Elvis, Barbie and Rebellion

I started to name this post "Elvis," but up popped "Elvis, Barbie and Rebellion." When I went to search my other blogs to see why that was happening, I found "Elvis, Battle of New Orleans, Pinky and the Brain, Cavemen."

Those two sets of words, separated from their origins, are more interesting than what I had originally intended to write about Elvis. I invite you ponder for a moment what I might have been thinking.

If you get tired of that, you are welcome to explore the first one and the other one, at your leisure.
photo by Holly Dodd herself

Look back at progress

[One day in 2006,] I dropped an egg on the floor. Just fumbled it, splat, and I looked at it. I remembered the first time I ever spilled anything and remained really calm. It was baby bathwater, when Kirby was just six months old or so. We were due to a meeting (LLL? Probably, or some appointment) soon, and I had given him a bath and had him all dressed to go, and wanted to pour the tub out. In moving it from the kitchen table over to the sink (a short distance at our old house—nobody who's recently been to our new house should bother to envision) it bent and like two or three gallons of soapy water went all over the floor.

I didn't cuss myself out, didn't stomp or yell or ANYthing. I just looked at it and thought the floor needed to be cleaned anyway, and I threw some rags or towels down on it so it wouldn't get away, and figured I'd clean it up better later. I never felt shame or embarrassment or frustration or the feeling that life isn't fair or that I was stupid. That was new to me, and I was 33.

A week and some ago, I dropped an egg calmly and realized it had been 20 years since I had to get angry and emotional over making a mistake like that.

SandraDodd.com/factors
photo by Sandra Dodd

Unschooling as recovery

I rarely think about the sad parts of my childhood, because I've been able to share in the happy parts of my children's childhood.

The quote is from the AlwaysLearning discussion list.
photo by Sandra Dodd, and you can click it
to see it larger, if you want to
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Epiphanies

Ah-HA!

I recently saw how far I've come.

I knew that. Now I *know* that.

I am pretty sure I understand now!

Those quotes are from a collection of just a few of the unschooling epiphanies reported over the years. Not one of them is anything akin to "Yeah, I read that, but..." They're not about reading at all. They're about seeing, about realizing, about having acted in a new way after months or years of the percolation of ideas through a mind and heart open to learning.

SandraDodd.com/gettingit
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Strength and teens

Once someone posted on a list I was on that "raising a teenager is like nailing jello to a tree."

HOW MUCH HAPPIER those families could have been had they dealt directly with one another as the actual people they were instead of taking on roles and spouting phrases they happened to have at the tip of their tongue (without thinking of where those bits of pre-formated dialog came from)...
I LOVE my teens.


When the story above was new, I had three teens. These days I'm down to one nineteen-year-old, my youngest. When the jello quote was posted, I objected and ended up leaving the group. I have continued to defend what I think is right and good, and I continue to have good relationships with my children.

Having teenagers grow up at my house was not like nailing anything to anything. They grew up like unharmed trees, and their strength and shade are a shelter to their parents and their siblings.

SandraDodd.com/attitude
Warm, Safe Saturday
photo by Sandra Dodd

Collecting

Some people collect things. Even those who don't gather and store physical objects might like hearing all of one artist's music, or seeing all the movies by a single director. I used to want to go into every public building or business in my home town. I never succeeded, but I saw each building as "yes, have been inside," or "not yet."

It might not make sense to a parent that a child wants to save feathers or rocks or movie ticket stubs. That's okay. What's important is that the unschooling parent accept that there is thought involved that might not need to make sense to anyone else. If possible, the child's whims and wishes about such things should be accepted and supported.

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Holly Dodd

What if kids watch TV all day?

It seems what will cause a kid to watch a show he doesn't want to watch is parental disapproval. If he's been told it's too scary, too adult, or forbidden, his natural curiosity might cause him to want to learn WHY. My kids, with the freedom to turn things on or off, turned LOTS of things off, or colored or did Lego or played with dolls or action figures during "the boring parts" (often happening to be the adult parts—what did they care?) and only looked back up when happy music or light or dogs or kids got their attention again.

from What if little kids watch TV all day? What can happen?
photo by Sandra Dodd
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