Free to behave nicely

My children are about as free as they're going to get, honestly. Always have been. Yet there are all these real-life limitations and considerations. They're free to ignore them. And the state of New Mexico (county of Bernalillo and City of Albuquerque) are not only free, but OBLIGATED, to protect other residents from any over-reaching acts of wild "freedom."

SandraDodd.com/freedom/
photo by Sandra Dodd, but in Maine, not New Mexico
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Gentle, thoughtful touch

Touch someone, or something, in a gentle, thoughtful way. Feel with your fingers, or cheek, or hand the warmth or smoothness or softness of something or someone you love.

SandraDodd.com/babies/infants
Keith, Kirby, Marty and baby Holly Dodd
November 1991
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Bring on the Joy

"Focus on Joy. Really. That's all I need to do right now. It's vacation time in my home...bring on the Joy."

—Angela (NYCitymomx3)

Fron a longer list at Advice to Remember
photo by Jo Isaac
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Stay here

Some people seem to think unschooling takes them through a portal to some alternate universe.

Stay in the real world! Both feet, directly, right in your house, in your town, in your country, in this moment on this day.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolworld

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Janine
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Helping

Joyce Fetteroll, small part of larger writing:

We can view children's needs as inconvenient for us or we can view them as people who need our help doing what they want to do.
. . . . We can be our kids partner in helping them get what they want in life or we can be the barrier that opens or closes according to our whim.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/yes
photo by Eva Witsel
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Surprise!

Life is richer when you are open to appreciating surprises.


Surprises and discoveries
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tales of "Oops"

Advising about an easily frustrated child, Brie Jontry wrote:

Talking about your own frustrations and talking through your own "mistakes," etc, in a light way—not *to* him, but around him, where he can hear you—might be helpful.

I did a lot of: "Ooops! I meant to cut the carrots length-wise instead of into circles. No big deal..." or "Hmmmm, I think next time, I'll do X first instead of Y" or whatever—talk to yourself, to your friends, to your partner about how you learn by doing. Short, light observations. No long drawn out monologues.

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd
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