Parenting

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Just as we've thrown out school for something better that works, we've thrown out conventional parenting practice for something better than works! And just as throwing out school doesn't mean throwing out learning, throwing out conventional parenting doesn't mean throwing out parenting. We're there *with* our kids, helping them, talking to them about life, helping them solve problems.
. . . .There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/lazy/kids
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Precious principles

Leah Rose wrote:

I had an amazing experience with [breathing] last night. At bedtime (which is about midnight in our family) I had just tucked in and said goodnight to our two youngest (8 and 11 yo boys) and was climbing into my own bed when I heard one of them calling me. My knee-jerk reaction was a blast of annoyance—very typical of me in that situation, exacerbated by the fact that I'd felt crummy all day and was really looking forward to collapsing into bed.

I huffed out an angry breath, started to head back to their room and suddenly had a thought from something I'd read here recently (or maybe on Sandra's website or the RU Network): "First, breathe and center yourself." So I took a deep breath, and as I inhaled I felt my whole being kind of slide into place—it was weird, almost a tangible sensation—and suddenly I felt completely peaceful. I walked into their room with a smile on my face and asked if either of them had called me. It was ds 11, he wanted me to set up his extra pillow (which was on the floor leaning against his bed) behind him so he could sit up and read for a bit.

Normally in this circumstance I'd have walked into the room annoyed and impatient and would have responded to this request by going on a rant about why he couldn't just reach down and pick it up himself, why he had to call me all the way back into his room for that, how tired and crummy I was feeling and there is no reason why I have to be the one to do it since he's perfectly capable himself! (You get the picture.)

Last night I just said, "Sure!" and set his pillows up behind him and gave them both another kiss goodnight and then went to bed feeling exhausted but very peaceful—and very thankful for my networks of unschoolers, from whom I'm learning the precious principle of abundance.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Sandra Dodd

YES! Just like that.

My favorite part of unschooling is that it never begins nor ends. When someone finally “gets” unschooling they often say with recognition and a quick life-review, “Oh! We’ve always done things like this,” or “Oh! Just like they learned to walk and talk!” Yes. Just like learning can continue throughout a lifetime.

It is so simple that people can’t believe it.

SandraDodd.com/sustainable
photo by Sandra Dodd

Nice harmony

This is from Gail Higgins, written around 2005.

As I became more aware of my kids needs and responded to that it just naturally carried over to my husband.

Our relationship is so much stronger now and part of it is just because I'm nicer now! I think I used to be so controlling of our lives that it affected us all in a negative way. I'm still working on it but just the awareness of what I was doing has led to changes.

There are very few times when our lives don't seem in harmony these days...it's the best bonus I could have ever imagined.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Sandra Dodd

Happy to see the day

When people insist that "all unschooling is" is just homeschooling without a curriculum or without lessons, I don't disagree. They should take it out and put it on billboards. Lobby to get it into the dictionary. Whatever. But when families come to ask how they can make unschooling work, it does no good to say "Just don't have a curriculum. See ya!" It takes layers of understanding, it takes recovery from school, and a desire to have a relationship with a child in which learning is flowing and easy. It takes working to create an atmosphere in which children and parents wake up happy to see the day.

—Sandra Dodd, in 2004
fourth post on this legacy page

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SORRY the link above didn't work in e-mail; I've restored it, I hope!

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SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Vlad Gurdiga

A world of difference

Mary Gold wrote:

Just a little change in point of view can make a world of difference.

I used to HATE the resentment of "Why should *I* do this?" and so I just decided to change what I thought about what "this" was and why anyone had to do it. It was a philosophical shift.

BINGO! It's the shift that makes all the difference.

—Mary Gold

SandraDodd.com/chores/shift
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Help on the journey

Shared from e-mail, with the author's permission:

"I just started to think and learn about unschooling late last year, and when I first signed up for Just Add Light and Stir I couldn't imagine how the kinds of things you post would help me understand unschooling. But as time goes by I feel like these posts are almost what has helped me more than anything! I find that I really look forward to reading them every day, and they accompany me on my journey into this new territory."

—Susan Walker

SandraDodd.com/beginning
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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A very peaceful quiet

Esther Maria Rest wrote:

At first I thought we should go out and do something somewhere today, to do some kind of 'activity', but then if I felt into what I really wanted it was just to spend time in the garden and with my boys, and they were fine with that. When we were all outside, one in the hammock, another one observing the frogs, and me weeding and planting I remarked on how quiet it is, and my oldest said, 'yes, but it is a very peaceful quiet'. And we all enjoyed our very peaceful, quiet day, studying what interests us, playing games, laughing, thinking, and just being quiet, together.

