Plus or minus

Every little thing a parent does goes into the plus column or the minus column. Each parent is gaining credit or losing credit.

Everything counts—words, tone, patience, generosity, interest, kindnesses and thoughts. It takes more to build your credit back up than it does to waste it, so be careful.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Everything counts.

Where learning is concerned, it's never too late and everything counts.

Persephonics
photo by Dylan Lewis
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A cool thing to know

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

While you're there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/nest or Coconut
photo by Sandra Dodd

Count, and then don't count

To be a better parent, make five more peaceful choices a day. That will make you feel better, and you can raise that number gradually until you're not counting, and the more peaceful decisions are your normal behavior. You will still think and decide, but you won't think "#6 for today."

Sandra Dodd, from an unpublished presentation in Rochester, Minnesota
photo by Sandra Dodd

Learning to give

Being Ethan's mom changed me. I surprised myself in good ways. In learning to give to him, I grew to really like myself. —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Karen James

Grab hold

"When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold. I read and I tried things and I moved further away from the childhood I had known to the parenthood I wanted to know."

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Gateway ideas

"At the gateway to the garden there was always a gate keeper…"



From "The Beautiful Park," by Robyn Coburn
SandraDodd.com/park
photo by Kristiva Stack, of her gate and a visiting vulture
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