More than one chair

Deb Lewis wrote:

If your daughter doesn't want to leave something interesting to go to the table to eat, take food to her. Sit with her and eat together. That's the same kind of sharing you could do at a table. Food eaten in front of the TV or computer with a happy mom who is interested in you is much better than food shared in grudging silence and anger. Wouldn't you be grateful to a friend who brought you food if you were in the middle of something important? I'm always grateful when my husband brings home a pizza or Chinese food when I'm having a really busy day.

Get another computer as soon as you can. If you had only one plate wouldn't you get another? If you had only one chair, wouldn't you get another? Don't fight over life's conveniences. What a terrible waste of time.

—Deb Lewis

That's the end of something good, and longer, at
SandraDodd.com/deblewis.
photo by Jihong Tang

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