Exploring interests

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

What sets unschooling apart from other homeschooling approaches isn’t children making choices. It’s parents creating an environment that supports exploring interests. It’s creating an environment that allows children to make choices based on interest.

Unschooling is *parents* creating the environment that allows children to choose. One choice might be to go to school. But children aren’t unschooling in school. They aren’t unschooling in a class. They aren’t unschooling when they do a workbook. They’re learning.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingis
photo by Cátia Maciel

Let the light shine

It's easy (and well-rewarded by positive attention from other adults), in some circles, to be controlling parents.

Probably everyone reading this knows that, but unschoolers have figured out ways to step away, just far enough to let the light shine on options and choices.

Confidence can grow when unschooling starts working well, and everything seems clearer when it's happening at your house, and not theoretical.

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Diane Marcengill

Learning what they know

"How do you know they're learning?" The people who ask that question are looking at the world through school-colored glasses. Those same parents knew when their children could use a spoon. They knew when the child could drink out of a cup. They knew when walking and talking and bike riding had been learned.

Here's how I learned that Kirby knew about the Huns: He was waiting for me to give him a ride, while I was talking on the phone to a local mom who was considering homeschooling. We were discussing unit studies, and I said they weren't necessary, that people just keep learning their whole lives. "You can't finish China," I said, and Kirby commented dryly, "The Huns tried that."

So, on my mental checklist, I note Kirby identifying the Huns, using the word in a sentence, knowing a dab about Chinese history. But was I testing? Was he reporting? Neither. He was just making a joke. And it was sufficient for me to discover what he knew.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Jihong Tang

Rethink what you're trying to do

"Rethink what you’re trying to do rather than how you’re trying to do it. Get a new perspective on it so you can see things in a new way."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/chores/relationship
photo by Karen James

Raised up

With "make the better choice," the quality of the options gradually is raised far and away from the original starting-place options.

SandraDodd.com/levelup
photo by Jo Isaac, of a barking owl

What peace feels like

If we raise the level of peace our children expect, they will know what peace feels like.

Adults need to know what peace feels like too, though, and some feel it for the first time when they really start to understand unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Colleen Prieto

Greater clarity

Karen James wrote:


If we don't move away from the extremes—those slightly blurry edges—we won't get to appreciate the crisp details of whatever it is we do hope to see and understand better.

That's true for most things, I believe.

Learn to recognize your own extreme thinking. See the nevers and the alwayses. 😊 Then, move around a bit, in search of greater clarity. That shift in thinking will help most relationships, I'm confident.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Gail Higgins