Happily and successfully

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking.
. . . .Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Janine Davies

Grandparents might worry

To a question about elderly grandparents of young unschoolers, I told this, of my mother-in-law:

When Kirby, my oldest, was seven or so, his grandmother pressed me at dinner in a restaurant with this: "Are you planning to have him tested?"

"No."

"How will you know he's not behind?"

I was sitting there surrounded by relatives, and Kirby was there looking at me. I said, "I know he IS behind in some things, and he's ahead in some things. So are the kids at school." And I put food in my mouth. And that was that.
. . . . Simply saying, "Thanks, we'll keep that in mind" can go a long way toward soothing worried relatives.

SandraDodd.com/mha
photo by Sandra Dodd
of my kids and their paternal grandmother
in those days, 1993 or so

Plan B

What I said to friends who worried when we started was simply this: "If it stops working we'll do something else."

SandraDodd.com/mha
photo by Sandra Dodd

Be the safest place

Instead of requiring that my kids had to hold my hand in a parking lot, I would park near a cart and put some kids in right away, or tell them to hold on to the cart (a.k.a. "help me push", so a kid can be between me and the cart). And they didn't have to hold a hand. There weren't enough hands. I'd say "Hold on to something," and it might be my jacket, or the strap of the sling, or the backpack, or something.

I've seen other people's children run away from them in parking lots, and the parents yell and threaten. At that moment, going back to the mom seems the most dangerous option.

Make yourself your child's safest place in the world, and many of your old concerns will just disappear.

SandraDodd.com/safe
photo by Sandra Dodd

Traditional "truths"

There are some truisms that are spoken without real examination and I think the very vague rules against bribery of children are right up top there. . . . . I don't think giving a child something you have in exchange for him doing something he doesn't owe you to be bribery.

More of that: SandraDodd.com/bribery
photo by Jihong Tang

Let your child be your cause

Putting your child first while you unschool is important. When your kids grow up, you could dedicate the rest of your life to only wearing used clothes and not using electricity or charge cards or an automobile, but putting token environmental gestures first in your life causes your child to become a token environmental gesture. The environment is changed imperceptibly. His life, hugely.

SandraDodd.com/perspective
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Voices to save (or shush)

about the voices in your head:

It’s possible to (gradually) shush the old voices and find some new mental first-responders.

SandraDodd.com/voices
photo by Joshua Trujillo