Who inspired you?

At a couple of conferences, I've asked participants to share. The question was:
Who inspired you? Who helped you move toward better parenting and unschooling?

They might not even be unschoolers. They might have said one thing, one time.

Please think about this. If someone said or did something that changed the course of your life in this direction, and if you want to acknowledge that (with or without their name), please leave a comment or write to me and I'll add a new section of acknowledgements on the page linked below.

SandraDodd.com/inspiration
photo by Dylan Lewis

Who will your children follow?

If parents set a good example, it's easier for kids to learn. It's good for the relationship.

If parents set a bad example, children can still learn better habits, but they might learn by deciding NOT to be like the parent, but rather to be like another adult they respect more. It might be a karate teacher, or a friend's parent. That is NOT good for the relationship, and can affect the parent/child relations for decades.

The above was written in a longer discussion, where I didn't mention that the children might not learn better habits, but might settle for behaving as badly as the parents.

Be the way you hope your children will be.


Similar, but without the quote above:
Thoughts on Respect, by Robyn Coburn
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Caution and growth

I cannot make my children's lives good. I can't ensure their success. I cannot make a tree grow. I can water it and put a barrier near so Keith doesn't hit it with a lawnmower, and ask my kids not to climb in it while it's young.


I could destroy that tree, all kinds of ways. I could do it damage. I could neglect it. But I can't predict where the next branch will grow, or whether it will double in size this year or just do 1/3 again of its height. Not all years' growth are the same.

I could mess my kids up and make them unhappy and keep them from having access to things, but I cannot make them learn. I can't make them mature. I can give them opportunities and room to grow, and food and water and a comfortable bed.

I can't guarantee anything for anyone else, nor for my own family. I know what does damage, and I know what might help.

SandraDodd.com/guarantee
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Am I doing enough?

Karen James wrote:

I asked the same question a few years back. I got an excellent, but unexpected reply. I was told if I thought I wasn't doing enough, then to do more. Now, if our unschooling days start to feel a bit stale to me, I try to make them lively again by using what I know about my son to introduce something(s) fresh to our experience. Doing this has never lead me astray. It might take me in a completely different direction from what I had in mind, but, to me, that's a big part of the fun of this life.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/enough
photo of Holly Dodd, by someone with her camera, in 2008

Be nice

Please don't use unschooling as a reason to be rude. And if you're rude, please don't tell people it's because you're unschoolers.

SandraDodd.com/courtesy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A better moment

"What I know for sure is that a sad or angry moment turned into a happy and playful one will always be better."

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/bonding
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Layers of an onion

My response to "Sometimes I think I've started to understand something but instead it's like an onion and there's another layer I didn't know I needed to understand."

That's how everything good is. Every hobby, skill, pastime, has a surface and has a depth. Some things can be just surface, but parenting and unschooling last for years. And if a family can't resolve to be and do and provide better for the child than school would, then school is better.

If a family resolves to provide a better life experience then school did, then their decisions and actions should be based on that.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
"Getting It" has some layers-of-onion discussion, too.

photo by Sandra Dodd