Mysteries

"Don't borrow trouble," my granny used to say. Lately that comes to mind, in a good way. There are things we can't control. There are things that are none of our business! About some things, sometimes, it's okay not to care. Let there be mysteries. Parents with the ability to smile and to see the sky and to be grateful for local, familiar water and air are better for children than parents who are angry and complaining. Be a peaceful place for your children.

"How important is it?"
I took the photo, of a mystery unrelated to me in every possible way.
People in New Mexico neither need to be for nor against cane cartage.

Control

If you think of controlling yourself, and of your children controlling themselves, it's still about control. If people live by principles their choices come easily.



SandraDodd.com/self-regulation
photo by Holly Dodd

Learning what's important

In 1997, someone asked how unschooling moms stayed patient.

Other moms have told me they think I'm patient. It makes me feel guilty because I have the internal list of all the times I've blown it, but a few things have helped me.

The biggest was Adult Children of Alcoholics, an al-Anon group. I went to meetings for four years and learned a lot of calming and encouraging things. One of those is to remember what I wanted and needed as a child. Then I try to give those things to my children. I don't mean toys or books. I mean listening, and smiling, and joking, and letting them climb on stuff even if it made me nervous, and not making such strictly-to-the-minute rules like "be back at 5:45 or else" and other arbitrary control-junk. One of the quotes/sayings from that learning-time is "How Important Is It?" and thinking that little mantra can help a ton all by itself. If we waste our energy and our relationship with our children on how they wear their socks and where they keep their toothbrush between times, there's nothing left for important things. I try to save it for important things, and I try not to be the defining judge of what's important. There are things the kids consider very important, and I force myself (at first, until I calm myself and remind myself to give) to pay attention to their stuff too. No "That's nice dear" while I ignore them. When it happens, occasionally, that I've done that, I feel bad and I sometimes go back and say, "Tell me again about that game. I'm sorry. I wasn't really listening."

Next biggest influence was La Leche League. There I learned that children have within them what they need to know, and that the parent and child are a team, not adversaries. It reinforced the idea that if you are loving and gentle and patient that children want to do what you ask them to do, and that they will come to weaning, potty training, separation from mom, and all those milestones without stress and without fear if you don't scare them or stress them! Seems kind of obvious, but our culture has 1,000 roadblocks.


From having studied meditation and Eastern religion, I learned the value of breathing. I think what it does is dissipate adrenaline. I remember in the 1960's and early 1970's it was Big News that yogis could *actually* slow their heart rates at will! WELL duh. People had been doing it in church (those who cared to actually "be still and know") for hundreds of years, but nobody thought to wire up contemplative Christians.

When people (parents or kids) are agitated and are thinking for a moment that something has to happen JUST THIS WAY and RIGHT NOW, breathing helps. Deep breathing, slow, and full-as-possible exhalation. This is, in Western terms, "count to ten." Calm down and let the adrenaline go. Some people have biochemistry that's not easy to control, and some people count too fast.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
(read aloud as an intro, in the recording at the bottom of the page)

photo by Sandra Dodd of the neighbor's tree seen through an inch-thick piece of ice from a bucket of water on a cold day
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Real decisions

I think it's as important to turn away from "self control" and "self regulation" as it is to turn away from schoolishness itself.

When people have the opportunity and encouragement to make real decisions for real reasons, and they know why the're doing what they're doing, and they're not doing things that don't seem to have a purpose, then "control" and "regulation" don't factor in at all.

I know it sounds crazy, and I also know a LOT of families who thought it sounded crazy and now have that same feeling about serious discussions of "self control" or "impulse control."

Choices, choices!!!!
photo by KathrynRobles
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Aiming the spotlight

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

I once described the difference between teaching and learning as where you shine the spotlight. In teaching, the spotlight is on the teacher. There may or may not be a learner taking in what the teacher is doing.

With learning, the spotlight is on the learner. The source is unimportant. There might be a teacher. There might be a set of blocks. There might just be the learner's thoughts.

If that's called "teaching" then it pulls the spotlight away from the learner. The light shines on the source as if it were the actor in the process.

I think parents like to feel like a child's learning is their project. If the teacher isn't in the spotlight, then something they aren't in control of or directing is happening.