—Esther Maria Rest

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Lydia Koltai
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Defending ideas

Me/Sandra, in a discussion once:

Don't post what you're not able or willing to defend. That's not a rule for this group, it's just something that makes plain sense in the whole of life. Don't say in public something you don't really understand well, or that you don't think is worth defending.

Read a little.
Just some.
Don't keep writing.

Read a little. Try a little. Wait a while. Watch.

That's if you want to change.

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The discussions CAN and have and will continue to help people.   SandraDodd.com/feedback

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sarah S.

Accepting help (and cake)

Deb Lewis wrote:

I always get in trouble with analogies, but I'm going to try one here. If I wanted to make a cake, and had never baked or cooked before, a cake recipe that just said "do whatever seems best to you, use your imagination" probably wouldn't be that helpful. If my friend, who always had lovely cakes (devil's food?) had given me this recipe, I would have to assume cake just didn't work for my family.

It would have been much more helpful to have an ingredients list and a plan for putting them together.

Ok, kids are not cakes, and maybe there's no ingredients list for unschooling, but I would hope, before I pour a bottle of vinegar in my batter, someone who knows about cakes would stop me. I would hope, before I add a text book or take away TV, someone who knows about unschooling would stop me.

—Deb Lewis
(original, on Always Learning)

SandraDodd.com/witness
photo (and cake) by Sandra Dodd,
when this blog was ten years old

When I grew up

When I was in first grade I decided I wanted to be a teacher.

All through school I paid attention to what teachers did and how, and why (when I could figure that out, which was pretty often). And I asked the other kids what they liked about teachers and what they didn’t. So I learned LOTS and lots about how learning works and what factors work for different kinds of people.

When I was older, 13/14 or so, I wanted to become a missionary (still teaching-related), or to work at a magazine. And it seems all those rolled together are what I’ve become. I write, and I help people have happier more peaceful lives, and it’s all about learning. So in a natural-learning way I’ve been working up to this always.

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I wrote the above in an online exchange for Mothering Magazine in 2007.

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Recently, I remembered another writing-related profession I had seriously considered for a short while in my late 20's. I had read that the Hallmark Cards company was hiring writers, in Kansas City. I thought I could do that! I knew nothing about Kansas City, and decided I didn't want to move, but while I thought about applying, writing mushy or funny or inspiring words to go with an image sounded easy and fun.

When this blog was already ten years old, I remembered the greeting-card thoughts, and saw that Just Add Light and Stir is much like a greeting-card collection. Some are funny, or mushy, and many are inspiring. Some are seasonal, and some are about babies. With over 4,680 posts, I guess I have inadvertently written some greeting cards.

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The top section was originally published in 2021, with a video. The permission to use that video was forgotten about and the organizer said no, when I reminded her. That post said "...with over 4,000 posts" but today there are 4,687. Thank you for reading.

Just Add Light and Stir on my site
The snowglobe image above was by an artist at Fiverr in 2017.

Random surprises

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.

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Sandra, at the direction of a little girl named Shree
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Aging beauty

Those swans are in the window of a closed business in a dying town in West Texas. The window has a reflection of me, taking the photo, and of the buildings across the street. I think they were probably beautiful when the window was first installed, and the store was fresh and filled with people and with the future.

I think the swans are even prettier now that they're the liveliest and most graceful things there. It might have been easy to miss seeing them in 1930, or whenever they first saw that street, because the new window below it would have been full of beautiful displays and the reflections of locals in their hats and suits and dresses.

The same camera has just taken photos in Portugal, and England, of odd little old things, of new and smiling people and of temporary tricks of light, ancient arches and statues and castles.

Look with your eyes and your heart at the beauty around you.


Today, the links are all from Just Add Light and Stir

Beauty
See beauty in...
Beauty in onions
An Abundance of Beauty (with readers' links, and you can add your own!)

photo by Sandra Dodd

Deep and wide and whole

Once someone wrote that her child was doing passive things, and had no interest in learning the basics. Amy Carpenter wrote something wonderful about active learning. This is just a bit of it. There's a link to the rest, below.

We recently took Fisher to a Blue Man Group concert—his first real "grown-up" show. Again, I could see all the connections being made—he watched how the instruments were being played, listened to how the sounds and the rhythms came together, jumped and bopped his head and let it all come together inside of him. His knowledge and awareness of music is growing deep and wide—it's not about "the basics," but about a gestalt, a holistic, systemic approach.

