More, please

Any time a mom thinks there's nothing to know, I don't think she knows nearly enough.

When a mom thinks unschooling is doing nothing, she's not doing nearly enough.

If a mom thinks unschooling will take none of her time, she needs to spend a LOT of her time (more than those who knew it would be a life change) figuring out how to spend time to be with her child and what she can do, even when her child's not there, to help unschooling work better.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Shadows

Sometimes there's secondary beauty, in shadows and reflections.

SandraDodd.com/joy (not a quote, but similar enough)
photo by Holly Dodd

Changing the present, healing the past, hope for the future

Often people have been resistant about the idea that unschooling involves anything more than just letting their kids play. They don't like to think it involves changing themselves.

Gradually, freedom for the children creates a new looseness in the parents, though. And as one increases, the other does too. When a parent hits a hard spot, where they feel jealousy and resentment, it's often a sign that there's a painful childhood memory that hasn't been laid out to dry yet.

When we're tempted to say "no," and we have that little internal conversation about "Why not?" that can be healing. When I'm there, I think of my mom saying no, and then I picture her having been open enough to say yes more, and I picture my childhood self having a thrill of freedom and approval. There was some freedom, and some approval, but I can imagine up a lot more of it, and shower it on my children.

Sometimes I picture my granny telling my imagined young-girl mom "Yes" a lot too, and I think maybe if my mom had had more freedom she would have more to spread around. And I hope my children will not have to think so hard when they say yes to their children.

Others have mentioned feeling lighter and less bound by "have to." It doesn't seem to matter whether they start with "educational" issues or general parenting issues, it all builds together. All the relationships get better.

SandraDodd.com/rentalk.html
photo by Sandra Dodd (hot-tub stove, open)
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All or nothing or...

Should people live in the water in the middle of the ocean, or should they live on land as far as possible away from an ocean?

Quickly! What's your answer?


This was a trick question just designed to make you think. But people really do ask the same kinds of questions of themselves sometimes. In some people's heads, "Don't believe everything you read" turns into "Don't believe anything you read."

In the middle are things like "Believe things that make sense and seem to work after you've thought about them and tried them out," and "Don't believe something just because you read it, but wait for it to be confirmed by other more trusted sources, or by your own research or observance."

By thinking in extremes, "There is more than one truth" becomes "All things are equally truthful." Just because there are many truths doesn't mean there's no such thing as nonsense.

SandraDodd.com/balance
The last bit was a paraphrase, to be courteous,
of the original statement from a few years before which was
"Just because there's more than one truth
doesn't mean there's no such thing as bullshit."

photo by Sandra Dodd

Young Adults

I will know more later, but from my vantage point as someone with two "of age" boys and a girl about to turn eighteen, it seems that the adult products of unschooling turn out to be adult humans who were relatively unhampered as they learned and grew. Many things we have been told and assumed were natural human behavior seem now to be natural side effects of schooling.

School promises a child that if he's good, someday he can take his place in the world. They're still making him that promise when he's a young adult: "Someday…"

Unschooled children are in the world from an early age. When they reach adulthood they have a carriage and calm that I believe came from having being respected as people for many years. It's hard to describe, but impossible to ignore.

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Substance

We have a compost pile, and it's kind of amazing how it seems at first that the food and leaves and sticks and banana peels and dog poop will never do anything but sit there looking like garbage, but when I stop watching it, it turns to solid black, rich dirt! I can't find any parts of the elements of which it's made.

It's kind of like that with my kids. It took me a few years to quit watching them and trust that it would compost.

It did.

SandraDodd.com/substance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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They're not self regulating.

"Self regulate" means to make a rule and then follow it yourself.

They're not self regulating. They're making choices.

It's different. It's better!

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Sandra Dodd
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