What lights them up?

Caren Knox wrote:

The most effective thing I did to help my sons be their whole, individual, unharmed selves was to support, encourage, and enrich their interests, choices, and enjoyments - even when I feared that their choices might have negative repercussions, or their choices made me feel uncomfortable. . . . . Look at your kids, watch your kids. What lights them up? Do & support more of that.

—Caren Knox

original, on facebook

or more by Caren Knox

photo by Amber Ivey

Unschooling Discussion 2020

New discussion, on Facebook, as of August 1
Unschooling Discussion 2020
[Still there as an archive. —Sandra, 2021]


photo by Sandra Dodd

Piecemeal and serendipitous

"Every person's learning about the world will be piecemeal - so it might as well be serendipitous and interest based."

—Cally Brown
(original, on facebook)

SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Ester Siroky (while visiting Tuzla)

Closer to peace

We can't live in "how will I survive this?" time nor can we live well by pining for that past we've already lived through. The best way to get through must be to do a better thing. If a conscious thought about time passage comes, think of what will be an improvement, and make that choice, however tiny, however slight.

Avoiding regret, contributing joy...
time will flow as it will,
but we can move closer to peace.

original writing, a bit longer, at Time is Inconsistent, June 2017
photo by Cass Kotrba

Right here, again

Holly Dodd wrote a warm memory:

I am seven years old. I am sitting comfortably with a convenient, safe place to rest my face. Safe. On my father's lap . . . Knowing it is not only ok, but expected of me, to fall asleep. Right here where I already am. My dad will tuck me in when he is done holding me, and it will hardly be my business.

I left out the middle. There is more at: Sleep-related memories
photo by Holly Dodd
__

Here! Present.

Live in the moment, and the moment is not in the past.
Live in the moment, in the world where you are.

Thinking this way or that

I think in words. My husband thinks in patterns. So people think more of emotions or colors, or of biological needs.

When I don't know what something is, I can't think of it in words. Sometimes that will happen—one's usual mode or "setting" isn't available, or isn't working! Think about how you think.

Something can be beautiful even if you don't know what it is.


SandraDodd.com/mystery
photo by Nina Kvitka