Play around.

Play with words, with ideas, with thoughts.

Play with music.

Play in the rain.

Play in the dark.

Play with your food.

But play safely. Play is only play when no one involved is objecting. It's only playing if everyone is playing.

SandraDodd.com/playing
Jouer, un sérieux travail
photo by Sandra Dodd of a shiny trashcan on a tile floor
Play with your camera.

More or Less

If life feels dull, enliven it. If life seems frantic, slow down.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Choose your Contagion

Someone wrote elsewhere, about Just Add Light and Stir:

I really didn’t like Sandra’s blog, sure there is a lot of useful information, but the “cheerful” tone creeps me out!

A lot of useful information would be sufficient, I think, for a daily blog with over 800 subscribers. But I'm creeping someone out with a "'cheerful' tone"?! First, it's not "cheerful" in quotes, not allegedly cheerful. It actually *is* cheerful. 🙂

Cynicism is poison. It erodes relationships. It saps one's spirit and dissolves faith and hope. I will choose cheeriness over pissiness anytime I can manage to do it, and I hope most of those reading here are able to make that choice too, for the sake of themselves and their families. For their neighbors, for their dogs. For safety while operating motor vehicles and other machinery. For success at work, and joy while grocery shopping.

Negativity sucks. It sucks the possibility of a joyful life directly out of a person, and if it's not stopped, it will spread to others.

Smiles can spread, too, though. Kindness can be contagious. You choose a hundred times a day to smile or to frown, to breathe in joy or to suck in resentment.

Live responsibly, especially while you have children in your home.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sandra Dodd, in the alley behind the house
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Structure

In 1992, someone asked "How do I structure our days and how do I structure our learning time?"

I think it should be "Woke up, got dressed, ate, played, ate, played, etc." In other words, I don’t think there should or can be any “days off” from child-centered "education."

If this seems wrong, try this experiment: Keep your child from learning anything for a few days. Make sure that from the first waking moment there is nothing learned, no new material, no original thoughts to ponder, etc. The only problem is that you would have to keep the children from playing, talking, reading, cleaning or repairing anything, etc.

from page 1 of Moving a Puddle

see also SandraDodd.com/structure
photo by Sandra Dodd

Smell imaginary flowers

When people hear "stop and smell the roses" they think of thorns, and ownership, and the cost of the roses, and whether they require more water than xeriscaping would. That's why deep breathing helps. It makes brains slow down. Although it's usually dolled up as formal meditation or chanting or yoga (which has other benefits, certainly, but for my current argument, the breathing...)... what it immediately does is slow the heart which stills the brain. And then thoughts can step gently and slowly around, instead of trying to jump on the speeding train of brains going the speed of people who are thinking of cost and future and past and promotion and danger and they're breathing fast, fast, fast. And shallow, shallow, shallow.

Deep breaths change everything, for a few moments.

Shallow breathing maintains a state. If you're angry or afraid and you breathe shallowly, you stay that way.
If you're calm (as in a meditative state) then breathing shallowly maintains it, once you've gotten there.

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd, in the village of Tissington
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Happy thoughts

It takes practice to separate thought from words, especially while one is reading. There are other non-verbal ways to examine and communicate, but for the analytical thinking involved in learning about something new, or deciding how to react, we often use words, even if only in our thoughts.

Words have the power to harm, to limit and to sadden. So be careful with words. Use the good ones, the happy ones.

SandraDodd.com/words/words
photo by Sandra Dodd
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There y'go!

When you know how you want to be, the next step is to make conscious decisions in a "getting warm" or "getting cold" kind of way. Not all steps will be forward, but if the majority of steps are in your chosen direction, there y'go!

"Becoming the Parent you Want to Be," page 194, The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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