Turning the negative to positive

Schuyler Waynforth wrote, a few years ago:

"Last night I was putting away clothes to get beds ready to be slept in. I was grouchy and tired and feeling put upon. It was only a burden, only a chore. But this morning when Linnaea got dressed she was wearing a shirt that I'd folded last night and put away. She wouldn't have known that she could wear that shirt if I hadn't taken the time to put it were it was easy to find. And so it changed from being burden and chore to being a gift that I gave her, which washed away all the resentment I felt last night."

SandraDodd.com/chores/gift
photo by Sandra Dodd

When children have choices...

To set the scene, it was the week before Christmas, in Australia, years ago.

Jo Isaac wrote:

This morning Kai opened his advent calender, ate the chocolate, and then said 'Ugh. I'm so sick of eating all this chocolate! Please can I have a plate of cold food.' (It's *really* hot here today!) He's now saving his chocolates for when he wants them, and eating a plate of baby corn, cucumber and apple. 🙂

—Jo Isaac

True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets
photo by Susan May

Designing a parent

Dark thoughts or light? Worms or sky?

If you're making a decision in some moment... will you take the low road and have a low-energy, Eeyore moment? How much energy would it take to have a Pooh moment instead, or even a Tigger moment?...

If you were designing a parent for your child, wouldn't "happy" be pretty high on your list?

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 193 or 223,
which links to SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
and SandraDodd.com/morning

photo of sunrise in west Texas, December 20, by Sandra Dodd

The expectation of learning

It seems lately that more and more people want to know exactly HOW to unschool, but the answer is not what they expect.

Looking back at these stories, in light of others like them, the best recommendation I can make is to open up to the expectation of learning. It helps if the parent is willing for a conversation to last only fifteen seconds, or to go on for an hour.

Remember that if your “unit study” is the universe, everything will tie in to everything else, so you don’t need to categorize or be methodical to increase your understanding of the world. Each bit is added wherever it sticks, and the more you’ve seen and wondered and discussed, the more places you have inside for new ideas to stick.

A joyful attitude is your best tool. We’ve found that living busy lives with the expectation that everything is educational has made each morning, afternoon and evening prime learning time.

SandraDodd.com/nest
The "lately" in that quote was in 2002.
The photo is Holly's hand, in August 2017.
photo by Sandra Dodd

When children choose foods

A mom named Evie wrote:

"Everything I've read about has really happened. The first couple of days, my youngest ate nothing but Twinkies and Spider-Man snacks. Then, amazingly enough, he got up the next morning and asked me for grapes for breakfast. You could have knocked me over with a feather! It truly didn't seem possible until I experienced it for myself." —Evie

How does it balance out?
photo by Julie van der Wekken

I nearly missed a day

Time out!

I got tired and went to sleep without thinking about Just Add Light. That doesn't often happen.



Yesterday I was at a flea market in Lisbon. Anyone who feels like looking at photos that can lead to connections and questions is very welcome to see what I snapped during that time out, and some of the things I brought home with me!

I'm sorry I didn't do a proper post, in time for the morning mailing, though. Six more weeks in Europe... I expect a few more worthy distractions, but also opportunities for some good photos!

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd (click the image for more)

New view

Deschooling means dismantling the overlay of school. Gradually (or just all of a sudden, if you have that ability) stop speaking and thinking in terms of grades, semesters, school-days, education, scores, tests, introductions, reviews, and performance, and replace those artificial strictures and measures with ideas like morning, hungry, happy, new, learning, interesting, playing, exploring and living.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Sandra Dodd

A feast!

This morning I brought my 8-year-old son a snack as he was busy playing on the computer, and he said "Wow! A feast! One, because it is big. And two because it has yummy things on it." And he carried on playing. And now I am smiling. —Dominique Trussler

SandraDodd.com/surprise
photo by Dominique Trussler

Facets and aspects

This morning I was playing Dixit with people I hadn't played with before. So different! The odd pictures can be many different things, and the clues given were unexpected and interesting.

This photo, by Shonna Morgan, looks like light. A harp. A sail. A bridge. Well, it IS a bridge.

