It's Time for Time

Time can be geological, historical, millenial, generational, eternal or poetic. Current time can involve years, months, seasons, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds and subparticles thereof. Time can fly or drag along. It can heal everything or be the enemy. There's no time out from time!

I hope you find some things here that you didn't know before, so that you feel your time was well spent. Time is money (or at least we talk about it as though it can be spent, saved, lost, wasted and stolen).

Be generous with your time and use it joyfully!

SandraDodd.com/time
photo by Sandra Dodd

Investing your time

The question was: "When do you find time for yourself as an individual?"

My response, once:

When children are very young, their lives ARE the mother's life. The more time the mother spends with the child when he's young, the easier it will be for him to separate freely on his own. It goes against some of the assumptions of traditional parenting (although it might not in India, and my comments might be too western here), to suggest that fulfilling all of a child's needs will make him more INdependent, but when a child is needy and feels ignored, he will be more demanding, not less.

As my children got a little older, I found other families to trade time with. Their kids would play at my house while the mom shopped or something, and she would reciprocate. If a mother is encouraged to look for more and more time without her children, though, it can make her feel unhappy thinking she's doing something wrong and should "find herself." Rather than encourage mothers to feel they have lost their individuality, I've found that helping them become the sort of parents they're proud to be can make them feel much better than outside interests might have. As children get older, mothers have more time, until someday the children are grown. People say it and hear it all the time, I know, but when they're little it seems it will never happen, and when they're older, it seems it took no time at all.

The more people one's children know and trust, the easier it will be for the parents to find some separate time, but I don't think time apart should be a high priority.

The graph was created for this article:
SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely

Finding yourself

I was asked recently, "When do you find time for yourself as an individual?"

When children are very young, their lives ARE the mother's life. The more time the mother spends with the child when he's young, the easier it will be for him to separate freely on his own. It goes against some of the assumptions of traditional parenting (although it might not in India, and my comments might be too western here), to suggest that fulfilling all of a child's needs will make him more INdependent, but when a child is needy and feels ignored, he will be more demanding, not less.

As my children got a little older, I found other families to trade time with. Their kids would play at my house while the mom shopped or something, and she would reciprocate. If a mother is encouraged to look for more and more time without her children, though, it can make her feel unhappy thinking she's doing something wrong and should "find herself." Rather than encourage mothers to feel they have lost their individuality, I've found that helping them become the sort of parents they're proud to be can make them feel much better than outside interests might have. As children get older, mothers have more time, until someday the children are grown. People say it and hear it all the time, I know, but when they're little it seems it will never happen, and when they're older, it seems it took no time at all.

The more people one's children know and trust, the easier it will be for the parents to find some separate time, but I don't think time apart should be a high priority.

The graph was created for this article:
SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely

Tiny sparks of imagination

Lyle Perry wrote:

Unschooling is like the tiny sparks of imagination that arc through a person's mind when they really watch a bird fly for the first time, and the huge lightning bolts of clarity when they realize how that miracle can actually happen, that make unschooling work.

I think one of the most difficult things for people to grasp about unschooling is the time factor that can be involved between connecting those tiny sparks to the huge lightning bolts. It may be days, months, or years between the time a person watches something happen and the time they understand why or how it happened. But the time factor doesn't make the event any less important, and in many cases it's the time factor that makes all the difference. A person understands when they are ready to understand. No time schedule can ever change that.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/lyle/definition
photo by Karen James

The gift of time and space

"We aren't leaving them to their own devices. We're creating an environment that supports them learning what interests them and learning how to be in the world. We give them time and space to do that."

—Joyce Fetteroll

photo by Jo Isaac

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I started to call this post "Time and space," but thought I should make sure I hadn't already used that. I knew I had not used this quote before.
I have already used Time and space.
Also:

Blanketing time and space
Means, encouragement, time and space

It's kind of a theme, I guess. A range. Sort of a "time and space" continuum, or something.

No time out

Time can be geological, historical, millenial, generational, eternal or poetic. Current time can involve years, months, seasons, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds and subparticles thereof. Time can fly or drag along. It can heal everything or be the enemy. There's no time out from time!



SandraDodd.com/time
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Time, times, timing

Time can be geological, historical, millennial, generational, eternal or poetic. Current time can involve years, months, seasons, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds and sub-particles thereof. Time can fly or drag along. It can heal everything or be the enemy. There's no time out from time!

SandraDodd.com/time
photo by Sandra Dodd

More time

The best thing that ever happened to me was that being a present, attentive, happy mother became one of my passions. When moms start sorting their "own time" from their children's time, their time as a mother from their time as a person, then they're going to be unhappy, or their children will be unhappy. If a mom can become a partner to her children, they are less needy and she will have more time. It seems crazy, but it works. 🙂

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Attention as an investment

Karen James wrote:

It might not seem like it now, but those early years pass fast. I love all the happy memories I've made with Ethan these past 13 years. As he's growing more and more into his own interests, I can see the little boy he once was twirling on a trampoline for the twentieth or more time saying "Watch me now!" landing with pride every time. I can hear the breathless laughs of a child who rooted for the hundredth time for Tom the cat to catch that too-clever mouse Jerry. I know the brave spirit of that little person exploring the dark night and caves of Minecraft. I was there for all of it and more. Thousands of hours of dedicated focus. I don't regret a single moment. If anything, I wish I'd given more. I still have time, thankfully.

