A fair clip

At a fair clip, I thought of all of these:

paper clip
hair clip
clipping hair
clipper ship
clip-clop
clipped speech
clipping coupons
newspaper clippings
fingernail clippings
clipping the grass

and that was without asking anyone else or using a websearch or dictionary.

How do parents learn to play?

Learn by doing.

Play with words, thoughts, ideas.

SandraDodd.com/playing
scanner image by Sandra Dodd
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Which hat?

These hats are in a museum in Pennsylvania, in a reproduction milliner's shop.

Recently Just Add Light had a quote and link to something by Pam Sorooshian about whether one should be a child's friend, or parent. Pam knows one should be both, and explained that elegantly.

I was with a group of home ed families in France, some unschoolers, others in the various stages of consideration of unschooling, and someone asked to to tell how I am as a woman. Bea Mantovani was the translator, and said the question didn't really translate. The questioner tried to clarify. She said I had spoken of my husband, and of being a mother, but how was I as a woman, separate from that?

I remember my confusion better than my response. One thing I said was that I AM a mother.

I suspected, and it was later confirmed, that it was a socio-political question, a feminist concept about identity above and beyond motherhood. But the question sets motherhood in a low position, if only the brightest and the best exist apart from and outside of that, and if to have no answer made me unaware or less whole.

For one thing, though, I was in France speaking to people because I had been invited to do so. I've written thousands of thousands of words about parenting and how children can exist in a peaceful world of easy growth in all directions.

I'm a changing-the-world woman. But even that didn't answer the question, because it still was an extension of mothering, which I had explained had involved sharing and modeling since I nursed babies at La Leche League meetings.

I would most like to be known as a woman of integrity, and for that to be true, I can't deny or reject any aspect of my being. I can't divide myself into parts and still be one integral whole. Any hat I might put on is still on my own head.

SandraDodd.com/integrity

Affection and Esteem (from this blog, June 6, 2012)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Photos don't have to be upright

Photos don't have to be upright, but I usually like for them to be.

I'm sorry for the glitch with today's post, and it's not yet fixed. I've written to Photobucket. For a while I was making errors because of Blogger changing, and now there's a Photobucket problem.

There was one photo by Holly that was sideways on purpose so the words would be the readable direction.

I know my writing is always about peace and goodness and living lightly and being open to what happens. I know my photos are often of trees or trucks, the view through a hole in a wall, or doorways, or fires or flowers. I like rooflines, and plants growing in odd places. I like light coming through glass—refracting, reflecting and projecting its shadows and colors. I like round things.

(The cake photo is by Cathy Koetsier, and Holly Dodd took one or two of them.)

Thank you for reading. You don't have to read these, so thanks for choosing to do so. I don't have to make them and send them out, but I like to.
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Other solutions

"If you're trapped by have to's then there are no other solutions. If you recognize that there are other solutions then you can free up your thinking to allow them to come."

—Joyce Fetteroll

"There are just things we have to do" (on Joyce's site)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Progress toward joy

Some of the things that help people be confidently in the moment, feeling satisfied and content are:

• Breathing
  
• Gratitude
  
• Happy thoughts
  
• Fondness
  
• Acceptance

At first it might be relief and not joy, but as relief is a step away from fear, more relief will be progress toward joy.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 275 (or 318)
photo by Holly Dodd
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Counting and measuring

Measuring, weighing and counting can be fun!

Try not to measure, weigh or count relationships or learning, though. Learn not to keep count in the areas of knowledge or effort or interest.

Give, give, give
photo by Sandra Dodd
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As big as the world

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

If you look at school and curriculum objectively rather than the fonts of knowledge they're touted to be, it's easier to see how hugely limiting they are.

Kids are stuck inside memorizing facts about life and the world from someone predigested facts about it.

Unschooled kids are out in the world learning as humans are designed to learn: by gathering in what they observe and pulling understanding from it.

Schooled kids lives are limited. Unschooled kids lives are as big as the world around them. And with the internet and TV, that's practically infinite!

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joycefetteroll
photo by Sandra Dodd

Safe place

If your relationship with your child is about you leading him along with you instead of pushing him away, you will be his safe place.

Make yourself his safe place.

SandraDodd.com/safety
photo by Sandra Dodd

Play with words

Playing with words makes them come to life.

The history of England, of math, of writing, of counting.... Any portal into the universe is as real as any other. If an interest in language or butterflies or patterns or water creates connections for that person to anything else in the world, that can lead to EVERYTHING else in the world.