A bridge can be figurative or literal, but it's a connection, and a short cut. A "real bridge" might be a log, or a traditional rope or plank bridge, or it might be an engineering marvel that brings people and places together.

See the same thing in different ways, as often as you conveniently can.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Shonna Morgan

The sun will be there

I usually forget to look at the sunset, but sometimes I notice the change of light, out the window from where I'm sitting.

Sometimes a sunrise or a sunset is beautiful, but why? The symbolism varies. The colors might be different, and the effect won't be the same on different individuals, but it is the same old sun.

Let it soothe you and give you hope, when you happen to see those changes of colors and light as the sun appears, or as your part of the world starts to pass into darkness, just until morning. Take a breath and be grateful. Be grateful for the breath, for the gratitude, for being.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude/chairs
photo by Theresa Larson

Investing in the future

Karen James wrote:

Find as many ways as you can to fill your daughter's cup. Surprise her one day with some new creation for her dolls. Set them up in an interesting scenario, and wait until she finds them. Sit down and play with them with her. Grab a Kleenex. Make a skirt. Build a house out of a cardboard box. Help her decorate it. Buy a second hand one, and let her find it one morning. Get really creative and enjoy this time with your daughter.

More and more I'm discovering it's not so much about giving, as it is about building, and investing. You are setting the foundation for your daughter's future interactions with the people she will come to hold dear..."

—Karen James

Read about Karen's Barbies, memories, and ideas here:
SandraDodd.com/barbiekaren
photo by Karen James

A new view

Deschooling means dismantling the overlay of school. Gradually (or just all of a sudden, if you have that ability) stop speaking and thinking in terms of grades, semesters, school-days, education, scores, tests, introductions, reviews, and performance, and replace those artificial strictures and measures with ideas like morning, hungry, happy, new, learning, interesting, playing, exploring and living.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Esoteric and foofy? Why?

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"

Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

I've used this quote before, but used better titles:

2017: Travel interesting paths

2018: "Why do we do this?" (with the same photo, even)

Choosing "better" better

Jen Keefe wrote:

Choosing peace over anything else seems so obvious. Except when I didn’t know there were more peaceful options I thought I was choosing them. I guess I thought the least unkind or least chaotic choice was choosing peace- if I even realized there was a choice, or that peace was a goal.

Last night the kids and I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. watching The Office. We typically go to sleep earlier than that but we were so into the show (we are binge watching and are at the place where Robert California took over).

We stayed up later so we slept later. So we went and got subway for lunch and brought it to the pool. The kids got chips and cookies and soda. That’s not a big deal anymore, but it used to be.

Now they are swimming so happily while I sit here typing this and chatting with them. It’s so... peaceful. As much as I loved my kids and was learning to parent gently this is not the way I was headed. I wouldn’t have had this moment, or the moments last night, or those moments this morning when we snuggled in bed right after we woke up, watching more of The Office. I wouldn’t know who my kids are.

This is better. It’s just better.

—Jen Keefe
(March 2018)

There is a bit more of that at Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Janine Davies
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Goals

I wrote this in 1996, when my children were 9, 7 and 4.
As I'm posting it today, they are 25, 22 and 19.
So far so good.


Here are my goals for my children: I want them to learn something every day. I want them to greet the morning with joy. I want them to see strangers as potential friends. I want their lives to be adventures without a map, where there are innumerable destinations, and unlimited opportunities for “success.” I want their definition of success to include things they can see all around them, not just in Washington, not just at medical conventions, or the Olympics. I want them to wake up, look out the window, and be glad of the view. I want them to be content with their choices and their abilities. I want them to be realistic about goals and philosophical about failure. I want them to be happy.

SandraDodd.com/president
photo by Sandra Dodd

First aid for scary, sad days of doubt

I wrote this on March 10, 2000:

Sometimes it's kids, sometimes it's parents.

Let's list ideas for cheering up, and de-funkifying.

I love "breathe."
Whether it's jogging or breath-holding, or laughing, or spinning or meditation—whatever causes a sudden more concentrated and less thought-laden intake of oxygen is relaxing.

