Many small choices

If the mom can practice and appreciate making many small choices, she can more calmly accept changes and experimentation and what might seem inconstant or random in the child’s choices. He might want to try things. He might not be in an adventurous season and might want the same thing every day for a year. But he will be learning, if he’s allowed to feel his own body’s responses without someone telling him what he is feeling or should be feeling.

SandraDodd.com/trust
photo by Kirsten Cordero
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Living lightly

Living lightly is part of the joy of unschooling.



Airy and bright
photo by Kirby Dodd
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Be positively Positive!

Negativity is contagious and cancels out joy and hope. Some people are just casually negative without realizing it. Their first response to anything is likely to be derisive. It's like a disease, and they infect their friends and relatives. Eye rolling, tongue-clucking, dramatic sighs... It's emotional littering. Save them for emergencies.

Seeing and Avoiding Negativity
photo by Shonna Morgan
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Their own new eyes

Let your children make discoveries with their own new eyes. Don't show-and-tell them into a helpless stupor. Be with them, pay attention to what they're seeing for the first time and be poised to explain if they ask, or point out something interesting if they miss it, but try to learn to be patient and open to their first observations and thoughts. Like bubbles, or dandelion puffs, they are beautiful and fragile and if you even blow on it too hard, it will never be there again.

Practice being. Practice waiting. Practice watching.

Let them experience the world with you nearby keeping them safe and supported.

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from page 124 (or 136), "Experiences," in The Big Book of Unschooling
which leads to SandraDodd.com/peace/newview
photo by Chrissy Florence

Amusing moments

Look up and smile.

Reassurance
photo by Brie Jontry
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What a child needs

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It's the essence of every story: The protagonist has a need. He finds ways around what stands between him and what he needs.

Rather than being an obstacle, be his partner in meeting his needs. Be the one keeping an eye on the needs of those around him as you find respectful, safe, doable ways for him to meet his needs. Be the one manipulating the environment so he's not in a situation he can't handle yet.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/needs
photo by Ashlee Dodd, of Marty and Ivan
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A warm moment

There are many things we can't control, and very few we can.

Your children think thoughts that you can't know. They might seem to be only sitting, only waiting, only basking in the sun, or zoned out, but they are living their lives, even if it's hard for you to see it.

Appreciate warm, quiet moments.

SandraDodd.com/crazy
photo by Joyce Fetteroll, in New Mexico
She wrote, "Lizard chilling. Or warming. As lizards tend to do."