Slowing down

When I had one baby Kirby, I tried to consciously slow myself down and go at his speed when we went on walks, or when he examined something he had never seen. It wasn't easy. I kept working at it and was more patient when Marty and Holly came along.

It was good practice for unschooling; I didn't know it at the time, though.

Mindful Parenting
photo by Sandra Dodd, but Johanna Smith's camera caught a better version
We were up hill from it, using zooms. It was beautiful.

Love, love, love

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Parents do all kinds of things in the name of love….not all good for their children.

Love is not enough.

But there is a kind of love that is absolutely necessary for successful unschooling, and that is love of learning.

Unschoolers value learning. We look for it everywhere. We crave it.

But, love it gently. Don’t try to force it – not a good idea for learning OR love!

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pamsorooshian
photo by Sandra Dodd

Threes

I had a Shakespeare professor who said "Three trees make a row," to confirm a pattern when a student noticed that something had appeared three times. I remember thinking, but not saying, "Not if they're making a triangle." But it wasn't a math class, and I understood his point.

There's something strong and fun about three. Two parents and a baby. A tripod for a camera or a telescope. A three-legged stool (a tripod to sit on). Three versions of a song. A book or movie trilogy. Counting by threes with its elegant stops at 33, 66, and 99.

photo by Sandra Dodd
Some other images in this blog with three of something:

What do you hope for?

Museum of everything

Destinations

Happy and glad

Calm and quiet

Leeway and freedom

Without TV...

Joyce Fetteroll, a few years ago, when her daughter was in her mid-teens:

My daughter and I have done a great deal of interacting as a direct result of TV. It's tied into her other interests in story telling. Without TV she wouldn't have the huge collection of comics she's written. Without TV we wouldn't have discovered manga. Without TV we wouldn't being going to Anime conventions together (I even dress up). —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/logic
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sparkly, bubbly, warm and effusive

Unschooling should be rich, flowing and mindful living where learning abounds. Too many people see "living" as nothing more than the absence of death. Let's encourage sparkly, bubbly, warm and effusive lives.

SandraDodd.com/sparkly
photo by Sandra Dodd
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The other things flow in around it.

(Below is most of my response to a complicated question about the balance of power and relationships, citing Bruno Bettelheim about A.S. Neill, and the assumption that unschoolers were libertarians:)

I've unschooled for over twenty years, and am not a "libertarian," and the unschooling ideals I've aimed for involved learning. They had little to do with Neill or Bettleheim (though I did like reading Bettleheim on fairy tales), but had to do with John Holt, attachment parenting, and observation of other families doing similar things.

Being a child's partner rather than his adversary makes the balance of knowledge unimportant. Nowadays my children drive me around, help me out, read small print and get things off high shelves. For many years, I did those things for them.

SandraDodd.com/partners

SandraDodd.com/balance

Learning first, and partnership and being present close after, and all the other things flow in around it.

photo by Sandra Dodd, of a well dressing in the village of Tissington
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Sharing energy

If the parents aren't powering all decisions anymore, should the children take up the task of generating enough power to fuel their own learning? I wouldn't expect my kids to do that any more than I would stop feeding them and expect them to become hunter-gatherers in the back yard if they wanted to survive.

Energy is shared, and that's how unschooling works. Whether I'm excited about something new, or my children are excited about something new, there's still newness and excitement enough to share.

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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