"When Jayn Reads"

Robyn Coburn wrote:

There is no doubt that one day, in the fullness of time and at the right time, Jayn will become a reader. I have no doubt that she will slide into reading with the relatively effortless grace that so many other Unschoolers report of their children as they gain literacy with their parents’ support in their text-filled environments.
. . . . Without any pushing, independence will come at the right time for Jayn’s needs. Without any pushing, her only struggles will be with her own impatience—not any of mine. At the right time Jayn will launch herself into the world of independent discovery through solitary reading, and I will see less of her. I will have to wait to be invited into her private world that presently is a place that is always open to me. And I will treasure the memory of when I was as essential to her understanding as I hope to always be to her heart.

She will be a reader. But I’m in no hurry.

—Robyn Coburn

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When Jayn was seven, her mom wrote that (and more, and it's beautiful: When Jayn Reads). Jayn is 24 now, and earned a university degree with honors. For the follow-up about Jayn's reading, you can listen to (or watch) this interview of Robyn, by Cecilie and Jesper Conrad: Robyn Coburn | From Doubt to Devotion - The Unschooling Transformation

SandraDodd.com/robyncoburn
photo by Jayn Coburn

How much time will this take?

How much time does unschooling take?


It depends how you look at it. If you're looking for moments of one-on-one instruction or school work, it takes none of that. If you're looking for hours of mindful living with the hope and expectation of learning, then it will take all your time.

If you come to see and understand unschooling, then the question about how much time it takes will seem like asking "How many hours a day are you alive?"

Page 6 of The Big Book of Unschooling, which links to
SandraDodd.com/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Calm and Quiet

Please take time for reflection. Take time for your mind to be calm and quiet. Take time to be open to input, not busy creating output. Don't respond, think. Take the ideas and let them "be" in your mind and go spend lots of time with your children and consider and observe how the ideas might play out in your own home with your own kids.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lists/alwayslearning
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Variable speeds

Time is fast, time is slow. A moment can seem like an hour, or a day can pass in a blink. Joy can make time flow smoothly. Make the best of most of your moments.

SandraDodd.com/time
photo by Sandra Dodd

Time Out

Blogger was down for over 24 hours, and so I wasn't able to put up the Just Add Light and Stir post I had planned. The words were in, the photo was chosen, and the whole thing shut down.

But anyway, I need to make an announcement. All the messages thusfar have been my own words, but it's happening more frequently that I find a quote I think would be good and I've already used it. I used one photo twice (and nobody pointed that out, which means either you're all very nice, or not paying attention; possibly both).

AND... I'm sitting in the Albuquerque airport, passport and all, on my way to England, and then Scotland, and later France (with a back-to-England between) and after a while northern Ireland, and eventually, mid-July, Albuquerque. Anyone who wants to follow those adventures can subscribe to or read here: https://sandraeurope2011.blogspot.com/


SO THE NEWS: I'm going to start quoting other people. I'll specify when I do, so if it doesn't say, it's something I wrote or said or wish I had said and wrote just for this blog.

When I wrote "time out" did you think of kid-in-corner, or game-pause? I meant blog-pause. Assembly line stoppage. :-) This is post 250 or so, and I was surprised the blog had lived that long. Nearly three seasons—almost a year. Time flies. This post might serve for two days, because when it's time to post again, I'll be asleep in a plane.


SandraDodd.com/bio
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A better choice

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

My suggestion to you is to focus on making a "better" choice each time you can. I think that was the most helpful advice I got as a parent of younger kids—it was surprisingly practical and encouraging to simply consider at least two choices and pick the better one. The next time, try to think of the one you did choose and then one other—pick the better one. If you make a choice you're unhappy with, after the fact, think then about what would have been a better choice—have that one 'on hand' for next time.

