Stages and phases

Someone wrote:

As a new unschooler, I am working toward being less of a "helicopter parent" and more of a watch-from-a-distance parent...

Laurie Wolfrum responded:

While moving towards being calmer and more thoughtful is good, you don't have to think of yourself as any certain kind of parent to do so. It is good if something helps you think of how you can be a better parent. However, I would let go of trying to fit into any kind of label and *be* the responsible and thoughtful parent you wish to be for your child.

Children go through many stages and phases, some of which warrant our close presence and others which warrant our respectful distance. Don't let a label coax you into doing something you don't feel good about. Trust your gut and watch your kid for cues.

—Laurie Wolfrum

More of both those quotes:
SandraDodd.com/parents
photo by Holly Clark
Gold Coast Always Learning Live, 2014

Don't say everything you think.

People who talk too much can damage their kids' willingness to listen, but I think they can also disturb the peace in deep and hurtful ways.

Shhhh
photo by Gail Higgins

See it more and more

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

SandraDodd.com/cairns
photo by Sandra Dodd
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If mathematics is easy for a person...

Disclaimers: Unschooling doesn't ensure mathematical ability.

I wrote this before Marty got a degree in economics. They were 18 or older before taking any classes, and only needed to pay for the books.

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My kids all caught up with formal math in a semester or two of community college. Marty did up to calculus. Kirby only took one class but makes use of math all the time in his work and play, and is good with money and loans and banking and all that practical life stuff.

Holly took three classes, I think. Maybe two. Liked it; it wasn't difficult. There were people in class with her bemoaning the difficulty, and they had been in school for twelve years or more, taking math classes.

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That was written in 2014. Their paid employment and their hobbies, since then, have involved some or all of logistics, statistics, financial accounting, coding/programming, inventory and cash handling. What they learned in class was the notation used to communicate mathematical ideas "on paper" in our culture.

Some of their facility might have been inherited genetically from their mathish dad. That's fair, too.

SandraDodd.com/math/schoolmath
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild

Cross-Connections

If one thing makes you think of another thing, you form a connection between them in your mind. The more connections you have, the better access you have to cross-connections. The more things something can remind you of, the more you know about it, or are learning about it.

SandraDodd.com/connections
icy-web photo by Cathy Koetsier

Learning in quirky ways

I'm completely sure of unschooling because I believe in people's desire and ability to learn wonderful things in quirky ways if they're given the opportunity.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Sandra Dodd
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How much and when

"Gauge how much to do and when by your child’s reactions. Let her say no thanks. Let her choose. Let her interest set the pace. If it takes years, let it take years. If it lasts an hour, let it last an hour."

—Joyce Fetteroll

Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel

Why be good?

Early in online discussions of unschooling, pre-AOL even, Christian homeschoolers and unschoolers were in the same groups—all homeschoolers jumbled together. Once someone did ask me, in public (not in a mean way but in a curious way) HOW, without religion, would my kids be good?

It was a great question. They were good because it made them better people. Not to go to Heaven or to avoid hell. Not to make Jesus happy. . . . .
With good, logical reasons to be honest and helpful and responsible, religion on top of that would not have hurt my kids. I was aware that they might for one reason or another someday become religious on their own, but I also knew that leaving that church (or whatever it might be) wouldn't be the end of virtue for them.

SandraDodd.com/atheism
photo by Sandra Dodd

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Of course there are Christian unschoolers, too
Resources for Christian Unschoolers and unschoolers of many other religions, beliefs and leanings. The dichotomy above came from the Christian Homeschooling mom asking me a practical philosophical question.

All directions

Be open to input from all directions.


Be willing to go in different directions, over the years—with your feet, and with your thoughts.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Winchester
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Modelling consideration

Unschooling should be about peaceful, supportive relationships, about modelling consideration and thoughtful choicemaking, and about learning.

