Freedom and flexibility

Because I was able to be home with them, they didn't have to wait hours to consider whether to talk to me about something or to just share with school friends, as I usually did when I was a kid. Other kids don't always make the sagest of advisors.

We could watch movies together at leisure, and pause and come back to them, or watch the good parts over and over. Some families are trying to squeeze a movie in between "dinnertime" and "bedtime" and wouldn't even think of watching one in the morning or during lunch!

—SandraDodd, 2009

Two of several responses about the advantages of being home, at Homeschooling: Freedom and Fun For Your Family. Also on that page: Alex Polikowsky's answers to the same questions.

(studio photo)

Dance, sing, listen, play

Learning about music can be as happy as dancing in the back yard, singing in the car, or going to watch a bluegrass band at a street festival. Listen to different oldies stations. Play with online song sites. Rent videos of concerts or operas and musical theatre. Don't "make" anyone watch them. Watch them yourself, and others might come to join.

page 83 (or 92) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel

Real world

The thing I think I've seen more than anything else in some of the older unschoolers, the people who are teens who haven't been to school much or at all, is they are so whole. Their place in the world is real. They're not preparing for the possibility of applying to have a place in the world after they're grown. They are in the world. And there's something so different about that.

Unschooling and Real Learning
photo by Sarah Dickinson

"Truths" that aren't

If someone says "Without high school, one is doomed to poverty," that is a false statement. All of us probably know people who didn't graduate from high school (or its English-school-system or other equivalent) who are happy and maybe wealthy. All of us know (or have been) people who went to a university for four or ten years and ended up working side by side with people who maybe graduated from high school and maybe didn't.

SandraDodd.com/proof is a good continuation,
but the quote is from page 47 or 51 of The Big Book of Unschooling.

photo by Gail Higgins

Pleasant associations

Finding ways not to be grumpy about dishes is a good model and practice field for other choices in life.

We get our dishes from thrift stores, mostly. If one of them bugs me, it can go back to the thrift store.

Sometimes when a mom is really frustrated with doing the dishes, it can help to get rid of dishes with bad memories and connections, or put them in storage for a while. Happy, fun dishes with pleasant associations are easier to wash.

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Gail Higgins

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Parts or versions of the text above have appeared in this blog five times before. It's simple, but people forget.

Adult decisions

When a young adult has been making real decisions for years, and what their parents want is to help them think clearly and to make careful decisions based on the preferences and beliefs of the young person himself, the same old world looks very different.

Young Adults: Partners
photo by Janine

Fuel and downtime

Connie/Otherstar wrote:

Whenever we go out, I make sure that we have lots of foods available so they don't get hungry. I watch for signs of being tired because I know that when my girls get tired, they seem to lose the ability to communicate. Letting them get overtired or over-hungry and then expecting them to communicate with you and negotiate with you isn't appropriate. For that matter, it isn't good for adults.

There have been times that we have gone out and lost track of time and we have all ended up grumpy and hungry. My husband and I will stop and get food for us all. Until everybody is fed, we don't address anything. After we all eat, then we may talk. Usually, feeding everybody eliminates the problems though.

—Connie (Otherstar)

There is more. It was not easy to choose a small part
of the longer writing at Healing Presence
photo by Sarah S.