Breathing and safety

Deep breaths change everything, for a few moments.

From Tiny Monsters, which deals with my firstborn being four, and one of my own early memories:

I have something of a monster antidote: breathing. Breathe deeply and calmly. Get oxygen into that part of you that fears the tiny monsters. Once you master calming your hurts and fears (or at least calming the adrenaline that would make you lash out), you'll have time to think about how to deal with them rationally and sweetly and compassionately.

Breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd

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There were two sweet comments in 2010 when this was first published.

Step toward learning

Confidence in unschooling can't come from other people's accounts. It can only come from seeing one's own children relaxing into learning effortlessly through play, conversations, observations, a rich life.

"Facing fears" sounds scary, intimidating and negative. Stepping toward learning is much more positive. Being with children is easy; they're already right there. Move toward them, instead of milling around with fears and vulnerability.

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Denaire Nixon
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Choosing joy

Tina Bragdon wrote:

I saw choosing joy was SO much better....really...unschooling and life just flowed....the relationships piece of an unschooling lifestyle was so much more full and sweet. My mind was calmer. It helped me deal better with those niggling fears that popped up about unschooling when I chose to be in THIS MOMENT....seeing the joy and the fun of the moment settled me instead of me stewing for days about if my kids were learning or what about this, or that.

—Tina Bragdon

More by Tina at SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sarah S.

Stepping away from rules

To a question about how to move from rules to principles and choices:

Gradually, without fanfare, be more positive and more supportive of her desires and requests.

Here is an antidote to your no-speed-limits fear. It's called "The Beautiful Park" by Robyn Coburn. It's about people getting off bicycles to walk. I think it could replace your fearful background with something gentle and peaceful.

Read about why, and what others have seen.

Try it a little.

Don't expect her not to think you're crazy at first; wait a while.

Watch her reaction. Feel your own thoughts. Lay your fears out to dry in the air and sunshine.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
photo by Cally Brown

Discovering resources

Meredith wrote:

Sometimes the money question is about fears of not having enough to make home rich and joyful - can we really afford to unschool? Is it expensive? And the answer is yes and no. It takes a lot of resources, but money is just one kind of resource. Time is another—and a big one. If you don't have time to spend with your kids, then unschooling might not be a good choice. Creativity is a useful resource, especially if you're short on money and/or time - you can get by with less creativity if you have more money, though. Adaptability is one of the most vital resources for unschooling - if you don't adapt well to new circumstances, then all the time, money and creativity in the world won't help if you have a child who can't meet all your expectations.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingcost
photo by Holly Dodd

Another planet?

This is about the fears some people have, when they first ask about homeschooling:


For some people, it scares them so much that it feels almost like they're moving to another planet and can never come back.

It's not like moving to another planet. You'll still have the same house, same car, same phone number, you'll still be sitting in the same chair. It will just be different. And everytime I've ever said that to anyone, they seemed somewhere between totally relieved and shocked. . . . .

They were flipping out. They were really spinning out, off the planet. Like, "Where will we be? What will happen? How will we ever get back?"

Back to where? You're in your own house.

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It's from a 2013 interview. This page might help in similar ways: Help
photo by Sandra Dodd

Look directly

Look at your child directly, and not through the lens of other people's fears. See the joy and learning and doing and being. Be with your child in moments, not in hours or weeks or semesters.

Screentime
photo by Colleen Prieto

Relative sizes

New unschoolers are often afraid. If you feel fear, that's natural. If you've taken a child out of school, there is still a school there you could put him back into, so if your fear is that it's a once and forever decision, it's not. Schools are right there, still.

If you feel that you're turning your back on your entire culture, take a deep breath and note that when you turn your back on school, all that's behind you is a school. What's not school is infinite. What is school is small.

Fears
photo by Roya Dedeaux

quote is from page 16, Big Book of Unschooling

Others' regrets as springboards

When we're helping new unschoolers, or those who are undecided about whether they want to even try to unschool, those who've been around a while, we see their responses and fears through the filter of what we know of other people's regrets, false starts, delays...

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(Read more about why experienced unschoolers sometimes seem pushy, at the link below.)

SandraDodd.com/ifonly
photo by Colleen Prieto

Learning and experiencing

Parents can't guarantee safety and health for their children. And unschooling is about learning and about experiencing the world, not about living to be 100 instead of 95.

SandraDodd.com/fears
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Attractions and fears

[Warnings can become attractions.]

It seems what will cause a kid to watch a show he doesn't want to watch is parental disapproval. If he's been told it's too scary, too adult, or forbidden, his natural curiosity might cause him to want to learn WHY. My kids, with the freedom to turn things on or off, turned LOTS of things off, or colored or did Lego or played with dolls or action figures during "the boring parts" (often happening to be the adult parts—what did they care?) and only looked back up when happy music or light or dogs or kids got their attention again.

SandraDodd.com/t/whatif
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Going forward

Janine Davies wrote:

Respectful parenting and parenting for social change is where my main focus is now, and of course radical unschooling is all those things and more. For me, that all begins and ends with being a good mum in the eyes and minds of my children, and going forward being remembered as a kind respectful and happy mum—someone they could trust implicitly, and who was their partner and friend.