Being loud and wild and "breaking the rules" seems to be a celebratory stage for some people who are new to unschooling, but it shouldn't be the goal or destination. It's not good for that family, really. It's not good for those who wonder what unschooling is about.
Gradual Change   •   Unschooing Nest

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Quote is from Too Far, Too Fast
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Doing very well

Rejoice when your child surpasses you in skill, knowledge or wisdom.


Nearly a quote, from SandraDodd.com/empowerment
Dodd family, 2012, Always Learning Live
photo by Trista Teeter

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

Snags and lumps and deschooling

Think of some specific things that changed in you, about you, when you were deschooling. Think of a time when you hit a snag, a lump, an un-deschooled part of you. What happened? What did you do?

Deschooling is a process that can't be sped up, I think. I could be wrong.

The path to unschooling
photo by Karen James

Doing (not not-doing)

If a person's life is compartmentalized into learning and not learning, then they have a part of them that is "not-learning."

"Not learning"
photo by Karen James

Warmly attractive

There is something warmly attractive about children's toys and books, even if they're not our own.

Toys in every room
photo by Sandra Dodd

Flower bed

Joyce wrote:

People who look at what they have and how they can work with it find the way quicker (and are happier) than those who look at what they don't have.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/nest.html#principles
photo by Amy Milstein

Sharing the sun

It's a comforting feeling, for me, that we all see the same sun.

I hope everyone sometimes sees a balloon, or another special thing.


Being the same
photo by Cathy Koetsier, in Norfolk, England
(click for full image)

Artifacts

I have seen toys, in museums, just like things I played with as a child in the 1950s and 60s, and that my children played with in the 1980s and 90s.

History is happening all around and through us.


Seeing things from the past can trigger stories that might never have been told without the presence of those artifacts. I missed the days of radio dramas and serials. By the time I was listening to radio, it was all music. The stories had moved to the TV. All of my older relatives had radio stories—of war news, comedy routines, inspiring speeches and of mystery stories presented in several voices, and with sound effects.

We still want stories, news, humor and inspiration, but the sources change, and will change some more.

Antiques elsewhere here
photo by Sandra Dodd

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I wrote this four days ago (what's above). Three days ago, I started listening to So, Anyway...: A Memoir by John Cleese (read by the author, who is best known as a member of Monty Python). He has talked about radio shows four times in eight chapters, telling stories of his childhood memories, and of radio producers who seemed to think, when television was new, that TV would not supplant radio programs.

Knowing this post was ready to go made those stories seem like magical coincidence to me. Jung called those coincidences "synchronicity."

Entryways

Entries are literally and figuratively everywhere, past and future and in a minute.

When you see a place, a path, or think of something you could look up on the internet, you don't know exactly what will happen next, or how far you'll go. It might be just the first touch or glimpse, and you're back out again.

An entry-point at your house could be a "not interesting" to one person and a days-long rabbit-hole adventure for another. See that and accept it. Entryways to other things, people and places are coming up soon.

SandraDodd.com/direction
photo by Sandra Dodd

Accepting help (and cake)

Deb Lewis wrote:

I always get in trouble with analogies, but I'm going to try one here. If I wanted to make a cake, and had never baked or cooked before, a cake recipe that just said "do whatever seems best to you, use your imagination" probably wouldn't be that helpful. If my friend, who always had lovely cakes (devil's food?) had given me this recipe, I would have to assume cake just didn't work for my family.

It would have been much more helpful to have an ingredients list and a plan for putting them together.

Ok, kids are not cakes, and maybe there's no ingredients list for unschooling, but I would hope, before I pour a bottle of vinegar in my batter, someone who knows about cakes would stop me. I would hope, before I add a text book or take away TV, someone who knows about unschooling would stop me.

