A real human being

Learn to see your child not as an ideal or a model or the memory of what a child should be like from their childhood, but as a real human being growing right there, as a real human being who's seeing and learning, and learning things that are beyond the parents' production and teaching.

They learn things that we don't know! It's awesome.

SandraDodd.com/considerations
(rephrased slightly for this post, but the original is at the link)
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp Saran
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A fascinated adult

Because John Holt was SO interested in children, every time he interacted with one, he saw a child interacting with a fascinated adult. THIS is one of the things unschoolers need to remember. When the adult brings boredom, cynicism, criticism and doubt to the table, that's what he'll see and that's how he'll see it, and it will be no fault of the child's whatsoever.

SandraDodd.com/johnholt
photo by Lisa Jonick
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Associations

Billy the Kid reminds me of my grandmother. She lived in Lincoln County, New Mexico, in the nineteen-tens and a while after, when the events were more recent and richly local. She had been places he had been, and collected articles and booklets about him.

Louise's children remember one castle by giant ice cream cones they had there, and another by lollies.

Any association that help us recall or connect ideas is a useful part of our personal web of knowledge. In school, it is possible to cheat. In school, there is "trivia." In the real world, though, learning is learning.

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Louise Mills

Thirty, twenty-seven, twenty-five

All three of my children were here for Christmas. The youngest is twenty-five.

Twenty-five years ago this summer, we did not register our five year old for kindergarten; we registered him as a homeschooler. That's a long time.

I've been explaining unschooling to a growing number of people over all those years. No wonder I'm tired!


The quote is partly lifted from Twenty-five and twenty
photo by Sandra Dodd; window snowflake by Irene Adams (my sister)

Quite small

Appreciate small moments, small gestures, small ideas. Small things make up a rich life.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Colleen Prieto

Elegance

In words, music, dance, art, sometimes beauty is in the sparseness and simplicity. Directly, simply, surprisingly beautiful. This is elegance.

Sometimes in parenting, or being a partner or a friend, there might be an elegant gesture. I hope you are the recipient of a few such behaviors, and the provider of some.

SandraDodd.com/smallwords
artistry and photo by Karen James
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Still cheerful

Five years ago, someone wrote, of Just Add Light and Stir:

I really didn’t like Sandra’s blog, sure there is a lot of useful information, but the “cheerful” tone creeps me out!

Below was my response at the time. Nothing has happened in five years to make me doubt my stance. There are twice as many subscribers now.

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A lot of useful information would be sufficient, I think, for a daily blog with over 800 subscribers. But I'm creeping someone out with a "'cheerful' tone"?! First, it's not "cheerful" in quotes, not allegedly cheerful. It actually *is* cheerful. ☺

Cynicism is poison. It erodes relationships. It saps one's spirit and dissolves faith and hope. I will choose cheeriness over pissiness anytime I can manage to do it, and I hope most of those reading here are able to make that choice too, for the sake of themselves and their families. For their neighbors, for their dogs. For safety while operating motor vehicles and other machinery. For success at work, and joy while grocery shopping.

Negativity sucks. It sucks the possibility of a joyful life directly out of a person, and if it's not stopped, it will spread to others.

Smiles can spread, too, though. Kindness can be contagious. You choose a hundred times a day to smile or to frown, to breathe in joy or to suck in resentment.

Live responsibly, especially while you have children in your home.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Chrissy Florence