Happily and successfully

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Unschooling happily and successfully requires clear thinking.
. . . .Unschooling well requires understanding the underlying philosophy of how children learn, and the principles that guide us in our everyday lives arise from that philosophy. It isn't some new kind of parenting technique that can be observed and applied without understanding.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/understanding
photo by Janine Davies

Protect the peace

One of my main principles has been that it's my job to protect the peace of each of my children in his or her own home insofar as I can. I'm not just here to protect them from outsiders, axe-murderers and boogie-men of whatever real or imagined sort, but from each other as well.

SandraDodd.com/peace/fightingcomments
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Really very peaceful

Sandra, March 2008:

All my kids have TVs in their rooms. No... Holly took hers out when the VHS player broke, and it's in a corner in the front room now, unused. She has a computer. So do the other two kids, just since last year for the younger two.

Hours, whole days go by with those rooms quiet, with one of the kids in there drawing or listening to music at the most, or playing with lego while a familiar movie is on, and they'll look up at their favorite parts, maybe.

Our house is really very peaceful. A house full of "no" can't begin to be this peaceful.


Principles of Unschooling?
photo by Holly Dodd, with a timer and then photoshop
(sitting at my computer, not hers, that day)

Home and relationships

"'I'm working so hard on my marriage!!' doesn't mean a whole lot if you're putting your work in the wrong areas. And honestly, I find that all the 'effort' I put into my marriage is fun, and makes me happy. It is so good to know that our home is a place my husband wants to be, and that I can do things to help him be happy."

—Aiden Wagner

Aiden was writing in a discussion on facebook (linked below), about the importance of caring for marriages. Because many unschoolers have seen their marriages strengthened by the principles that make unschooling work well, I saw easily that it could be about parenting:

"I'm working so hard on my parenting!!" doesn't mean a whole lot if you're putting your work in the wrong areas. And honestly, I find that all the "effort" I put into my parenting is fun, and makes me happy. It is so good to know that our home is a place my child wants to be, and that I can do things to help him be happy.

Aiden's comment in context
(if you go there you will see I started the quote in the middle of a sentence)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Peace is all about choices.

If you want to live peacefully, make the most peaceful choices.

Peace is all about choices.

Choose to breathe consciously.
Choose understanding over ignorance.
Choose to make choices.
Choose awareness over oblivion.
And make choices based on the principles you live by.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo and art by Marcia Simonds

When choices come easily

The idea of "self discipline" isn't as helpful to understanding unschooling as the idea of making mindful choices is. It's similar to the difference between teaching and learning.

SandraDodd.com/teaching/

SandraDodd.com/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 Roya Dedeaux

Etiquette

Don't look for rules. Look for principles. You want your children to fit in politely in situations they're about to find themselves in. There's no reason to coach them about how to act at a wedding unless they're about to go to one. Then there are LOTS of things they might need to know, depending on their age.

SandraDodd.com/etiquette
photo by Celeste Burke
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Clear and easy

When the path is clear and easy, relax and enjoy the peace.

When you come to obstacles or there's more than one path, you'll be rested and prepared to choose based on what you know and what seems to lead you nearer to safety and growth.

SandraDodd.com/principles
photo by Jihong Tang
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Becoming confident

Tara Joe Farrell, on topics to inspire confidence in unschooling:

I think everything for me comes back to:

• Deschool
• Peaceful Nest
• Principles
• Sparkle

I think I'd be challenged to find an unschooling question that can't be traced back to one of those four.

—Tara Joe Farrell
August 2020

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sarah S.
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A Mindful Lifestyle

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Although unschooling is often described as a homeschooling style, it is, in fact, much more than just another homeschool teaching method. Unschooling is both a philosophy of natural learning and the lifestyle that results from living according to the principles of that philosophy.

The most basic principle of unschooling is that children are born with an intrinsic urge to explore—for a moment or a lifetime—what intrigues them, as they seek to join the adult world in a personally satisfying way. Because of that urge, an unschooling child is free to choose the what, when, where and how of his/her own learning from mud puddles to video games and SpongeBob Squarepants to Shakespeare! And an unschooling parent sees his/her role, not as a teacher, but as a facilitator and companion in a child's exploration of the world.

Unschooling is a mindful lifestyle that encompasses, at its core, an atmosphere of trust, freedom, joy and deep respect for who the child is. This cannot be lived on a part-time basis. Unschooling sometimes seems so intuitive that people feel they've been doing it all along, not realizing it has a name. Unschooling sometimes seems so counterintuitive that people struggle to understand it, and it can take years to fully accept its worth.