Don't expect to be perfect, but expect yourself to be improving all the time.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Sandra Dodd, of something Keith Dodd carved

Better Choices

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

My suggestion to you is to focus on making a "better" choice each time you can. I think that was the most helpful advice I got as a parent of younger kids—it was surprisingly practical and encouraging to simply consider at least two choices and pick the better one. The next time, try to think of the one you did choose and then one other—pick the better one. If you make a choice you're unhappy with, after the fact, think then about what would have been a better choice—have that one 'on hand' for next time.

Don't expect to be perfect, but expect yourself to be improving all the time.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Sandra Dodd, of something Keith Dodd carved
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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

Investing your time

Karen James wrote: It might not seem like it now, but those early years pass fast. . . . I don't regret a single moment. If anything, I wish I'd given more. I still have time, thankfully. It did take a lot of my time, attention and energy, and there were times when I was really, really tired at the end of the day, and mornings when I was slow to want to embrace the day. But I see all that time and energy and attention as an investment—in my son, and in my own future. If I get to grow old, I hope these are some of the moments that bring colour to my winters. —Karen James

Please read the beautiful entirety of that at
SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Sandra Dodd

How much time do you have?

Sometimes people say to me, "You're patient with your own children but pushy with unschooling parents." I don't go door to door asking people if they know about unschooling, and whether they'd like to know more. If they come where I already am, though, I might press. And when I do, it's because of the possibility that they will run out of time.

My kids have their whole lives to memorize 7x8 if they want to.

The mother of a twelve year old has VERY little time if she wants to help her child recover from school and spend a few unschooling years with him before he's grown and gone. She doesn't have time to ease into it gradually. If she stalls, he'll be fifteen or sixteen and it just won't happen.

If the mother of a five year old is trying to decide how much reading instruction and math drill to continue with before she switches to unschooling, I would rather press her to decide toward "none," because "some" is damaging to the child's potential to learn it joyfully and discover it on his own. And "lots" will only hurt that much more. "None" can still be turned to "some" if the parent can't get unschooling. But if she doesn't even try unschooling, she misses forever the opportunity to see that child learn to read gradually and naturally. It will be gone forever.
Forever.

That's why I don't say, "Gosh, I'm sure whatever you're doing is fine, and if you want to unschool you can come to it gradually at your own pace. No hurry."

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Sandra Dodd
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More, please

Any time a mom thinks there's nothing to know, I don't think she knows nearly enough.

When a mom thinks unschooling is doing nothing, she's not doing nearly enough.

If a mom thinks unschooling will take none of her time, she needs to spend a LOT of her time (more than those who knew it would be a life change) figuring out how to spend time to be with her child and what she can do, even when her child's not there, to help unschooling work better.

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Announcement and request

The last time I had a "time out" blog I wrote " This is post 250 or so, and I was surprised the blog had lived that long. Nearly three seasons—almost a year."

That post is here: https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/

This will be post 583, I think. And I'm writing for a similar reason. I'm gearing up to leave home for a long time. My speaking schedule will be linked below, but I'm going to be gone for two weeks, to Massachusetts and then Oregon, speaking; I'll be home just a couple of days and then go to Europe; I'll come home and be here long enough to do laundry, sleep, and re-pack, and then go to Sacramento. That's daunting.

The likelihood that I will come up with 90+ original and clever blog posts in that time is small and I want to avoid the stress, so I think some of the summer's posts might be "greatest hits." Maybe you could think of it as an oldies station, with stuff you can sing along to! I hope you will forgive re-runs, if you see any.

There are new readers, though. There are 989 Feedburner subscribers (receiving the posts directly by e-mail) and others subscribing by other sorts of blog feeds and notices, so I can confidently say "over a thousand readers." Thank you! For the new readers, it will be all new.

ANOTHER THING: If you see an older post with a missing photo, please e-mail me a link to it so I can repair it. I moved some things and if some of the photos hadn't been properly labelled as having been used, they might be in a new folder and the link will be broken. I can repair them easily, if I know about it. Thanks for helping me clean up errors you might find! For instance, yesterday's post lead to a page with something by Alex I had marked as 2011; that was a typo for 2012. A reader let me know. Thanks, Dina!

