Patient and loving

Radical unschooling works the same way for every child. Pay attention to what he's interested in. Don't force things. Find interesting items and situations, be patient and loving, and learning will happen. The more it happens, the more it will continue to happen.

Learning will happen
photo by Karen James

Points for your team

Points can be gained for your partnership, by what you do today, and the way you do it, and the thoughts you have while your child is so near. Contribute to the bank of good memories. Be present, and good.

SandraDodd.com/better
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Momentum

Parenting can seem repetitive, but the parents can be getting better at it, stronger, more determined, as they get chances to do better than before.

Food, clothes, the car, beds, baths, hair, shoes, over and over and over?

Try to think of each time as just *this* time. Be kind, generous, and sweet, knowing that you are making up for some other moment when you were maybe cranky or distracted.

SandraDodd.com/happy
photo by Sandra Dodd, a carousel in Minnesota

Choices, priorities and locations

Laying "have to" on our kids, or on ourselves or on outsiders is less useful and healthy than looking at rights and choices and priorities and locations.

Can you jump on the bed?

Depends whose bed, which bed, where, when. Is someone sleeping? Is it an antique? Who owns this bed?


SandraDodd.com/etiquette
(original, in a discussion on facebook)
photo by some realtor, once,
in a house that's now Holly Dodd's

Discover and do and be

"Conventional wisdom" (those truisms that too-often aren't true) says "children need limits," and that good parents have lots of limits (the more limits the better the parent). We've all seen (and some have been in) families where stifling limits caused the very problems they were expected to prevent. But without a counter-mantra to "children need limits" it's easy for parents to fear that it must be true or people wouldn't keep saying it.

If by "limits" people mean "safe boundaries," sure! If by "limits" people mean "someone to watch and care," absolutely! But what people usually mean by "limits" is parents who say "no / don't / stop / forget it / when you're older."

When unschoolers discuss limits they're often discussing arbitrary limits, trumped up to make the parents feel good, or used as magical talismans to guarantee that their children will be creative, healthy and safe. What creates much more magic is to help children discover and do and be.

SandraDodd.com/limits
photo by Brittany Lee Moffatt

Small changes

Each person knows when she's happier and when she wishes things were a little better. If small changes of attitude can make more happy moments than before, that benefits everyone involved.

SandraDodd.com/happy
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Learn to see everything!

"How will they learn everything they need to know?"

Do the best of the high school graduates know everything they need to know? No, and at some point, ideally, they start learning on their own. Some fail to get to that point, though. Unschooled kids have a head start. They know how to find what they need to know, and they have not been trained to ignore things that won't be on the test.

When parents see how and what their children are actually learning instead of just scanning for the half dozen school-things, unschooling will make sense to the parents. If you wait for school to congeal from a busy life, you'll keep being disappointed. If you learn to see everything instead of just school things, unschooling will start working for you. When you see it you will believe it.


SandraDodd.com/seeingit
photo by Ashlee Junker