Zippy, slow, zippy...

If your child is having a slow week or month or year, don't worry. If your child is having a zippy brilliant period of life where everything's coming up roses and the backswell of music seems always to accompany his glorious exploits, don't expect that to last day in and day out for sixty years. It won't. It can't. It shouldn't. People need to recuperate from stunning performances.

Life is lumpy; let it be.

SandraDodd.com/learningcurve
photo by Jo Isaac

Being fun

Live a light and playful life. Be patient and sweet. Be generous.

Play with your children, and gently.

Play with your friends, and kindly.

Be glad when things are fun. Help them be so.

SandraDodd.com/playing

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From the "Being" section of The Big Book of Unschooling
(page 202, or 235, depending)
photo by Cátia Maciel

Candy, TV, books and broccoli

Jo Isaac wrote:

While Kai and I were watching Inside Out yesterday, they had a part where broccoli is in the 'disgust' part of Riley's emotions. Kai loves broccoli - it's one of his favourite foods and the first thing he eats if it's on a plate. He said that parents make broccoli disgusting in kids heads because they force them (the kids) to eat it.

In the same way we can make broccoli seem 'disgusting' by forcing it down our kids throats, we can make TV seem more 'attractive' by setting it up as a limited resource with apparently magical powers of 'distraction'.

By giving broccoli the same status as candy, and TV the same status as books and board games, children are free to make the choices that are best for them, and learn the way they learn best.

—Jo Isaac
(original, on facebook)

SandraDodd.com/joisaac
photo by Sarah S.

We have fun.

Gwen (willow_selene) wrote:

When Megan was between two and three she would pick an avocado at the beginning of most shopping trips. Then she'd hold onto it while she rode in the cart. She called it "her baby" and she would talk to it while we shopped. She didn't eat avocados then (still doesn't). We'd buy it at the end of the trip and DH would eat it later.
. . . .
At Trader Joe's they hide a stuffed monkey for the kids to find. If the kids tell the cashier they've found the monkey, the cashier will ring a bell and make an "arggh!" sound. Then the child can go pick treat out of a box. Megan always finds the monkey, but doesn't always want the treat. She just likes to find the monkey.

If a display is disordered or packages that are supposed to be hanging aren't, both Megan and Zoe will stop and straighten it up.

I love shopping with my kids. We have fun.

—Gwen

More by Gwen, and others' stories: Stories of Stores
photo by Gwen (willow_selene)

Food and its purpose

[When my children were little...] I always put the kids' needs ahead of dinner. Dinner happened after or around nursing babies and such.

You might have to do away with the idea of a peaceful mealtime for a few years. Maybe re-thinking meals would be the way to go.

I think it helps rather than to live by the idealized traditional model of dinner at 6:00, all at their seats, dinner conversation that could be reported to the media as an ideal mix of news of the day and philosophy, etc, to think of food and its purpose. People need to be nourished physically and it's uncomfortable to go to sleep hungry. THAT is the purpose of evening food, not the appearance of a well-organized dinner.

SandraDodd.com/eating/dinner
photo by Sandra Dodd, of one of the former Dodd babies

Unschooling style

In response to a question about "learning styles":

People learn different ways, but it's rare (and unnatural) for a person to only learn one way. So the thing to do is to present material and experiences that cover all the ways to learn. Some will do a child more good than others. One child might learn one thing very visually, and another thing tactilely. So instead of wasting ANY time trying to find out how they learn, spend good time learning (yourself) how children learn naturally with all their senses, with all their ways of thinking, or with their own best favorites from moment to moment.

Follow-up from a conference (Minnesota / mha )
photo by Cátia Maciel

Unschooling can prove itself

If both parents are enthusiastic and excited, unschooling can hardly fail.. . .
It won't work unless people want it to work, and make the changes necessary for it to work.

Unschooling can prove itself if it's not thwarted.

SandraDodd.com/reluctance
photo by Holly Dodd
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Discovering resources

Meredith wrote:

Sometimes the money question is about fears of not having enough to make home rich and joyful - can we really afford to unschool? Is it expensive? And the answer is yes and no. It takes a lot of resources, but money is just one kind of resource. Time is another—and a big one. If you don't have time to spend with your kids, then unschooling might not be a good choice. Creativity is a useful resource, especially if you're short on money and/or time - you can get by with less creativity if you have more money, though. Adaptability is one of the most vital resources for unschooling - if you don't adapt well to new circumstances, then all the time, money and creativity in the world won't help if you have a child who can't meet all your expectations.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingcost
photo by Holly Dodd

Confidence deepens

Karen James wrote:

"Be present. Be engaged. Celebrate the joy of a child doing anything and everything they feel thrilled about. Notice what they're learning as they play and watch. It's all pretty amazing. Build on what you learn about your child. Confidence deepens when a child is supported in whatever they find captivating. Confidence grows for the parent when they're paying attention to what the child is learning from their chosen activities."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames
photo by Janine Davies

Feel it; believe it

When you say something to your child, remember to feel it and believe it, or you'll be sending mixed messages, and the tone might be louder than the words. And with babies and toddlers, the tone might be the entirety of the communication.

