Gradual and constant improvement

Those who really want to unschool well should probably read something every day or three, from my site, or Joyce's or somewhere. Waiting until there's a problem and asking a narrow question will not be as good as gradually and constantly improving one's understanding to the point that there aren't many problems.

SandraDodd.com/search
(Those who read here every day might be okay,
but you might want to follow the link, too.)
photo by Megan Valnes

Social interactions

If you turn 180 degrees away from the myth and fantasy of how many friends kids have at school, and look at the real world in which you plan to live, things will look different.

Find people to visit, find places to go where other people will be. Begin to see people as people, rather than as pre-schoolers or school-age, or second grade. Just practicing that will take you MUCH nearer to peace about interactions with other people.


SandraDodd.com/socialization
photo by Janine

Quiet courage

Deb Lewis wrote:

There was a study...that found babies could quickly learn the names of objects they found interesting but not of objects that didn’t interest them. And if they heard only the name of a boring object but could see an interesting object, they attached the name to the interesting thing.

Unschoolers have been thinking about the importance of interest to learning for years.

—Deb Lewis

from "Becoming Courageous", by Deb Lewis
photo by Abby Davis
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Embracing now

Embrace your present moment instead of yearning for what you don't have. I love the saying 'the grass is always greener where you water it.'

—Clare Kirkpatrick

SandraDodd.com/metime
photo by Janine Davies
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Looking and learning

Amy Carpenter wrote:

For us, right where our kids were—loving music and TV and video games—was a great starting place for more. Going to concerts, finding out how different bands have influenced each other, figuring out how people have made the movies they've posted on YouTube, researching FAQs, talking with other gamers, looking up weapons that are used in the video games, playing the music we've heard in video games, pretending and finding new connections through our pretend games, talking through the logic of different strategies, looking up actors on IMDB—all of this keeps leading to more and more learning about how the world works, about how the creative process works.

—Amy Carpenter

SandraDodd.com/activeunschooling
photo by Rhiannon Theurer
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Thinking for fun and profit

Research means reading three or ten places, not just one. Don't consider all sources equal. If you think about it, try it out, and it helps, great! If it doesn't make sense or seems like superstition, be wary.

SandraDodd.com/mentalhealth
photo by Renee Cabatic
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Doing it

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

It seems simple to me. If you're trying to listen for a sound, you have to stop talking and be still.

Some people want to see unschooling while they're still teaching and putzing and assigning and requiring.

They have to stop that FIRST. And then they have to be still. And then they have to look at their child with new eyes.

If they don't, it won't happen.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sukayna, in Lebanon
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Something extraordinary

New from Joyce Fetteroll:

It helped me think more clearly about unschooling when I realized unschooling isn’t something kids do. Unschooling is something parents do. Unschooling is *parents* creating a learning environment for kids to explore their interests in.

Unschooled kids aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary. They’re merely doing what comes naturally. They’re doing what all animals with lengthy childhoods do. They learn by doing what interests them in an environment that gives them opportunities to explore.

Unschooling is parents doing something extraordinary. It’s deliberately creating an environment where kids are supported in pursuing their interests.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Unschooling is... photo by Chrissy Florence ___

More time, less worry

The more time parents spend with their children, doing interesting things together, the less they will worry about other things.


Marta saved the quote from a post on Always Learning.
Here's something similar:
SandraDodd.com/being/with
photo by Karen James, a few years ago,
in a giant wheel in Japan

Helpful and respectful

The most to be accomplished from punishing or sending bored kids away is that the kids will learn not to go to that parent for advice and ideas.

Sometimes the real message behind "I'm bored" is "I'm little and feeling agitated and vaguely unhappy and I don't know what I can do to get over this uncomfortable feeling. What would you do if you were my age, in this house, on a day like this?"

I think that deserves a helpful, respectful response.

SandraDodd.com/BoredNoMore
Lego art by Robbie and Robert Prieto (photo by Robert)

Peace and consideration

Megan Valnes wrote, at Always Learning:

Radical unschooling can bring about such a sense of peace with one's own self, that it can be poured into the being of another. I *enjoy* finding ways to make other people around me comfortable, including my children. I *want* the people who come to my home to enjoy their experience here. Sometimes, we have to bend a little for others, and isn't that empathy? To feel another's feeling and adjust your own reaction to fit their need? Keeping peace has become the number one priority in our home, so sometimes we have to get creative to make that happen! Consideration for others is key.

