Not so extreme, please

If the old rules were that school is vital and "an education" (defined as the curriculum of an ideal school) is necessary, will the new rules be that school is not important and an education is not necessary? We don't make school disappear by turning the other way. It's still there. Our kids might want to go to school someday, in some form. We don't deny that knowledge is important by becoming unschoolers, but many come to prefer the idea of "learning" with its vast possibilities over the narrower "education."

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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You don't have to make choices.

Thinking you "have to" do something keeps you from making a choice.

SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bigger and Better

A mom who's going to help a child learn from the whole wide world should herself become ever increasingly comfortable with what all is IN the whole wide world, and how she can help bring her child to the world and the world to her child.

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, the mom should do more to make life sparkly.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Kirby Dodd

All that is good

Be his partner, not his adversary.

Help him find and do and explore the things he's interested in doing. Encourage him. Facilitate and assist. See all that is good about your child.


SandraDodd.com/video/doright (there's a transcript, too)
photo by Susan Burke
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Finding peace today

Sleep can be peace. Food can be peace.

Sleep / Peaceful Homes / Naps
Photo by Sandra Dodd, of a Taco Bell sign in Bangalore.
It says "Visit Mexico for 18 rupees," more or less,
and it was a vegetarian taco.
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There is safety in happiness

I think the most dangerous thing for a kid is unhappiness. When a child wants out and away from parents, then things outside the house can seem appealing—even questionable strangers in cars with tinted windows, who will say "meet me in the alley."

And that has been happening since before the internet.


from a chat on Internet Safety and related, suprising matters
photo by Julie D
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Music lives in the air

Music doesn't live in notes on paper, it lives in the air.

People can be VERY musical without knowing how to read or write music, just as people can be very verbal, tell stories, be poetic and dramatic without reading and writing.

SandraDodd.com/music
photo by Sandra Dodd
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