Principles sustain; rules constrain

Ben Lovejoy wrote:

Question the rules, and question the principles as well. But once you and your family have chosen the principles important to the family, you'll find that no one will want to change or break or get around them like they will rules.

Principles sustain a life; rules will constrain that very same life.

—Ben Lovejoy

SandraDodd.com/benrules
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Something so profound...

Just as the topic of food can be a hurdle or a brick wall to some trying to get unschooling, it can also be the source of the epiphany that sheds light on all other principles involved in natural learning and parenting peacefully. Consider a child who has been told what and how much to eat, and told how his body feels by someone trying to manipulate or control him. That is not about learning or choices. If a parent understands that a child can learn about food by trying it, by eating it or not, by sensing how his own body feels, the parent understands something so profound that all their lives will change.

SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Safe and simple

Someone fearful of "media violence" wrote, "I know this is a complex topic."
Joyce Fetteroll responded:

Only when it's mixed in with traditional parenting, school, disconnection.

In unschooling families it's simple: we help our kids explore what interests them in ways that are safe. And the side effects are that they find being loved and trusted and accepted for who they are is a whole lot more attractive than hatefulness and meanness. When their lives are full to overflowing with love, they don't need violence to get something they're lacking. All they need is to ask and they have a parent who will help them get it.

It's really that simple! Not complex at all.

Logic and Parenting
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Access to information

Little by little, years ago, I started to see that each little idea that had changed my own family had the potential, if I could explain it clearly enough, to change another family. Just a little was enough. As more and more families shared their successes and joys, the world changed. As more information was gathered and put where others could find it, the rate of change increased.

When I was first unschooling, we waited two months for a new issues of Growing Without Schooling. There was no internet discussion at all. When that began, a few years later, it was user groups, not even e- mail or webpages yet. Today someone can get more information about unschooling in one day than existed in the whole world when my oldest was five. I'm glad to have been part of honing, polishing, clarifying and gathering those ideas, stories and examples, and keeping them where others have quick access to them.

Interview with Sandra Dodd, Natural Parenting, 2010 (Section #5)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Relax!

Unschooling is easy for children, once parents relax into it and come to understand it. It's a way of living with children in a life based on sharing a joyous exploration of the world.


SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Holly Dodd (of Keith and me, at the fairgrounds one day)

Thrashing and flailing

About the ideas of, and avoidance of, the terms "force," "have to" and "no choice":

One of my favorite things about unschooling as practiced and discussed among some of my favorite unschoolers is the philosophical advantage kids have who grew up with ideas like these. There are adults who can't even read "You don't have to; you choose to..." without thrashing and flailing around and telling us to Be Quiet!!! 😊

When the thrashing and flailing stop, then there is a quiet. Then you can think.

SandraDodd.com/force
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Randomize Me

One of my favorite things on my page is my random page generator. The art's by my friend Bo, and the coding was lifted from someone else's freely-offered random generator, but I did all the filling in. That was so fun I made one for Joyce's page too. The cool thing about random pages there is that any page links to all the rest.

If you have The Big Book of Unschooling, you can use it as a "ouija book" by turning to a page at random when you have a question. 😊

The "Ouija-Book" method of getting unschooling help
photo by Sandra Dodd
taken at Bode's, in Abiquiu
(Bo-deez, sounds like—a little general store)