Skipping a stone over history

My children don’t go to school. The boys are 12 and 10, and lately they have been obsessed with a game they borrowed, Warcraft II, which they play on a Macintosh right next to mine. This has been great for me, because just as with the “parallel play” of toddlers, we’re together, but have nothing to fight about. Well hardly anything. They want me off the phone sometimes so they can call their friends and brag about how many pixellated orcs they killed. And I would like to listen to Prince, or Donovan, and they whine “I can’t hear the game, mom…”

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The photo is Holly when she was three, possibly four. The writing is from when she was seven. The reason they needed me off the phone to call friends is that the internet was on dial-up. When we had two computers, only one could be online at a time.

Today we're in four different places, and of course I miss the days of three young children. A photo to match the days of the writing above is at this link:
SandraDodd.com/input
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Everything and more

If you want to measure, measure generously. If you want to give, give generously. If you want to unschool, or be a mindful parent, give, give, give. You'll find after a few years that you still have everything you thought you had given away, and more.

SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bringing money back

Written in 2005 or so:

Recently I paid Holly $5 to do a title for a webpage. She's thinking of doing some more of those. Other than that, there's been lots of me and Keith offering money and them saying "That's okay, I still have my allowance," or of them accepting it graciously. I'm thinking of things like "We're going ice skating," or "Can I go to the movie with Marty and them if he'll let me?"

"Do you need money?"

They usually say they don't. Sometimes I send a ten or twenty dollar bill with Holly to hold in reserve just in case they end up short, or wanting snacks, or going to eat later. As often as not, she brings it back.

SandraDodd.com/money
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty, in Minnesota once upon a time
The title Holly did for five dollars and some others by Holly

Step by step

Schuyler wrote:

I can almost pinpoint the minute when I turned from feeling a need to have my own needs met in a separate but equal kind of way to seeing how being with Simon and Linnaea was meeting my needs in the most involved and deep way....

For me, it was very clearly incremental, it was a step by step building from small changes to a point where I was in a position to find personal fulfilment in being with my children. It wasn't martyrdom, or it didn't feel as though I'd sacrificed myself for their joy. It did help to get the almost kinetic memory of being kind to them, of meeting them where they were instead of expecting them to meet me where I was.

—Schuyler Waynforth

Read more; it's good: SandraDodd.com/needs
photo by Sandra Dodd
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See the joy and learning

Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.

Being Present in the Moment
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Just the next one

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Stop thinking about changing "for good and not just for days or moments." That is just another thing to overwhelm you and you don't need that!

Just change the next interaction you have with the kids.

—Pam Sorooshian

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Sandra Dodd

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New, April 2020:

The writing from which the quote above was taken has been translated into French, by Valentine Destrade: Une interaction à la fois.

Change for the better

With apologies to male readers... adjust as necessary.

You don't have to change everything. You can't change everything at once anyway. If you start acting consciously and mindfully with a goal in mind (more peaceful, richer environment, more patient, more gentle—whatever direction or combination of principles you want to hold as your guiding lights), you can and will be a better (more conscious, more thoughtful) mother, and a better person.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
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I wrote "have to."
Perhaps it was in response to someone having used it in her "yeah but..."
I could have written "You don't have to change everything, yet everything will change."