—Joyce Fetteroll

The photo is re-run from Clearer and larger
photo by Julie D.
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Thoughtful choices

"One of the wonderful things about unschooling is that we come to understand that children are learning all the time. Knowing that, we can make thoughtful choices about how we'd like to influence that learning. We cannot control what is learned, but we can create an environment in which joyful learning can thrive."

—Karen James

Patience
photo by Sarah Anderson Thimmes
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Ease into change

Instead of just going from lots of control to "do whatever you want," a really sweet way to do it is quickly but gradually. Quickly in your head, but not all of a sudden in theirs. Just allow yourself to say "okay" or "sure!" anytime it's not really going to be a problem.


If something isn't going to hurt anything (going barefoot, wearing the orange jacket with the pink dress, eating a donut, not coming to dinner because it's the good part of a game/show/movie, staying up later, dancing) you can just say "Okay."

And then later instead of "aren't you glad I let you do that? Don't expect it every time," you could say something reinforcing for both of you, like "That really looked like fun," or "It felt better for me to say yes than to say no. I should say 'yes' more," or something conversational but real.

The purpose of that is to help ease them from the controlling patterns to a more moment-based and support-based decision making mindset. If they want to do something and you say yes in an unusual way (unusual to them), communication will help. That way they'll know you really meant to say yes, that it wasn't a fluke, or you just being too distracted to notice what they were doing.

SandraDodd.com/eating/control.html
photo by Julie D
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Be open to learning

When something someone heard from a friend or read on a blog is stated adamantly as TRUTH, rational thought has been batted away. Some people have the fervor of conversion upon them, having heard that there is an easy way to SAVE their families from disease and death, to make their children smarter, and better behaved; to make themselves strong and beautiful into old age. It is partially fountain-of-youth stuff. It is partly an attractive excuse for controlling children (and spouses, sometimes).

The quote is from a page about food as a religion, but it's really about control
(being too easily influenced, and then trying to pass it on)
photo by Amy Milstein
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Seasons, in and out

Seasons change, and yet it's the same old seasons, in the same old order.

People can change, but they're still people, who get excited about snow, and then frustrated with the same snow, and then tired of snow.

Snow is natural, and it's beautiful. It is natural for people to have short attention spans, to want to make things better, to see what could be, should be, might be, and to think about that instead of what *is*, in that moment. Accept that human nature, like snow, can be welcome, beautiful, irritating, and sometimes dangerous.

Be careful walking, and driving, and help others be safe.

SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Amy Milstein

The clock isn't hungry

Perhaps "eating by the clock" has roots in European manor houses filled with servants, where the lady of the house got to choose the times of meals (within the narrow window of what was considered right and proper). In more modern times, eating by the clock has to do with factory lunch breaks and with school bells.

Don't be the clock's mother. Don't watch the clock to see if it's time to eat. Watch your child. Or watch the clock to see if it's time to offer another snack, but don't let the clock say "not yet" or "Must EAT!"

It isn't good parenting or self control for an adult who has reproduced to be looking to a mechanical device to make decisions for her. Clocks are great for meeting people at a certain time, but they were never intended to be an oracle by which mothers would decide whether to pay attention to a child or not. Your child knows whether he's hungry. You don't. The clock doesn't either, never did, and never will.

from page 163 of The Big Book of Unschooling (page 182 of newer editions)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Make it plentiful

Once someone tried allowing her children to choose their own foods, and after a month she was ready to give up.

It's only been a month. It might take more than that for them to get as much candy as they feel they've missed in five or seven years. You scarcified it and made it valuable. Let them gorge. They'll get over it. If you don't let them have it now, they will continue to crave it, sneak it, and pack it in. Make it plentiful, and that will make it less desireable.

Please read all of this: "Economics of Restricting TV Watching of Children." It's by Pam Sorooshian, and will apply to food too.

SandraDodd.com/eating/control
photo by Sandra Dodd, at someone else's house

Wrapped in thought

"Self control" is all tied up with being bad, and with failure. Choices, though, are wrapped in thought, power and freedom!


SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Simple wisdom

One zen student said, "My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating."

The second said, "My teacher has so much self control, he can go days without sleep."

The third said, "My teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired."

