Choose and be and do

Don't worry about what kids choose to do. Make sure they have lots of choices, and don't discriminate between what you think might be career path and what might "only" be joyful activity and self-expression, or what might seem to be nothing more than relaxation or escapism. Let them choose and be and do.

SandraDodd.com/watching
photo by Sarah Peshek

Learning the OTHER things

Sylvia Toyama wrote, in 2004:

This week Andy has figured out money, and it's happened in spurts all week... . . . .
He has learned all this through his own observations. He figured it on his own, when it made sense to him, because it was now important to him to know. And he has the pleasure of knowing he did it without being 'taught' by someone else. He's learned that he's capable and smart — something you just can't get from a worksheet with some arcane facts memorized.

And that's how they reach the point of 'wanting to learn' — when it matters to them, not when it matters to you or anyone else.

—Sylvia Toyama

You can read the details I left out
at SandraDodd.com/math/money
photo by Cátia Maciel

Learning by watching

While you're understanding your children's interests, and getting over any initial embarrassment about your own, remember to have compassion and understanding toward other adults in your life, and what they are learning by watching.

SandraDodd.com/watching
Coconut art by Ishan, from Sri Lanka, whose "fiverr" name was funnymad.

If you can't see a video, Plan B: Coconut (on youtube)

Principles sustain; rules constrain

Ben Lovejoy wrote:

Question the rules, and question the principles as well. But once you and your family have chosen the principles important to the family, you'll find that no one will want to change or break or get around them like they will rules.

Principles sustain a life; rules will constrain that very same life.

—Ben Lovejoy

SandraDodd.com/benrules
photo by Sandra Dodd
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When is the test?

[As a kid in school...]
I asked fewer questions when I heard "that won't be on the test" for the dozenth time.

Then when I was teaching, too many kids asked me "Will this be on the test?"

That's when I came up with the test being the rest of their lives, and whether they'll get jokes, or be interesting people, and with "Everything counts."


Everything Counts (other posts going there)

image by Bill Watterson
If you're on facebook, you can click that image to see the original discussion. Other unschooling moms had thoughts on it, too.

Where the learning is

Even if you obtain the coolest tools or toys unschoolers could recommend, natural learning isn't in the toys, it's in the relationship between the adult and child—in the freedom and peace and time to explore and to think.

JoyfullyRejoycing.com/how-unschooling-works
(The quote isn't there, but similar ideas are!)
photo by Janine Davies

A calmer, kinder mother

Below are my comments (Sandra's). They didn't go to the author, because I wasn't in on the discussion where this was first posted. They're for people who come by here ["here" being the page linked at the bottom].

"Am I going to hate, and have to fight, Harry Potter the way I have Pokemon?"

HATE? "Have to"? "Fight"? Eewwww... There is more violence in that question than in all of Pokemon's "battles." And seriously... fighting Harry Potter!? He can kick Voldemort's ass. If only the mom had spent all that energy looking at Harry Potter, or Pokemon, WITH her daughter, instead of being resentful and jealous and spiteful, their relationship might soar.

SandraDodd.com/addiction
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp