Shining light on it

Nikki Zavitz, interviewed by Pam Laricchia in early 2020, shared a mental model of unschooling, including deschooling. It's wonderful, and there's a link to hear it, below.

I always had this visual for unschooling for me, I picture it being this big giant house and it’s got like a million rooms in it. And there’s closets and doors everywhere. And for me, I’m walking around this house with this lantern and the lantern is like unschooling for me. And I have to open up doors and shine the lantern and look under the beds and look in the closet and I’m finding all these new, dusty things that have come from my life and have created this uncomfortableness and this kind of scary eerie feeling for me. And the unschooling is the light, like walking through shining light on it, considering it, asking questions, and eventually more lights are on, and the closets aren’t as dusty anymore, and the rooms are more open and free to go in and out of.

I kind of see that—I've always pictured my unschooling journey like that—and then everybody’s house is different. Everyone has a different unschooling house, and I just love that visual for me, I’m always picturing it like that. Like, "Oh, I found another room that I have to look in," and "I haven’t been in this room yet. I’m going to just step my toe in this room and then step back out and maybe I’ll come back again later," and I just love that.

—Nikki Zavitz

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The million-room house image is at 43:26 in Deschooling with Nikki Zavitz,
Episode 216 of the Exploring Unschooling Podcast, by Pam Laricchia.
I think that link will take you right to it. You can see Nikki's face light up.
Let her share her vision with you!

I didn't add a photo this time, because the imagery is all in the words.

Attentive and sweet

Be attentive and sweet to your children. That might be one of your best healing tools.


SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Janine Davies

Learning what's important

In 1997, someone asked how unschooling moms stayed patient.

Other moms have told me they think I'm patient. It makes me feel guilty because I have the internal list of all the times I've blown it, but a few things have helped me.

The biggest was Adult Children of Alcoholics, an al-Anon group. I went to meetings for four years and learned a lot of calming and encouraging things. One of those is to remember what I wanted and needed as a child. Then I try to give those things to my children. I don't mean toys or books. I mean listening, and smiling, and joking, and letting them climb on stuff even if it made me nervous, and not making such strictly-to-the-minute rules like "be back at 5:45 or else" and other arbitrary control-junk. One of the quotes/sayings from that learning-time is "How Important Is It?" and thinking that little mantra can help a ton all by itself. If we waste our energy and our relationship with our children on how they wear their socks and where they keep their toothbrush between times, there's nothing left for important things. I try to save it for important things, and I try not to be the defining judge of what's important. There are things the kids consider very important, and I force myself (at first, until I calm myself and remind myself to give) to pay attention to their stuff too. No "That's nice dear" while I ignore them. When it happens, occasionally, that I've done that, I feel bad and I sometimes go back and say, "Tell me again about that game. I'm sorry. I wasn't really listening."

Next biggest influence was La Leche League. There I learned that children have within them what they need to know, and that the parent and child are a team, not adversaries. It reinforced the idea that if you are loving and gentle and patient that children want to do what you ask them to do, and that they will come to weaning, potty training, separation from mom, and all those milestones without stress and without fear if you don't scare them or stress them! Seems kind of obvious, but our culture has 1,000 roadblocks.


From having studied meditation and Eastern religion, I learned the value of breathing. I think what it does is dissipate adrenaline. I remember in the 1960's and early 1970's it was Big News that yogis could *actually* slow their heart rates at will! WELL duh. People had been doing it in church (those who cared to actually "be still and know") for hundreds of years, but nobody thought to wire up contemplative Christians.

When people (parents or kids) are agitated and are thinking for a moment that something has to happen JUST THIS WAY and RIGHT NOW, breathing helps. Deep breathing, slow, and full-as-possible exhalation. This is, in Western terms, "count to ten." Calm down and let the adrenaline go. Some people have biochemistry that's not easy to control, and some people count too fast.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
(read aloud as an intro, in the recording at the bottom of the page)

photo by Sandra Dodd of the neighbor's tree seen through an inch-thick piece of ice from a bucket of water on a cold day
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Then ZOOM!

Like a bicycle not quite catching the sprocket, sometimes people are moving along, roughly, and they're unschooling, but something isn't quite smooth, and then ZOOM! The chain catches and they're really going. Did your own unschooling ever change gears that way? Do you remember something that caused a leap in your knowledge or comfort?

"Getting It" transcript
photo by Rachel Cooley Green

Our own real thoughts

We can't really think until we think in our own words without the prejudicial labels and without mistaking the voices in our heads for our own real thoughts.


SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Alison Eiffe
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Too hard; too soft; just right

Goldilocks and The Three Bears is an odd story, but for very little children what sticks is the "too hot; too cold; just right" pattern. When it's hot summer, parents should provide a cooler place for children to hide. When it's cold, they need warmth. Parents can help children find "just right."

If you don't do it, they might sneak into the homes of bears. (Maybe that's not what that story means; it's hard to say.)

"Just Now"
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
of stored, unused bricks, slightly softened

Sharing a moment, together

When we "give someone our time," what is it we give? Sometimes attention, or service. Maybe assistance, or advice.

Instead of thinking that I "give" my child my time, it helps to think of us sharing a moment, together.


"Being there for and with the family" seems so simple and yet many parents miss out on it without even leaving the house. Maybe it's because of English. Maybe we think we're "being there with our family" just because we can hear them in the other room. There is a special kind of "being" and a thoughtful kind of "with" that are necessary for unschooling and mindful parenting to work.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Lydia Koltai