My kids did that!
The quote came to me from Bela Harrington.
photo by Lydia Koltai

Women, mummies, Abe Lincoln

Lyle Perry, who unschooled two boys, wrote:

While watching a movie, a Kotex commercial came on and spawned a lengthy discussion on menstruation, and how all the different methods of protection work, or don't work, the reasons why women pick one method over another, and what did women do back before companies like Kotex existed. Then the discussion moved to the different methods of birth control, then to birth itself, and C-sections, natural childbirth, etc. All from one little Kotex commercial.

While watching The Mummy (cartoon), we talked about Egypt and the pharoahs, and then slavery, which eventually led to the civil war and Abe Lincoln, and then on to other presidents that had done "great" things.

That's just a few off the top of my head, but the main thing to remember is that none of these discussions were planned, and it's always the kids that initiate the talks, and when they stop asking "why, when, how, who and where" the talk is over. They may come back at a later date and want more information to add to what they know, or they may be satisfied and leave it at that.

TV is not a "bad" thing. TV can be very, very cool.

SandraDodd.com/t/learning or (bonus link):
SandraDodd.com/presidents
photo by EsterSiroky

Euphoria and elation

The reason there was a hippie slogan in the late 1960's "If it feels good, do it" was that they grew up with parents and grandparents who had been told life wasn't about fun; comfort had to be earned; if it was easy, it was a sin; if it didn't taste bad, it wasn't good for you.

Those things are said to justify hardship, control, and deprivation. They're said to glorify sacrifice, discomfort, yucky medicine and bitter vegetables (which kids probably will like and choose when they're older if they're not forced to eat them as kids).

If something causes biochemical euphoria or elation, and if the goal is learning, and peace, seek that out. Pay extra for that. Clear your calendar to help your child obtain that.

SandraDodd.com/gettingwarm
photo by Amanda Gattis
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Guidance means...

Robyn Coburn wrote:

Every time you feel the urge to control a choice, you can ask yourself "why?" and begin to question the assumptions (or fears) about children, parenting, learning and living joyfully that you are holding on to.

Intentions matter. Guidance offered from the place of partnership and Trust has a different feeling, avoids rebellion, and is just plain less focused on the trivial. Guidance means optional acceptance instead of mandatory compliance. Guidance means parents being safety nets, not trap doors or examiners. Guidance facilitates mindfulness. Directives shut it down, and may even foster resentment instead.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/option
photo by Janine Davies
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A warm moment

There are many things we can't control, and very few we can.

Your children think thoughts that you can't know. They might seem to be only sitting, only waiting, only basking in the sun, or zoned out, but they are living their lives, even if it's hard for you to see it.

Appreciate warm, quiet moments.

SandraDodd.com/crazy
photo by Joyce Fetteroll, in New Mexico
She wrote, "Lizard chilling. Or warming. As lizards tend to do."

New tools

Kristin Burton wrote:

I have for sure felt like unschooling has been like recovery. It hasn't come easy to me. Recovery from using guilt as a tool, using control as a tool. Letting go of expectations of what it means to be a parent and how children should be.

It's ongoing for me, it take lots of thoughtful pauses to remain on the path of unschooling life. But it's seeped in everywhere now, how I treat my husband, how I even treat myself. How I see relationships, food, world issues.

Recovery is about emptying your toolbox of the broken, ineffective tools that have helped you scrape by in life. For me to feel joy in my own self and want joy for others I had to empty that tool box and find new tools. It's been scary and I ve had to take lots of leaps of faith.

The other day my daughter said she needed a hug, and in that embrace she said, "Mom you are like my compass."

That is what recovery feels like for me.

—Kristin Burton

SandraDodd.com/recovery
photo by Sandra Dodd (of someone else's painting)

A wonderful thing

"One of the wonderful things about unschooling is that we come to understand that children are learning all the time. Knowing that, we can make thoughtful choices about how we'd like to influence that learning. We cannot control what is learned, but we can create an environment in which joyful learning can thrive."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Cátia Maciel
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Calmly and happily

Deb Lewis wrote:

If you take care of your house happily, even if you don't ever make any real progress or feel it's getting really clean, if you look after things calmly and happily your kids will be more likely to participate in the process. If you're grumping around growling about things being out of control, how are they ever supposed to feel they could manage it? If you can't handle it, how could they?

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/chores/joy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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