One nicer thing

When I was a kid, if my mom had done one nicer thing a day, that would have been thousands of nicer things in my childhood.

SandraDodd.com/nicer
photo by Holly Dodd
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What helps when

What happens when you see other people differently is that you cannot help but see yourself differently. When you choose to find opportunities to give other people choices, you yourself have begun to make more choices.

from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 192 (or 222, depending)
which links to Thoughts on Changing
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the Siroky family's kitchen lamp

Something about math

Unschooling is simple but not easy, and it's not easy to understand, but when math is a normal part of life then people can discover it and use it in natural ways and it becomes a part of their native intelligence. All that's left is for them is to learn the notation, later, when they need to.

Mathematics (written for a German magazine; the translation is linked there)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Where to look

Rippy Dusseldorp wrote:

I don't really look to other mothers for validation on how I'm doing as a parent. I look to my children and my husband. If they are generally happy, relaxed, comfortable and engaged, I feel pretty good about how I'm doing....

If I see signs of frustration or stress or uneasiness in my family, there are alarm bells going off inside me telling me I need to be kinder, pay extra close attention, have more ideas, and offer more options."

—Rippy Dusseldorp

In a discussion on the Always Learning discussion group
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Inventory your tools

Inventory your own tools. What do you already know that can make you a more peaceful parent? What tricks and skills can you bring into your relationships with members of your family?
. . . .

As you move toward peace, remember you can't have all of anything in one move. Each thought or action can move you nearer, though (or further).
SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sandra Dodd, through glass
("It's the thought that counts.")
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Hopeful and helpful

Be up! Be happy when you can. Be hopeful and helpful! Everyone who can do that makes the world a better place.

SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a preemie calf, still damp
and a matching, watchful cat
at Alex Polikowsky's farm

The parts that fascinate you

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Real learning looks like doing a billion piece jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes you'll work on a dragon down in the corner. Sometimes you'll work on a cat in the center. Sometimes you'll work on the bits that are red. Sometimes you'll work on the frame. Eventually you'll discover what connects the dragon and the cat. You'll work on whatever interests you. And eventually there will be a rich collection of individual bits that form a bigger picture. But since it's a billion pieces you'll never do the whole thing. You'll just do the parts that fascinate you.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Sandra Dodd
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When it flows

When unschooling is working best, nobody is talking about learning. Saying "We're doing this so you will learn" will make the activity awkward, and you set up an expectation, and the possibility of failure to learn. When unschooling really flows, everyone will learn, but you won't know in advance what will be learned.

The quote is from an exchange on facebook, but try:
SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Sandra Dodd

Vibrant, healthy and active

I can see how vibrant, healthy, and active both of them are. They love to go outside, run with their friends, ride bikes, dig in the dirt, go swimming, catch fireflies, climb trees, and tons of other things. And they also love watching TV and playing computer games. I can look at them directly, without any fear, and see that they are whole and that our relationship is remaining intact because I respect the things they love and support choices they make."

—Susan May

Either/Or Thinking and "Screen Time"
photo by Sarah Dickinson

The children described aren't the same as those pictured,
but they're all unschoolers.
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Ask questions about life

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Think in terms of nurturing your own enthusiasm about life rather than nurturing their enthusiasm. Don't jump up and down about George Washington if he puts you to sleep. Be honest in your pursuit of what interests you. Let them see that you think something is really cool. Not to get them interested in something you think would be good for them but an honest "Wow! I love this stuff!" And ask questions about life. Be curious. Because it's the questions that are important. Anyone can look up the answers but not everyone can ask the questions.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/talk
(includes a link to a new French translation)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Aging beauty

Those swans are in the window of a closed business in a dying town in West Texas. The window has a reflection of me, taking the photo, and of the buildings across the street. I think they were probably beautiful when the window was first installed, and the store was fresh and filled with people and with the future.

I think the swans are even prettier now that they're the liveliest and most graceful things there. It might have been easy to miss seeing them in 1930, or whenever they first saw that street, because the new window below it would have been full of beautiful displays and the reflections of locals in their hats and suits and dresses.

The same camera has just taken photos in Portugal, and England, of odd little old things, of new and smiling people and of temporary tricks of light, ancient arches and statues and castles.

Look with your eyes and your heart at the beauty around you.


Today, the links are all from Just Add Light and Stir

Beauty
See beauty in...
Beauty in onions
An Abundance of Beauty (with readers' links, and you can add your own!)

photo by Sandra Dodd

How to be

Be sweet to your children.

SandraDodd.com/christmas04, way at the bottom
photo by Sandra Dodd

Pick a goal, any goal...