The photo is Kirby, Jill Parmer and me, last month in Albuquerque. I hate to send something without a photo. :-)

There are some Just Add Light translations into French and Portuguese linked in the upper right on the blog page (for those of you who only see the e-mail): http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/

photo by Addi Davidson, with my camera
Notes on where I'm speaking: https://speakingsandradodd.blogspot.com/

Sharing time

When we "give someone our time," what is it we give? Sometimes attention, or service. Maybe assistance, or advice.

Instead of thinking that I "give" my child my time, it helps to think of us sharing a moment, together.
SandraDodd.com/being/with
photo by Sandra Dodd
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None of it and all of it

How much time does unschooling take? It depends how you look at it. If you're looking for moments of one-on-one instruction or school work, it takes none of that. If you're looking for hours of mindful living with the hope and expectation of learning, then it will take all your time. If you come to see and understand unschooling, then the question about how much time it takes will seem like asking "How many hours a day are you alive?"

Page 6 of The Big Book of Unschooling,
which leads to SandraDodd.com/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd

Excitement and joy

Once someone was asking how many hours she should spend with her child, or something, and I said at least as many hours as she would've been in school, counting transportation, and there was shock and surprise. The best answer might be that it should be twice as much time as she would've spent in school. Because honestly, a child shouldn't lose the mom-time she would've had at night and on weekends, should she?

The shock probably came from thinking that those hours would be teacher-style hours, of being stuck in one place doing something not too fun. That vision can only come from someone who hasn't looked into unschooling enough to know that the best unschooling hours are fun, natural, real activities. The shock can turn to excitement and joy, as a parent learns more about learning.

Unschooling, Time and Energy
photo by Cass Kotrba

Quietly quiet

Unschooling takes a long time to learn. Rushing a child to understand something complicated while the parent isn’t even looking in the right direction to see unschooling is a problem that’s easily solved. Stop pressuring the child. Stop “communicating” the confusion. Quietly empty yourself of much of what you think you know. If it were working, there would’ve been no reason to ask us for help.

With a mind open to change, then, go here: Read a little...

Children need time to heal. Quiet time is probably better than constant noise, no matter how much the noise is intended to express love and reassurance.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Hinano
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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

An Abundance of Beauty

Helping children discover and appreciate art can be difficult when the parents' idea of art has to do with galleries and oil paintings from other centuries. School creates a limited view of art, and culture reinforces that.

There is no topic or subject or pursuit that doesn't connect to or consist of art. Here's a linguistic example: "Artificial" once meant magnificently lifelike or cunningly wrought. It wasn't an insult until fairly recently (in linguistic time, which is slower than human time, but not as slow as geological time). I find beauty in the forms and histories of words.

For flat art, you can look at paintings, photographs and graphics at art.com (and buy prints or posters if you want). For things for children to play with (children, teens or adults), there are many links here: SandraDodd.com/art (interactive online, or physical fun at home).

I hope readers will contribute to a list of places to look for art, or things to see as art. I will name five and give links. Please leave a blog comment, if you wish, and name as many or as few as you like, with or without links. If you want to create a clickable link, directions are here: SandraDodd.com/hotlink. I wrote them myself, so don't be afraid. It's pretty easy.

My five:

the dashboards of cars

water

snacks

holiday adornment

game boards

(the image above is an art card made and given to me by Erika Davis-Pitre)
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Possibilities and Joys

To a mom finding it difficult to be present with her child, and to get him to leave when it was time to go:


Nobody's still and at kid-speed all the time. But if you can figure out how to do it sometimes, then you can choose to do it, or choose to go faster, but to bring him along in a happy way.

Instead of saying "Come on, let's go!" maybe you could have picked him up and twirled him around and said something sweet and by the time he knows it he's fifty yards from there, but happy to be with his happy mom.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
photo by Sandra Dodd

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)