Light it up

Emotional well-being

Emotional health and emotional well-being are as important, if not more so, as physical health.

—Jenny Cyphers

Moving Toward Less Control, Concerning Food
photo by Janine Davies
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More tortoise

Step by step is usually more effective than trying to leap across. More tortoise, less hare. —Debbie Regan

Gradual Change
video by Sandra Dodd, May 2008, Alamogordo
with Holly (16) and Sandra speaking, softly, a bit

Deciphering written language

Only the reader can decipher it.
. . . .
Cipher is from the Arabic word for zero, and has been in English for a long, long time. "To cipher," meaning to do arithmetic, is a word even my grandfather used, who was born in 1898 and lived in Texas. But why a "ph" and not an "f"? Because it came through Greek. Some Greek mathematician discovered the idea from Arabic, wrote it down in Greek, and it came to other European languages from that. "Ph" words in English are always from Greek.

To decipher something (like reading) means to figure out the patterns.

A parent cannot decipher words for a child. Only the child can decipher written language. You can help! You can help LOTS of ways. One way would be to gain an interest in the words you use yourself, and stop once in a while to examine one, its history, why it means what it means.

SandraDodd.com/etymology
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Their unique needs

It helps unschooling and mindful parenting to be aware of your kids and their unique needs rather than treating them as generic kids with all the worst possible traits. —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/mindfulparenting
photo by Colleen Prieto

Completing circuits

School served to prevent connections for me, but I overcame that, with difficulty. It is a problem my children never had. If Animaniacs completed a circuit for them between Magellan and WWII, well it's a circuit school would never have completed for me under any circumstances. If learning for fun creates more connections than "serious learning" did, I can no longer look at "serious learning" seriously.

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Producing processes

I was lucky. When Holly was a teen, she loved Photoshop, and was good at it. Her interest has waned.

I was lucky that when Holly was interested, she "populated" an outline I drew of the words "Learn Nothing Day."I'm glad she helped me document the process. Although there is "a product" (that logo), I'm happy that it was a catalyst for Holly's exploration and learning and sharing.


When I was younger there was much talk of "process people" vs."product people." With unschooling, if the "product" is learning, then we can't separate learning from the thoughts and actions, discussions and input that spark and fuel that learning.

Maybe unschooling is a process to propagate processes.


About the creation of that logo...
As of 2020, there's a second version of the logo, which shows at the top of that page. The documentation of the older one is still there, and some other photoshop art by Holly.