I didn't have.


SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty in the 20th century
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The right way to live

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

What you can do is *live* your right view. *Be* the person you believe it is right to be. If you believe it's best to be kind, be kind to her. If you believe it is best to be respectful, be respectful of her. *Don't* do it because you expect her to act that way. Do it because you believe it's the right way to live.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Healing Presence, when things have not been going well
photo by Karen James
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Aiming the spotlight

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

I once described the difference between teaching and learning as where you shine the spotlight. In teaching, the spotlight is on the teacher. There may or may not be a learner taking in what the teacher is doing.

With learning, the spotlight is on the learner. The source is unimportant. There might be a teacher. There might be a set of blocks. There might just be the learner's thoughts.

If that's called "teaching" then it pulls the spotlight away from the learner. The light shines on the source as if it were the actor in the process.

I think parents like to feel like a child's learning is their project. If the teacher isn't in the spotlight, then something they aren't in control of or directing is happening.

—Joyce Fetteroll

The photo is re-run from Clearer and larger
photo by Julie D.
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Tree appreciation

Sometimes food does grow on trees. Here are some apples in Los Luceros, New Mexico, yesterday. There are apples on trees in lots of places in the northern hemisphere this month. There are some places where apple trees can't grow. Sometimes fruit grows on trees, sometimes nuts do. Some trees have flowers or blossoms. Some only have lots of leaves, or pine needles if they're evergreens. Tree shade is good. Oxygen grows on trees.

Trees need...
photo by Gina Trujillo

some other "Add Light" trees

Viewpoint

The camper from which this photo was taken has been moving around Europe extensively, so the view changes, but the doorway stays about the same. This day, they were in Turkey.

What we perceive is seen through our own eyes. Even looking at a photo, we see what WE see, of what the photographer saw. Our thoughts can't be theirs. What it smelled like can't be conveyed, or how it sounded.

Some scenes and places and stories, dishes, houses, I have shared with my husband and children, but still their perceptions and memories can only be their own. This is a good thing, and good to remember.

Center of the Universe
photo by Ester Siroky

Relationship, trust and peace

The relationship, the trust, and peace, are what will help learning work.


Relationships and wholeness
photo by Gail Higgins

Giving

"Just as giving a gift can be as enjoyable as receiving one, giving unconditional love has been as beautiful as receiving it and it has alleviated many longstanding pains that I once thought would be permanent."

—Jessica Hughes

Healing
photo by Roya Dedeaux
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Change it up

"Things change when you change things." —Holly Dodd (Bitsy)

Thoughts on Changing
photo by Karen James
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Good parents, good lives

If parents focus on being good parents rather than expecting marriage or children to make the parents' lives good, every single life involved will improve right then.

A good mom
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Some things are better

If someone wants to unschool well, positivity is better than negativity. Gratitude is better than resentment. Optimism is better than pessimism.

Choices in Parenting, Unschooling and the rest of Life
photo by Cass Kotrba
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Investigation and exploration

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

I do not refer to unschooling as “child-led learning” and I encourage others not to use that term because I think overuse of it has led to some pretty serious misunderstanding of what unschooling is really like.

The term, “child-led learning,” does emphasize something very important — that the child is the learner! I couldn’t agree more. However, it also disregards the significant role played by the parent in helping and supporting and, yes, quite often taking the lead, in the investigation and exploration of the world that is unschooling.

—Pam Sorooshian

(Read the rest at the link below.)

Unschooling is not “Child-Led Learning”
photo by Karen James

Accidental art

Deb Lewis spotted these beautiful shadows, that don't match what we see and think, of bees. The sun doesn't know it created that accidental art. The water was unaware. I doubt the bees were looking.


Deb saw, though, and now we can see.

Does it matter than the bees are gone now, and the water, too?

You will see things, in your children, for a moment, that others don't see or know. Let the moment pass; look forward to new surprises.

Impermanent beauty
photo by Deb Lewis

Improvise!

Be sweetly and courageously creative.

Old and New (creativity)
photo by Lydia Koltai

Connections build and grow

Once you start looking for connections and welcoming them, it creates a kind of flow that builds and grows.

Once you start looking for connections...
photo by Amy Cromwell

Thoughtful choices

"One of the wonderful things about unschooling is that we come to understand that children are learning all the time. Knowing that, we can make thoughtful choices about how we'd like to influence that learning. We cannot control what is learned, but we can create an environment in which joyful learning can thrive."

—Karen James

Patience
photo by Sarah Anderson Thimmes
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Connections and thoughts

Remembering, considering, thinking, playing, resting—all of those are part of learning.

What a person thinks isn't as important as the thinking itself is.

Connections are being made.

Quiet idea-journeys
photo by Janine Davies
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Change is coming

Things are going to change. You are going to change, too.

Keep your balance!

Knowing in advance that winter is coming, or summer—it still kinda surprises me.

Be prepared to be accepting.

Thoughts on Changing
photo by Gail Higgins
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Action, rethinking and healing

For me, the action/rethinking/healing all work together. I have comforted my "inner child" by comforting my own children. I have felt like a stronger, better person by being a stronger, better mom. Then it's not imagination, it's reality.

Helping them grow up whole helped me feel more full and whole myself.

Changing the present, healing the past, hope for the future
(from a comment I made there)
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Play with your food

You can play with your food and eat it too.

Cass Kotrba wrote: "I am enjoying making vegetable art lately. Today we have scarlet nantes, atomic red and purplesnax carrots posing for a photo shoot before becoming pickled ginger carrots."

Artsy Collections
photo by Cass Kotrba
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Learning not to teach

The more a parent thinks that something needs to be taught,
the less faith they'll have that things can be learned.



Deschooling
photo by Karen James

Many little changes

Regret and remorse, about things that can be rectified and improved, are valuable. If a mom sees even a tiny way she might do better, and she tries that out, and her child smiles or relaxes, maybe she could do it again later that day or the next day. From that new position, she might try one more little change.

How many little changes would move someone from stress and frustration to a more relaxed, a more comfortable place? It can be the very same *physical* place—same kitchen, same car, same bedroom—but can the children feel more at ease? More heard or seen or loved?

Thoughts on Changing
photo by Gail Higgins
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Grasp relaxation

Where are your feet? Where are your hands?

Can you do something kind or useful with them? Something gentle and generous?

Where are your thoughts?

Question Platitudes
photo by Ester Siroky
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Wet agapanthus

Be interested, and interesting. Be the bearer of minor good news, with a smile.

People in wet climates value dry, sunshiny times. I live in the desert where people LOVE the rare rain.

These differences are special, and good.

Normal or exotic?
photo by Sandra Dodd

Living, seeing, knowing

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

The proof is in the living! I will keeping on living the life that I'm living, because I KNOW it works, I SEE it. I don't doubt it at all! Other people will have to come to their own epiphany. I really like that word for KNOWing unschooling. I have little epiphanies all the time and on occasion a big one.

—Jenny Cyphers

This writing is what Schuyler referred to in Slowly amazing
photo by Megan Oriah
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What "is" isn't all.

Words, ideas, reality... it's fun to rearrange and examine what we see, and claim, and name. It's good, sometimes, when kids can do "real things"=—the things adults do. Useful things, maybe dangerous things. Historical things. Traditional methods, or modern high tech, or what was high tech in the industrial revolution. Science, history, language, technology, materials, mystery and manufacturing—revel in your knowledge and discoveries! Let life be exciting.

Most things are many things
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Lovely assistants

Learning is internal. Teachers are lovely assistants at best, and detrimental at worst. "Teaching" is just presentation of material. It doesn't create learning.

SandraDodd.com/unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd, out the front window
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