Hopefully they will then carry that forward to how they treat their children, regardless of what the current trend is, or fears they have, or the current scaremongering circulating. Even if they don't have children of their own, my hope is that they treat and speak to all children that they come in contact with throughout their lives with the same respect and kindness that they afford their partners and friends, and that they treat them like the people they are.

—Janine Davies

SandraDodd.com/janine/success
photo by Jihong Tang
(her son's painting, left)

Fear itself

Clare Kirkpatrick wrote:

"I always find it helpful to really pick apart my fears and compare them to other fears I could have and I usually come to the conclusion that I really should just chill out about it all and look for joy, not fear. Fear just gets in the way of everything. And fear itself is bad for you anyway—worrying about this or that all the time just means you have some nasty, harmful hormones floating round your body. You can find reasons to worry about everything but all those things will get in your way."

—Clare Kirkpatrick
(original)

Better Biochemicals
photo by Sandra Dodd

Unfounded fears

Joyce Fetteroll, on unfounded fear:

It's natural to want to be safe rather than sorry. In fact it's natural to listen to fears. Evolutionarily speaking if an animal runs when frightened but is wrong, nothing is lost except dignity. If an animal doesn't run when frightened but there is something wrong, they're dead. We're wired to listen to our fears.

But these warnings aren't about known dangers like earthquakes in LA or tornados in Oklahoma. This is about protecting your kids from shadows that might be dragons.

So while your family hunkers down behind dragon-proof walls, your kids' friends will all be out playing happily as though dragons don't exist.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/radiation
photo by Karen James

Limitations

Sometimes limitations are physical. Sometimes they have to do with resources, weather, health, fears and random happenstance.

There are no guarantees, but appreciation and gratitude are better than any of their opposites.

Above and beyond limitations; underneath and through limitations
photo by Karen James
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Calmer is healthier

Biochemically/emotionally, calmer is healthier. I don't know of any physical condition that is made better by freaking out or crying hard or losing sleep or reciting fears. I know LOTS of things that are made better—entire lives, and lives of grandchildren not yet born—by thoughtful, mindful clarity.

Calming and contagious
photo by Ester Siroky

First, become confident

Confidence in unschooling can't come from other people's accounts. It can only come from seeing one's own children relaxing into learning effortlessly through play, conversations, observations, a rich life.

"Facing fears" sounds scary, intimidating and negative. Stepping toward learning is much more positive. Being with children is easy; they're already right there. Move toward them, instead of milling around with fears and vulnerability.

Sandra's response to someone asking about confidence
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
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For one moment, or ten...

This post is from April 2013. It was called "Happy Monkey," the first time. It's a good time for a re-run.

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I went to the grocery store alone. It was crowded and people were moving fast, but were calm and smiling. I saw three young children. Their relatives were being very sweet to all of them. In other families, older kids were being helpful.

On the way to my van, a man who was 35 or 40 was happily riding the back of his shopping cart down the hill toward his car, with the wind blowing his hair.

On the way home, I thought of the cutest thing I had heard. A young mom had been holding a toddler, and he said something and touched her mouth. She said, "Monkey?"

He indicated that she was right.

"You're a monkey?"

"Happy," he said.

"You're a happy monkey? Happy monkey!"

And he was. He was very happy.

So easily, we can tip two degrees over into the sorrows and fears of the world. Without trying, we can fall into a pool of despair and take our friends and families down with us.

Not everyone can be happy today, but if your child is whole and well, for one moment or for ten do your part to help him be as happy a monkey as he can be.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude/health
photo by Julie D
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The best of bad dreams

I went to school for 15 years straight, and most summer sessions from 8th grade through university.

Beginning in the 4th grade, I had a nightmare the night before the first day of school every single time, and I came to count on it as a checklist. The first few were small and kind of standard, like I got off the bus in only my slip, or I had my house shoes on, or I didn't know whose class I was supposed to be in.

Over the years these dreams blossomed into extravaganzas of mishap, and they were always so real I'd wake up in a panic thinking I'd gotten off to such a horrible start the whole year would be a total disaster. Then I'd realize the whole year was still ahead of me and I'd get out of bed and do all the things right that had gone wrong in the dream.

The night before my first day as a classroom teacher I dreamed I didn't have a grade book or a pen. Next day I did. That one, my first checklist dream as an employed adult, made me start to wish for more.

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I wrote all of that in the early 1980s, before I had children. Checklist dreams have continued, or stress dreams where I had lost a child's shoes, or had forgotten to order a cake, or didn't have gas in the car.

If you can make checklists out of fears, worries, and stress dreams, and your life is better because you think "Well I won't let THAT happen," what a gift!
Use happy advantages wherever you can find them.

Disposable Checklists for Unschoolers
photo by Sandra Dodd
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[P.S. for those who are good with numbers, and didn't like "15 years": I didn't go to kindergarten, and graduated from public school a year early. Four years of university, graduated in May 1974, turned 21 that summer. Then I taught for six years. I was quickly learning about learning!]

Relax, see, appreciate

If you hold on to all your old ideas and fears and images of learning, every bit of that builds a curtain of "what should be" and you can't relax, see and appreciate what is.

Unschooling:Getting it
photo by Elaine Santana