Step up; step up again...

Transcript from a presentation, long ago, about becoming more peaceful by making conscious choices:

If you think “Ok, I’m either going to whack him or I’m going to yell at him,” yell at him—that was the best choice you had at that moment. And the next time, start with “yell at him." “Ok, I'm either going to do what I did the last time or something better. I'm going to yell at him or I’m going to go in the other room for a second." Go in the other room.

And the next time, maybe your choice could be either “go in the other room” or “I’m going to take a deep breath and make a joke about it.” Make a joke.

And gradually and incrementally you come closer to the place where you want to be. Beause I don’t think anybody can just jump from a lifetime of responses and expectations and behaviors and just pick some other person and just become that person. You can’t do that.

My voice/Sandra, in 2002.
(I write better than I speak.)

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Rosie Moon

Curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Take them to the grocery store.

...While you're there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

How about a pineapple—bought one fresh, lately? Talked about Hawaii? Just say, "Aloha," while handing the kids a slice. Or, maybe you'll get really into the whole idea of Hawaii and you'll see connections everywhere—Hawaiian shirts at the thrift store, flowers to me leis, someone playing a ukelele, a video of a volcano exploding (maybe that will inspire you to want to make your own volcano with baking soda and vinegar).

I'm not saying to prepare a lesson on cactus or coconuts or pineapples. I'm saying that if you're not already an interesting person with interesting information to share with your children, then you'll have to make an effort to be more interesting. The way to do that is to develop your own sense of curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm.

—Pam Sorooshian

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Feed passions...cake.

Feed passions.

Unschooling depends on children being able to follow their interests, but just as with food, it's hard to know whether they want to just taste it or finish off a case.

If a child wants to bake a cake, you don't know in advance whether she just wanted to mix the batter once or whether she will end up creating wedding cakes for millionaires. You don't need to know.

Feed Passions
photo by Sandra Dodd

What is real

Sandra Dodd, response in 2000 to: Can anyone explain to me "unschooling"?

It's like "just say no."

Just say no to school years and school schedules and school expectations, school habits and fears and terminology. Just say no to separating the world into important and unimportant things, into separating knowledge into math, science, history and language arts, with music, art and "PE" set in their less important little places.

Most of unschooling has to happen inside the parents. They need to spend some time sorting out what is real from what is construct, and what occurs in nature from what only occurs in school (and then in the minds of those who were told school was real life, school was a kid's fulltime job, school was more important than anything, school would keep them from being ignorant, school would make them happy and rich and right).

It's what happens after all that school stuff is banished from your life.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/moredefinitions
photo by Amber Ivey
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Bases and basics

"Base" means foundational—the heavy, bottom part of a structure. The basis of an idea is its underlying solidity. These ideas are literally basic.


Base your life in basic things. "Cover your bases." Don't let fantasy or "what if" pull you off base.

Accept and admire beauty if you can, instead of dismissing things as "just..." Just a stump. Just a dandelion. Can you see the beauty in the stump? It might be a safe place to stand after a rain. To a child you love, it might be a chair or a mountain. Dandelions are flowers that make puff-toys for children to blow on. They grow without our help. They might be the only colorful flower you'll see, some days. If a child loves them, can you follow?

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd, of unimportant things, in Tiguex Park
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Look back at progress

[One day in 2006,] I dropped an egg on the floor. Just fumbled it, splat, and I looked at it. I remembered the first time I ever spilled anything and remained really calm. It was baby bathwater, when Kirby was just six months old or so. We were due to a meeting (LLL? Probably, or some appointment) soon, and I had given him a bath and had him all dressed to go, and wanted to pour the tub out. In moving it from the kitchen table over to the sink (a short distance at our old house—nobody who's recently been to our new house should bother to envision) it bent and like two or three gallons of soapy water went all over the floor.

I didn't cuss myself out, didn't stomp or yell or ANYthing. I just looked at it and thought the floor needed to be cleaned anyway, and I threw some rags or towels down on it so it wouldn't get away, and figured I'd clean it up better later. I never felt shame or embarrassment or frustration or the feeling that life isn't fair or that I was stupid. That was new to me, and I was 33.

A week and some ago, I dropped an egg calmly and realized it had been 20 years since I had to get angry and emotional over making a mistake like that.

SandraDodd.com/factors
photo by Sandra Dodd

Doesn't yet...

I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

That came from this...

