Generating joy

When you learn to give, it starts to flow, and the others around you are soft and giving and a family can generate a lot of joy!

Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions, transcript of a chat
photos by Sandra Dodd,
of Keith Dodd's ice display

Philosophy and principles

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

The core idea of the unschooling philosophy is that humans are born learners. That's what John Holt observed over and over. Children will learn best when allowed to learn what, when and how they want.

That doesn't, of course, tell anyone what to do. The philosophy helps you make choices. The principles -- such as peace, trust, respect, support, helpfulness -- help you stay on course when situations make it difficult to.

—Joyce Fetteroll

The unschooling philosophy
photo by Christine Elizabeth Milne

Together; partners

If the only right choice is the mother's choice, then the mother will win when she gets her way, but the child will lose. The only way for the child to win would be for the mother to lose. That's what adversarial relations look like.

Be your child's partner, not his adversary.

Choose partnership many times each day.

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Amy Milstein

Yes, and more yes

Colleen Prieto wrote, in response to someone having written "We are adhering to a culture of self sufficiency":

All three of us (my husband, me, and my son) do things for each other throughout the day, asked and unasked, that we're all certainly capable of doing for ourselves. . . . .

Saying yes, and more yes, and more yes can indeed lead to wonderful things.

The part I left out is very sweet, and is here:
Serving Others as a Gift
photo by Shannon McClendon

Knots and knotwork

Knot tying can lead to all kinds of history and geography. Hunters, traps, climbing, ships (wrapped bottles, in addition to all kinds of sail rigging and tethering knots), and cowboy stuff, and...


see two great comments on this other one (and links)

The photo isn't of tied knots, but drawn and painted knots, by Keith Dodd. Keith knows lots of knots, with rope, but I don't have photos. What's there looks confusing. It's a three-legged tooled-leather-seated folding stool with a painted shield leaning on it.

Native habitats

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It's important to observe radically unschooled kids rather than kids in general because kids in general are shaped by the relationship they have with their parents and their freedom to explore. Kids who are controlled behave very differently from kids who are supported in their explorations. They are as different as zoo animals kept in cages are different from animals who grow up in their native habitats.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Understanding Unschooling
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Things are connected

Jen Keefe wrote:

I’ve found it fascinating (I don’t use that word lightly) how many different things are connecting for me, as an adult, through learning to unschool well. I didn’t understand how things connected from school. Wars, geography, fractions, the Russian language... it was all individual stuff. I moved dutifully from one stand alone period to the next trying to do the bare minimum work not because I was lazy or stupid but because none of it *made sense*.

Now, daily almost, I’ll watch or read or hear or be talking about something and I’ll think "oh my gosh! That’s connected!" Or, "That’s why that happened there."

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/jenkeefe
photo by Kristin Cleague

Children as people

Me, 2005:

If the parent can come to think before acting, so can the child.
   "Wait. That's Holly's. Do you want another one?"
That neither praises the child for acting rashly nor condemns him. It's the way you might deal with a person who isn't also a child. . . . .

This is important when people are going to be respectful of children. It's the soul of treating children as people. But it's not about teaching or discipline. It's about mindfulness, respect, honesty and compassion.

SandraDodd.com/tone
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Thought, emotion, awareness

from a discussion on eye contact:

When someone recommends turning full on toward the child, that means don't keep reading your newspaper or your computer screen. Pause the video. Put down the gardening tools. It doesn't mean stare at the child until he finishes his story. It means to be WITH him, with him in thought, and with him in emotion if needed, and with him in awareness.
. . . .
I think being side by side with someone is a good way to focus attention away from eyes yet still on them, so they can speak without the intimidation and confusion of your face right in front of them.

Leaning on a Truck is an article about communicating with children in that way.

SandraDodd.com/eyecontact
photo by Wesli Dykstra
in North America

but it's a lot like yesterday's photo which was taken
two hemispheres away

Don't stop too soon

Some people define unschooling as a relationship (or lack of one) with school. Others define it as a relationship (or potential damage to a relationship) with their children.

It seems our detractors say "If my kids aren't in school and I'm not using a curriculum, I'm unschooling."

It seems to me that stopping there will lead to frustration and failure and the continuous little additions of rules and lessons and requirements.