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A parent cannot decipher the whole world for her child, but she can help him begin to decipher it.

SandraDodd.com/etymology
photo by Sandra Dodd, in a park in Bangalore
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What makes things wonderful

The most common use of the word "wonder" these days is to express a question in a way that isn't likely to be answered, as in "I wonder when this tree will blossom?" It's also used to play with very young children with peek-a-boo games. "I wonder where Holly is? Where could she be? There she is!"

The deeper meaning of the word is what makes things wonderful. Full of wonder. Some adults are afraid of "wonder," though, because it involves relaxing into not understanding. It requires acceptance that one does not know. At its core, it is acceptance of and admiration for the mysterious and the hidden. It is taking joy in the revelation of simple things for which there are no words.

Similar page, SandraDodd.com/wonder
(though the quote is from page 279 (or 322) of The Big Book of Unschooling)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Real writing

Writing to real people for real purposes improves writing in real ways.


The quote is mine from a post to Always Learning,
but here's a link to go with it: SandraDodd.com/writing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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For now

In response to questions about what unschoolers can say to doubters and critics right in that crucial moment, I wrote:

Some things I've said:

"This is working for now. If it stops working, we'll do something else."

"Thanks. I'll think about that." (Or you could say "We thought about that," or "I think about that all the time.")

Mostly people want to know you heard what they said, and that you have thought about what they're suggesting. It doesn't hurt to say that you have, or that you will.

SandraDodd.com/school/say
photo by Sandra Dodd of one of the Diamond Jubilee beacons
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Affection and esteem

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Something that has rattled around in my head for years is the line, "You're the parent, not their friend."

I was just reading a news article and someone was quoted as saying: "Your kids don’t need a 40-year-old friend. They need a parent."

What a tragic dichotomy that one little line sets up!

Every single time that line has ever entered my head, it was leading me in the wrong direction. Every time.

What is a friend? I'm not talking about the schoolmates teenagers go out partying and drinking with. Not talking about the 5-year-old kid your child happens to play with at the park that day. I'm talking about real friendship.

1. a friend: one attached to another by affection or esteem

Knowing what I know now, with my kids grown, I strongly feel that that that one line, which permeates parental consciousnesses, should be quickly and actively contradicted and rooted out like a pernicious weed every single time it sprouts up.

Instead of "You're the parent, not their friend," substitute, "Be the very very best friend to them you can possibly be."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd

Anniversaries and memories

Queen Elizabeth II has been Queen for 60 years. Longer than I've been alive (I'll be 59 next month), she's been doing the same job, full time.

Two days ago, I watched BBC 1's live coverage of a flotilla of a thousand boats on the Thames, while I was sitting in the Daniels' living room with them and Addi. The Queen and Prince Phillip were on a boat in the flotilla, which was docked partway through so they could view the rest of the parade. They stood (never sat) through the entire thing, until the last boat passed, waving to all of them. While we got up for food and water and the bathroom, they seemed not to (though the Queen did go below briefly, and came back with a carefully draped shawl). It was cold, and sometimes raining. Because they stood, everyone else on the boat stood, too. Hours, and hours.

I was warm, inside. I was sitting.

Here comes my point. There are things to remember and times to remember them. The birth of a child, the decision to let him stay home instead of go to school, the time one decided to live a life of learning as an unschooling parent—these things are large in our lives. Take pride in your accomplishment even though there might not be people cheering you or waving flags.

You might feel you're doing a lot of work, under harsh conditions, while your children play. Think of the larger picture when you feel jealous or resentful. You had a choice. You have choices. All that needs to happen for years to pass peacefully is for a series of moments to pass peacefully. All you need to do to have anniversaries accrue is to continue to behave as conscientiously as you can, and to make choices in generous and selfless ways

SandraDodd.com/milestones/
photo by Sandra Dodd, who first became an unschooler 22 years ago
but who remembers having been an unschooling mom less than a year
and for a whole year, and then five, and later ten...

Whose home, whose responsibility?

Funny how parents say 'It's your home too and your responsibility,' when it comes to chores, but 'It's my home,' when it comes to setting standards or how money is spent or how to decorate it or ...

