Flowing clearly

Clarifying thought, it turns, out, is what unschooling is all about, for the parents. When the parents are clear, then learning can flow around them.


SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Nice and often

Be as nice to your child as you can be, as often as you can be.

Partnerships and Teams in the Family
photo by Sandra Dodd

Beneath, around and beyond

Peace, in an exchange, has to do with tone of voice, eyes, posture, attitude, intention, compassion—all the non-verbal communications that go with words and actions. Don't underestimate your child's ability to read beneath and around and beyond your statements. You would do well to try to read behind his words, too.

page 209 (or 243) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Marty Dodd, of Ashlee and himself
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Don't do this at home

Almost any piece of routine damage school can do to a child, parents can do at home. Parents can make their kids hate math. They can make them never want to read a book again. They can make them want nothing more than to grow up and get away. So with unschooling, when people ask me what I think makes it work, I tell them the kids have to have a choice.

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from Living Unschooling with Sandra Dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Note: I do avoid "have to" but in an if/then situation, sometimes there's something a person has to have to enable the desired condition. If unschooling is going to work, kids have to have choices. Parents do not "have to" give their children choices. Unschooling parents will find themselves choosing to do so.

Examined lives

Today I'm quoting Joyce Fetteroll:

If a parent has found something that works for their family without understanding why it worked and how much personality played in it, then for others it's little better than rolling dice and picking some technique at random.

On the other hand, those who are living examined lives. thinking about and discussing why something works in the context of growing relationships, that's way better than dice! And no one should swallow what's said uncritically. They should take it in, turn it over, ask questions and examine it for themselves.

Critical examination is better for reaching clear goals than pretty sentiments of "following the heart" and "mom knows best."

SandraDodd.com/joyce/followyourheart
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A collection of bad ideas: "Support"
A collection of good ideas: my Joyce page

Support children's interests

"A child can only be six for one year. And sometimes there is a small window of time where a child finds a thing intriguing and wonderful and if it's missed it can never be experienced again in quite the same stirring and magical way."

—Deb Lewis

Read what this was about here: SandraDodd.com/limits/listening
photo by Sandra Dodd

The quote was found and shared on facebook by Allison Hollis Batey. I fixed up its home page after she quoted it. Thanks, Allison!

Beautiful, fragile thoughts

Let your children make discoveries with their own new eyes. Don't show-and-tell them into a helpless stupor. Be with them, pay attention to what they're seeing for the first time and be poised to explain if they ask, or point out something interesting if they miss it, but try to learn to be patient and open to their first observations and thoughts. Like bubbles, or dandelion puffs, they are beautiful and fragile and if you even blow on it too hard, it will never be there again.

Practice being. Practice waiting. Practice watching.

Let them experience the world with you nearby keeping them safe and supported.

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from page 124 (or 136), "Experiences," in The Big Book of Unschooling

which leads to SandraDodd.com/peace/newview

photo by Sandra Dodd