When you ask what component you are missing, this is what I keep coming up with. Are you looking in the wrong places? Are you looking for the basics when in fact, your son's knowledge and understanding is deep and wide and whole? What you see as "basic" are just a few Lego pieces that he'll fill in as he goes—but in looking for those, are you missing the incredibly large, whole creation that he's built up?

from Amy Carpenter's writing, here: SandraDodd.com/activeunschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Deep and wide and whole

Once someone wrote that her child was doing passive things, and had no interest in learning the basics. Amy Carpenter wrote something wonderful about active learning. This is just a bit of it. There's a link to the rest, below.

We recently took Fisher to a Blue Man Group concert—his first real "grown-up" show. Again, I could see all the connections being made—he watched how the instruments were being played, listened to how the sounds and the rhythms came together, jumped and bopped his head and let it all come together inside of him. His knowledge and awareness of music is growing deep and wide—it's not about "the basics," but about a gestalt, a holistic, systemic approach.

When you ask what component you are missing, this is what I keep coming up with. Are you looking in the wrong places? Are you looking for the basics when in fact, your son's knowledge and understanding is deep and wide and whole? What you see as "basic" are just a few Lego pieces that he'll fill in as he goes—but in looking for those, are you missing the incredibly large, whole creation that he's built up?

from Amy Carpenter's writing, here: SandraDodd.com/activeunschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Just Say NO

If people want you to be disdainful of your children or to treat them harshly,
just say no.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 46 (or something else later)
on the page that links to Logic
photo by Holly Dodd
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Time out

There have been a couple of errors lately, and I wanted to take a minute to talk about the blog. I misspelled the name of the Concorde in yesterday's post. Julie D, who has provided me with some nice photos, and who crossed the Atlantic by Concorde more than once, caught that. I spelled it as though it were part of Flight of the Conchords, and if anyone isn't familiar with that duo, this is a fun intro.

On February 10th's post, one of the links was broken when the e-mail went out. It was repaired that morning, on the blog, but for those who missed it, here it is with the link working: Disharmony for a good cause

Two nights ago in a conversation here at the house, I was telling a friend that the photos I use aren't really very good, and that Lori Odhner's daily mailing (Marriage Moats) has GREAT photos. The very next night I was talking to another friend by phone, and she brought up how much she loves the photos on Just Add Light and Stir.

I will continue to do what I'm doing until frustration outweighs satisfaction, and I quit and do other things.

Until that happens, here are two other resources some of you might subscribe to, or peek in on occasionally. One is an infrequent blog about connections and thoughts, called Thinking Sticks: Playing with Ideas. The other is a little more frequent, and links new pages or notable additions to existing pages on my website: Unschooling Site News, SandraDodd.com.

If one day a post from Just Add Light and Stir seems too small for you, or it wasn't something you needed to read, maybe you could go and poke around one of those other blogs and find some sparkly ideas.

Thanks for reading!

Just play

I've decided it's not so much the "what" that we do, but the attitude in which we do it. The whole wide world is open, just play and enjoy it. —Jenny Cyphers

"What (if anything) should I be doing to help..."
photo by Linda Malcor

Warmth and connection

Gail Higgins wrote:

I didn't foresee that the benefits of unschooling would extend to these years when my children were grown. Our home has quieter times now than when the kids were young but is most often a place for laughter and love and warmth and connection. Sometimes, like today, it seems bursting with trust and happiness and contentment while on other days those elements are just quietly evident as we go about our lives.

I am aware of families where it is common to have drama and anger and jealousy and I am grateful to have helped create a home filled with peace and connections with occasional bursts of silly fun.

—Gail Higgins
just as her kids were grown

Eighteen on 18
(SandraDodd.com/milestones/gail)
photo by Gail Higgins, another year

Water

I asked my daughter for an idea for Just Add Light, and she said "water."


Holly has played in small water and large, and suggested I recommend water play for its soothing effects, and for being one of the least expensive materials for exploration and entertainment. Bowls, pans and measuring cups. Water in sand or dirt. Showers and bathtubs. Wading pools. Ice makes a good floating toy. Ice cubes, or ice frozen into a mold, a pan, or a plastic bag will not need to be cleaned up or put away later. Ice in a wading pool. Ice in a sand box. Ice in a toy dump truck.

There was a time when Holly took two or three baths a day, just to be in the water, playing with a wash cloth, a colander, a funnel and some cups. She would listen to music and sing.

When our kids were very young, we would put a thick towel on the patio, set out shallow pans of water, little cups and bowls, and let the baby pour and splash.

For older kids and adults, a float or a swim, if possible, or some new soap and a long shower can make a difference in mood and moment.

Letting water run over your hands, feeling the smooth, gentle flow can move you toward peace.



photos by Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/water (←that page is newer than this post)
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