Full of joy

"We spend days and days watching TV, baking, doing origami, playing computer games, being silly, playing tag in the house, hide and seek. It's making me smile just writing it. It is so full of joy."

— Sarah Shields

Many other days of joy are here:
SandraDodd.com/typical
photo by Celeste Burke

Don't be vigilant

Being "vigilant" sounds like absolutely exhausting effort. Relax. You do not "have to be vigilant." Especially not on yourself. That's you watching yourself. Way too much work. Let go of one of those selves. Relax inside the other one. Have a snooze. Don't be vigilant.

When you wake up, think. Am I glad to be here? Is this a good moment? If so, breathe and smile and touch your child gently. Be soft. Be grateful. Find abundance. Gently.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Celeste Burke

Flexibility and change

"Be prepared to be flexible and willing to change as your child gets older."

—Emily Strength

SandraDodd.com/sleeping
photo by Janine

Happier. Sparklier.

An ever-improving understanding of unschooling will, incrementally and gradually, create a life in which the parent is HAPPY to have done better, been more interested and interesting. Where "more" is the goal. Happier. Sparklier.


SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Eva Witsel

Seeing what is

Sometimes a heavy thing can seem much lighter if you accept what is, instead of arguing with the air about what you think SHOULD have been.

Be a light thing.
Rise up.

SandraDodd.com/acceptance
photo by Sandra Dodd

Step up and see

The same life can be seen from many different angles.
The same situation can be seen while holding one's breath
and being furious,
or while seeing the alternatives
and finding ways to be grateful,
no matter how small,
because on one small bit of gratitude,
one can step up and see another one,
and another.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sukayna

Humor and learning

The connection between humor and learning is well known. Unexpected juxtaposition is the basis of a lot of humor, and even more learning. It can be physical, musical, verbal, mathematical, but basically what it means is that unexpected combinations or outcomes can be funny. There are funny chemistry experiments, plays on words, math tricks, embarrassingly amusing stories from history, and there are parodies of famous pieces or styles of art and music.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Becky Sekeres

Makes sense

When the parents are curious and can find joy in exploring and discussing common interesting things in the everyday world, unschooling can make a lot of sense very easily. Optimism and positive attitudes help. If the children's comfort and joy can be a high priority and the parents can see the value of letting even young children begin to make choices, by the time the kids are teens they'll have had a great deal of real-world experience in making thoughtful decisions.

Sandra Dodd in a 2009 interview
photo by Susan Gaissert

From the inside

Debbie Regan wrote:

From the outside, unschooling may look like no chores, no bedtimes, no education, no discipline, no structure, no limits, etc. But from the inside, it's about learning, relationships, living with real parameters, partnership, navigating turbulence, making connections, joy, curiosity, focus, enthusiasm, options, following trails, fun, growing understanding, opening doors...

—Debbie Regan

SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Ve Lacerda

Support and accept

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

I really can't imagine villifying anything in their lives that they might find very exciting. Well, I can imagine it, so I guess that's why I don't do it.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Susanna Waters

Yourself and the world

People don't become really good at unschooling without changing the way they see themselves and the world.

To hear it: SandraDodd.com/radio
To read it: Living Unschooling
If you have the book Natural Born Learners, turn to page 199 for a longer version.
photo: Erika Ellis

All those people

To my children, I'm someone who's getting old who could hold them back (in a way). To me, though, I have all the stages my children have ever been. I still remember the babies, toddlers, "big kids" who could put their own shoes on. Big kids who learned to read and visited places without me, and big kids who went to jobs, and moved away.

The house is empty, but my heart is full of all those people.

A Series of Selves
photo by Isabelle Lent

Improving the flow

One of the nicest thing I do for my husband is to withhold criticism. I could (and used to, when we were younger) say too much, comment too much. Letting things go by lets peace and love flow in.

P.S. It works with children, too.

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
or the same article in German: Bessere Partner werden
(though the quote is from a discussion)
photo by Sandra Dodd (it's a link)

Advice

If you're going to unschool, do it wholeheartedly and happily.

If you're going to unschool, don't do it reluctantly. Don't do it resentfully.

(That advice works for just about everything.)

SandraDodd.com/attitude
photo by Murtaza Usman

Once upon a grocery list...