The quote is from page 208 (or 241) of The Big Book of Unschooling
SandraDodd.com/tone
photo by Sarah S.

Beautiful right now

Natasha wrote, to help a new unschooler:

One beautiful aspect of radical unschooling is truly living today with our children, right now. Seeing them as they are in this moment, valuing what they are interested in today, right now.

—Natasha Allan

SandraDodd.com/moments
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Open the window

"Video gaming is so much more than most people see when they are standing on the outside, looking through the window they call 'screen time.'"

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/zombies
Plants vs. Zombies image by Sandra Dodd (my gameplay, too)

Provide more

Joyce Fetteroll, to someone fearful about not having started sooner:

How could doing better be worse?

You won't help yourself and your family be happy if you keep looking at what you *imagine* life could have been had you been mindfully parenting all along. You are where you are and right this moment you have the opportunity and a growing box of tools to be better. 🙂

When buckets have been empty for so long they've developed holes, it takes a lot of filling before those holes can start closing. But in the meantime having their buckets as full as you can make them will be better than empty. Maybe they won't ever be as full or lacking in holes as they could have been, but what's the alternative you have available right now?

—Joyce Fetteroll

Success with Later Unschooling?
with more, and follow-up

photo by Sandra Dodd
I used this photo once before,
but it IS bucket-shaped lacy water (with flowers), and seemed appropriate today.

Paleolithic unschooling?

Would you rather live in the stone age, or live now?

(Hint: You don't actually have a choice.)

Brie Jontry, responding to someone who said unschooling was the closest to paleolithic, and that unschooling has worked for countless generations:

Paleolithic families had Internet and Netflix and PS3s? Did they have park days and YouTube? Were their parents distinctly turning their backs on the dominant culture and letting them learn in ways that felt kinder and gentler? Were they, in many cases, living at significantly lower income levels so one parent could stay home, at least part-time?

Unschooling is nothing at all like paleolithic life.

Unschooling has worked for a generation or two, but it hasn't been working for countless generations. That kind of thinking might get you all bound up in confusion as your son gets older and more aware of the modern world, and it may hinder your own ability to define what it is your family is actually doing.

—Brie Jontry

Brie's response was longer, and a little scary (in good ways):
SandraDodd.com/reality
photo by Karen James

This "thing"

A mom in 1995:

Do you use books at all, Sandra?

SandraDodd:

What do you mean "use books"?

That mom:

As in curriculum, textbooks, etc.

SandraDodd:

I use books like crazy—we need to look at what you mean by "use."

. . . .
SandraDodd:

A lot of the problem with discussing all this is philosophical—the definitions of "learn" and "know" and things like that.

If we talk about what we "do" and "use" and "are" instead of what's happening in and with our children we dance around the "thing" without seeing the "thing" (and the next philosophical problem is: what is this "thing"?)

SandraDodd.com/chats/definitions
photo by Colleen Prieto

P.S. In the days of text chats, there would be ten or twenty people in the chat, rolling over each other. I wasn't saying I used a lot of texbooks; I was still responding to her first question. Reading chats is a bit different, but for those who didn't get to be in any, there was overlap and lag and confusion, and they were fun, too.

Help with decisions

"I've helped my kids by going toward what they wanted, and been generous, and they've been the same toward me. Sweet. I like it when I'm trying to make a decision on something, and they asked the same things I've asked of them."

—Jill Parmer

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Jihong Tang

Seeing gifts

Colleen Prieto, April 2013

We just watched a documentary called Lost Castles of England. My 10 year old loves Star Trek and so he was particularly thrilled that it was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. 🙂

We paused - oh - probably at least 25 times during the documentary to look up things ranging from "When was the Bronze Age?" and "What exactly is Stonehenge anyway?" to "Who were the Normans?" and "How exactly big is England?" and "They killed the garrison... What's a garrison??"

