Barbie World

These Barbies belong to a girl named Ericka, who generously let me use her bedroom recently. I bring them to join my collection.

Some of Jayn's (from a few years back) and of Holly's (similarly historical now).

SandraDodd.com/barbie
photo by Sandra Dodd

It shows.

"Much of what they're learning as unschoolers is the 'true grit' of living: communication, interaction, observation, exploration, etc... and it shows!"

—a mom named Sandy

SandraDodd.com/siblingpeace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Feed passions...cake.

Feed passions.

Unschooling depends on children being able to follow their interests, but just as with food, it's hard to know whether they want to just taste it or finish off a case.

If a child wants to bake a cake, you don't know in advance whether she just wanted to mix the batter once or whether she will end up creating wedding cakes for millionaires. You don't need to know.

Feed Passions
photo by Sandra Dodd

The precious principle of abundance

Leah Rose wrote:

I had an amazing experience with [breathing] last night. At bedtime (which is about midnight in our family) I had just tucked in and said goodnight to our two youngest (8 and 11 yo boys) and was climbing into my own bed when I heard one of them calling me. My knee-jerk reaction was a blast of annoyance—very typical of me in that situation, exacerbated by the fact that I'd felt crummy all day and was really looking forward to collapsing into bed.

I huffed out an angry breath, started to head back to their room and suddenly had a thought from something I'd read here recently (or maybe on Sandra's website or the RU Network): "First, breathe and center yourself." So I took a deep breath, and as I inhaled I felt my whole being kind of slide into place—it was weird, almost a tangible sensation—and suddenly I felt completely peaceful. I walked into their room with a smile on my face and asked if either of them had called me. It was ds 11, he wanted me to set up his extra pillow (which was on the floor leaning against his bed) behind him so he could sit up and read for a bit.

Normally in this circumstance I'd have walked into the room annoyed and impatient and would have responded to this request by going on a rant about why he couldn't just reach down and pick it up himself, why he had to call me all the way back into his room for that, how tired and crummy I was feeling and there is no reason why I have to be the one to do it since he's perfectly capable himself! (You get the picture.)

Last night I just said, "Sure!" and set his pillows up behind him and gave them both another kiss goodnight and then went to bed feeling exhausted but very peaceful—and very thankful for my networks of unschoolers, from whom I'm learning the precious principle of abundance.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd
___

Osmosis and television shows

A cranky person wrote to me:

I do unschool but I obviously do not subscribe to your radical view of unschooling where children are expected to learn by osmosis and television shows.

To the Always Learning discussion list I wrote:

When the environment is rich, children learn by osmosis, if the membrane through which ideas pass is their perception of the world. What they see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think becomes a part of their experience, and they learn. And they learn from television shows, movies, paintings, books, plants, toys, games, movement, sports, dancing, singing, hearing music, drawing, sleeping.... as if by osmosis, they live and they learn.

SandraDodd.com/tv
photo by Sandra Dodd of a tractor covered in lights
Albuquerque Bio-Park's "River of Lights," 2011

About food...

You don't know what your children need. They won't know either, if they're never allowed to live in such a way that they will learn to pay more attention to their bodies than to a book or a menu, a calendar, a clock, or to their parents' fears and prejudices.


SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

To have a better life

To have a better life, stop doing what makes life worse.


SandraDodd.com/incrementalchange/
photo by Sandra Dodd
__