Fuel and downtime

Connie/Otherstar wrote:

Whenever we go out, I make sure that we have lots of foods available so they don't get hungry. I watch for signs of being tired because I know that when my girls get tired, they seem to lose the ability to communicate. Letting them get overtired or over-hungry and then expecting them to communicate with you and negotiate with you isn't appropriate. For that matter, it isn't good for adults.

There have been times that we have gone out and lost track of time and we have all ended up grumpy and hungry. My husband and I will stop and get food for us all. Until everybody is fed, we don't address anything. After we all eat, then we may talk. Usually, feeding everybody eliminates the problems though.

—Connie (Otherstar)

There is more. It was not easy to choose a small part
of the longer writing at Healing Presence
photo by Sarah S.

Music as healing

[T]his little ukulele has done for me what none of the stuff that I did as a child ever did, nor what my ranting and raving about my school experiences did. It has let me see how much I enjoy making music. And I enjoy the intellectual pursuit of the skill of making music. ...

So that's part of how I heal from school damage. I enjoy my life doing things that I couldn't do through school.

—Schuyler Waynforth

The quote is part of longer writing about school and music
photo by Sandra Dodd (of Schuyler, with a different ukelele)

Fly when ready

The words are mine (Sandra Dodd's), but I was speaking rather than writing.

I’ve talked to kids who said they were so scared and stressed when they were 17, because they knew when they turned 18, their parents were going to start charging them rent, or throw them out, or if they didn’t go to the university, they should go to the military—all this huge pressure to get... to get out. You are done now; we're done.

So people hadn’t considered that they could totally avoid that, that that would be a natural offshoot of radical unschooling.

Keith and I did think, early on, we said what we are doing is inoculating our kids against the trait of some, or the fact of some kids leaving with the first person who says “Hey baby, you wanna live with me?” or “Oh, let’s go get a house”, or, you know, that sort of energy of young people luring other young people out and away, to other states, to other places, to dangerous neighborhoods. We said "It’s going to have to be a pretty good offer to beat what they have at home."

And so that becomes a safety factor too. If the children know that they can stay at home, then someone who comes and says, "Hey do you want come do something with me? Do you want to come live with me?"—it better be a good offer.

Recording and transcript: SandraDodd.com/familybonding
photo by Karen James

Step thoughtfully

If somebody said, "I want to walk to Santa Fe from Albuquerque," it matters which direction they go. It matters that they have water. It matters if they know how they're going to go. You can die between here and Santa Fe—it's a frickin' desert.

People can ruin their lives with unschooling if they don't know where they're going. If they just intend to make a bunch of wild decisions and mill around, it won't work. Their kids will end up needing to go back to school, and being clueless kids in school. So it's almost that big a project. You will have to take hundreds of thousands of steps. And so it's better to take a step thoughtfully, knowing what direction you're going, than to thunder around yelling, "I'm an unschooler! I'm an unschooler!" and not get anywhere.

So I think they need to understand the direction they're going, and why. And they can get there a lot faster and a lot more whole, and with a lot more peace and understanding, if they will Read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch.

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Extras with Sandra Dodd
I was speaking, not writing. You can listen (at 15:15), or read the transcript.

photo by Sandra Dodd, in Golden, New Mexico, March 2020
(the last time I left town)

Learning feels good.

Learning feels good. It is satisfying and intrinsically rewarding. Irrelevant rewards can have unintended side effects that do not support learning.

Principles of Unschooling, by Pam Sorooshian
photo by Dan Vilter (who originally preserved Pam's writing)

Three

It can be fun to play with the idea of three. I had a literature professor say "Three trees make a row." He meant that finding three instances of something in a piece of writing is worth pursuing.

I thought of real trees, though, and more often three trees make a triangle.

That idea has amused me for a long time, of rows and triangles. Finding, seeing, hearing three things that are similar can make fun connections worth pursuing.

There are threes in literature, lyrics, art, games, rhythms, and on clocks. Whether you have young children to amuse with this or not, maybe look around for and play around with threes.

Patterns
photo by Cathy Koetsier

What if a child says no?

This is my writing, in 2003, when my kids were 12, 14, 17 or so.

Sometimes one will say "I'm really not feeling good," as Holly did yesterday, and her need for juice, a blanket and some mom-comfort were real. She has a cold. So that was suddenly more important than her helping me get firewood, or whatever it was. I really don't remember anymore.

Nobody's ever said, "NO, I'm playing a video game, do it yourself." But they have said "When I get to a saving point."

The more we said yes to our children, the more willing they were to say yes to us. It worked like please and thank you did!

...on family life
photo by Holly Dodd

Words and history in charity shops

Digital cameras have been very good for me. I've always been a collector, a saver. "A pack rat," said my Mamaw.

Modern cameras have allowed me to collect without weight or bulk, without shipping costs. But digital photos can be fragile, hard to find, and easy to lose.