It's enough if one is looking toward school and wants to declare the kids are out AND they're not going to use a curriculum. So at that point in the sort (if we were writing a computer program), they've passed through two gates:
     School? if no, then homeschooling
     Curriculum? if no, then unschooling

But will that last years? It's the label of a moment. "Now what?"

It's not a computer program. For me it's about natural human learning, not about not-school and not-curriculum.

SandraDodd.com/lists/help
photo by Jo Isaac
in Australia

Healthy and useful

Learning and changing is fun. It's healthy. It's useful.

SandraDodd.com/authentic
photo by Gail Higgins

Even simpler

From some questions after a conference:

Q: When your child asks about something, for example "How do you write this letter?" do you focus on that until they are bored and let them bring it up again, or do you work on it over the course of days, weeks, months, until they are satisfied?

This was a written question, so I didn't get to ask whether by "letter" a piece of correspondence was meant, or a single figure. Same answer for both, though. I would just answer the question, sketching one example, and then see if the child wanted more information or not.

But if a single was meant, this morning (9/8/02) Holly asked me "What's the best way to make a 'q'?" I wrote four different ways, not knowing what she was asking. She was wanting the plainest printed "lower case" letter. So she picked the one that best matched the lettering she was doing, and she was happy. Total "lesson," fifteen seconds.

SandraDodd.com/questions
photo by Holly Dodd

Pretty great

My favourite response of Ethan's to many questions that are geared to have one right answer is "It depends." I used to think (because of my own schooling), "What does it depend on? The answer is ____. Period."

Now, because Ethan has proven to me so many times that is really *does* depend, my own mind hardly searches for that one "right" answer any longer. I love the expansion of the many possibilities! It's so much more fun to think about more than one answer, and so much less limiting to live in a world with more than one right way.

It took me a long time to see that. Ethan has never seen it any other way. How great is that!?

—Karen James
(original)

SandraDodd.com/betteranswers
photo by Marin Holmes

Expressing joy

Gratitude is good for the soul, for the spirit, for the mind, for the heart.

Negativity and discouragement spiral down a hole.

...When you hear or read something pure and joyful, maybe just bask in it, or add to it. Please try to think and make a choice, though, about whether to respond or to be quietly grateful that someone is courageous enough to express joy in a dangerously negative world.

Gratitude and choices
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Mix life up

Can you get out of the house more? Go do different grocery stores? I've suggested this ten times over the years and some people perk up and get it immediately, and some think I'm a small-minded dope. People learn from stimulation. Seeing things they haven't seen before that are not entirely unlike what they have seen will help them build brain trails and patterns. If you go to the same grocery store and walk the aisles in the same order every time, the kids won't learn anything but that pattern. They won't learn the range of what stores have, how differently it can be arranged, and how to shop by looking at labels and looking at what's stored near that product, instead of just heading straight to where you KNOW the soup you always use is. How will they ever see exotic new soup? How will they ever see bulk pasta if you always get the same bag of noodles of the lowest shelf near the same old same old same old stuff?

That can go for going to the post office, to the movies, to buy shoes, all KINDS of things. Mix life up. Take a new trail.

That's from a 25-year-old discussion:
Conversations With Sandra Dodd: Welcome!
photo by Sandra Dodd

Be playful.

Question:

Could you give some examples of family games ?

Answer:

Don't look for "games." Look for play.

Looking first for games is like looking for school-lessons.

Play. Be playful.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Fun and togetherness

Focus on fun and togetherness, and see the learning start to show itself.

SandraDodd.com/simple
photo by Sandra Dodd

Purposes, on purpose

When we talk about making decisions within unschooling discussions, it's not something like "I made the decision to be an unschooler." It's small decisions in the moment, right before each action or response, about what to have for lunch, where and how and why. Consciously making choices
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".) Choices in Parenting, Unschooling and the rest of Life

SandraDodd.com/purpose
photo by Brie Jontry

Mindset and language

A reader named Eleanor wrote:

I was very grateful to discover your writings on ‘struggle’ and the compilation on your website relating to ‘struggle‘ a few years ago.

I still read it regularly and get so much more from it with each read. It sparked a change in mindset and language which improved our unschooling lives massively.

