Flowing and open

When parents and children can be partners rather than adversaries, communications will be flowing and open.


In families with punishments, criticism and shaming, children sometimes avoid the parents in social situations, and they will hesitate to share secrets or problems with their parents.

From a 2009 Interview called just "Unschooling"
photo by Sandra Dodd, of an irrigation ditch in Los Luceros, near Alcalde
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What are you storing up?

The really good thing about happiness is that it’s portable. It’s cheap. It doesn’t need a safety deposit box or an inheritance. You can give the same amount to all your kids, and they don’t have to wait until they’re 18 to claim and use it! Think about that. They can have it right now, and start using it, without taking yours away from you.

Do kids need to have their own room to store their happiness in? No. Do kids need to wait nine weeks to get a report card that says they’re doing well in happiness? No. Will working really hard now store up happiness they can use later? That’s the going theory, the one we were raised on, but I no longer believe it.

SandraDodd.com/president
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Dishes

Sometimes when a mom is really frustrated with doing the dishes, it can help to get rid of dishes with bad memories and connections, or put them in storage for a while. Happy, fun dishes with pleasant associations are easier to wash.

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Sandra Dodd

A warm welcome

Deb Lewis wrote:

"If you could not have both or if it was rare to have both, consider which would be more important, having your daughter’s help with housework or having a warm and loving relationship with her. Which will serve her better? Children who do not have a loving connection with parents *will* look for one elsewhere. They may find it with people who don’t have their best interest at heart."

SandraDodd.com/deblewis
photo by Sandra Dodd

Harmony

Harmony makes many things easier. When there is disharmony, everyone is affected. When there is harmony, everyone is affected too. So if it is six of one or half a dozen of the other, go with harmony instead!

How you live in the moment affects how you live in the hour, and the day, and the lifetime.

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Where are you going?

If you don't know where you're going, it's hard to begin to get there. If where you want to go is a fantasy, then it's impossible to get there.

from page 25 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Keith Dodd, of the Chama River,
near Abiquiu, New Mexico
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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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