—Megan Valnes

SandraDodd.com/empathy.html
photo by Megan Valnes
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Deep and wide and whole

Once someone wrote that her child was doing passive things, and had no interest in learning the basics. Amy Carpenter wrote something wonderful about active learning. This is just a bit of it. There's a link to the rest, below.

We recently took Fisher to a Blue Man Group concert—his first real "grown-up" show. Again, I could see all the connections being made—he watched how the instruments were being played, listened to how the sounds and the rhythms came together, jumped and bopped his head and let it all come together inside of him. His knowledge and awareness of music is growing deep and wide—it's not about "the basics," but about a gestalt, a holistic, systemic approach.

When you ask what component you are missing, this is what I keep coming up with. Are you looking in the wrong places? Are you looking for the basics when in fact, your son's knowledge and understanding is deep and wide and whole? What you see as "basic" are just a few Lego pieces that he'll fill in as he goes—but in looking for those, are you missing the incredibly large, whole creation that he's built up?

from Amy Carpenter's writing, here: SandraDodd.com/activeunschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Projects and interests

Make room in your heart and your life and your house for your child's interests.


SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Sandra Dodd

Airy and bright

"Add light" can notch us up into the... lighter light.

It's not just sunshine that's light. There is firelight, candlelight, the glow of an iPad on a happy face, a flashlight under the covers, moonlight.


There can also be light from within—bright eyes, and a warm smile.

Light as in not heavy or ponderous—lighten up in that way, too.

Light humor. A light step. Light music, with a light lunch.

I hope this will bring to light some ways for you to light up your own life and some of the lives around you.

SandraDodd.com/morning
photo by Hannah North
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Because they're people

Meredith Novak wrote:

"A lot of unschooling involves learning how to listen to one another, how to build up understanding and partnership in relationships, rather than tearing it down. Virtually all of the principles of how that works work with husbands as well as kids — not because men are babies, but because men and children are people, and we know a lot of things about how people learn and build relationships."

—Meredith

Becoming a Better Partner (or Meredith's post)
photo by Brandie Hadfield
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A challenge

"Unschooling becomes the ultimate challenge against modern selfishness." —Cathy

SandraDodd.com/howtocomment
(From a longer commentary on Precisely How to Unschool)
photo by Janine Davies
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Safe and peaceful shelter

Shelter your kids from what you know is ugly. Shelter me too, if I'm around.

It's really okay to "cherry pick" in regard to the stories you let into your day. There's enough horror somewhere on the planet at any moment to make us all suicidal, so make it a habit NOT to collect or dwell on those stories. You have a responsibility to create as safe and peaceful a nest as you can for your own family.

Thank you, Heather Booth, for saving that and putting it where I could find it again.
art and photo by Sandra Dodd
(the switchplate near our kitchen sink)

This is a re-run of a post from 2012

Learning and learning and...

I have always looked at learning. Learning was and is my goal—I keep learning, the kids are learning—and one of my principles, and one of my convictions. Children can learn from a rich, supportive environment.

SandraDodd.com/texuns
old photo from carol singing at a nursing home with baby Marty and sleepy Kirby

More doors

We are here now. We have been other places in the past. We will be in surprising places in the future.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Detox, gradually

For a child, deschooling is just the time to relax and get used to being home and with Mom—a child who’s been to school. A child who hasn’t been to school has no deschooling to do. But for parents, deschooling is detoxification from a lifetime, and recovery from all of their schooling and whatever teaching they might have done. And it’s also the start of a gradual review of everything...

They don’t need to do it in advance, they don’t need to do it right at first. It’s so big, but it’s also gradual—it's just like living and breathing and eating and sleeping. Because every day a little more can come to the surface and be examined as it pops up.

Changes in Parents
The quote is from a recent podcast of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
photo by Lisa Jonick

Peace inside

Peace, like learning, is largely internal.

Mother Teresa could have found a more peaceful place than Calcutta, but she was helping people find peace in non-peaceful surroundings.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sukayna
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Small but important

Size, age, volume, cost... Value and priorities, for unschoolers, might begin to surprise you and continue to do so. Don't judge importance too quickly. Learning is everywhere.

SandraDodd.com/mindfulparenting
photo by Lynda Rains
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Be dignified

Be dignified, if you want your children to respect you and to grow up to be dignified themselves. You cannot maintain your dignity and also embrace INdignity. Breathe and think of your children's need for peace so that unschooling can thrive in your home.

Indignation is not a virtue.