Lax and relax
photo by Sandra Dodd

Serious business continues

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.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Cátia Maciel

Courage to be accommodating

IF an unschooling mom is letting her child play video games while she makes him food, and if someone else says "You're being a martyr," it doesn't mean she's being a martyr. It means the other person wants to control her. It means the other person (who is probably also a parent) wants her to be a little less accommodating, so as not to wreck the curve and make other parents look bad.

That's what I think. It's an idea I'm going to carry around a while and see whether it holds up.

SandraDodd.com/martyr
photo by Dan Vilter

Enjoy the landscape

Karen James wrote in 2012:

My nine-year-old son ran into the kitchen yesterday while I was fixing a snack for us to take back to our game of Minecraft saying he had finally figured out how to make a "logic gate" using redstone. He was jumping up and down, so thrilled with his accomplishment. I wasn't even sure what a logic gate was, nor how to make one. We quickly returned to the game where he proceeded to educate me by building trap after trap for me to trip, and invention after invention to me to use, all using this new skill he figured out. We played for over two hours together, at which point he stopped and said he wanted to see if his friend was available to play out back with him. I stayed at the game for a bit, building, and trying to figure out what he had done 😉

A good chunk of our days are filled with gaming, and I wouldn't change a moment of it. My son is learning so much, is healthy both physically and emotionally, and truly loves his life. What more could I hope for?! (And, BTW, inviting media into our lives was a stretch for me at first too. I know the fears. I read all the studies. But after a few years of living this life, I also know my fears were unfounded. But as Alexandra and Sandra say...don't go too fast. You'll see more. Enjoy the new landscape!)

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/videogames/
image by Karen James, Ethan and Nick, in October 2012

Experiencing direct learning

I am so certain that learning comes from experiences and touching, hearing, seeing, smelling and tasting that in light of natural learning, books seem flat and dry.

SandraDodd.com/r/hollydodd
photo by Sandra Dodd

Comfortable new ideas

Lea Goin wrote:

I just realized my children turn down sweets all the time!

I've tried to maintain a candy bowl in hands reach for years. They stopped emptying it pretty much right away. Got comfortable with the idea that candy is always available if they want some.

And this past Halloween two of mine chose to skip trick or treating in favor of other activities. And one gave me back a pretty full bag to put in the family candy bowl.

—Lea Goin

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Rachel Kay

Unschooling is modern, not ancient

Unschooling is a substitute for compulsory schooling, and exists in times and places where nearly unlimited information is available, and "schooling" is compulsory until late teens. Those conditions are not historical. Even in my grandparents' day, people dropped out in elementary school; in my parents' time they could leave school at 15 or 16 years old.

Humans Learn
photo by Sandra Dodd (of local mountains)

Happier and more positive

When people ask about being happier and more positive, the answer can't help but be the same. BE happier. BE positive.

But as with any accounting (think a bank account), withdrawals deplete your reserves. Every negative word, thought or deed takes peace and positivity out of your account.

Cynicism, sarcasm—which some people enjoy and defend—are costly, if your goal is peace. Biochemically / emotionally (those two are separate in language, but physically they are the same), calmer is healthier. I don't know of any physical condition that is made better by freaking out or crying hard or losing sleep or reciting fears. I know LOTS of things that are made better—entire lives, and lives of grandchildren not yet born—by thoughtful, mindful clarity.

It's okay for mothers to be calm. There are plenty of childless people to flip out. Peek out every few days, from your calm place, and check whether their ranting freak-out is making the world a more peaceful place. If not, be grateful you weren't out there ignoring (or frightening) your children while helping strangers fail to create peace from chaos.

SandraDodd.com/factors might be helpful.

SandraDodd.com/issues might, too.

Source of writing, on facebook
photo by Karen James

Do more for and with your child

Someone wrote:

"My worry is that I am needing to do something bigger/more."

I responded:

If you don’t feel like you’re doing enough, do more.
Accept the uncomfortable feeling as you would hunger or sleepiness, and act on it, a bit. See if that helps. If so, do more.

Instead of offering suggestions, do things for him, and with him. There are lots of ideas on my site (and other places you could google up) but here’s a list Deb Lewis wrote a few years ago that I really like:

Things to do in the Winter
SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist

---

Original text here (fourth comment):
"Bored" and "Lazy"—Amy Childs podcast episode from August 2014

The player isn't working at that link,
but you can listen at SandraDodd.com/boredom/

photo by Colleen Prieto

Radical Unschooling Is...

