When you breathe...

When something makes you sad, breathe in a lovely thought.

When you're worried, breathe in hope.

When you're afraid, breathe in calm.

Let breathing bring you closer to better, for your family and for yourself.


SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Jo Isaac

All that verbal stuff...

Pam Sorooshian, on writing:

Good conversation is really writing development. Sometimes I see parents who kind of shush their kids or get obviously bored when their kids are telling them a rather long drawn-out story (like retelling a movie plot). But retelling a tv or movie plot or telling everything that happened, in order, in a video game are really great for writing. In fact, all that verbal stuff—conversation, summarizing movies, persuading or arguing, playing games, etc.—is MUCH better for developing good writing than practicing writing in the artificial ways that schools do it.

—Pam Sorooshian

Other Just Add Light and Stir posts about writing
photo by Belinda Dutch

Remember "partnership"

Being patient and compassionate with a child who is sad or hungry or tired or maybe teething or frustrated with his friends is good. Feeling good makes you calmer and more confident. It will give you stores of calm and clarity so that you can remember that your spouse might be sad or hungry or tired, maybe aging, aching, or frustrated with his co-workers and friends.

If you have come to feel adversarial in any way toward your partner, remember "partnership." Help him or her follow interests or hobbies or to take care of collections, or to see a favorite TV show. Support his interests. Being nicer makes you a nicer person.
SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Joyce Fetteroll

The horizon and beyond

"What you're dealing with is a very well-meaning person who is convinced the world is flat and is worried that you're so clueless that you want to head off across the horizon. It's a lot healthier and more useful to listen to the people who've been across the horizon than to the person who fears it."

—Joyce Fetteroll

The Big Book of Unschooling
(The quote is not from there, but the words and image both remind me of it.)
photo by Renee Cabatic

Better, kinder, stronger

Robyn Coburn wrote:

Everyone who is unschooling is on a daily journey of making choices based on unschooling principles that move them either towards or away from unschooling, towards or away from better, kinder, stronger relationships with their children. Life impacts us, emotionally and practically. Some days I think I was more fully connected to my daughter than others. But she is happy and fulfilled, and not hungry in any negative connotation of that word.

—Robyn Coburn

What Problems can Come?
photo by Cass Kotrba

A little separate time

The more people one's children know and trust, the easier it will be for the parents to find some separate time, but I don't think time apart should be a high priority.

SandraDodd.com/metime
photo by Janine Davies

Approaching solidity

There is a danger when someone's own understanding and practice of unschooling is shaky, and she wants the approval of others more than the solid joyful everyday life of her family. I've seen a few of those.

Another problem comes when someone's reasons for unschooling are not about learning and family relationships, but about being way cool and out there, and cutting edge, and anti-this'n'that. But that sets the stage for lots of problems in insecure people, when they want to glom onto something that's wild and new and shocking.

Unschooling is...
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Voices in your head

In your head, you have some repeating-loop messages. Some are telling you you're doing a good job, but I bet some of them are not. Some are telling you that you have no choice, but you do.

SandraDodd.com/phrases
Scanner image by Sandra Dodd (it's a link)

Reflections

Reflections are beautiful to see—in still water, in windows, or mirrors.

If there are waves on the water, or leaves, or plants, or ice, the reflections might not be as clear. If a glass surface is wavy, or curved, or broken, the reflection will be distorted. Sometimes that's fun.


People "reflect on things," cognitively, mentally. The plainer one's mind and thoughts are, the easier it will be to reflect.

Looking back
photo by Orion Larson

Beauty and hope

Find beauty and hope wherever it can be found. Say and think sweet things about your children. If people can be positive and sweet, it doesn't matter so much where they do it. Being better is better.

Deposit the good stuff.
photo by Jo Isaac

Sweet hearts

image (a link) by Karen Lundy
other posts about sweetness here

Joyful, fearless moment

Right now, it's much more important to live in the moment with your kids, absorb information about who they are and what they like, and present options with joy and free of fear, than to focus on what this will look like when they're grown, or next year, or even next week. Fear and worry transmit to them.

It helped me to remind myself when they were choosing lots and lots of sweets or cakes and I was still afraid it would harm them physically (it never did), that a belly ache is far easier to mend than broken trust.

—Jessica Hughes

SandraDodd.com/eating/balance
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Better

Do your best to do your best.

You won't regret making more positive choices.

---

SandraDodd.com/better on my site
and
"Better" on Just Add Light and Stir
photo by Renee Cabatic

Like fluff, like play

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Compared to school, with unschooling what you see on the outside looks inconsequential to what they'll be doing as adults. It looks like fluff. It looks like play. But as long as they're in a rich environment with parents who are curious about and engaged with life themselves, when kids explore what interests them, they pull in what is important to their right-now selves and create the foundation for their future selves.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Joyce Fetteroll, interviewed by Sandra Dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Hot and cold

Life moves and swirls with cause and effect, from snow to the visits of relatives to what's on sale at the grocery store. It's easy to wish for things to be different, but the best move is to find the benefit and beauty in what the day brings. If grapes are inexpensive today, you might not even be able to find any next week. Icicles are famously temporary. Your own smile can lift another's face. If you sing a song, it will remind someone of another song.

