No shoving, please

Set it out, don't try to shove it in.

That line is from small talk I gave once, to dads only. I was talking about logic—to draw it in, not to hit people with it. But "Set it out, don't try to shove it in" can apply to many things—food, interesting things, ideas, and to unschooling itself.

photo by Sandra Dodd

The more we said yes...

Sandra/me, in 2003:

Sometimes one will say "I'm really not feeling good," as Holly did yesterday, and her need for juice, a blanket and some mom-comfort were real. She has a cold. So that was suddenly more important than her helping me get firewood, or whatever it was. I really don't remember anymore.

Nobody's ever said, "NO, I'm playing a video game, do it yourself." But they have said "When I get to a saving point."

The more we said yes to our children, the more willing they were to say yes to us. It worked like please and thank you did!

...on family life
photo by Kinsey Norris

Thinking and choosing

If you think of two things and choose the better one, then you've made a choice.

If you act without thinking first, you have acted thoughtlessly.

SandraDodd.com/cairns
photo by Sandra Dodd
and it's upside-down, as they were hanging
in a gift shop in Kuranda

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