Honoring babies

"Look for ways to connect with them. There are biological ways. Smelling their heads is amazingly connective.... Look at them. Watch them talk or move or bounce or roll or whatever it is they are doing and marvel at the fact that they are."

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/bonding
an honored baby girl, in India, whose parents prefer for me not to identify her here
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Living and Learning

"Unschoolers live the paradigm of lifelong learning. Instead of envisioning childhood for learning and adulthood for living, they see living and learning as inextricably and beautifully linked." —Pam Laricchia

The quote is from the January 2013 issue of Living Joyfully Newsletter.
The photo is an octopus at an unschooling conference.(more)

Options and choices

If the parent finds ways to present options and choices and the children can say "Yes, more!" or "No more now," then each child will learn every day.

Seeing Children without Labels

Choices
photo by Julie D
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Home and relationships

"'I'm working so hard on my marriage!!' doesn't mean a whole lot if you're putting your work in the wrong areas. And honestly, I find that all the 'effort' I put into my marriage is fun, and makes me happy. It is so good to know that our home is a place my husband wants to be, and that I can do things to help him be happy."

—Aiden Wagner

Aiden was writing in a discussion on facebook (linked below), about the importance of caring for marriages. Because many unschoolers have seen their marriages strengthened by the principles that make unschooling work well, I saw easily that it could be about parenting:

"I'm working so hard on my parenting!!" doesn't mean a whole lot if you're putting your work in the wrong areas. And honestly, I find that all the "effort" I put into my parenting is fun, and makes me happy. It is so good to know that our home is a place my child wants to be, and that I can do things to help him be happy.

Aiden's comment in context
(if you go there you will see I started the quote in the middle of a sentence)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Little things and little moments

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Most days I stop long before the switch goes. The thoughtful process was recognizing the grumpiness earlier in the day. Feeling a shortness that isn't normally there and doing things to respond to that like going for a quick breath outside or having a chocolate milk or a chai latte or something else that just ups my energy budget a bit. Taking five minutes to close my eyes and be still helps, too. Whatever works for you to buffer yourself is good. Come up with lots of little things. With an almost-four-year-old, little things and little moments are what you are most likely going to get.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
switchplate and photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning that looks like play

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Learning that's pulled in will look like play. It will look like kids engaged with what interests them. That might be a video game or helping rake the yard or TV shows or getting a job to earn money or taking classes in college.

The unnerving thing is that it looks like very little is going in! But the important-to-learning part happens inside: kids pull in information to use it for reasons that matter to them. They use it to solve problems. They use it to create and test theories of how the world works. What you use, sticks with you.

—Joyce Fetterol

SandraDodd.com/hsc/interviews/joyce
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Kinder and gentler

"It's never too late to be kinder, gentler, and more respectful. It's never too late to be a better mom. But sooner is ALWAYS better."

—Kelly Lovejoy

SandraDodd.com/later/unschooling.html
photo by Sandra Dodd
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