Just being

There's little so sweet and grounding to me as being loved for who I am and appreciated for all I choose to spend my time doing. If we want our children to really know what that feels like too, we should stop standing on the sidelines, and start joining in.

It's a simple gift we can all give to our children that will have the potential to last a lifetime.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames/beingwith ("A Simple Gift")
photo by Cass Kotrba

Walk where you are

What is peaceful for one might be spooky for another. Be a comfort to your child and to others on the path with you.

If no one knows what is around that bend, approaching it calmly and confidently is better than pre-emptive dread and fear. Don't be surprised to find an easy, joyful time.

Being where you are now might be the best preparation for being where you will be later.

SandraDodd.com/acceptance
photo by Heather Booth

Backyard peace and beauty

This photo inspires me to remind people that there can be quiet contemplation next to silly play, and you might have brief solitude, even if someone sees you and takes a picture.

There can be peace in the backyard.

Even in the most candid of mom-photos, a kid's sleeves can impressively match the trampoline.

Observe, appreciate, slow down, accept.

Being Home: SandraDodd.com/being/home
photo by Sarah S.

Acceptance and relaxation

"When kids feel respected, when they've experienced a life time of their desires being respected and supported to find safe, respectful, doable ways to get what they want, kids won't push the envelope into craziness. That behavior just doesn't make sense to them. "Kids who've been controlled focus on pushing against that control, sometimes focus on the hurt of not being accepted for who they are, and do things just because they're not supposed to." —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Andrea Taylor

A houseguest, or your child

Being new to the world, and you being his host (and partner), any light you can shed on the mysteries of the world, and any clues you can give him on what's likely to happen and what's expected of him would be good for all concerned. Advise him what might happen at a wedding reception, or a birthday party, or at a place he's never been to before. Show him how to eat a new food he hasn't seen. Help put him at ease if he's nervous. Provide him all the coaching and reassurance he wants, and no more than he wants.

SandraDodd.com/guest
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Peaceful Memories

Being gentle can relieve stress. Being gentle "gentles" us.

If you can recall a moment when you comforted an animal, you are remembering a good-hearted action. If you can think of four, or six, times that you made another creature feel safer, warmer, happier, you might induce the same feelings you had then.

Peaceful memories can be soothing.

Pets
photo by Ester Siroky

Doing and being

They don’t live to grow up. They’re living in the present. They don’t relate to questions about what they will do later or be when they’re grown. They’re doing and being now.

SandraDodd.com/sustainable
photo by Colleen Prieto

Controversial topic

When a family stays together, and when the marriage is improved and solidified, it's not just good for the children. It's good for the grown children, and grandchildren. It's better for holidays and family events, for estate planning and inheritance. It's better for being able to leave photo albums out, and photos of children with their parents still out on the wall, without trying to revise history to keep from offending new wife, new husband, girlfriend, boyfriend. It's better for casual stories like "Remember when we went to White Sands?" It's less likely that a story will need to be abandoned midway or trailed away from because someone who was there, and fun, is now estranged from the family.

I didn't know, years ago, that unschooling could strengthen a marriage. I did know that a good marriage would strengthen unschooling.

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SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by a waiter, with my camera, 2011

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P.S. Why is that controversial?

I have been criticized, over the years, for encouraging people to be kind and compassionate to partners or spouses. I have also been thanked by people whose marriages became stronger because of those ideas, or by the use of unschooling principes in general.

Although I am sympathetic to people whose marriages have failed for reasons beyond their control, there are divorces that could have been avoided, and there are relationships still in the future that could benefit by being bathed in sweetness and patience, humor and positivity.

Open to the moment

Sometimes it's hard to know whether to look at the flower or at the leaves or at what might be in the darkness behind, or up at the sky, or to turn around and ignore the flower completely. There might be a bird in a nearby tree, or an interesting sound coming from a window.

Plans change. It can be good, upon occasion, to just listen and look and explore. Sometimes it's fine to just see a flower and not say a word about it.

We could call those moments restless confusion and indecision, or we could consider ourselves being open to the moment, in a state of wonder and curiosity.

Keep a positive light on what's outside you and within you, and your world will be a better place.

Being present in the moment
(Text is repeated from 11/19/10, but other details changed.)
Photo by Gail Higgins
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Eye to eye

When encountering another being, consider which of you might be a danger to the other.

If the other being is a friend or relative of yours, try not to be a scary or dangerous creature.

SandraDodd.com/peace/
photo by Karen James

Part of being present!

