The next interaction

Pam Sorooshian, on becoming the parent you want to be:

Stop thinking about changing "for good and not just for days or moments." That is just another thing to overwhelm you and you don't need that!

Just change the next interaction you have with the kids.

Stop reading email right now and do something "preventative"—'something that helps build your relationship with them.

Fix them a little tray of cheese and crackers and take it to them, wherever they are, unasked. Sit down on the floor and play with them. If nothing else, just go and give each of them a little hug and a kiss and say, "I was just thinking about how much I love you."

Okay—so that is one good, positive interaction.

Again—just change the next interaction you have with the kids. Focus on making the next interaction another one that builds up your relationship.

—Pam Sorooshian

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I appreciate that Pam Sorooshian has let me collect her writing and quote her for many years. There are others who have been similarly wise and generous. It is a gift I enjoy every time I come across their words. —Sandra

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Becoming the Parent you Want to Be
photo by Elaine Santana

Small wins you can choose

You could be the best part of someone else's day.

Be careful not to be the worst.


You can choose your goals, and practice to win.


Remember to think of moments, more than days, too.
Slowly Becoming Wise
photo by Sandra Dodd

Becoming more open

Marta wrote:

What I'm starting to realize (by what I've been reading and learning, and by my own observations of my experience), is that we can most certainly choose alternatives that can lead us to more openness (like choosing more positive words to describe how we feel about something, or genuinely trying to relax and see what our children and partners see in something they like, etc.). And that if we do it often, we can probably rewire our brains, creating new neurological paths and becoming indeed more open.

—Marta Venturini Machado

SandraDodd.com/open
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Brave, calm, happy

Be brave,      be calm,           be happy.

Becoming Courageous, by Deb Lewis
photo by Sandra Dodd

Change one thing.

Change a moment. Change one touch, one word, one reaction. If you try to change your entire self so that next year will be better, you might become overwhelmed and discouraged and distraught.

Change one thing. Smile one sweet smile. Say one kind thing.

If that felt good, do it again. Rest. Watch. Listen. You're a parent because of your child. Your child. You should be his parent, or her parent. Not a generic parent, or a hypothetical parent. Be your child's parent in each moment that you interact with her.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Jennie Gomes

Thoughtful decisions

Joyce Fetteroll's response to a parenting question:

Should you teach your child to always tell the truth?

"Always" and "never" are rules meant to stop thinking. Support your child in becoming a thoughtful decision-maker, not a thoughtless rule-follower.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Original, and more, on Quora
photo by Daniel Moyer Artisan
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Experiments and experiences

Keith and I have enjoyed our children and the success of our experiments and experiences has been a joint project at which we were very successful. The effect of sharing something difficult, like parenting in a way that’s not universally acclaimed and supported, can be strengthening to a relationship.

We had always worked at being courteous to each other. We always said please and thank you about any “pass the salt” or “could I have a Kleenex.” It was easy, then, to model that for our children and for them to see the valuable effect of it.


Source:  20 Unschooling Questions: Sandra Dodd from NM, USA

Related:  Becoming a Better Partner
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Intangible souvenirs

If you have any shaming or controlling voices in your head, think of how they got there, and how you might avoid becoming one in someone else's head.

Say things your child, partner, friend or neighbor will remember warmly.

Voices in your head
photo by Kelly Drewery
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Next week, next year, next century

People DO think of next week. They think of last week. But they're doing their thinking from inside their present selves.

Balance depends on the fulcrum. Be solid. Be grounded.
Be whole, and be here.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Sandra Dodd

Creating and protecting peace

Peace precedes learning.

Peace is a pre-requisite for unschooling to start working. It doesn't need to be constant peace (and won't be) but it needs to be increasing peace, and the attempt and intent to create and protect more peace.

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Just the next one

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Stop thinking about changing "for good and not just for days or moments." That is just another thing to overwhelm you and you don't need that! Just change the next interaction you have with the kids. —Pam Sorooshian

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Sandra Dodd

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New, April 2020:

The writing from which the quote above was taken has been translated into French, by Valentine Destrade: Une interaction à la fois.