We also paused a bunch of times as he described how he's going to be getting up early tomorrow to start work in Minecraft right away - he plans to build a motte-and-bailey timber castle, as described in the documentary. He asked me to keep the documentary in our Netflix queue so he can refer to it as needed for the particulars.

When the show ended, he stood up from the couch and proclaimed "That was AWESOME. And the whole time it was Spock. Spock just GIVING you interesting history stuff!!!"

It hit me right away that he didn't say "Spock teaching you history" or "A show teaching you history" or anything about teaching at all. He doesn't see things in terms of Being Taught. In his mind, he received a gift of new knowledge and facts this evening. A gift given by Spock, which made it all the better. 🙂

—Colleen Prieto

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Note from Sandra:
Colleen's son, Robbie, is twenty years old, as I share this. The story above has been on the page about "learning" for a long time, quietly helping others.

What Teaching Never Can Be
photo by Sandra Dodd

Good for a long time

If parents don't heal from those kinds of issues in their own childhoods, they will likely be perpetuated onto the next generation. Parents discovering and letting go of their old baggage is essential for unschooling to flourish.

And, as well as being good for unschooling, it's also good for the parents themselves, their children, family and other relationships, and generations to come!

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Which direction?

Each journey begins with a single step, they say, but steps in the wrong direction don't get you to a good place. Milling around for a thousand steps without regard to the intended goal isn't "a journey."

SandraDodd.com/direction
photo by Jihong Tang

Softer

Some parents express their learning as "struggle" or "challenge," but those words are antagonistic. Try to relax, and try not to feel that you're wrestling (with your child's desires, or with your own thoughts).

If you can find softer words, you will experience softer emotions.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Aim high; be generous

I've given this advice to newlyweds, and to my oldest child the first time he had a roommate:

Don't aim for 50/50.

If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.

If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal.

SandraDodd.com/50/50
photo by Dan Vilter

Moment of sweetness

"Everything you do now, when your kids are young, matters. All the little kindnesses matter, every little moment of sweetness between you, every time you choose to be thoughtful of the smallest things."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Power and worth

"What creates power and worth is taking single, conscious steps toward being the kind of person one would like to be. Making better choices."

Marta Venturini quoted me, on Facebook, in June 2011, and I can't find the quote elsewhere, to link to. It might've been on a recording or in a chat that was never published, maybe.

What's most interesting to me is that yesterday's post here was me (in 2009) discouraging someone from a focus on "power" (It's not about power), and the day before that was about things being "worthwhile." (Is it worthwhile?)

Here and there, over the years, I have reminded parents to avoid situations in which a child feels powerless. Life has realities, and we don't always have choices. Parents should avoid casual neglect of providing options for unschooled kids at home. You probably have the power to do that.


Thoughtful and sweet
photo by Cátia Maciel

It's not about power

Once upon a time, a newer but enthusiastic unschooler came to a discussion explaining the "we" (all of us) should agree that unschooling was about power—power over oneself, and the power to decide what to learn and when (and more dramatic power-based rhetoric).

Some of my response is below, and near the photo credit is a link to the full post.

We don't talk about power here much, but we have given our children a life of choices. It's not "power," it's rational thinking, considering all sorts of factors and preferences. They don't need power over themselves. They need to BE themselves.
SandraDodd.com/being

"The power to decide what to learn" makes a pretzel of the straight line between experience and knowing.

My children don't "decide what to learn, how to learn, and when to learn it." They learn all the time. They learn from dreams, from eating, from walking, from singing, from conversations, from watching plants grow and storms roll. They learn from movies, books, websites, and asking questions.

Power over oneself, unschooling and "politics"
photo by Amy Milstein

Is it worthwhile?

Winding down and transitioning

By Meredith, at the end of a longer list of ideas for indoor play for children:

Party games like blind-mans-bluff and pin-the-tail can be played easily at home with one or two kids. Get a book of party games, or look some up on the web.

Wind down by transitioning to something else, rather than just "that's enough". A snack makes a good transition, or switch to video games or a movie.

—Meredith Novak

---

Also, there are newer ideas there, about video games that require indoor physicality. It might be a good page to revisit.

SandraDodd.com/physicality
photo by Kathryn Robles

Change the world

"When I stopped seeing my daughter as adversarial it changed the world for us."

—Joanna Murphy

SandraDodd.com/change.html
photo by Marty Dodd

Rich lives, in the world

Unschoolers need to be actively involved in things that bring their children into the world, and the world into their children.

The best unschoolers are doing more with and for their children than school-at-home families are. Unschooling parents need to understand MORE about how learning works and keep their family lives rich.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/definition
photo by Cátia Maciel

Like a zombie?

