I'm not guessing.

I'm confident. I'm not guessing unschooling can work, I know. I've also seen how it can fail, through my correspondence and discussions with so many other homeschooling families. I'm not hoping that kids can still get a job without fifteen years of practice bedtimes; I know they can. (And they would've been "practicing" for the wrong shift anyway.) I don't conjecture that kids can learn to read without being taught, I know. It's happened at my house, in three people's lives.

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sandra Dodd
P.S.
Just because it *can* work doesn't mean that a family can't fail. If you're going to unschool, do it well. Find your own confidence. Help is available.
SandraDodd.com/help

Learning

Learning is about connections. And others can't make those connections for you. You bring learning in; it is not inserted.

Some people learn better by seeing, watching, touching, than by being talked to anyway. Some want to see diagrams in a book, or maps. Some want to hear about it from others who have done it, seen it, know it.

When unschoolers provide as much different input as they can, each child can learn in his own way.

Principles of Learning (chat transcript)
photo by Cátia Maciel

Relax into the next step

Leah Rose wrote:

I have come to see that it helps peace and learning to notice when we are clinging or tightening around an identity, an idea, or even a hope. I think that's why breathing and baby steps are such useful suggestions for new unschoolers. Both help us to stay in the moment, to relax right where we are rather than leaping ahead or getting mired in "shoulds." They help us cultivate soft, open ground upon which we can rest with joy, and know enough confidence to take the next step.

—Leah Rose

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Note from Sandra:
That quote is the bottom of longer writing by Leah, on how she moved from rules to "no rules" which wasn't the best direction, and found a better path in living by principles.

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Leah's writing is about the sixth quote down, at
SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Karen James

Scenery is where you see it.

We seek out interesting “scenic routes” in real and figurative ways.


SandraDodd.com/why
photo by Marty Dodd, in rural Nevada, thinking "Fallout"
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Good and sweet

Look at what looks good and sweet, and seek out more of that.

—Jill Parmer

SandraDodd.com/positivity

Jill quote from the bottom of a chat on "Schooling"
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Providing for needs

Sometimes when a child is recovering from paucity, he hoards.

Sometimes when a parent has been changeable and inconsistent, a child can seem clingy and grasping when attention/supplies/input are available, thinking the famine will return at any moment.

Thinking of attachment parenting, infants and toddlers, a baby needs as much milk as he needs, and when he's done he'll turn away. A toddler needs as much holding and carrying as he needs, and when he's done, he will wiggle down and take off.

SandraDodd.com/generosity
photo by Sandra Dodd

(original writing)

Unschooling's "educational supplies"

Unschooling's "educational supplies" are often toys, or things that kids in school would not want or need, because they have it at school, or because it's not "age appropriate." School is processing kids through an assembly line, and there is pressure to accept and then abandon various interests. Unschooling has a whole different operating system.

SandraDodd.com/screwitup
photo by Roya Dedeaux