I like happy music or funny, familiar movies—the stuff you already know and can put on as background, which reminds you subliminally of more peaceful and carefree days.

I like comfort food, playing with ice cubes, going to the store just to buy something cold (lettuce, apples, ice cream, a small soda for all to share, special juice or fancy tea in a bottle—something cold and soothing, and no doubt this works better in the desert than it might in Minnesota this morning).

Painting—not fancy elaborate painting, but big brush strokes on big scrap paper, or a sign for the dog, or painting on a playhouse outside or something that doesn't involve stress (if it's quickly available).

Mix it up: Wear something you haven't worn for a long time. To assist a kid to do this, get out the off-season clothes and see what's not fitting, or find some funky old thing of yours and see if the kid wants it, or stop at a garage sale and get a t-shirt for a quarter or something. A new color, a new picture, some soft cotton or silk. Marty got a silk shirt at a thrift store the other day for $3. He's thrilled. Wears it like a jacket over t-shirts. Touches the sleeves a lot.

While this stuff is being done/discussed/reviewed, the depressing problem is being dispersed, forgotten, avoided. Next time the depression comes (if it does, if it's a long-term thing) the kid or parent will approach it with a more relaxed mind and calmer body.

More ideas??
. . . .
What works at your house?

---

Read responses with other ideas here: Conversations with Sandra Dodd


photo by Alex Polikowsky

Designing a parent

Dark thoughts or light? Worms or sky?

If you're making a decision in some moment... will you take the low road and have a low-energy, Eeyore moment? How much energy would it take to have a Pooh moment instead, or even a Tigger moment?...

If you were designing a parent for your child, wouldn't "happy" be pretty high on your list?

SandraDodd.com/morning

[quote is from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 193 (223 in new edition)]
photo by Janine
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Gratitude and abundance

Last night I was tired. Holly had gone out for the evening. Marty had gone to bed because he works at 4:30 a.m. Keith was busy. I thought... I'd like to just go to sleep.

Then I looked up and there's food to be put away, and the counter was all full of dinner.

At first I felt whiney, "why me?" and kind of "DAMN it, I'm tired."

Then I thought...
I'm glad we have food. I LOVE that pan I made the sauce in. I got it for collecting savings-stamps at the grocery store. It's heavy stainless steel, and beautifully shaped.

We have containers to make small meals, and I can mix the sauce (which I made in the morning and slow-simmered most of the afternoon) with spaghetti in several little containers, and someone from my family will be glad to find it at some point this weekend, or maybe Keith will save one to take to work for lunch on Monday.

I'm glad we have a refrigerator, and that people in my family not only are willing to eat leftovers, they're glad to find there's some left of something they liked the first time.

We have a dishwasher. That's really wonderful. If all I have to do is rinse dishes and fill it up, that's not much work at all.

I've been listening to World War Z. Marty says some of his favorite stories aren't in the abridged audio book, but that he's heard the audio and it's good.

So I put World War Z to play on the computer, and cleaned up the kitchen I'm glad to have, for the family I love.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Holly Dodd, of the sun through smoke in early summer

"Why do we do this?"

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"

Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

Be careful with "can't"

About reading:

English has one word that, unfortunately, helps charge this whole subject with emotion and doom. I learned this from an exchange with Marty, when he was four. I wrote it down at the time, and have quoted it a few times since, but I've never connected it with reading until now.

Wed, Jul 28, 1993
The first thing [Marty] said after “good morning” was “Mom, if you count to infinity, is it illegal?”

I explained to him about infinity, with a million plus one and a “gadillion” plus one. He was fine with the explanation, and I said, “Who told you you can’t count to infinity?” He said I did, so I explained the difference in things that are impossible and things that are illegal (have consequences)

"Can't" sounds pretty permanent. We were careful not to say, in our kids' hearing "Marty can't read." We would cheerfully say, "Marty doesn't read yet" (or Kirby, or Holly). With that, every time it was discussed we were clearly indicating that we thought the child WOULD read before long, and it was not a concern. They were certainly learning in many other ways, as anyone close enough to discuss their reading could see!

SandraDodd.com/r/persephonics
photo by Sandra Dodd
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