A safer, softer parent

There's something about patience that's biochemical. Some people are more naturally patient than others. When an impatient person has a child, though, and especially if that impatient person wants to be an unschooler, it's good to look at ways to become a safer, softer parent. It's win-win, if stress is minimized and life is smoother.

SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Marji Zintz (click to enlarge)

Live here and now

[Historically...]

Nobody kept their kids home for 18 or 20 years just discussing life with them, hanging out, playing games.

We probably wouldn't be either, if it weren't that we're biding time until the clock runs out on compulsory education.

So even as we unschool now (and I'm not talking about people with toddlers who aspire to become unschoolers over the years), it's in reaction to the culture around us, it's finding a way to live in an alternative fashion within this culture.

People can't actually leave the planet and can't actually go back in time. The only place we can live is the here and now.

SandraDodd.com/reality
photo by Ester Siroky
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P.S. A few people have left the planet for a while, but they don't get very far, and no unschooling family has yet done so.

A path around obstacles

A Joyce-quote today:

One thing that keeps me responding after all these years is because I understand. To me it makes perfect sense *why* parents get stuck on certain thought pathways. I understand why they can't see the view the child sees, why school colors their vision, why fear colors their vision. I enjoy helping them see the walls they thought trapped them are just obstacles. I enjoy helping them find a path around the obstacles.

But it can't work unless people see the obstacles aren't part of who they are, unless they can step back to observe the obstacles objectively so that they can let go and move around them.

—Joyce Fetteroll

"It's not Personal"
photo by Karen James

"Why do we do this?"

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"

Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

Investing in foundations

"More and more I'm discovering it's not so much about giving, as it is about building, and, as Sandra has said, investing. You are setting the foundation for your daughter's future interactions with the people she will come to hold dear (yourself included)." —Karen James

SandraDodd.com/barbiekaren
photo by Cátia Maciel

Life is a gamble

I cannot make my children's lives good. I can't ensure their success. I cannot make a tree grow. I can water it and put a barrier near so Keith doesn't hit it with a lawnmower, and ask my kids not to climb in it while it's young. I could destroy that tree, all kinds of ways. I could do it damage. I could neglect it. But I can't predict where the next branch will grow, or whether it will double in size this year or just do 1/3 again of its height. Not all years' growth are the same. I could mess my kids up and make them unhappy and keep them from having access to things, but I cannot make them learn. I can't make them mature. I can give them opportunities and room to grow, and food and water and a comfortable bed. I can't guarantee anything for anyone else, nor for my own family. I know what does damage, and I know what might help.

SandraDodd.com/gamble
photo by Ester Siroky
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Whirl and twirl

We have made good use of making patterns in the slots of a revolving rack of poker chips, and then with poker chips out on the table. I have set out photocopied pictures and cheap water colors, lots of brushes, and had side-by-side painting by the hour. Whichever kids or visitors wander by will be drawn in and as they play or paint they talk and share and think. . . . .Working on patterns in silence allows one’s mind to whirl and twirl.

SandraDodd.com/truck
scanner art by Sandra Dodd