A long, quiet time

If your purpose is just to be with your child, and relaxed, and have a chance to talk, go with something that's non-verbal and takes a long, quiet time.

SandraDodd.com/truckcomments
photo by Holly Dodd

Shapes and angles

The same image, or toy, or building can be seen in many different ways. For a toddler, this could be a triangle, with a circle, and a rectangle. It might remind an older child of stories of magic houses, or of mysteries and adventures. Young adults' thoughts could be all about traditional construction, history, or "Is this for rent?"

Angles are more than just mathematical or visual things.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Ester Siroky

Find abundance

Neediness expresses itself differently with different kids. Abundance expresses itself similarly in all.

A family can learn to find abundance rather than lack, even if they're not wealthy.

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Free to behave nicely

My children are about as free as they're going to get, honestly. Always have been. Yet there are all these real-life limitations and considerations. They're free to ignore them. And the state of New Mexico (county of Bernalillo and City of Albuquerque) are not only free, but OBLIGATED, to protect other residents from any over-reaching acts of wild "freedom."

SandraDodd.com/freedom/
photo by Sandra Dodd, but in Maine, not New Mexico
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Gentle, thoughtful touch

Touch someone, or something, in a gentle, thoughtful way. Feel with your fingers, or cheek, or hand the warmth or smoothness or softness of something or someone you love.

SandraDodd.com/babies/infants
Keith, Kirby, Marty and baby Holly Dodd
November 1991
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Bring on the Joy

"Focus on Joy. Really. That's all I need to do right now. It's vacation time in my home...bring on the Joy."

—Angela (NYCitymomx3)

Fron a longer list at Advice to Remember
photo by Jo Isaac

Stay here

Some people seem to think unschooling takes them through a portal to some alternate universe.

Stay in the real world! Both feet, directly, right in your house, in your town, in your country, in this moment on this day.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolworld

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Janine

Helping

Joyce Fetteroll, small part of larger writing:

We can view children's needs as inconvenient for us or we can view them as people who need our help doing what they want to do.
. . . . We can be our kids partner in helping them get what they want in life or we can be the barrier that opens or closes according to our whim.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/yes
photo by Eva Witsel

Surprise!

Life is richer when you are open to appreciating surprises.


Surprises and discoveries
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tales of "Oops"

Advising about an easily frustrated child, Brie Jontry wrote:

Talking about your own frustrations and talking through your own "mistakes," etc, in a light way—not *to* him, but around him, where he can hear you—might be helpful.

I did a lot of: "Ooops! I meant to cut the carrots length-wise instead of into circles. No big deal..." or "Hmmmm, I think next time, I'll do X first instead of Y" or whatever—talk to yourself, to your friends, to your partner about how you learn by doing. Short, light observations. No long drawn out monologues.

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd

Light and shadow

Shadows can be fun to play with, and to notice. I've always liked it if a bird or an airplane made a shadow on me.

Be a light, when you can be. Practice thinking about what you might be overshadowing.

If you're in the desert, remember that it can be courteous to stand where you will shade someone who's tired or overheated, or is trying to read something.

Be a courteous light.

SandraDodd.com/light
photo by Sandra Dodd

Continue to play

Play can be serious business. Playing is certainly the main way that very young children learn, until they go to school.

What if they don't go to school? What if the ages of five and six don't mark a life change, and the playing progresses along naturally?

Many people would have no idea how to answer that question. The idea that toddlers' play would naturally progress to other levels without interruption, without separation from families, and without professionals telling children when, where and how to play is foreign to most in our culture.

In one small corner, though, it's common knowledge. There are unschoolers whose children have not been to school and who have continued to play.

That writing continues here: SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Janine Davies

More

Alex Polikowsky wrote: Unschooling takes more, more presence, more guidance, more attention, more mindfulness, more connection, more thinking and questioning, more choices and better choices. —Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/misconceptions
photo by Sandra Dodd

False doom

If a child doing something harmless and happy is thwarted by a parent spouting false doom, the parent is the problem.

The game isn't the problem, the parent is the problem.

The child isn't the problem, the parent is the problem.



SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd

And behind that...

Think of something. What's on the other side of that? Remember something. What came before that? Imagine something. What could follow? See something. Remember there is more than you can see.

