Whole and healthy and strong and free

We can see how controlling food is related to controlling education, sleep, playtime and other areas of our childrens' lives. We can mess them up early (which our culture applauds) or we can learn to let them grow whole and healthy and strong and free, not crippled in mind and spirit.

SandraDodd.com/eating/longterm
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Live in joy.

Parents should learn to be calm and thoughtful instead of panicky and reactionary. It's better for health and decision-making, and it sets a good example for the children. Don't live in fear when you can live in joy.



SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)

Free-form experimentation and analysis

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Unschooling looks nothing like school. It looks like play. Play—which is actually free-form experimentation and analysis—is how we—humans and really all mammals—are designed to make sense of the world around us. We build up an understanding of how the universe works by trying things out and seeing what happens. Then taking that new understanding to try more stuff out.

Written that way it sounds formal and directed. In actual practice it is free ranging and chaotic. But it works wonderfully well because it's what we're designed to do.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Magical music

Words are just words, on the one hand, and they are our connection to the divine, on the other. And the divine is often depicted with more than two hands (even Jesus has the nail-pierced hands, and his other hands, though not on the same statue like Ganesha might have), so on another hand words are magical music. And on another hand they are our link to the past and our messages to the future.

SandraDodd.com/wordswords
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a little bird feeder,
or something, in Yvoire, France

Decide, don't slide.

Better choices make things better.

Decide. Don't slide.

(from a little exchange with an unschooling dad June 25, 2012)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Cowtrails

"Flexibility to pursue tangents and cowtrails, and continuing to see the wonder in everyday things will lead to learning experiences without prior planning."

SandraDodd.com/puddle
photo by Sandra Dodd

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A "cowtrail" isn't a cattle trail. It's a little path worn by cattle walking single file in the same place, for years, between water and some favorite shade or gathering place. Sometimes they're called "cow paths." Sometimes little kids can follow them better than adults can, because the cattle might have gone under branches, tunnel-like.

"The easy way out"

In response to someone who had written, in 2003, that she had thought about unschooling, but maybe just because she was looking for an easy way out. A couple of responses from that day:

"Unschooling is not "the easy way out," it's the joyful way IN. The way into peaceful family life, happy children and meaningful learning that lasts a lifetime."                    —Ren Allen "Unschooling isn't easy. It's full time. What it takes is a change of belief and priorities. Lots have done it, and I'm sure you can too."                    —Sandra Dodd

from an old unschooling.com page, found by Rachel on June 23, 2012
Photo by Sandra Dodd

Click the image (or here) for more information about that tree.