"Radical Unschooling" is unschooling fully, from the roots, from the principles, extended into all of one's life and being.


This was inspired by Family Bonding, Amy Childs interviewing me
about the benefits of radical unschooling.
(and there's a good transcript there)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sitting, playing, learning

Playing a video game is not violent. Playing a game is sitting on a couch with a remote control.

Shaming a kid who wants to sit on the couch with a remote control, or somehow
preventing him from playing, is closer to violence than a kid causing the
character he's controlling to shoot an imaginary weapon at some pixels.

SandraDodd.com/violence
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

Finding contentment

When a mom is stressed and can't find the equilibrium to start in a calm place with her kids, I suggest that she not watch the local news. Breathe. Find positive things to see, listen to, think about. No one can do that and still post fright and doom. Nor even keep reading fright and doom.

It takes the mom's head and heart to dark places. It stirs the mom's emotions and can bring adrenaline in people thousands of miles from the problem. Adrenaline junkies can always find another problem to keep them on the edge, but their milk doesn't taste as good as a mom who is calm and thinking peaceful thoughts. They will use up their excitement on distant things instead of finding their child's discoveries the best thing of the day.
. . . .

The damage done by negativity is a knowable thing. If the mother can't find contentment, she has none to share with her children.

Slightly edited from SandraDodd.com/sharingnegativity
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Enhancing life

Deciding to homeschool, and then to unschool, was one of the toughest decisions I ever made. But I have to say that it has unequivocably enhanced every area of our lives, including our marriage.

—Jenny (breezyj)

---

If you give your whole self to your family, you'll find you still have your whole self.

—Sandra Dodd
in that exchange, years ago

SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo by Cass Kotrba

Being available during "school hours"

Responses to concerns posted by nervous parents:

Not having a high school diploma didn't keep my always unschooled daughter out of college, AND she got her first paid job BECAUSE she was unschooled - her dance studio needed someone to cover the afternoon classes of a teacher going on maternity leave, none of the regular teachers were available for that time and the older assistants were in school. She's been employed by them ever since.

It's an interesting twist. 🙂

Deborah in Illinois

---

Marty has worked "during school hours" since he turned fifteen, and was offered a fulltime job just before turning 17. None of this keeps him from learning, from doing lots of things with other people, nor will it keep him from the option of college. He's working 6:30a.m. to 3:00 M-F. Kinda like school hours, for the first time in his life. 🙂

Sandra in New Mexico

Both those former teens are grown now. Marty's oldest child turns seven today.

SandraDodd.com/teens/
photo by Sandra Dodd

People, growing as people

Tina B/canuckgal wrote in 2008:

We continue to come to this life bit by bit as well. I think for us it is an extension of attachment parenting philosophy, about what we believe about children and childhood and about our children as PEOPLE, not them as little beings who fall short and need to be prepped for adulthood while totally ignoring or negating the living and learning they are doing TODAY....
. . . .
I love how the whole philosophy (not just the "academic" aspect) has made ME grow as a mom and person, and I hate to think where our family would be had we not come across it. Yes, I have had my bad days and doubts, but certainly I would not be as happy as I am now.

—Tina B/canuckgal

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Roya Dedeaux

A different lens

If people learn to use "learn" instead of "teach," it helps them move to another angle, to see things through a different lens.

Some people see experienced unschoolers ("experienced" meaning in this context people who have done it well and effortlessly for years, who aren't afraid anymore, who have seen inspiring results) mention classes, and they think "Ah, well if the experienced unschoolers' kids take classes, then classes are good/necessary/no problem."

But if beginners don't go through a phase in which they REALLY focus on seeing learning outside of academic formalities, they will not be able to see around academics. If you turn away from the academics and truly, really, calmly and fully believe that there is a world that doesn't revolve around or even require or even benefit from academic traditions, *then* after a while you can see academics (research into education, or classes, or college) from another perspective.

Learning to See Differently
photo by Rosie Moon

Confidence and logic

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

I didn't get to observe radically unschooled kids before coming to the conclusions I did about how children learn. I'm sure it helps build confidence to see grown unschooled kids—that's why my kids and I make ourselves available. But it isn't necessary. For me, it required confidence in my own logical thinking ability. I reasoned things out and did what made sense to me.. . .My willingness to think for myself—to analyze, critique, to be open-minded, and to trust my own conclusions—that was how I came to understand unschooling.