SandraDodd.com/gettingwarm
photo by Cass Kotrba

Enjoyment, joy and health

Peace and calm are really good things all in and of themselves.

Enjoyment/JOY is better for health than all the "health rules" in the world.

Help with Teeth Brushing
photo by Belinda Dutch

Grow

I think "grow up" can be shortened to "grow" and then we don't ever have to stop.


SandraDodd.com/growth
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

What does it take?

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

We cannot inject unschooling into anyone. Unschooling is not accomplished by joining an unschooling discussion. It takes time, gradual and increased understanding, effort, desire, attention, change.

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Linda Malchor

A few cool things

Knowledge only comes incrementally. Ditto experience.

Do a few cool things today. Build on that tomorrow.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
photo by Sarah Elizabeth

Your own clear understanding

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking. I don't think it works as well when people just look at those with young adult kids who are happy and successful and try to copy them without doing the hard thinking and building their own clear understanding of unschooling. When they try to emulate, they are still following rules - unschooling rules. Unschoolers always say yes to everything. Unschoolers never make their kids do anything. Kids always decide everything for themselves. And so on. But those "rules" are not unschooling. Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Belinda Dutch

Integrity

Live your life in such a way that you're not ashamed if someone quotes what you said, or tells something you did.



SandraDodd.com/integrity
photo by Karen James

Considerations and credit

Consider ideas. If something makes sense, good. Use the idea. Remember where you got it. Be honest.

Growth is good
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran

A progression

Sylvia Woodman wrote:

One of the great gifts of reading in unschooling groups was learning to change my perspective. To stop writing off entire days. To recognize bad moments for what they were—just moments. Moments pass MUCH quicker than entire days.

I learned the value of taking a breath and making a better choice. Wouldn't you know it, our days became better, sweeter, more fun-filled.

Did I continue to mess up? Sure, but it got to be less and less. I was growing and learning right alongside my kids. I was learning to be a better parent to my unique kids.

The things I learned rippled out across my life. I became a better daughter, partner, sister, friend. Unschooling helped me become a better human.

—Sylvia Woodman

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Janine Davies

Sidetracked

Sometimes I think of things I wish I had done or said, or I wish I had been more attentive or patient and sometimes I see in that very moment that I'm sitting there thinking about myself instead of getting up and going and being with my husband or kids. It's weird, and people who come to it new think "martyrdom!?" or self sacrifice, but it's not that. It's investment.

Investing in relationships
photo by Sandra Dodd

Experiences

For good or ill, your experiences create you, change you, become part of you.

If a child will be molded or affected by his experiences, then unschooling parents need to provide great experiences. NEW experiences Repeat experiences. Surprising experiences. Comforting experiences.

SandraDodd.com/flow
photo by Sandra Dodd

Listening to your body

If food tastes like you should not eat it, don't eat it. If one bite makes you full, don't eat two. If one of your children balks at certain food, don't press him to eat it. Listen to your body's clear signals. If you get hungry, you'll FEEL hungry, and you might even know exactly what you would like to/should/can best eat, if you relax and pay attention. SandraDodd.com/instinct
photo by Jen Keefe

Hooks to hang ideas on

You have to know a lot to learn more, and if you know nothing, you can't learn anything.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Dawn Todd
___

Choose to choose.

Once someone complained making choices was too hard. I wrote:

Making a choice is a matter of choice and just doing it.I don't think it requires willpower to realize that a person can make a choice.

Think of two choices. Choose the best one.

Next time think of two choices (maybe the choice from the time before and a better one). Choose the best one.

If you do that several times a day, soon you'll be doing it countless times a day.

---

Make choices. Make choices that move you toward being more at peace with your child.

"Getting irritated," Always Learning, 2007
photo by Jill Parmer

More valuable and less expensive

Becoming the sort of person you hope your child will be, or that your child will respect, is more valuable than years of therapy. And it’s cheaper.

SandraDodd.com/becoming

(source of quote)
photo by Gail Higgins

Seeing in an unschooling light

Before you can see anything in an unschooling light, you must have an unschooling light to see by.

from an Always Learning post, 29 Jan 2016
photo by Karen James

Be thoughtful.

Be careful what you get excited about or fearful of. Be thoughtful. Read a little. Try a little. Wait a while. Watch. Not just about unschooling.



Generous, thoughtful, considerate

[the quote is from here]
photo by Gail Higgins