It did take a lot of my time, attention and energy, and there were times when I was really, really tired at the end of the day, and mornings when I was slow to want to embrace the day. But I see all that time and energy and attention as an investment—in my son, and in my own future. If I get to grow old, I hope these are some of the moments that bring colour to my winters.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Denaire Nixon

Light show

Alex Polikowsky wrote, years ago:

We are all for fun stuff. We get to go to places with our homeschooling friends like theme parks and museums and have it all to ourselves. We get to play all day because for unschoolers playing and learning go hand in hand.

My kids are happy. They have fun. They learn everyday.

We have time to have many animals the kids want.

We have time to play games as a family.

We have time to run in the yard and explore places together. We have time to have fun.

Our lives are not separated between school life and home life. Most things we do, we do it because we like it and because we have fun doing them.

—Alex Polikowsky
(source / interview, 2009)

Alex's children are both at the University of Minnesota, studying engineering, so she had time to visit me and explore and play games. We had fun. She took the photo above on her way home.

Meanwhile, some of our other unschooling friends saw the northern lights, too, and shared images: Colleen Prieto, New Hampshire

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Gail Higgins, North Carolina

I slept through all of that, and failed to leave a post; sorry!

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More by Alex Polikowsky
top photo by Alex Polikowsky, from a plane, October 10, 2024—
wingtip light and slight reflection from the window

Too much of "too much"

Some people seem terrified of a monster they have imagined called "Screen Time."

I don't see them trying to put limits on paper time, or cloth time, or time with other people. I've never heard anyone say "That's enough 'imagination time' now."

SandraDodd.com/screentime

Photo by Robin Yaeger! Several people took photos that night and if you click it you can see others of an impromptu Beatles Rock Band fest that took place during the Monkeyplatter Festival in 2009.

Being online is good because...

If time spent here keeps you from poking and prodding and pushing your kids, that's good.

If time spent here gives you confidence to unschool that will save you TONS of money and energy and worry and heartache and interpersonal repair, that's good.

If you took a course on unschooling and had to go to class a time or two a week, with commuting time, and reading and paper-writing time, and if it cost what a college class costs in tuition, but you could just do THIS instead, that would be good. (And hey! It's true!)

SandraDodd.com/lists/justification
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the mailbox out front

Hours and days of joyful time

Response to this:

I tend to err on the side of just spending time together.

Don't think of it as erring.

And don't think of it as "just" spending time together.

SPEND freely of copious hours and days of joyful time together.

Don't just spend time together.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Rosie Moon

Time is inconsistent

Time is theoretically some sort of mathematical constant, but parents know that a day can seem to last forever, and a season can seem like a lifetime—then in retrospect seems to have zoomed by.

We can't live in "how will I survive this?" time nor can we live well by pining for that past we've already lived through. The best way to get through must be to do a better thing. If a conscious thought about time passage comes, think of what will be an improvement, and make that choice, however tiny, however slight.

Avoiding regret, contributing joy...
time will flow as it will,
but we can move closer to peace.

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The writing here is new, but here is more on this perspective:
SandraDodd.com/change/
photo by Sandra Dodd, on a carousel in Austin
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Becoming an unschooler

Pam Sorooshian, to a frustrated participant in a discussion once:

We have long experience with people new to unschooling, and we know that it is very important to take time to process the new ideas.

Please take time for reflection. Take time for your mind to be calm and quiet. Take time to be open to input, not busy creating output. Don't respond, think. Take the ideas and let them "be" in your mind and go spend lots of time with your children and consider and observe how the ideas might play out in your own home with your own kids.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Cátia Maciel

No stopping place

The edge of unschooling is not a solid line. It will depend on the principles by which a family intends to live, and the philosophy of learning and parenting through which they see the world.

For me, learning has no stopping place, and so there are not days or places or times that are "learning time" (or unschooling time) and others that are "time out" or time off. (Well, there's that one holiday, Learn Nothing Day, July 24.)

page 38 (or 41) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Leiden
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Closer to peace

We can't live in "how will I survive this?" time nor can we live well by pining for that past we've already lived through. The best way to get through must be to do a better thing. If a conscious thought about time passage comes, think of what will be an improvement, and make that choice, however tiny, however slight.

Avoiding regret, contributing joy...
time will flow as it will,
but we can move closer to peace.

original writing, a bit longer, at Time is Inconsistent, June 2017
photo by Cass Kotrba

Easier and less needy

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

Being proactive will work better, more effectively and leave him less needy. . . . ."It takes time and a greater focus at the beginning. It takes letting go, a lot, of your needs for down time or personal time or time to sit and chat with other people. But the more you do work to partner with your son, to help him before he needs help, to be with him more, the easier it will get and the less needy the relationship will feel.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/partners
photo by Dylan Lewis
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My heart leaps

Susan May wrote:

Even though my mind believes in my childrens' abilities, my heart sometimes need some validation. And every time one of my children does something for the first time, completely of their own volition, my heart leaps and then pumps joy to every cell in my body. Each time this happens the truth: that children will learn all they need to, in their own time—becomes etched a little deeper in my bones. And this is where the magic lies—not so much in the "firstness" of each new skill or idea, but in the fact that they completely own these moments."

—Susan May

togetherwalking.com/tw-blog/life-is-lumpy
photo by Holly Dodd
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My heart leaps

Susan May wrote:

Even though my mind believes in my childrens' abilities, my heart sometimes need some validation. And every time one of my children does something for the first time, completely of their own volition, my heart leaps and then pumps joy to every cell in my body. Each time this happens the truth: that children will learn all they need to, in their own time—becomes etched a little deeper in my bones. And this is where the magic lies—not so much in the "firstness" of each new skill or idea, but in the fact that they completely own these moments."

—Susan May

togetherwalking.com/tw-blog/life-is-lumpy
photo by Holly Dodd
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