—Joyce Fetteroll

from a discussion at familyrun.ning, saved by The Wayback Machine
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bigger and Better

Deb Lewis wrote:

When we can we should always do more, offer more, think more, and make our bit of the world as big and full as we can for our kids. Our kid's lives get bigger and better when our thinking gets bigger and better."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Sandra Dodd, at Explora in Albuquerque

"They loved hearing stories..."

Once upon a time there was a family...

"The family lived peacefully together, enjoying their lives of travel, friends, and the pleasures from living life so simply. They encouraged one another’s passions and shared many as a family as well as having some of their very own. They loved hearing stories borne out of those passions and frequently wove tales that created interest, laughter, and joy from telling and hearing them. . . ."

—Ben Lovejoy, telling a story, about stories

The Stories of Our Families
photo by Marty Dodd
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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
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Barbie World

These Barbies belong to a girl named Ericka, who generously let me use her bedroom recently. I bring them to join my collection.

Some of Jayn's (from a few years back) and of Holly's (similarly historical now).

SandraDodd.com/barbie
photo by Sandra Dodd

It shows.

"Much of what they're learning as unschoolers is the 'true grit' of living: communication, interaction, observation, exploration, etc... and it shows!"

—a mom named Sandy

SandraDodd.com/siblingpeace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Feed passions...cake.

Feed passions.

Unschooling depends on children being able to follow their interests, but just as with food, it's hard to know whether they want to just taste it or finish off a case.

If a child wants to bake a cake, you don't know in advance whether she just wanted to mix the batter once or whether she will end up creating wedding cakes for millionaires. You don't need to know.

Feed Passions
photo by Sandra Dodd

The precious principle of abundance

Leah Rose wrote:

I had an amazing experience with [breathing] last night. At bedtime (which is about midnight in our family) I had just tucked in and said goodnight to our two youngest (8 and 11 yo boys) and was climbing into my own bed when I heard one of them calling me. My knee-jerk reaction was a blast of annoyance—very typical of me in that situation, exacerbated by the fact that I'd felt crummy all day and was really looking forward to collapsing into bed.

I huffed out an angry breath, started to head back to their room and suddenly had a thought from something I'd read here recently (or maybe on Sandra's website or the RU Network): "First, breathe and center yourself." So I took a deep breath, and as I inhaled I felt my whole being kind of slide into place—it was weird, almost a tangible sensation—and suddenly I felt completely peaceful. I walked into their room with a smile on my face and asked if either of them had called me. It was ds 11, he wanted me to set up his extra pillow (which was on the floor leaning against his bed) behind him so he could sit up and read for a bit.

Normally in this circumstance I'd have walked into the room annoyed and impatient and would have responded to this request by going on a rant about why he couldn't just reach down and pick it up himself, why he had to call me all the way back into his room for that, how tired and crummy I was feeling and there is no reason why I have to be the one to do it since he's perfectly capable himself! (You get the picture.)

Last night I just said, "Sure!" and set his pillows up behind him and gave them both another kiss goodnight and then went to bed feeling exhausted but very peaceful—and very thankful for my networks of unschoolers, from whom I'm learning the precious principle of abundance.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Osmosis and television shows

A cranky person wrote to me:

I do unschool but I obviously do not subscribe to your radical view of unschooling where children are expected to learn by osmosis and television shows.

To the Always Learning discussion list I wrote:

When the environment is rich, children learn by osmosis, if the membrane through which ideas pass is their perception of the world. What they see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think becomes a part of their experience, and they learn. And they learn from television shows, movies, paintings, books, plants, toys, games, movement, sports, dancing, singing, hearing music, drawing, sleeping.... as if by osmosis, they live and they learn.

SandraDodd.com/tv
photo by Sandra Dodd of a tractor covered in lights
Albuquerque Bio-Park's "River of Lights," 2011

About food...

You don't know what your children need. They won't know either, if they're never allowed to live in such a way that they will learn to pay more attention to their bodies than to a book or a menu, a calendar, a clock, or to their parents' fears and prejudices.


SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd
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To have a better life

To have a better life, stop doing what makes life worse.


SandraDodd.com/incrementalchange/
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Quiet idea-journeys

From my point of view and from my experience, if art and music lead a kid-conversation to Italy, and they make this connection at 10:30 at night, I could say say "Go to sleep," or I could get excited with them, and tell them the Ninja Turtles were named after Renaissance artists, and that all the musical terminology we use, and most of early opera, came from Italy. That maybe the Roman Empire died, but Rome was not through being a center for advanced thought. Or however much of that a child cares about. And some of that will work better with an art book out, and maybe a map of the world. Look! Italy looks like a boot for sure, and look how close it is to Greece, and to the Middle East. Look who their neighbors are to the north and west, and how much sea coast they have. Look at their boats.