---

This was the description at an online discussion for many years—at the UnschoolingDiscussion list.

SandraDodd.com/lists/description
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Better, kinder tools

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Someone said that principles can be summed up in one word. Rules can't. I'm not sure if I can always do that but it's a helpful distinction to get someone started on figuring out the difference.


For instance a principle might be kindness. A rule is "Don't hit your sister." If there's a principle of treating each other kindly then there isn't a need for a rule that says "Don't hit." "Don't hit," only says "Don't hit." Kids do pick up that it doesn't say don't pinch, don't poke until she cries, don't pull hair ... But as a child is helped to find better (kinder) tools to use to get what they want and their understanding of kindness grows it's understood that anything that hurts someone is unkind so there isn't a need to spell out every hurtful thing that kids aren't allowed to do.

—Joyce

SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Sandra Dodd

Flexible uses

Creativity and intelligence are seen in the ability to use a tool or an object for something other than its intended purpose. If you see your child (or your cat) doing something "wrong," set rules aside long enough to consider principles.

Sleep is important. Curiosity leads to discovery and to new connections. Shade can come from things other than trees or roofs.

Let your mind leap and frolic.

CONNECTIONS: How Learning Works
photo by Belinda Dutch

Something Important is Happening

My kids don't mind following rules when they join clubs or attend meetings in places with rules. . .

I think one reason they don't mind . . . is that they haven't already "had it up to here" with rules, as kids have who have a whole life of home rules and school rules. They find rules kind of fascinating and charming, honestly. When Holly's had a dress code for a dance class or acting class she is THRILLED.

Maybe also because they haven't been forced to take classes or go to gaming shops (?!?) they know they're there voluntarily and part of the contract is that they abide by the rules. No problem.
. . . .
Something important is happening.

  from "Living by Principles instead of by Rules"

SandraDodd.com/rules

Direction

Each journey begins with a single step, they say, but steps in the wrong direction don't get you to a good place. Milling around for a thousand steps without regard to the intended goal isn't "a journey."

SandraDodd.com/principles
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Safe in his own home

One of my main principles has been that it's my job to protect the peace of each of my children in his or her own home insofar as I can. I'm not just here to protect them from outsiders, axe-murderers and boogie-men of whatever real or imagined sort, but from each other as well.

More of, and comments on, settling kids' fights
photo by Colleen Prieto

There goes the darkness

One of my guiding principles is that I want my children's worlds to be sparkly.

There goes the dull and the darkness. Easily not chosen, not an option.

Sparkly Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Three layers down

In a response to the Always Learning discussion list, I wrote "The principles of unschooling and natural learning work the same regardless of a child's talents or abilities, but parental posture (emotional, behavioral postures) can keep unschooling from working well."

During a discussion with half a dozen other unschoolers, some from France and some from England, I said that much of my writing was untranslatable because it had to do with English. This might be such an example.

The word "posture" is usually used to tell a child to sit up straighter or to stand more gracefully and impressively. But posture can be relative to something else—a wall, a chair, or another person. Posture can be very subtle, too. Posture can be biochemical. It's possible to read anger in another person's hands or the speed of his facial movements. It's possible to see love in the way a mother picks up or touches a baby. Or it's possible to see frustration, or resentment, or fear, in a parental reaction.

I don't think this will be easily translatable into any other language, but for unschooling to work, the relationship of the parent to the child needs to become so clean and clear that the parent is being, and not just acting. This might involve physical posture, but also thoughts and feelings, reactions and clarity.

It won't happen all at once, and it can only begin to happen when the parent understands that some postures are better, and others are harmful to a better relationship with the child.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Gail Higgins
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Safety and communication

My children have no reason to dodge or manipulate..., because Keith and I haven't concocted any made-up arbitrary rules and their accompanying punishments. With safety and communication as principles and priorities, we've had safe, communicative kids.

page 46 (or 50) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd

P.S.: That probably only works only if you begin very early.
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Peace is all about choices

If you want to live peacefully make the most peaceful choices. Peace is all about choices. Choose to breathe consciously. Choose understanding over ignorance. Choose to make choices. Choose awareness over oblivion. And make choices based on the principles you live by.

SandraDodd.com/choices
(Thanks to Heather Newman for quoting me, May 22, 2011.)
photo by Sylvia Woodman

Do the best you can.

When rules are shaken off and principles are in play, it wouldn't make sense for a teen to think and then choose something really horrible. If the parents were saying "Consider all the factors you know and do the best you can," why would someone "rebel" against that?

SandraDodd.com/rebellion
photo by Sandra Dodd