Get it together!

If watching TV is your child's thing and complaining about TV is your thing, you've spoiled a chance to have a shared thing.

Shared Experieneces are Important
photo by Jackie (Gold Standard) and it's a link

Positively open

Everyone has the freedom to be negative. Not everyone has thought of good reasons to be more positive.

SandraDodd.com/open
photo by Sandra Dodd

Food and dinner

We've never made our kids wait for dinner. If they're hungry, they can snack.

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Ideas about Dinner
The image is of a painting by Pierre Mignard in the 1640's
and it's a link.

The talking will start

I can’t predict what will be discussed the next time you set out some engrossing bowl of shells or foreign coins, or a box of buttons, or the antique Tinker Toys you got at the garage sale, but if you sit there long enough, the talking will start and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.


Leaning on a Truck
photo by Sandra Dodd

Help them

Help them have choices.

Help them make choices.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Learning floods in

When our schoolish expectations start to dissolve, learning floods in from all directions.

Learning for Fun (interview)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Fantastic

I cannot fathom wanting my son to have Less of whatever brings him joy. Because as far as I know, he will only live once—and I want that life — his life — to be amazing. Not mediocre, or moderate, or almost-good-enough. I want it to be fantastic. Fantastic!!

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Evidence of learning

Response to a question about what proof there is that unschooled kids are learning:

If the question is whether kids are learning, parents can tell when they're learning because they're there with them. How did you know when your child could ride a bike? You were able to let go, quit running, and watch him ride away. You know they can tell time when they tell you what time it is. You know they're learning to read when you spell something out to your husband and the kid speaks the secret word right in front of the younger siblings. In real-life practical ways children begin to use what they're learning, and as they're not off at school, the parents see the evidence of their learning constantly.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Temporary patterns

Appreciate what you're seeing and doing without expecting it to last.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Colleen Prieto

Learning to see why

People who learn to see their options and choices will live with an increasingly healthy awareness of why they are choosing their actions, words and thoughts.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd

Words, pictures and music

My mother did the best she could, I suppose. I need to do the best I can do. So I tell my children everything they want to know. I show them the world in words and pictures and music. While they're becoming better, wiser people, I am too. I wish I had learned these things before they were born, but I didn't have my teachers yet. I have tried to pass on to other moms the best of what works well for us, and to put little warning beacons near pitfalls.

Knowing Everything
photo by Karen James, in Japan

Together, happily

Amy Kidwell wrote:

I had always wanted to learn to live in the moment, but it seemed a great mystery. Having my daughter and becoming an unschooler, I finally get it! Most days, anyway... I'm not worried about the future, or fussing over the past. We are living together, happily, every day. What a nice way to be."

—Amy Kidwell

SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo by Sandra Dodd

Doing enough?

Are you doing enough? Are your kids looking at you expectantly, or are they busy off doing something fun? Have they seen the cool touristy stuff in your town already? "Field trip" kind of stuff? Do you let them do it at their own pace, and "quit early" if they want to? Do they have things to play with and build with and draw on and mess with? Do they have opportunities (if they want) to ride bikes, skateboards, climb something, jump on things? Are you looking for opportunities for them to hear live music or see theatre? If you feel like you're not doing enough, do more.

SandraDodd.com/mha (an obscure page)
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Plus or minus

Every little thing a parent does goes into the plus column or the minus column. Each parent is gaining credit or losing credit.

Everything counts—words, tone, patience, generosity, interest, kindnesses and thoughts. It takes more to build your credit back up than it does to waste it, so be careful.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Everything counts.

Where learning is concerned, it's never too late and everything counts.

Persephonics
photo by Dylan Lewis

A cool thing to know

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

While you're there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/nest or Coconut
photo by Sandra Dodd

Count, and then don't count

To be a better parent, make five more peaceful choices a day. That will make you feel better, and you can raise that number gradually until you're not counting, and the more peaceful decisions are your normal behavior.

You will still think and decide, but you won't think "#6 for today."


Sandra Dodd, from an unpublished presentation in Rochester, Minnesota
photo by Sandra Dodd

Learning to give

Being Ethan's mom changed me. I surprised myself in good ways. In learning to give to him, I grew to really like myself.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Karen James

Grab hold

"When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold. I read and I tried things and I moved further away from the childhood I had known to the parenthood I wanted to know."

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sandra Dodd

Gateway ideas

"At the gateway to the garden there was always a gate keeper…"



From "The Beautiful Park," by Robyn Coburn
SandraDodd.com/park
photo by Kristiva Stack, of her gate and a visiting vulture

Home

Peace is a prerequisite to natural, curious, intellectual exploration.

What is peace, then, in a home with children? Contentment is peace.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sandra Dodd

Knowledge, ideas and stories

We appreciate people who can share knowledge, ideas and stories with us.

SandraDodd.com/why
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Peace and presence

Nurture peace and presence.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Joy, awe and magic

By someone who sees service in a very positive light:

It is a matter of choice. You choose to serve others, to see it as a divine gift and to be filled with joy, awe and magic. You could also see it as a simple unpaid chore and feel miserable and make everyone miserable. The act is the same; the attitude is different and so the atmosphere you create is different.

—Manuela Jaramillo

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Sandra Dodd

Abundant connections

Unfold upward and outward. Expand one connection at a time. Laugh when you can.

learnnothingday.blogspot.com
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Everything special

"Looking through some old photos. I just really liked this one. Nothing special. Everything special."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames
photo by Doug James

The big idea

Here's the big idea: If children are allowed to turn foods down, they're not forced to eat, and they're given choices, they will come to choose good foods, know when they're hungry and when they're not, and actually learn to listen to their bodies and know what they need.

SandraDodd.com/eating/idea
photo by Sandra Dodd

Mothers have this power

"Life can never be perfect, but mothers have the power to make it a little better, a little better, and a little better."

—Sandra Dodd

La vida no puede ser perfecta, pero las mamas tienen el poder de hacerlo un poco mejor, un poco mejor...

—translated by Yvonne Laborda

from an interview in Spanish and English
photo by Karen James

Don't send the bill.

Change takes time. Don't send the bill. Don't "be nice" for two months and then say "I was nice and you weren't any nicer to me!" Be nice because being nice is better than not being nice. Do it for yourself and your children.

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Sandra Dodd

Knowledge and experience

You can't and don't need to "trust 100%."

You need to see the progress in your own children's life. Then it's not "trust." It becomes knowledge and experience.

SandraDodd.com/knolwedge
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

An atmosphere of support

"Don't become emotionally invested in your child's choices. If you want to invest your emotions, invest them in creating an atmosphere where kids feel supported in trying what appeals to them AND turning down what doesn't."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd

Character traits

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Homeschoolers think a lot about learning—but they often focus on learning to read, write, do math, or learning science or history, etc.

Unschoolers tend to take that kind of learning for granted, it happens along the way. Instead, as we get more and more into unschooling, we tend to focus on things like kindness and creativity and honesty—all those character traits that will determine "how" their learning will be used in their lives.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Whirl and twirl

With extra energy, people can do two things at once. If one of those things is pattern-building and physical, that whole verbal part of the brain is still available. Working on patterns in silence allows one’s mind to whirl and twirl. Doing something non-verbal while talking has a special advantage: Silence is not awkward.

More on each end? Patterns in Silence
photo by Sandra Dodd