Not the same choices

Happy, supported, trusted kids don't make the same choices as unhappy, controlled kids.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/eating/sugar
photo by Sandra Dodd

Beautiful, vibrant and alive

If a child has a joyous excitement for music, or sports, computers, poetry, horses, golf or dance, nurture that without owning it. Smile at it without naming it something bigger than your child. Treat is as a butterfly, beautiful, vibrant and alive. Don’t stab a pin in it, label it and stick it in a display box to show everyone the details, and try to keep it as it is forever because then you take the life of it away. YOU own it, and not the child, then.

SandraDodd.com/giftedness
photo by Lisa Jonick
__

Improve life!

"It feels so much better to be doing something active to try to improve life than it did sitting around worrying about it!!"

—Cass Kotrba

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Reading will happen.

Reading will happen, and if it takes longer for your child than you think it will, keep them happy and distracted in the meantime. As their experience and vocabulary grow, their reading will be that much more effortless the day they're fully equipped to understand the written word.

Three Readers
photo by Quita Gray

Doing this deeply

Unschooling is not as easy as some people think it is. It can be fun, and simple, and life changing, if it is done deeply and thoroughly.

SandraDodd.com/video/doright
Thanks, Marta Pires, for saving that quote.
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Peace on earth

In a longer discussion, Joyce Fetteroll wrote that people should be focused on helping a child "peacefully co-exist with the rest of the planet."

Meredith Novak added:

I think this is really key. If you're focused on who's "right" or which "side" to take, that's going to narrow down both your perception of the situation and the options you can envision.

Helping maintain peace within families is a direct contribution to peace on earth.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

More patience

I didn’t expect unschooling to make things so sweet between me and Keith.
Partly Keith's just a nice guy, but principles that applied to the kids applied to the adults, too, and we all experienced and shared more patience and understanding.

The more I got to know Marty, the more ways I saw him like Keith, and because I was sympathetic to those traits in Marty which had bothered me in Keith, I became more sympathetic to and understanding of Keith.

SandraDodd.com/spouses
photo at Marty's wedding
__