Me, in response to a(nother) question, once, about kids who become so involved in something that they are like zombies, don't hear people, don't stop to eat...

If something is REALLY fascinating, extremely engaging, those things might happen. A brand-new video game at an exciting point. A book as good as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, first time through. A news item on the death of a favorite person.

Those things can happen to me, still, as an adult—that I am mesmerized, engaged, involved in something, and it can be a program (I've been watching some great Korean dramas lately), or a book, or an interesting or difficult bit of sewing. It can take me a few seconds to come to myself and respond to another person.
. . . .

It would be unfortunate if someone's unschooled child loved a game or story so much that he seemed to be a zombie, and the parents started to limit his life because of it. It would be an unfortunate lack of appreciation and relationship and awareness on the part of the parents.

SandraDodd.com/zombies
photo by Destiny Dodd

Same and different

Learning happens when a child sees what two things have in common, and considers how they are different.

Parents can help, without telling them what "the answers" are. The parent might not see what the child sees.

Give children a chance to find their own answers.
SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

An evolving life

"I didn't get it. I thought I did. But it's like mowing the lawn, or dishes, or laundry, or being their mom...it will always be evolving, because it isn't an it. It is life."

—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Gail Higgins

Relax into wonder

If you can allow yourself to relax into wonder, your children will have a wonderful mom.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd
The quote was from something passing, on Facebook.
Other wonderful Just Add Light moments:

• What Makes things Wonderful
  
  
• Wonderful
  
  
• Wonder and Flow
  
  
• A Wonder Post

Breathe to Ten

Someone said one time that she counts to ten and then she's still mad so what should she do, and a couple of people said "Count slower."

Angrily holding one's breath and counting to ten in a hostile fashion isn't the "count to ten" that's recommended. Breathing to ten is way better.

Breathing can be done in an overt, hostile "I'm breathing so I won't hurt you" passive-aggressive way, too. That cancels it right out.

---

The quote is from an online chat, but a good link is SandraDodd.com/breathing.
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Making Peace with Food

When Shan Burton was growing up, the relationships among her, food, and her parents was a frightening swirl. Without better ideas, she began to pass some of those problems on to her children. Then she discovered unchooling.

Below are an image from that report, her conclusion, and a link to the story of the changes that came from the changes she made.

Shan wrote:

Food can be an experiment, a social activity, and even art!

What it never is, anymore, is a battlefield.

May all your meals be joyous ones!

—Shan Burton

SandraDodd.com/eating/childhood
photo by Shan Burton

True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)

"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil

Concerned and attentive

Just as being kinder and gentler with a child makes one a kinder, gentler parent, being more attentive and concerned about a spouse or partner makes that person, in turn, more attentive and concerned.

It doesn't happen all at once, and you can't send them the bill. You can't count or measure it. It has to be selfless and generous. Your kindness needs to be given because it makes you kinder, not because you want any further reward.


From The Big Book of Unschooling, page 270 (page 311, in 2nd edition)

Also see: SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Marin Holmes

Another planet?

This is about the fears some people have, when they first ask about homeschooling:


For some people, it scares them so much that it feels almost like they're moving to another planet and can never come back.

It's not like moving to another planet. You'll still have the same house, same car, same phone number, you'll still be sitting in the same chair. It will just be different. And everytime I've ever said that to anyone, they seemed somewhere between totally relieved and shocked. . . . .

They were flipping out. They were really spinning out, off the planet. Like, "Where will we be? What will happen? How will we ever get back?"

Back to where? You're in your own house.

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It's from a 2013 interview. This page might help in similar ways: Help
photo by Sandra Dodd

Patient, generous, kind

Sometimes an antique is still in use.

If you remember how exciting a little mechanical ride could be when you were a child, try to keep some coins on hand to indulge your young children.

If you don't have young children, consider keeping coins for offering rides to other children whose parents are tired or don't have what makes those little rides go.

If you don't remember being very young, for just 20p (or 50¢, or your local equivalent), if you're lucky and open to growth, you could live vicariously through another young person.

Patience, generosity and kindness make a person better.
A patient, generous, kind person makes the world better.


Plus or minus
photo by Sandra Dodd, 2011, in Bristol

Seeing enough

Don't assess "enough." Pay attention to your child and don't try to press him to do something he doesn't want to do, and don't try to make him stop doing something while he's still having fun.

See learning as your priority, and you will begin to see it more and more.

Seeing it
photo by Sandra Dodd