Solve problems before they become problems. Notice the direction things are heading and change things. Don't let them get hungry, tired, testy to the point where they're hitting or destroying things. Food. Naps. Go home. Put on a video. Draw one away to do something totally different.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Chrissy Florence

Mom in the middle

The mom is in the middle. She's the pivot point, the center, the way in which all these people are related.


A mom was worried about being in the middle, in a situation involving her husband and four children.

Being a Happy Mom
has other encouragement for moms.
photographer unknown, but the mom is "jakesmom"/Vicki
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Giving, learning and growing

Parvine Shahid wrote, on the topic of "Service":

Being with my children, giving them in each moment all I can, learning and growing with them, changed my understanding of "service."

I have chosen to give, help and serve my children. I feel being with them has contributed towards a new understanding of the word as well as a way of building a connection with them. I can also see how it can be extended to others.

I realize how much weight a word can carry, how changes in my own feelings have lightened that weight and thrown a new light on the word itself. Service now stirs up and brings great feelings of joy.

—Parvine Shahid

SandraDodd.com/serviceResponse
photo by Sandra Dodd (click for more info)
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Getting to Peace

There is a solidness in being in the moment, and in being at peace.



This moon and the note below are from last winter. Kirby was twenty-three, and the gate was built after he moved away from home.

When I saw Kirby in September even though it was a very busy several days, there were a few moments when I stood touching him or held his hand, or leaned on him, and felt how strong and grown he is. I smelled his hair and loved him, even though he's not a little boy anymore. I was at peace with my son. We got to that peaceful place by not screwing it up. We got there with love.

Peace, and Whether I Exist
photo by Sandra Dodd

Bad ideas, but funny

Holly is smart and funny. She showed me a question (in art/meme form) asking "If you could delete one thing from Earth, what would it be?"

So one person wrote "The stupid people. All of them."

Holly doesn't know her, but said "That would make her the stupidest person on Earth."

If someone could remove everybody who is stupider than they were, they would, by default, become the dumbest person left, as she explained it.

It's like the opposite of "Idiocracy," where a guy became the smartest person.

Anyone who thought deleting all the stupid people was a good idea would happily delete her next. 🙂 So I said "ants." But I wasted my wish. I should've said "mosquitos."

I read this tonight, after getting a serious mosquito bite from being outside talking with Brie about the movie Idiocracy, and about Holly being smart and funny. All coincidence, because I hadn't remembered the post or conversation. Stupid mosquito. My ankle itches.

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August 12, 2017 on my facebook page, where I apologize, explain, and endure assurances that ants and mosquitos are important (other animals eat them), and agree with the idea that maybe humans are not necessary to the survival of Earth.
image by Scott Nickel (I don't know him.)

A nicer person

Being gentle and honest and compassionate is as much for the doer as for the object. Being nice to the dog makes one a nicer person (regardless of the dog's opinion, I mean).

page 11, The Big Book of Unschooling
photo from the corner of Schuyler Waynforth's garden in Norfolk, by Sandra Dodd
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Sleeping as love

For the first MANY years of their lives, our kids fell asleep being nursed, or being held or rocked by dad or mom, or in the car on the way home from something fun. They slept because they were sleepy, not because we told them to. So when they got older, they would fall asleep near us, happily.

We never minded putting them in the bed after they were asleep. It was rare they went to sleep in the bed. They would wake up there (or in our bed, or on the couch or on a floor bed) knowing only that they had been put there and covered up by someone who loved them.

Going to sleep wasn't about "going to bed."

Kirby, four, fell asleep while playing.

SandraDodd.com/sleeping
photo by Sandra Dodd, 1990

Learning; being

Amy: Here is Sandra Dodd with a simple definition of unschooling.

Sandra Dodd: Creating an environment where natural learning can flourish.

Amy: What’s natural learning?

Sandra Dodd: Learning from experience, learning from asking questions, following interests, being.

Why unschool?
photo by Amy Milstein
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Being a child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Remember "partnership"

Being patient and compassionate with a child who is sad or hungry or tired or maybe teething or frustrated with his friends is good. Feeling good makes you calmer and more confident. It will give you stores of calm and clarity so that you can remember that your spouse might be sad or hungry or tired, maybe aging, aching, or frustrated with his co-workers and friends.

If you have come to feel adversarial in any way toward your partner, remember "partnership." Help him or her follow interests or hobbies or to take care of collections, or to see a favorite TV show. Support his interests. Being nicer makes you a nicer person.
SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Joyce Fetteroll
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