Years

Deb Lewis, out of context, but a really good part:

There's evidence galore! There's evidence throughout human existence. There's evidence in the fossil record. Stone age evidence and Bronze Age evidence and evidence in every archaeological site in the world. Humans learn.

They learn what the other humans around them are doing. They learn by living.

And now there's the evidence of my own son's life. 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.

Read the whole article, "The Evidence of Years":
SandraDodd.com/deblewis/years
photo by Sandra Dodd

What's natural?

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

It is natural for people to learn—each in their own way. It is natural for children to want to understand the world around them. They also want to join the adult world and become competent and capable adults themselves. They'll strive for this in their own natural ways. Unschooling parents work on creating a home environment that supports their children's natural desire to learn and grow.

—Pam Sorooshian

from "I LIVE THEREFORE I LEARN: Living an Unschooling Life"
photo by Sandra Dodd

Look up

When I was little, there was mean little trick we did to younger kids, and I didn't know enough to feel guilty about it. It had hurt my feelings when I was younger, but still I passed it on.

It started "Look up." It ended, after a while with "Gee, you're dumb."

I was reminded recently that I had told a relative NOT to teach my kids that fake "game." I'm still glad I asked that it not be done to them. The entirety of the rhyme, which has hand motions, was

"Look up. Look down.
Look all around.
Look at my thumb.
Gee, you're dumb."

I never wanted my kids to think for one joking moment that they were "dumb." I always stopped at the "look up" part, and life has looked up for all of us.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Eliminate half the world (in a good way)

No parent has to do anything. They choose to do things.

So being in that world of choices, where do they decide to stop and why?

There comes the philosophy back.

Through all the innumerable factors, how DO people decide?

By deciding what principles they are following. Each principle one clings to eliminates about half the choices in the world easily, and in a good way. Each additional principle eliminates some more options, until the world becomes manageable.

Sparkly Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Adults, not children

Don't worry about them. Delete "socialization" from your vocabulary. Give your kids so much love and self-confidence that peer pressure will mean nothing to them. They will be pressure-proof.

You want to aim toward a happy, balanced, confident adult, not "a successful third grader." You're raising adults, not children. You're keeping them warm and alive and happy until they become adults, because they will, with or without you in the picture. We have the power to screw them up to the point of life-scarring, or to just give them some room and peace and security to grow well in. We can't very well make them be what they aren't.

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Kerrin Koetsier
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Seems like yesterday

If my kids watched TV for hours each day, I might not be a good person to listen to about this, but I'll say it again: Unlimited access to TV and to food in my house has produced kids who only watch TV when they want to, and who only eat what they want to eat which is NOT a bunch of candy.

Holly asked for broccoli Tuesday. I bought some and cooked it before I knew she had gone to her friend's for an overnighter (she got the invite and left while I was shopping). So yesterday she asked about it, I reheated it and brought it to her at the TV where she was playing a game, waiting for the Simpsons to come on. She finished that bowl of broccoli, salt and butter, and asked for more with less butter.

I cooked the rest of it, and she ate most of it.

When The Simpsons ended she was done with the TV.

This isn't theoretical broccoli or TV, it was yesterday.

[It was 2001, but I wrote it the day after it happened.
Holly was nine years old.]

True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets
photo by Sandra Dodd, totally unrelated to the text, from a display at the Victoria and Albert museum of art from defunct or dismantled churches
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It's Time for Time

Time can be geological, historical, millenial, generational, eternal or poetic. Current time can involve years, months, seasons, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds and subparticles thereof. Time can fly or drag along. It can heal everything or be the enemy. There's no time out from time!

I hope you find some things here that you didn't know before, so that you feel your time was well spent. Time is money (or at least we talk about it as though it can be spent, saved, lost, wasted and stolen).

Be generous with your time and use it joyfully!

SandraDodd.com/time
photo by Sandra Dodd