In a past year, Karen James to her son Ethan: I'm going to the store. Do you want anything special?

Ethan, after a pause: Yeah. Lettuce.

Karen: Lettuce?

Ethan: Yeah, lettuce...and other good snack food like that.

Karen: Okay.

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd, at an allotment garden in West Sussex

Keep the world safe!

A child who can recite prime numbers or reel off the infinitesimal pieces of pi might not be able to wipe his own ass. What kind of gift is that for anyone? It's just a thing, like being able to pogo stick for an hour, or to learn all the dialog and songs in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." It will neither save nor destroy the world.

Keep your child safe from pressure and labels. Have a happy life.

The first paragraph is from The Big Book of Unschooling
and I made the last part up just now.
Neither is on my website.

photo by Jasmine Baykus

Values

"Meredith Meredith" wrote:

If you value something, make it part of your life. If you value music, play music, listen to music, dance and sing. Invite the people you love to join you—maybe they will. If you value scientific thinking, think like a scientist. If you enjoy math, play with numbers and relationships. The catch is to live your own values without trying to foist them off on other people—because that's not a very good way of sharing what you love, and because personality matters. All your singing and dancing won't make your kids musicians if they're not so inclined—but they'll know a few things about music. If you push music at them, they may associate what they know with drudgery and unhappiness—and then you've failed and failed more utterly than if you never sang a note in their presence.

—Meredith Novak

Meredith
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty kid-art

This moment

What can I do now to make this moment better? —Eva Witsel

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Sandra Dodd

Slowly being

"Being there for and with the family" seems so simple and yet many parents miss out on it without even leaving the house. Maybe it's because of English. Maybe we think we're "being there with our family" just because we can hear them in the other room. There is a special kind of "being" and a thoughtful kind of "with" that are necessary for unschooling and mindful parenting to work.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Evelyn Torrales (Celeste Burke's mom)

Problem solved!

Joyce wrote:

If we're creating an atmosphere of power struggle, the kids will fight back to win. If we're creating an atmosphere of problem solving, the kids will feel part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/chores/shift
photo by Elise Lauterbach

All kinds of things

"Homeschooled children who grow up in a stimulating and enriched environment surrounded by family and friends who are generally interested and interesting, will learn all kinds of things and repeatedly surprise you with what they know."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/howto
photo by Abby Davis

Becoming, and being

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/being
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Joy, gratitude, abundance and peace

I'm not interested in helping people battle or fight or struggle. I want to help them find joy, gratitude, abundance and peace.

Fighting a lack of peace isn't creating more peace.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Chrissy Florence

Bounce, spring and fly

Keep your ideas bouncing in unpredictable directions! Let them spring and fly.

Rum Tum Tugger hooks up
photo by Lydia Koltai

In peace, at home

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

Some people go to school, have Special Ed for many years, have labels and they still cannot do things they way they are "supposed to." Those will still carry all the harm from feeling less than, and broken. I would not want that for any child.

SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Cathy Koetsier, of an old waterwheel, in France

Never too late

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

SandraDodd.com/persephonics
photo by Eva Witsel

Life-in-progress

The structured homeschooling that involves buying a curriculum and teaching at the kitchen table on a schedule is not the control group the school system needed. Those who practice “school at home” serve to reinforce the school’s claims that they could do better if they had more teachers and better equipment. When a structured family has high test scores, the schools say “SEE? We could do that too if we had one teacher per three or four students.”. . . .
Scientifically speaking, my children are not a control group. They’re not isolated and kept purely away from school methods and messages. But what is unquestionable is that there are now thousands of children who are learning without formal teaching. They are learning from the world around them, from being with interesting and interested adults doing real work and real play. Instead of being put away with other children to prepare for life, they are joining life-in-progress right at birth, and never leaving “the real world.”

SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo of Holly Dodd and Adam Daniel, by Adam's mom

Repeated, photo and all, from October 11, 2011. Holly is twenty-four years old now, and Adam is ten.

Efficiency

It seems that once unschooling is going that it covers everything, and there are no wasted moments, or wasted thoughts.

but you don't have to take my word for it:
Shockingly efficient
photo by Sandra Dodd