Tools and equipment

If you want to unschool, there's no curriculum to buy and you and your children will be discovering the secret passages and magical destinations without a schedule or a map.

To help you prepare for or strengthen your own heroic adventure, there are three tools you need, and a checklist of seven nest-building items for you to collect and protect.

Equip yourself with: confidence experience good examples Build your nest with food shelter love patience enthusiasm curiosity joy

SandraDodd.com/hsc/littletools
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Parallel play

When a family is used to being together most of the time, it's easy to accept that one person could be having thoughts or experiences that don't match anyone else's, and people can still be happy in the situation. In a game, or looking at a display, or climbing, different people's experiences are their own, and learning will be happening within and around you all.

Shared experiences are not identical experiences.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Janelle Wrock
__

Touch

When thinking of new things to do, consider the five senses—taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing. Not all people have all five, but try to do new and different things. There will be connections, and children will do unexpected things. Be flexible in your acceptance, when activities don't go the way you envisioned them. Home-made play dough can have texture, scent, color, and by trapping some air in there, you can probably get sound out of it. There are recipes online for edible versions, but there's a good recipe on the "Young Children" page, along with dozens of other ideas.

SandraDodd.com/youngchildren
photo by Julie Markovitz

Images

Digital cameras provide the best opportunity ever for children to take photos. Offer them your phone or camera sometimes, and let them look in new ways. (Neck straps or wrist straps can be good.) Save their photos for them, if you can. See what they see.

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Marin Holmes

Being mindful

Try to be a good unschooling parent, a generous freedom-nurturing parent, a parent providing a peaceful nest, a parent wanting to be each child's partner. Try to make your decisions in that light.

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
The text above paraphrases something I wrote there.
photo by Brigita Usman (click to enlarge)
__

Light, or joy

Several weeks ago, I requested photos that had "something to do with light, perhaps, or joy."

Thirty-four people sent at least two photos. Some sent more. Nearly a third of those had a similar photo—water play, usually in waves, near a shore.

I hadn't thought that there might be a predominant, iconic image of light and joy, but I think playing in water might be it!

The second most frequent theme was snuggling, or carrying another person. Sometimes it was parent and child, and other times siblings.

In third place for repeats was Lego!

Andrea Justice's set of five photos included a beach AND Lego!

You'll be seeing more of all of those over the next few months, and thank you all for letting us peek into the light and joy of your lives.

SandraDodd.com/joy
photo by Shannon Loucks
__

Leading lightly

John Quincy Adams is credited with having said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

The sentence above came from a post by an unschooling dad, Sean Heritage. In the post he's talking about his unusual approach to his job as a Commander in the U.S. Navy. Some of his ideas might have been inspired by his unschooling experiences, but Sean's ability to see in the way he does must surely be making unschooling easier at his house.

In your family, in your unschooling, in each dyad/partnership within your family, if you inspire dreaming, learning, doing and becoming, you'll be leading in an exceptional way.

Sean's writing from which I pulled the quote: Unicorns and Fairies

Being your Child's Partner is probably the best match on my site.
photo by Megan Valnes
__