In response to anti-"screentime" rhetoric:

If one's goal is to make school the most interesting thing on a child's horizon, then by all means—turn off the TV, don't give them any great picture books, avoid popular music, and close all the windows.


If one's goal is to make learning a constant condition of a child's life, then turn ON the TV, give them all the books and magazines and music they want, open the windows, explore! Explore when you're out of the house, and explore when you're in the house.

SandraDodd.com/t/learning
photo of Holly Dodd by Quinn Trainor
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This post is a re-titled re-run from May 5, 2011. The window behind her has metal without glass. It is in "the rock house" (the Kiwanis cabin) at the top of the Sandia Mountains.

There is more on my site now about the prejudices some parents can succumb to than there used to be, too: "Screentime"

Joyful witness

"I am joyfully stepping into a space where I can now see and witness learning all of the time!"

—Lynn Salmon-Easter

SandraDodd.com/learningallthetime
photo by Cátia Maciel, of her son with a flea-market pirate ship,
flags against the blue of a distant ocean, treasure chest at his side,
transported to another place in his thoughts

Mix it up

Combine some things that have never been put together before.

SandraDodd.com/strewing
photo by Sandra Dodd

I nearly missed a day

Time out!

I got tired and went to sleep without thinking about Just Add Light. That doesn't often happen.



Yesterday I was at a flea market in Lisbon. Anyone who feels like looking at photos that can lead to connections and questions is very welcome to see what I snapped during that time out, and some of the things I brought home with me!

I'm sorry I didn't do a proper post, in time for the morning mailing, though. Six more weeks in Europe... I expect a few more worthy distractions, but also opportunities for some good photos!

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd (click the image for more)

Natural learning flows

Learning and growth are like a limitless reservoir, but we have factors in our culture that limit our access or control our faith that it could even work, or our feeling of ownership of knowledge of growth and learning. Experts. Timetables and charts.

Once a parent knows enough about natural learning to help that learning happen, though, it can flow freely.

hand pumps, siphons, water containers
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Finding art

Be brave! Not all art is in museums. Not everything that's in a museum is timeless, glorious art. Find accidents, jokes, coincidences... Share them with your children, share them with your friends.


SandraDodd.com/art
photo by Sandra Dodd, and it's a link to where and what it is

Flow

Robin Bentley wrote:

If you can only see the obstacles, then your journey won't be easy. Be like the water, finding its way around the rocks. See the openings, the possibilities.

—Robin Bentley

from a facebook discussion, but SandraDodd.com/flow follows from it, too
photo by Colleen Prieto
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No matter how old

For a parent who didn't know about attachment parenting early on, those things can be compensated for by being gentler to older children, and patient, and loving.

For those who were gentle and attentive to babies as people, remember that your child, no matter how old, is still that same person who trusted you the first days and weeks and months.

It's easy to forget, and to be impatient and critical. It happens at my house. It can be ever easier to remember, with practice and focus, to choose quiet and soft, still.

A Quiet Soft Place
photo by Julie D
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Whole and in the real world

If they're whole people from the beginning, a lot of those problems and stages don't even exist. They're artificial, and they have to do with school.

Sometimes people say, "Well how will your kids know how to live in the real world?"

And I say "What do you mean by 'the real world'?"
And that's a trap.🙂

17:30 on the recording of An Interview with Sandra Dodd
photo by Holly Dodd
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Simply and beautifully excel

Ronnie Maier wrote this. I love the phrase "simply and beautifully excel."

With unschooling, kids aren't all expected to have the same sort of intelligence. Verbal and logical intelligences aren't valued more, so kids with other intelligences aren't at risk as they are in school. For example, a boy with kinesthetic intelligence might be a discipline case in school, or labeled with dyslexia or ADD, or simply made to feel stupid. As an unschooler, that same boy might learn his ABC's while jumping on the trampoline, start reading while playing video games, or simply and beautifully excel in some physical pursuit. Most importantly, he will never be made to feel he's less for being who he is.

—Ronnie Maier

SandraDodd.com/intelligences
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A beautiful mystery

"I want to see Lucas Sven Leuenberger's math rock band. But where? When?

"The future is a beautiful mystery."

—Holly Dodd            

One doesn't need to know what math rock is to appreciate the comment about the future.

SandraDodd.com/holly
photo by Colleen Prieto

Now what?

Nothing in the world can guarantee that life will never jump up and scare us, or that circumstances won't pile up on us. The question to ask when one is consciously intending to create and maintain a more peaceful life is "now what?"

from a discussion on facebook
photo by Dylan Lewis

Find delight

Find delight in small, everyday things.

