Thoughts can lift you up.

I can breathe and be still and not be knocked down by thoughts. Thoughts can lift me up. I can turn down the volume. I can switch channels.

Too much noise
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Up with choices!

When a child has come up from infancy with choices, she won't be desperately grasping for evidence of personal power and autonomy when she's older.


SandraDodd.com/foodproblems
photo by Sarah S.
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Good, healthy, nice, different

"Remember that unschooling is not just not taking the kids to school. It is building a good relationship with them, a healthy relationship with them, and creating a nice environment for them, different from school. So that is part of our responsibilities as unschooling parents—to heal ourselves." —Alicia Gonzalez-Lopez

Deschooling with Alicia Gonzales-Lopez,
interviewed by Pam Laricchia, March 2020 (44:25)
photo by Elise Lauterbach

Grateful and kind

Be grateful for opportunities to be kind to your children.

A font of "yes!"
photo by Elaine Santana
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Local treasures

In your town are things, places, crafts, traditions, that are not universal.

What is local and "everyday" can seem boring, dusty, even embarrassing maybe. "Those old buildings," with their uneven floors, dusty corners, antique windows, are gloriously exotic to people from two thousand miles away, or ten thousand miles away.

We might be limited to photos for a while. It's that crazy year, 2020, and it might be the best time to start appreciating where you are, and what is special about your own town.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Playing—around, with, seriously

There's a difference between playing a game and playing with a game. Yet another thing is to play with game pieces or parts. Find value in all of those things.

Sometimes adults want a child to "do it right," but if the goal is learning, and thinking, the child is probably better at it than the parent!

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Linda Malchor

How quiet can you be?

Some people are better than others at waiting, quietly, for another to make the next move.

If quiet doesn't come naturally to you, a starting place is to take one slow breath before you respond, or before asking a question that doesn't really need to be asked. From inside you it might seem like a long time, but from the outside it will not. During that breath, consider whether two breaths would help even more.

Practice, quietly
photo by Gail Higgins
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