We've used this "someday you will" or "you just don't yet" about all kinds of things, from reading to caring about the opposite sex to foods. Holly doesn't like green chile yet. She figures she will ("When my taste buds die" she jokes), because her brothers didn't used to and now they do. Kirby lately started liking mushrooms. Marty still doesn't like spinach yet, but we haven't branded him "a spinach hater," and I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

...which is at the bottom of Encouragement and Confidence about Reading.



Those aren't the mushrooms Kirby eats. These are in our back yard after it rains.
photo by Holly
__

Portals to this and that

Yesterday's post had a song to listen to, if you clicked through to the blog. It didn't show in e-mail. Check again, if you missed it, if you like songs. This one is from late 1967. Some of you were not born yet, but I was 14 years old—a great age to appreciate new 60s music. Another link to What You Can't See, from yesterday.
As I worked on updating and stabilizing pages here and on my website, I started marking those I felt were sufficient, for now, for use from phones and computers both. At first I was using a big asterisk, but when I linked a page on facebook or somewhere, a grey scary asterisk showed as the first image, and that's no good, so I went with __
a little line.
On blogposts, they're centered below the photo credit. On webpages, they're in the upper right corner (or left, if the upper right was occupied).

THOSE ARE LINKS!

From Just Add Light and Stir, on older posts, if you see one of those lines it probably goes to a second webpage that's also applicable—maybe one that didn't yet exist when the post was new. Sometimes they go to a different blog day that's a good match.

At SandraDodd.com, they link to posts at Just Add Light and Stir that link to or quote that page, usually. So those go back and forth between the blog and site, usually.

If you find one that doesn't go anywhere, let me know and I can put something in. There might be ten or a dozen that are blank, because at first I thought it would be just a mark for my own use.

Entertaining mysteries are better than irritating blank mysteries.

Have fun, if you see any of those unmarked portals.


Unschooling Site News, SandraDodd.com
photos by me (the sign) and Hema Bharadwaj (of me in 2010 posing with a zoo's... I don't know what those are called, when you stick your head in something for a photo)

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

Replacing a canvas

Dawn, in Nova Scotia, wrote:

Ok, I think I'll share my newly-thought-of philosophy of housework here. It started when my sister was over and chasing the kids around. I was straightening up the livingroom and had just finished piling up blocks (big cardboard ones; we have, in all, ten or eleven different kinds of wood, plastic and cardboard blocks. I feel so wealthy. 🙂) when my son (2) ran into the room, saw the blocks and immediately tore down the pile. I smiled and shook my head. My sister, who'd arrived in time to see this, sternly said, "Harry! Your mother just finished putting those away!" When she said that I felt offended. Didn't she know I only pile those blocks so that Harry can knock them down? And there was the Aha! I looked around the room at the clean living room and realized that was why I did any cleaning.

We don't clean up messes to have a clean house. We clean up messes so there is room for more mess!

Now I think of cleaning up after my kids as replacing a canvas. I do it with the thought that by giving them room again and a bare floor and organized toys to pick from, I'm handing them the tools to write another mess onto our house. It's meant that at the end of a day, or sometimes a few days in a row, I just let the mess stay, because really, it's a work of art or a story. Maybe it isn't finished. Maybe it's too interesting to be gotten rid of so soon. It also clears up my feelings of resentment about doing the bulk of it. I like being the one to reset the house so that we all can live another, different mess the next day.

Anyway, thought I'd share since it's really helped me bring more joy into the housework!

—Dawn (in NS)

SandraDodd.com/chores/intro
photo by Sarah S.

"It's fun."

Sandra, in 2003:

I don't use the word "unschooling" except when I'm talking to homeschoolers.

When I'm talking to relatives or people at the grocery store or whatever, I say "We homeschool." Or more often, "Our kids don't go to school."

IF they seem interested, or if they make one of those canned-conversation responses like "Oh, that must be a lot of work," or "Oh, I could never to that," I just smile and say "It's fun. We mostly just have a lot of fun." or "We don't use a curriculum, we just learn from everything around us."

So within the inside of the inside of discussions with homeschoolers, I'm definitely an unschooler, but there's no advantage I've found in using that term with people who only want a one-minute "hi, how are ya? cute kid" conversation.

SandraDodd.com/school/say
photo by Roya Dedeaux

"Just now"

from a talk on May 9 (2015) about choices,
finding balance, and living in the present moment:

"Just right" and "just now" are things you should pay attention to.

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Holly Dodd, of bubbles in India
___

Cheese and crackers

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

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."

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

How and what to change
photo by Amy Milstein
__

Interesting information

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Take them to the grocery store.