SandraDodd.com/joy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Astonishment

Let new ideas and experiences astonish you.


SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a hurricane simulation booth
in a mall in Slough

Calm in confusion

Learn to be content with your own puzzlement, and to nurture the puzzlement around you. It's okay not to have all the answers, but to let the questions confuse you for a while as you move in new directions.

You might like SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
(the quote is not from there, but it's related)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Read, try, wait and watch

Read a little. Try a little. Don't do what you don't understand.

Wait a while. You probably won't see an immediate change. But don't pull your plants up by the roots to see if they're growing. That's not good for any plants or for any children. Be patient. Trust that learning can happen if you give it time and if you give it space.

Watch your own children. Are they calm? Are they happy? Are they curious and interested in things? Don't mar their calm or their happiness with arbitrary limits, or with shame, or with pressure. Be their partner.

SandraDodd.com/video/doright
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Transcendental moments

Remember that your children will also experience flow.

If you interrupt them while they're playing Rock Band or drawing or spinning on a tire swing, you might be disturbing a profound experience. So interrupt gently, when you must. Treat them with the respect you would treat anyone who might be in the midst of a transcendental moment.

page 207 (or 240) of The Big Book of Unschooling, on Flow
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Good reason

Every choice you make should be made consciously, thoughtfully, for real and good reasons.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sandra Dodd

Proxy baby

When Kirby was a baby, about ten months old, I was at the library with him. A woman whispered questions to me, in the shelves of books (the stacks). Her daughter had married a foreigner and moved to Denmark. They had a baby she hadn't yet met. She was asking me how old Kirby was and whether he was average size and what size clothes I thought she might send.

She was sad and said by the time she saw her grandson, he would be walking and she was missing all the baby days. We were nice with one another, and said bye, and I walked away.

But after maybe five or six steps, I turned around and hurried back to find her. I said "Do you want to hold him?"

She got tears in her eyes and nodded and she hugged Kirby with her eyes closed and rocked him a little bit, kind of got the feel of him, and the smell of his head, which wouldn't have been as good as her own grandson's, but it was better than nothing.

When she handed him back she seemed much calmer and better. It was therapeutic for her. And I've always been glad that I thought of it before it was too late.

SandraDodd.com/kirby
Keith probably took this photo.

For the record, this happened in the stacks by the north wall of what was then called the Wyoming Branch library, behind Hoffmantown Center, in Albuquerque. It was surrounded by rose gardens. Now it has been renamed the Tony Hillerman Library, but in 1987, it wasn't called that.
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Learn about learning

Focus on your kids. Learn about learning.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Sandra Dodd

"Scatter it out and rearrange it!"

"Just Add Light and Stir" is my favorite blog. My "Thinking Sticks" blog is my second favorite. It has examples of the kinds of connections and trails and explorations that I hope unschoolers will come to find in their own lives.

ThinkingSticks.blogspot.com
I took the photo of a deer carcass owned by Bloxie (MD Polikowsky's dog), who arranged it artfully, with a wild turkey wing. Then after I took the photo, she rearranged it less attractively. When it snowed nearly two feet a couple of days later, she went and dug it out of the snow and arranged it on top. I did not wade out and photograph that. Sorry.

Click the photo to see more detail. I hope you can see why I photographed it.

The top of the Thinking Sticks blog says "Scatter it out and rearrange it!"
It was more about divergent thinking than a carcass, but still...

Your kindness makes you kinder.

Just as being kinder and gentler with a child makes one a kinder, gentler parent, being more attentive and concerned about a spouse or partner makes that person, in turn, more attentive and concerned.

It doesn't happen all at once, and you can't send them the bill. You can't count or measure it. It has to be selfless and generous. Your kindness needs to be given because it makes you kinder, not because you want any further reward.


From The Big Book of Unschooling, page 270 (page 311, in 2nd edition)
but here's an online cousin: SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo by Sarah Dickinson

True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
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"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil

Understanding is more important.

Respect and acceptance are more important than test scores and "performance." Understanding is more important than recitation.

page 72, The Big Book of Unschooling (79 in new edition)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Christmas candy, still there

We have a can of candy that was under the Christmas tree this year. We didn't do stockings. We bought the candy kids liked in stockings, put it in this little one-gallon paint can (printed with Christmas candy art) and it was always under the tree from mid-December. I just opened it.

It has half of its original candy. Reese's and Hershey's miniatures. Everyone here likes that stuff, but it could last a long time more, because nobody here is "needing" that stuff. Not craving it. It's just candy.

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Sandra Dodd

Expectations

"I suspect that any time a parent new to unschooling starts thinking 'This isn't working' it is because they are holding on to an expectation.

