How you view life

"Unschooling is a way of viewing life as filled with choices, not 'have to's'."

—Pam Sorooshian

Find your options
photo by Rosie Dawn Todd

Safe explorations

In unschooling families it's simple: we help our kids explore what interests them in ways that are safe.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Logic and Parenting
photo by Ida Marie Stenild Coltau

Generosity, good will and good humor

About kids not helping with chores, in 2004 (are kids still that way!?):

I wrote:

If you're not really generous with them, they won't be likely to be really generous with you.

That mom responded:

I know this is true, but a lot of times it feels like I'm expected to have an unending supply of generosity, goodwill and good humor.

Me/Sandra:

I think that should be your goal. If you're willing to not have help, then any help you have is more likely to be seen as a gift instead of not enough.

Joyce Fetteroll:

If our children help, we should treat it as a generous gift. (And the more we treat it as a generous gift, the more often they're likely to give.)

I like the set of parental gifts that mom came up with. If you are a parent, try to generate and maintain a generous supply of good will and good humor.

The original question and discussion,
and part 2 and then 3, if that's fun
photo by Jo Fielding
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Honest, attentive and reliable

Quote & reply quote:

Trust is a more useful word. Over time, kids develop a sense of whether or not parents are trustworthy sources of information and assistance."

—Meredith Meredith

"Good point. And very often, parents 'demand respect' without any idea that they need to earn it. For a child to trust a parent, the parent needs to be worthy of trust—trustworthy. Trustable. Then after many years of being honest and attentive and reliable, the children will respect them. Because they're respectable."

—Sandra Dodd

The originals are here, a few comments down, in a brief, good discussion on facebook. De Flowers saved and shared the part above in 2014.
photo by Tessa Onderwater
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Help children smile

If something makes you feel safer, that's fair. It might be a song, a joke, a thought, a special t-shirt, comfort food, or a nightlight. Even imagined safety or magical safety is better than fear, on an emotional level. Help children smile.

photo by Sandra Dodd, of art by then-young Sophie McNeill,
in her third-floor bedroom in Baud, in France, when I stayed there

Quitters sometimes win!

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Maybe you can see how quitting what you don't want to do is a good thing.

I've quit lots of things, jobs, relationships, books, drugs, cigarettes, lots of things that weren't helpful, that weren't good for my life. Quitting them made room for other things. It also helped me to think about what I wanted to do. Some of the things I quit I went back to like photography or knitting, I quit knitting regularly. Others I've not yet returned to like smoking or working at a plastics factory.

—Schuyler Waynforth

Thoughts about finishing what you start
photo by Gail Higgins
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No exceptions

Parents should not think that unschoolers are exempt from any expectations of courtesy or etiquette.

The original is from "Food Rules", but this matches, too:
SandraDodd.com/etiquette

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