—Deb Lewis
(original, on Always Learning)

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo (and cake) by Sandra Dodd,
when this blog was ten years old

Fresh breeze of new thoughts

De wrote:

OH! Brainstorming ideas, treating your children like you would your spouse or friends, *OH!!*

I knew that. Now I *know* that. Or maybe I understand it with more depth. It still amazes me how a few words on a page—sometimes entirely (seemingly) unrelated—can trigger a massive door that I didn't know was there to open in my brain. It lets in the light and the fresh breeze of new thoughts.

—De

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd

Slowing down

Karen James wrote:

I have spent the past three years trying to get unschooling faster. It has only been this past year, where I have slowed down, that I feel like I am really starting to get it, or at least see more clearly where I am still stuck, and work out those knots with a bit more clarity.

I quoted Karen from her comment at
"You can't test out." (2011)
photo by Hema Bharadwaj

Joyful and secure

"Learning about and applying unschooling principles has created joyful, secure relationships with my kids that I had never imagined. I feel SO lucky."

—Jill Parmer

SandraDodd.com/milestones/jill
photo of Addi, by Jill Parmer (her mom)

Holly and the Hippie Shirt

The article's real name is "Art, Aging and Spirituality— Connections between Things and Ideas." I wrote it in early 2001, when Holly was nine years old.

I will quote the end, and usher you toward the full article:

We all are preparing for our unseen futures, and I was prepared to homeschool. I am prepared to discuss the social history of the 70's musicals Holly is frolicking with now, in a shirt I made when a brand new India print bedspread could be bought by a barefooted hippie for $4. She is surprisingly prepared, at the age of nine, to understand it.

That was written for a local homeschooling newsletter, so I apologize for the neighborhood particulars. Those from Albuquerque, or who attended the University of New Mexico, might've perked up. ***

SandraDodd.com/HippieShirt
photo by Sandra Dodd

Opportunity

I don't look at the state's requirements. I look at my child's opportunities.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Amy McDonough
Retrospective (more about the photo)

But WHY?

Knowing WHY you want to make lunch can make all the rest of it a series of mindful choices. (Unless the "why" is a thoughtless sort of "because the clock hands pointed up".)

What and Why?
photo by Rosie Moon
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Improving thought

Kathy Ward had eight children, and was active in discussions years back. At first she rejected video games, but changed her mind. This is part of something longer:

Everyone agreed that [Tetris] was a great game for developing and improving mathematical thinking. The puzzles require some thinking about patterns and ability to recognize and recall geometric designs. Even the little kids enjoy it. I don't know why a parent would love to see a child spend an hour at a time figuring out puzzles like this in a workbook or on paper but be dismayed that the same child was doing this on a computer or a video game system. In fact, the whole thing is more challenging on the game system because it moves and changes, it's more interactive than geometric puzzles on a piece of paper.

When I told the older children that I was interested in putting their ideas about video games on this webpage...

—Kathy Ward
who continues that writing into other games, and benefits including problem solving, spatial reasoning, maps, graphic arts, physics of motion, vocabulary of auto mechanics, morality, military history, comparative cultures, and geography.

SandraDodd.com/kathyward/videogames
photo by Sarah Peshek

Ideas, terminology, and attitudes

If someone really does want to unschool, it's going to take looking at her own ideas, terminology, and attitudes really closely, to weed out that "what will screw it up" set.

SandraDodd.com/screwitup

The original quote is here:
Archive: "...on TV & junk food"
photo by Cátia Maciel

Right for your child

Rather than look at labels that try to pigeonhole people into being this sort of parent or that sort of parent, be the parent that is right for your child in each moment.

—Laurie Wolfrum

SandraDodd.com/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Freeing and joyful

When people come here and their messages are like parroted little recordings of things their teachers said, that their grandparents and in-laws say, that they read in an anti-TV book, it seems they need to peel off all the layers of recitation and people-pleasing and try to feel what they feel and decide what's freeing and joyful instead of what will shush their internal voices.

That's not easy.

SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Denaire Nixon

Surrounded by words

My children learned to read without being taught. If my children were the only children in the history of the world who learned without being taught, it would still be a fact that some children have learned to read without lessons—that a child can learn to read without lessons.

But my children are not the only ones. There are many. There were many even before schools existed, though it was harder without being surrounded by talking video games and movies with subtitles and printed boxes all over the kitchen, and signs on every street and building and shelf.


Always Learning post, Sandra Dodd, 2010
photo by Denaire Nixon

Portable, cheap, long-lasting

The really good thing about happiness is that it’s portable. It’s cheap. It doesn’t need a safety deposit box or an inheritance. You can give the same amount to all your kids, and they don’t have to wait until they’re 18 to claim and use it! Think about that. They can have it right now, and start using it, without taking yours away from you.

Do kids need to have their own room to store their happiness in? No. Do kids need to wait nine weeks to get a report card that says they’re doing well in happiness? No. Will working really hard now store up happiness they can use later? That’s the going theory, the one we were raised on, but I no longer believe it.

The quote is from SandraDodd.com/president

More on happiness: SandraDodd.com/happy

photo by Cátia Maciel

Completely engaged

Stephanie E. wrote:

It came to me the other day that Jason is more engaged then if he were doing puzzles in a book or being read to. When he plays a video game, it is a whole-body experience. I can see his mind working—he is completely engaged. He is constantly strategizing, thinking about the next step, figuring out how to solve the next level, experimenting with options. He is also very active—jumping up and down, yelling, running in to show me his latest accomplishment.

—Stephanie E.

GameCube and Little Boys
photo by Karen James

The roots of a belief...

From my notes for a 2012 conference presentation on "Why Radical Unschooling?":

So the history of "radical unschooling" came from someone saying "Well we're not that radical," and me saying "well I am."

Radical
radical in surfer lingo has to do with extreme.
Politically, extreme from a grassROOTs movement.
radius
radish
From the roots to the tips
from the roots of hair to the tips
or the roots of a tree to the end of each leaf
or from the roots of a belief to the end of each action.

SandraDodd.com/hsc/radical
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Óbidos

Light and playful

Some people think of play as frolicking, or as make-believe, but it can be a pervasive mood and include the way people bring groceries in, and watch movies, and sort laundry and sing in the shower.

A light and playful attitude changes everything.


"Mindful Parenting" - Ren Allen with Sandra Dodd
(written exchange in advance of a conference presentation; sound file there)
photo by Sadie Bugni

If everything counts...

So what IS trivia, then? For school kids, trivia is (by definition) a waste of time. It’s something that will not be on the test. It’s “extra” stuff. For unschoolers, though, in the wide new world in which EVERYTHING counts, there can be no trivia in that sense.

SandraDodd.com/trivia

The quote is from
Textbooks for Unschoolers
or
Triviality

photo by Sandra Dodd

Criss-cross trails

Do the best you can to survive the bumps and unexpected turns of the trails through the unschooling world, which will necessarily cross back over and through themselves, which is how learning works–a little now, a little more later to connect to what you've learned since, and detours that end up being short cuts.

The quote is from page 3 or 4 of The Big Book of Unschooling.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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YESTERDAY'S LINK: SandraDodd.com/socialization

"What about socialization?"

Sometimes when people ask “What about socialization?” I say "What do you mean?"

And I wait patiently for them to think of a response.

Usually the question is asked by rote, the same way adults ask stranger-children "Where do you go to school?" Most people just blink and stammer, because they don't even know what they meant when they asked it.



SandraDodd.com/socialization
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Rest, recovery, and plenty of time

Rippy Dusseldorp, for still-new unschoolers:

For your family, the most important thing now is to deschool. Avoid anything schoolish, unless your children really want to use those types of resources. This is their rest and recovery time from their years of schooling. It's important not to rush them and to give yourself plenty of time to deschool as well.

—Rippy Dusseldorp

slightly edited from SandraDodd.com/response
photo by Colleen Prieto