Practice watching

Look directly at your child. Practice watching your child without expectations. Try to see what he is really doing, rather than seeing what he’s NOT doing. If you hold the template of "learning" up and squint through that, it will be harder for you to see clearly. Just look.

SandraDodd.com/deschooling#movies
photo by Sandra Dodd, of two-year-old Marty Dodd
in medieval garb

another quote with "practice watching" in it

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Look and rejoice

How much do you need to own to touch a child gently? How much money do you need to have in order to smile?

Look at what you have rather than what you don't have. Look at what is in the world beyond your family and your neighborhood, and rejoice that your child might be able to go out someday and experience things you've never seen or heard or touched or tasted.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Sandra Dodd, of fried potatoes
in a pan we earned with grocery store points
before we had children
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In 2020, I was in here editing photo links. We still have that pan, and its lid—a bonus from a long-gone grocery store. Our oldest child is thirty-four.

In the winter...

"When you have snow, or can get to snow, snowshoeing is wonderful because you don't need any special skills to strap on the shoes and go have fun."

Deb Lewis wrote that, at the beginning of a very long list called "Things to do in the Winter." Most activities are indoors, and could be done by people even near the equator, except for the snowshoe part.

SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist
photo by Sandra Dodd, of old Tonka trucks in the yard

Clarify / "Why?"

One of the finest ways to clarify a concept is to explain it to someone else. It’s one thing to passively understand (at least momentarily in short-term memory) how to tie a clove hitch or to make waffles, but to really know the thing you need to have done it so much you can do it while you’re sleepy, in the dark, in a wind storm. Or so much that you could pass the secret skill on to another person. Be prepared for the most important question of all: “Why?"

SandraDodd.com/input
photo by Sandra Dodd
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All ages

"In the real world, we get to choose friends based on interest. And that's what unschoolers get to do. There are classes and park days and online friends and people of all ages that homeschoolers interact with."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/socialization
photo by Julie D
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Time out

There have been a couple of errors lately, and I wanted to take a minute to talk about the blog. I misspelled the name of the Concorde in yesterday's post. Julie D, who has provided me with some nice photos, and who crossed the Atlantic by Concorde more than once, caught that. I spelled it as though it were part of Flight of the Conchords, and if anyone isn't familiar with that duo, this is a fun intro.

On February 10th's post, one of the links was broken when the e-mail went out. It was repaired that morning, on the blog, but for those who missed it, here it is with the link working: Disharmony for a good cause

Two nights ago in a conversation here at the house, I was telling a friend that the photos I use aren't really very good, and that Lori Odhner's daily mailing (Marriage Moats) has GREAT photos. The very next night I was talking to another friend by phone, and she brought up how much she loves the photos on Just Add Light and Stir.

I will continue to do what I'm doing until frustration outweighs satisfaction, and I quit and do other things.

Until that happens, here are two other resources some of you might subscribe to, or peek in on occasionally. One is an infrequent blog about connections and thoughts, called Thinking Sticks: Playing with Ideas. The other is a little more frequent, and links new pages or notable additions to existing pages on my website: Unschooling Site News, SandraDodd.com.

If one day a post from Just Add Light and Stir seems too small for you, or it wasn't something you needed to read, maybe you could go and poke around one of those other blogs and find some sparkly ideas.

Thanks for reading!

Labels as walls

A label will put a wall of words and fears and filters between a parent and a child.

from "Seeing your child, rather than a label,"
page 70, The Big Book of Unschooling

Photo by Sandra Dodd, of the corner of a WWII bunker (or pillbox) at The Brooklands Museum in Surrey, in England. Full view was used on this blog September 29. Because it's near the Concorde, it's not much noticed. And it's not a display; it was there for the defense of the aircraft factory. **