(backup)

Happier and more peaceful

There are MANY people who came to unschooling and honestly tried to consider the ideas, and they tried the suggestions, and their families started becoming happier and more peaceful. And many have reported that as their children began to relax and love their lives, that the parents begin to rethink all KINDS of things they believed were true.

Unless people are willing to try it, they can't understand it or believe it. Lots of people every day share how they got from one point to another, with lots of practical suggestions and reassurances.



Emotion vs Intellect, from Unschooling Discussion, in 2003
photo by Sandra Dodd

Peace is primary

Tara Joe Farrell wrote:

Peace is THE priority in unschooling. It's primary. No amount of dropping bedtimes or food/media restrictions, no finding the yeses, no rich environment can get a family to unschooling well until someone (the at-home parent, the keeper of the nest, usually the mom) understands how to scan for peace, see where it's missing, and then find a way to let peace grow in that space. That could mean simply planting peace, but it can also mean clearing obstacles (including ourselves). Learning only, ever, thrives where there is peace.

—Tara Joe Farrell

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Gail Higgins—rainbow on a waterfall
(click to enlarge)
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More valuable and less expensive

Becoming the sort of person you hope your child will be, or that your child will respect, is more valuable than years of therapy. And it’s cheaper.

SandraDodd.com/becoming

(source of quote)
photo by Gail Higgins
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Advice for a newlywed

To have a more peaceful, loving relationship that has the potential to last for a lifetime, don't count and don't measure.

Don't divide anything "fifty/fifty." Forget that concept. Give what you have. Do all you can do. Give/do 80% when you can, but only measure it vaguely, at a squint, and then forget about it. If you aim for half, there will be resentments. If you aim for 100%, small failures will seem larger than they need to be, so don't do that. You can succeed at "lots" without measuring.

If each of you gives as much as you can, your shared needs will be fulfilled more quickly, more easily, and more often.

Be generous with your patience. Life is long. People change, and more than once.
I wrote that for a young friend getting married, and I quoted it here:
Becoming a Better Partner
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

Fill yourself up

Generosity makes you generous. Kindness makes you kind. Respecting others, and their ideas and their interests, makes you full of respect—respectful. These are little things that build up quickly.


SandraDodd.com/becoming
photo by Janine Davies
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It's this:

Being a good parent is not martyrdom. It's this: Being (in essence, in life, in thought, in action) a good (not bad, not average, but quality/careful/positive) parent.

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I don't know where I first wrote it, but Karen James saved and shared it in 2012.
Becoming the Parent You Want to Be is a fair match.
photo by Belinda Dutch
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Gain courage

Fearful schoolishness hasn’t ever helped unschooling yet. When you are schoolish, or fearful, or both, move toward courage.

Becoming Courageous
(The quote's not from there, but that's a better resource!)
photo by Gail Higgins

Play with your food

You can play with your food and eat it too.

Cass Kotrba wrote: "I am enjoying making vegetable art lately. Today we have scarlet nantes, atomic red and purplesnax carrots posing for a photo shoot before becoming pickled ginger carrots."

Artsy Collections
photo by Cass Kotrba
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The river of newness

Emily Strength wrote:

"The pop culture of today is the history of tomorrow."

I responded:

This is true of music, clothing, food, hairstyles, slang, cars, kitchen design, dishes, shoes, musical instruments (think of pianos or guitars you have known—which were from the 19th century, maybe, or early 20th, or 1970's, or recently made by Yamaha which kicks musical... butt).

Any of those topics could lead to very many trails involving technology, international trade, cultural borrowings, religion (why didn't I say "kicks ass" above? It would have disturbed some people, and now it still can; sorry), superstition, money...

The science of today is the "What were they THINKING!?" of tomorrow [as we shake our heads and roll our eyes about scientific fallacies of the past, until they are (many of them, individually, sometimes randomly) shown to have been fact after all].

The proper language and punctuation of today will irritate those not yet born, in 35 years.

Find this river of newness becoming history that's flowing right around and through us all, and learn to ride it openly and happily if you can!

—Sandra Dodd

History and Unschooling
photo by Amy Milstein