Maybe the child is seven, though, and Italy isn't on the state's radar before 8th grade geography.

So I don't look at the state's requirements. I look at my child's opportunities. And I think the moment that the light is on in his eyes and he cares about this tiny bit of history he has just put together, that he wants me to say "YES, isn't that cool? I was much older when I figured this out. You're lucky to have great thoughts late at night."

And if he goes to sleep thinking of a camera obscura or the Vatican or gondoliers or a young teenaged Mozart seeing Italy with his dad, meeting people who thought they would remain more famous than Mozart... I think back to the circumstances of my own bedtimes as a child and I want to fill him with pictures and ideas and happy connections before he goes to sleep, if that's what he seems to want. I could be trying to go to sleep and being grouchy and he could be in another room trying to go to sleep and being sad, or we can go on idea-journeys and both go to sleep happy.

Other stories of Late-Night Learning
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Geography and everything

Geography can be about people and what they do, and believe, and wear. It can be about mountains, rocks, rivers, and where the rivers empty. The stories around a river that flows to the Hudson Bay will be different from the stories of rivers that flow into the Mediterranean. And with what you know of language and history and geography, can you look at "Mediterranean" and figure out why they called it that?

SandraDodd.com/geography
photo by Sandra Dodd
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The awful control beam

If the "control force" is great with you, maybe use it to control your own clutter or organize your papers or rearrange your books or clothing. File your photos and negatives. Scan some stuff. Don't turn that awful control beam on people you love.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Sandra Dodd
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How to be

Be the way you want your children to be, and they will want to be like you.

Something I said at the ALL in May symposium May 20, 2012
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the gagaball pit

See beauty in...

It's easy to see beauty in nature.

It's good to learn to see beauty in tables, cloth, air, spoons, socks, switches, handles, doorknobs, words, sounds, air, clouds, breeze, and ideas.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd

Gentle amusement

Funny songs, stories, pictures and poems amuse babies and adults all. Amusing food and unusual table settings can be fun. Comedy movies or TV shows are good for relaxing, passing time, and for exposure to different geographical, social or historical settings.

HOW Unschooled Kids Watch TV
photo by Jacki (Gold Standard)
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Interesting things

Choose, find, make, sing, draw, eat interesting things.
SandraDodd.com/strewing
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a dragon by Ericka Mahowald
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Surprising thoughts

Surprises help with learning, and so a humorous situation is more likely to be memorable than a humdrum one.

SandraDodd.com/humor
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A better direction

Is the cup half empty, half full, defective or overflowing?

One mindful step in a better direction can be joyous. You don't need to reach a destination to have joy.

The Big Book of Unschooling
page 318 (or 275, if it's yellow)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Avoid thwarting

Put your frustrated energy into a burst of mixing it up.

Unschooling can prove itself if it's not thwarted.

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That was part of some advice I gave in 2003 to a mom whose husband "wasn't onboard," as people say.

"Unschooling can prove itself if it's not thwarted" wasn't suggesting her husband was thwarting it, but that passivity and a lack of sharing it with a spouse thwarts it.

I like the sound of the word "thwart."

Don't thwart unschooling by using it to divide the family. Move toward it methodically and thoughtfully. Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. Note and share the results with your spouse. It can take a while to come to shared confidence, but don't fail to see it as a family-improving project.

SandraDodd.com/reluctance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Clarity magnified

Online discussions of natural learning and parenting give people a serious opportunity to practice communicating clearly and carefully. For some people, an unschooling discussion will be their first "real writing"—the first time they've written real things for real people, rather than practice things for teachers. Those who stick with it or who have a native talent for it will find themselves getting direct and immediate feedback from other parents who have taken the ideas or examples or stories and used them to change their own real children's lives, and that is bigtime.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 235
photo by Sandra Dodd
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What is "fair"?

In an attempt to "be fair," parents can be very UNfair. Children don't all need the same things for the same amount of time. Measuring with rulers and timers and charts is often shortchanging one child or another. What they could use more than that is the opportunity to decide when they're finished for their own reasons.


SandraDodd.com/sharing
photo by Sandra Dodd of a naturally-occuring basket of Nerf guns