What is "fair"?

In an attempt to "be fair," parents can be very UNfair. Children don't all need the same things for the same amount of time. Measuring with rulers and timers and charts is often shortchanging one child or another. What they could use more than that is the opportunity to decide when they're finished for their own reasons.


SandraDodd.com/sharing
photo by Sandra Dodd of a naturally-occuring basket of Nerf guns

"Science"

When one person says "I like science" and another says "I don't like science," I remember school science textbooks that had geology, astronomy, chemistry, botany, biology, agriculture and physics all in one book. . . . .There are many fun things to do and explore that could be called "science," but why not just call them skate boards or miniature golf or basketball or piano or water play or rescuing wounded birds or making goop or collecting rocks or swimming or drawing pictures of clouds or taking photos in different kinds of light or growing corn or training a dog or looking through binoculars or waiting for a chrysalis to open or making a sundial or making a web page or flying a kite or chasing fireflies or building a campfire or finding out which planet that is by the moon on the horizon, or wondering why snowballs take so much snow to make, or how a 4-wheel-drive truck works.

from page 82 (or 90) of The Big Book of Unschooling
and some more science clues, tricks and connections are at SandraDodd.com/science
photo by Marty Dodd
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A simple gesture

Taking food to someone who is reading or playing a game or watching a movie and just putting it where he or she can reach it without any instructions, warnings or reminders is a great gift. It is a simple gesture, and a profound service.

SandraDodd.com/eating/monkeyplatter
photo by Sandra Dodd

A font of "yes!"

Years ago, in a discussion of whether kids should need to ask, or what to think about kids asking for permission for things even though the mom is going to say yes, I wrote:

Maybe they're coming to you as a font of "yes!"

That's a cool thing, if every time they want something loving and positive, they run to mom, huh?
. . . .
My big guys still ask little things, like "Can I have this last soda?" What that means is "had you dibsed it?" or "Is this perhaps NOT the last soda, so I'll feel better about taking it?"

If I say "Sure," they're drinking a soda I gave them, and I bet it tastes better than one they snagged knowing they had "the right" to drink it, but they wanted the blessing.

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NEW NOTE:
Be grateful for opportunities to be kind to your children.

SandraDodd.com/freedom/to
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A good nest

The nest I built for my children even before I knew we would homeschool was made of toys and books, music and videos, and a yard without stickers. It was a good nest.


from "Books and Saxophones," 2003: SandraDodd.com/bookandsax
photo by Sandra Dodd

Learn to love

A new unschooler wrote:
"I hate when people say that adhd isn't real."

Any unschooling parent who hates anything is at a disadvantage.

If an unschooling parent REALLY hates something, or five things, or ten, the spaces around those dark places will be harder to fill with wonder, joy and curiosity to learn.

SandraDodd.com/wonder

SandraDodd.com/joy

Hoping to begin unschooling while clinging to hatred isn't healthy physically, socially or philosophically.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Marty Dodd

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P.S. You don't need to learn to love everything, but learning to move toward neutrality from "hatred" (even using the term "I hate") WILL make a difference in parenting and unschooling.

Learn to see everything!

"How will they learn everything they need to know?"

Do the best of the high school graduates know everything they need to know? No, and at some point, ideally, they start learning on their own. Some fail to get to that point, though. Unschooled kids have a head start. They know how to find what they need to know, and they have not been trained to ignore things that won't be on the test.

When parents see how and what their children are actually learning instead of just scanning for the half dozen school-things, unschooling will make sense to the parents. If you wait for school to congeal from a busy life, you'll keep being disappointed. If you learn to see everything instead of just school things, unschooling will start working for you. When you see it you will believe it.


SandraDodd.com/seeingit
photo by Ashlee Junker
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