...While you're there, look at the weirdest thing in the produce department. Bright orange cactus? BUY one. Go home and get online and try to figure out what to do with it. Or just slice it open to see what is inside.

Or buy a coconut—shake it to see if it has liquid inside. Let the kid pound on it with a hammer until it cracks open. While they're doing that, do a quick google on coconuts so you have some background knowledge. Don't "teach" them—but if something seems cool, just say it as an interesting, cool thing to know, "Wow, coconuts are SEEDS! And, oh my gosh, they sometimes float in the ocean for years before washing up on some island and sprouting into a coconut tree."

How about a pineapple—bought one fresh, lately? Talked about Hawaii? Just say, "Aloha," while handing the kids a slice. Or, maybe you'll get really into the whole idea of Hawaii and you'll see connections everywhere—Hawaiian shirts at the thrift store, flowers to me leis, someone playing a ukelele, a video of a volcano exploding (maybe that will inspire you to want to make your own volcano with baking soda and vinegar).

I'm not saying to prepare a lesson on cactus or coconuts or pineapples. I'm saying that if you're not already an interesting person with interesting information to share with your children, then you'll have to make an effort to be more interesting. The way to do that is to develop your own sense of curiosity, wonder, fascination, and enthusiasm.

—Pam Sorooshian

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Sandra Dodd

Deeply loved

The quote is from Schuyler Waynforth. The image is by Holly Dodd.

"Look for ways to connect with them. There are biological ways. Smelling their heads is amazingly connective.

"Sometimes it's hard, just staying still, just watching, just being with babies. But it won't be long..."

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/bonding
Artist trading card by Holly Dodd, October 2012

Shining light on it

Nikki Zavitz, interviewed by Pam Laricchia in early 2020, shared a mental model of unschooling, including deschooling. It's wonderful, and there's a link to hear it, below.

I always had this visual for unschooling for me, I picture it being this big giant house and it’s got like a million rooms in it. And there’s closets and doors everywhere. And for me, I’m walking around this house with this lantern and the lantern is like unschooling for me. And I have to open up doors and shine the lantern and look under the beds and look in the closet and I’m finding all these new, dusty things that have come from my life and have created this uncomfortableness and this kind of scary eerie feeling for me. And the unschooling is the light, like walking through shining light on it, considering it, asking questions, and eventually more lights are on, and the closets aren’t as dusty anymore, and the rooms are more open and free to go in and out of.

I kind of see that—I've always pictured my unschooling journey like that—and then everybody’s house is different. Everyone has a different unschooling house, and I just love that visual for me, I’m always picturing it like that. Like, "Oh, I found another room that I have to look in," and "I haven’t been in this room yet. I’m going to just step my toe in this room and then step back out and maybe I’ll come back again later," and I just love that.

—Nikki Zavitz

---

The million-room house image is at 43:26 in Deschooling with Nikki Zavitz,
Episode 216 of the Exploring Unschooling Podcast, by Pam Laricchia.
I think that link will take you right to it. You can see Nikki's face light up.
Let her share her vision with you!

I didn't add a photo this time, because the imagery is all in the words.

Flexibility

Children sometimes see things "wrong," or from the perspective of someone small and looking up, or just new to the world. Rather than correcting them, which limits their perspective, consider following their line of thought to see how they're coming up with their conclusions, definitions, or theories.

A chair is not "just a chair," if you're lucky. SandraDodd.com/just
photo by Karen James

Just look

Sometimes, just look.

You might look as an artist, or as a scientist. You could look in wonder. You could gaze lovingy, or observe suspiciously, but as you don't always know exactly what you're seeing, sometimes it's good to just look.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Gail Higgins

Cycles

Yesterday I posted about how I got my kids into grocery stores, from parking lots, safely.

While seeing whether the quote had been used before, I found a similar report, with this comment, from me:

Sometimes I would say "Hold on to something! I'm going to hold on to Marty!" so that it wasn't just a thing 'kids had to do,' but was a safety condition of crowdedness.

Now that I'm older, I still sometimes want to hold on to one of my kids when we're out, but now it's because I'm safer if they help me. Holly has held my hand crossing streets just this year, and she's 21. Marty and Kirby have helped me down stairs and off of steep curbs.

It's not just for children.

I need even more help now, nine years later. Sometimes I help a grandchild or two.
Hold on to something (third comment)
photo by Brie Jontry, 2016, before a Halloween party
She and Holly were irritating maids, and I was a scraggly cat.

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