Pollution you might not notice

This was written and first published in 2011; there are more readers now.

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Someone wrote elsewhere, about Just Add Light and Stir:

I really didn’t like Sandra’s blog, sure there is a lot of useful information, but the “cheerful” tone creeps me out!

A lot of useful information would be sufficient, I think, for a daily blog with over 800 subscribers. But I'm creeping someone out with a "'cheerful' tone"?! First, it's not "cheerful" in quotes, not allegedly cheerful. It actually *is* cheerful. 🙂

Cynicism is poison. It erodes relationships. It saps one's spirit and dissolves faith and hope. I will choose cheeriness over pissiness anytime I can manage to do it, and I hope most of those reading here are able to make that choice too, for the sake of themselves and their families. For their neighbors, for their dogs. For safety while operating motor vehicles and other machinery. For success at work, and joy while grocery shopping.

Negativity sucks. It sucks the possibility of a joyful life directly out of a person, and if it's not stopped, it will spread to others.

Smiles can spread, too, though. Kindness can be contagious. You choose a hundred times a day to smile or to frown, to breathe in joy or to suck in resentment.

Live responsibly, especially while you have children in your home.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sandra Dodd, in the alley behind the house, in 2011
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All-terrain principles

I got really good at being an unschooling mom to a six year old, and I got to repeat my tricks another couple of times, though each child was different. I didn't know ANYthing about having a twelve year old, though. And stuff like that kept on happening!!

Living by principles is what helps us keep moving smoothly even though the terrain is new.

me, in a discussion at Always Learning that has several great posts by others
photo by Karen James
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Relax into peace

"Power struggles can disappear when the person with the power stops struggling."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Options and possibilities

Jennifer Wells wrote:

Sit with your child and notice what they love. Offer options and possibilities and help them do as much as they want of what they love. Let them explore, refuse, experiment, and leave aside—in that process they will learn and learn and learn!

—Jennifer Wells

SandraDodd.com/being
(a directory page about ways to be with, and for, children)

photo by Amber Ivey

Much better

There are no "violent video games." Kids are sitting on a couch in their parents' home pushing buttons on a remote control. That's not hurting them or anyone else. (Or young adults are home sitting and pushing buttons, instead of being out drinking or vandalizing something.)

In every single case of real-life violence anyone can think of, wouldn't it have been better if the perpetrator had been home on the couch than out causing trouble? 🙂

SandraDodd.com/violence
photo by Sandra Dodd in 2012,
of a cool casual arrangement of stuff at Lisa Jonick's house

Learning leaps and lingers

School creates the illusion that learning is a smooth curve, divided into hours, units, terms, years. Sometimes unschooling parents look for that.

Often, learning happens suddenly, like a flash. A person "gets it" or makes a connection between two things. It's fine to rest for a few days after that!

Folklorists who study traditional ballads say "A ballad leaps and lingers." Later, films did that, too. Though many ballads are ancient-old, they are a bit like movies. They might start in the middle of an action scene, or with a mysterious dilemma. A scene might be portrayed in great detail, and the next scene pick up six months or three years later in the story. Learning can be that way.

Doing something "in fits and starts" means there are stretches of quiet nothing, and then suddenly things are happening. Then nothing, again, for a while. Learning is like that.

In the novel Shogun, the character Mariko says early on:

We have a saying that time has no single measure, that time can be like frost, or lightning, or a tear, or siege, or storm, or sunset, or even like a rock.

Try not to measure.

The learning Curve of Unschoolers
photo by Karen James
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Slowly and patiently

"If a frustrated child is frustrating you, then find ways to eliminate things that frustrate your child. Go more slowly, be more patient in each and every interaction."

—Jenny Cyphers

Bonding
photo by Amber Ivey
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