—Pam Sorooshian

Understanding Unschooling
photo by Holly Dodd

Building an unschooling nest

"Building an unschooling nest" is a phrase that has come to mean maintaining a safe, rich, happy environment in which learning cannot help but happen.

What will help to create an environment in which unschooling can flourish? For children to learn from the world around them, the world around them should be merrily available, musically and colorfully accessible, it should feel good and taste good. They should have safety and choices and smiles and laughter.

There is some physicality to the "nest," but much of it is constructed and held together by love, attitudes and relationships. Shared memories and plans, family jokes, songs and stories shared and discussed, all those strengthen the nest.

Quote from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 125 (or 137)
photo by Sandra Dodd, out the front window, last year this time

Soft traditions

Traditional seasonal art, knitted and put on a postbox, by a volunteer.

There are many soft traditions, with pillows, blankets, soft toys, pajamas, hugs and kisses.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
photo by Kelly Drewery

Light (and tractors)

Light returns [to tractors (in Wales)]:

Solstice and midwinter observances are varied, but seem always to involve light!

SandraDodd.com/light
photos by Janine Davies

Sleep, choices, jobs

[A] common question is whether someone who grew up without a schedule and a bed time and could ever hold "a real job." The assumption, I think, is that "real jobs" require getting up very early and at the same time every day. Marty did that for over a year when he worked at the grocery store near us. He worked Monday through Friday at 6:30 a.m. He had no problem with that schedule.

Looking up through the list of jobs, I will give as many shift-starting-times as I can remember, and you might wonder if someone who had grown up with a bed time and a regular schedule could ever hold a job.

AM

6:30 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00

PM

1:00 3:00 4:30 5:00 6:00

---

Since this was written, the starting-times of jobs for my kids has gone around the clock, with Kirby starting sometimes at 11:00 at night (at Blizzard, like a hospital graveyard shift), and beginning at 5:00 a.m. (one of his computer support jobs when he moved back to Albuquerque). When Marty worked stocking shelves at Target, at Christmas season, he was there at 4:00 a.m. a time or two. Probably more.

SandraDodd.com/jobs/bigbook
photo by Janine Davies

Distraction as kindness

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

We can't always fix everything for our kids or save them from every hurt. It can be a delicate balancing act—when should we intervene, when should we stay out of the way? Empathy goes a long long way and may often be all your child needs or wants. Be available to offer more, but let your child be your guide. Maybe your child wants guidance, ideas, support, or intervention. Maybe not. Sometimes the best thing you can offer is distraction.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/distraction
photo by Rosie Moon
___

The world in movies

Movies touch and show just about everything in the world. There are movies about history and movies that are history. There are movies about art and movies that are art. There are movies about music and movies that would be nearly nothing in the absence of their soundtracks. Movies show us different places and lifestyles, real and imagined.

---

(Think "film" if you live outside the "movie" zone; think "streaming video" if you want, though that includes TV series, shorts and documentaries which will dilute the idea of a film designed to last a couple of hours, with a beginning and end. Artistically speaking, "movie" refers to one of those. Many of the advantages do apply to other audio-visual media.)

MOVIES AS A PLAYGROUND, as tools, as portals
The image is from "Searching for Bobby Fischer," 1993, about learning, parenting, mentors, talent, and a child seeing life. It's called "Innocent Moves" in the U.K.

Ordinary moments

Karen James wrote:

Look for moments in the day that are good—especially the ordinary moments. Pause and appreciate them when you see them. Let them set the mood for how you move forward. Listen for pleasing sounds. A giggle. A child's breath. Your own heartbeat. Some music. Close your eyes, notice and appreciate those sounds. Find the ones that make you smile. Let your smile soften your mood.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/badmoment

longer version at Always Learning, November 26, 2015
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Experiences and opportunities

Rebecca Justus, from a longer chart about unschooling (linked below):

Live your lives and trust that learning will happen around and within all your activities.

Realize that life is full of experiences, that the world is full of opportunities. Enjoy them! Enjoy many of them together!

—Rebecca Justus

SandraDodd.com/unschool/difference
photo by Sandra Dodd