The words are new, but this is a cousin:
Perspective: Looking back, looking around

photo by Caren Knox, who described it as
"La bella luna, flirting from behind our tree"
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A small, beautiful thing

Beauty can be found in small things.

Inside, outside
photo by Orion Larson
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Gentle moments

"Gentle moments call for a calm mind."

—Holly Dodd

Gentle, patient and generous
photo by Holly Dodd

Work can be fun

When the adults are happy and the children have choices, work can be fun.

SandraDodd.com/choice
photo by Sabine Mellinger

Seeing

Most of what happens in the world, I will never see.

Most of what happens in my own back yard, I don't see.

Most of what I see, I don't understand, or fully consider. That's the way the world is. That's the way people are.

You will see some beauty.
You will understand some things.

Seeing and being
photo by Ester Siroky

Here and there

Here and there can be in the same place, when we combine them in the same thought, or image. Connect past and future, near and far, personal and universal.

Frolic in your mind.

SandraDodd.com/awareness
eclipse photo by Karen James

Your child's mother

"Instead of being my mother's child, I am my children's mother."


The quote is from "Knowing Everything." The title refers to something Kirby asked me when he was little. The rest of the essay is here: SandraDodd.com/zeneverything.

The story also appears in the book Moving a Puddle.
photo by Holly Dodd

A side effect of unschooling

"The goal of unschooling is not education. It is to help a child be who she is and blossom into who she will become. Education happens as side effect."

—Joyce Fetteroll

Waiting for proof?
photo by Cátia Maciel

Choice by choice

People can come nearer to the way they would like to be, but only incrementally, choice by choice.

Choosing more peace
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Safe and comfortable

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

In my own experience, I am the protector of my child. From the day each child was born, I took on the responsibility to ensure that my children were safe and comfortable and loved and supported. That didn't stop when we disagreed. It didn't stop when the stakes were high. It didn't stop just because it was a difficult part of life"

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Amber Ivey

The more you know...

The more you know about something, the more you can know, because there are more and more hooks to hang more information on—more dots to connect.

Concepts, experience and emotions
photo by Jo Isaac

Children want to learn

"We who believe that children want to learn about the world, are good at it, and can be trusted to do it with very little adult coercion or interference, are probably no more than one percent of the population, if that. And we are not likely to become the majority in my lifetime."

—John Holt
Teach Your Own

SandraDodd.com/holt/quotes
photo by Karen James

The peace of the world

Everyone who helps others unschool or to live peacefully with their children is contributing to the peace of the world.


SandraDodd.com/politics
(I wimped out of leaving the full, real quote, but I left the positive part.)
photo by Megan Valnes

Socializing

When I was in elementary school, the lowest marks I got were C's (average) in conduct, or deportment. I talked too much. Way more than once I was shushed in class with the admonition, "You're not here to socialize."

SandraDodd.com/faq
photo by Gail Higgins

Making things disappear

Unschool as well as you can, and lots of the side questions disappear.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Karen James

How will you be?

How will you be, as a parent, and why? What's keeping you from being the way you want to be?

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Bea Mantovani

Simple

"Create a rich environment. Support and feed their interests. Connect with them." —Joyce Fetteroll

Joyce added that my site could have been just that—one page, simple—if natural learning were easy to trust.

Read the rest: SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Karen James

Playing that game

A parent with a child who loves a video game should look at what is wonderful about that. He is physically able to operate the controller or whatever it is (keyboard, wii, touch screen). He is bright enough to figure out at least part of a game that has aspects that would challenge any player. He has found something that sparks his joy or curiosity. He is playing that game, rather than doing something sad or destructive or negative.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Karen James
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Stillness

Beautiful moments of stillness and calm are around us all the time. Sometimes we notice.

Look Quietly
photo by Annie Regan, who wrote "Possibly my favourite spot in the whole world.
Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, just on sunrise in this photo"

Radiant

"Radical" means from the center, from the source, outward.


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.

follow-up on Why Radical Unschooling?
photo by Ester Siroky

Be nice, often

Be as nice to your child as you can be, as often as you can be.

Partnerships and Teams in the Family
photo by Amber Ivey