SandraDodd.com/indignation
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Something different

Things you are used to are exotic to others. There are things you see every day that some people might never, ever see in person.

Lightning storms. Snow. Kangaroos. Tumbleweeds. Tugboats. Mountains. Beaches. Cargo bikes. Lifts / elevators. Temples. Shave ice. Castles. Cactus. Alligators.

Inventory your special local treasures!

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd
(click it for a video)
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Friends

Friends might be siblings or cousins or neighbors, or might be in other towns or states or countries.

Skype and gaming can help them stay in contact.

If parents can find some opportunities to host or to visit, they should remember that the children will be learning from and with each other, while they gain fond memories. Consider it an expense of unschooling, to visit friends.

SandraDodd.com/socialization
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Sweet healing

It will help you heal from your childhood, to be a good mother. Seeing your own child's bright eyes when you do something sweet can heal the child inside you who would have loved to have had someone do that to, for, with her, years ago.

SandraDodd.com/healing
photo by Chrissy Florence

The flow of history

What is new now might be an antique before your children are grown.

Try to ride the gentle flow of time and progress.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Amber Ivey

Travel interesting paths

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?"

SandraDodd.com/parentschange
photo by Elise Lauterbach

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

Look quietly. At least once a day, just look quietly.

Shhhh
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Do it!

"That's how unschooling works. By living life as if it were an adventure. As if you only had a limited amount of time with that child. Because that's the way it IS."

—Kelly Lovejoy

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Chrissy Florence
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How you see them

"Unschooling is all about how parents are seeing their kids."

—Jill Parmer

SandraDodd.com/attitude
photo by Brie Jontry
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Aiming for learning

"Aiming for freedom can send radical unschoolers down some dangerous and goofy paths. Aiming for learning, exploration, discovery, peacefulness, and connectedness is much more helpful to radical unschooling."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Half a lifetime ago...

Marty was fourteen. By the time this is read, he might be older. But he was fourteen, it was Saturday, and I was playing something on Neopets.

Marty came in and said, "Mom, you know what I really need?" I didn't know. Had I been pressed to guess, I might've thought maybe he wanted the new Nickelback CD, or maybe a hamburger, or to win the lottery. Though his question had been more hypothetical, mine was real:

"What?"

"A map of the New Mexico Territory when Arizona was a part of it."

I might never have guessed that one, so I'm glad he told me.



As I post this quote and photo, Marty is 28 now and still loves maps.

Read the rest of "What Marty Really Needed": SandraDodd.com/martymap
photo by Sandra Dodd

Changes

You may pass through the same door again, but you will be different each time.

Where you are right now will never be exactly the same again.

SandraDodd.com/growth
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Not everything, but something

"We can't magically afford everything, but very often we can afford something."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingcost
photo by Janine Davies
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Dividing is divisive

Collen Prieto wrote:

I was thinking the other day about husbands and chores and how many people I've heard say that it shouldn't be their job to pick up after their husband. I never thought of picking up my husband's things as being my cleaning up after him—I've only thought of it as cleaning our house. Does it matter whose laundry or dishes they are? Does he shovel only his own side of the driveway and leave me to climb snowbanks to get to my side of the car? Dividing things yours-and-mine, even socks, in one's internal thoughts doesn't seem to add much happiness.

—Colleen Prieto

Chores, Serving others as a gift, tales of kids helping out voluntarily
(a chat transcript)
photo by Janine
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Find your options

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Lots of people go through their whole lives never feeling like they had choices in many many areas of their lives in which they really did. Just like it is useful for unschoolers to drop school language (not use the terms teaching or lessons or curriculum to refer to the natural learning that happens in their families) it is useful to drop the use of "have to's" and replace it with an awareness of choices and options.

How we think—the language we use to think—about what we're doing, matters.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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The world changes

Even without anyone trying, the world changes. Ironically, we try to make the world better, and on the same day can feel sad that things are different.

We change. Our children change. Trees and buildings and cars change.

Miss the past gracefully. Accept changes with sweetness.

That will make the world better.

SandraDodd.com/change/
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Own the good stuff

If parents retain ownership of their children's learning,
the children cannot learn on their own.


What I've just said above is / will be / has been misinterpreted to mean the parents should throw up their hands, back off, and not say a word. That's not what I mean at all. Possibly the very same interactions can occur, but the balance of power and responsibility can change by changing the phrasing and definitions.
Own joy management, or trust-earning or something.
SandraDodd.com/parentalauthority
photo by Janine Davies
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