"Expectations can get in the way of seeing what is really happening."

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/expectations or Attentes
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a house key in The Netherlands
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Much more than half

I've given this advice to newlyweds, and to my oldest child the first time he had a roommate:

Don't aim for 50/50.

If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.

If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal.

SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Sandra Dodd
P.S. Nearly six years later and three houses later, Kirby still lives with that roommate, who is engaged. He and his fianceé custom-ordered a new home, designed to accommodate Kirby comfortably.
Don't measure.

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2020 update: Thirteen years later, Kirby is married, with three children, in a house in Albuquerque. They all get along sweetly.

Time and Perspective

As our children get older, our perspective changes, but no matter how lofty the view, we can't see forever.

Deb Lewis wrote:
"In looking back I've not only had the pleasure of revisiting a lot of wonderful moments, but I've also had the surprise gift of perspective, which reveals overwhelming evidence of natural learning. What I always believed to be true is no longer a matter of trust or faith; it is fact.. . . ."He is surrounded by the things that interest humans in the twenty-first century. He is surrounded by the whole of human history. He is a citizen of the world in a time when access to information has never been easier. He is learning all the time."

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/years
photo by Bob Cogliser

Being a mother

"If you are choosing to be a mother, move beyond playing at it, and *be* it."

—Pam Laricchia

Are You Playing the Role of “Mother”? by Pam Laricchia
(see also, if you're having fun, SandraDodd.com/being)
photo by Colleen Prieto

Just for now

"The big thing is to remember that you don't need once-and-for-all solutions, just for-now solutions." —Meredith Novak

the original quote, on Always Learning
or those who aren't in that group might like SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Colleen Prieto

Commitment to unschooling

In response to a question about commitment...

My best recommendation is to create and maintain such a rich and joyful unschooling life that the child won't want to go to school. That's the direction "commitment to unschooling" should take.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/naturalparenting2010
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Deep and wide and whole

Once someone wrote that her child was doing passive things, and had no interest in learning the basics. Amy Carpenter wrote something wonderful about active learning. This is just a bit of it. There's a link to the rest, below.

We recently took Fisher to a Blue Man Group concert—his first real "grown-up" show. Again, I could see all the connections being made—he watched how the instruments were being played, listened to how the sounds and the rhythms came together, jumped and bopped his head and let it all come together inside of him. His knowledge and awareness of music is growing deep and wide—it's not about "the basics," but about a gestalt, a holistic, systemic approach.

When you ask what component you are missing, this is what I keep coming up with. Are you looking in the wrong places? Are you looking for the basics when in fact, your son's knowledge and understanding is deep and wide and whole? What you see as "basic" are just a few Lego pieces that he'll fill in as he goes—but in looking for those, are you missing the incredibly large, whole creation that he's built up?

from Amy Carpenter's writing, here: SandraDodd.com/activeunschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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See them

Find your child's strengths and joys.

words by Sandra Dodd on Radical Unschooling Info, a facebook group
photo by Dylan Lewis, on a solo trip to Italy
More cheery things by Deb Lewis, his mom.

Leave a message

"I want for my kids to grow up and hear that mommy voice in their head saying positive supportive things—not tearing them down, but encouraging them."

— Pam Sorooshian

3/4 of the way down SandraDodd.com/choices, on the left
I removed part of a phrase, added a dash, and put a period before it was over.
It's not a perfectly-quoted quote, but it's a perfect idea
and all the words are Pam's.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Something old, something new

If you don't have other plans, here's an idea:

Do something new and different today. Something surprising, maybe.

Also, today, do something familiar and comfortable and soothing.

If that feels good, consider doing it every day.

SandraDodd.com/nest
The photo is a link to the report of a day in 2009.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Choose choices

"Children have to be taught to self-regulate." That "rule" is parroted by non-thinking parents with great regularity. It can be replaced with "I would like to help my child make thoughtful choices."

If you think of controlling yourself, and of your children controlling themselves, it's still about control. If people live by principles their choices come easily.. . .When you hear or say "They will self-regulate," think to yourself: "They will learn to make choices."

SandraDodd.com/self-regulation
Quote is from page 56 (or 61) of The Big Book of Unschooling.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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What they think

"I'm more interested in learning what they think of the world than in telling them about the world."

—Linnea King

SandraDodd.com/inspiration
photo by Sandra Dodd

It's a shift

"Being an unschooling parent means finding something you *can* like in what your kids do. It means finding a way to support them, lovingly. It's a shift away from 'eww' to 'ahh!'"

—Robin Bentley

SandraDodd.com/obsessions/feedpassions
photo by Sandra Dodd
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