In 2013, I went to a shop selling used things, in Scotland, and I saw this tie. It says "Trusty and Leal." I didn't know the word "leal," so I took a photo. Looking at it later, I wish I had bought the India-print looking black and yellow cloth behind it, but I didn't.

click for a close-up

In 2021, when I had some time to look at the photos in a more leisurely way, I found that "leal" means loyal and true. The word is archaic (out of style and use) and Scottish.

So in Selkirk, or somewhere around there, maybe, is (or used to be) a school with the motto "Trusty and Leal." That dates the school to the very early 20th century, or earlier, probably.

I love this stuff. Connect what you know to what you can find, and you will have more and more hooks on which future thoughts can hang.

"Leal"
photo by Sandra Dodd

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FOUND IT just before this post was to launch. I had failed to discover it while I was writing the post last week.

The tie and its motto are associated with Selkirk High School, founded in 1897. Two guesses right. What I didn't know is that "trusty and leal" comes from a song. This link should take you right to that part of the song. Up wi the Souters O Selkirk

Another recording: Ross Kennedy. Seeing there that Robert Burns wrote it, one more search got me the poem, from 1796.

If nobody makes you...

Sadie Brown, now a veterinarian in her 30s (once Sadie Yurista, unschooled in Northern New Mexico) sent this a few years ago, writing, "It made me think of you and learn nothing day."

Calvin and Hobbes online
art and concept by Bill Watterson; read more at the link above!

Sent by Sadie Brown; rescued by facebook memories.
Sadie had sent a photo of a page from a book at her house. I found a flatter, lighter version online. Bill Watterson's work is wonderful, and I hope any of you who don't know those characters will spend some time with them.

The next interaction

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

Stop thinking about changing "for good and not just for days or moments." That is just another thing to overwhelm you and you don't need that!

Just change the next interaction you have with the kids.

Stop reading email right now and do something "preventative"—'something that helps build your relationship with them.

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."

Okay—so that is one good, positive interaction.

Again—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

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I appreciate that Pam Sorooshian has let me collect her writing and quote her for many years. There are others who have been similarly wise and generous. It is a gift I enjoy every time I come across their words. —Sandra

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Becoming the Parent you Want to Be
photo by Elaine Santana

Speaking and writing (thoughtfully)

When people speak without thinking, they're speaking thoughtlessly. Very literally so. When people write without thinking, they're writing thoughtlessly. No sense arguing about that. It's just better to work on being thoughtful.

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Ester Siroky

Generous, soft, patient

Learning to be kind and gentle to a child will make you a kinder and gentler person. Learning to make choices that make you kinder and gentler to a child—more generous, softer, more patient—will help you be a better partner, adult child, neighbor, customer at the grocery store.

The original writing recommended this page: Parenting Peacefully
photo by Pam Sorooshian
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Inspired and inspiring

About writing, like dancing, there's technically proficient and then there's inspired and inspiring, and they're not always both in the same place in the same time.

There's more about real writing at SandraDodd.com/realwriting
photo by Karen James
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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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Like fireworks

When Kirby was seven and eight, I used to see others his age who were pulled out of school already knowing how to read and write and think wistfully that maybe that would make everything easier. In the longrun, it didn't. Those kids have issues about that reading and writing that Kirby doesn't have. Their handwriting is prettier, but their spelling isn't always better, and their ideas aren't always better. But Kirby has a poise and a confidence that I think school would have immediately begun to dismantle and scatter. So it did take him longer to read, but in the meantime he was learning like crazy, like fireworks.

Teaching very little, maybe even nothing (last post there)
photo by Erika Davis-Pitre—not of Kirby, but of his daughter
(used once before, with different text)

If ideas are scary

I’m not trying to be scary. I’m trying to pick ideas up and turn them over and see if they work, how they work, how they might be tweaked to work better.

Always Learning, a discussion on writing, in 2018
photo by Jo Isaac
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Beauty and options

I want to present a portal to a beautiful piece of writing by Robyn that all unschoolers might want to read (or re-read) called "The Beautiful Park". I won't quote from it, because anything said is a spoiler. It is experienced anew each time it is read.

I will quote from something I saved as "Robyn Coburn on Giving Children Options":

"The idea of Unschooling is for parents to be the facilitators of options, the openers of doors, the creators of environments of freedom, and the guardians of choice, not the installers of roadblocks and barriers."

—Robyn Coburn

more by Robyn Coburn
photo by Karen James

Thinking is private

Someone who is swinging, looking out the window, fidgeting with a little toy, doodling or drawing, is probably doing some serious thinking. Let them.

In the same way that you might be quiet for someone taking a nap, it could be courteous not to interrupt the thoughts you can't see or hear.

Being nearby and available in case there's something the other person wants to share might be a good idea, but give thoughts space to flow.


The writing above is new here, but the page about needs is somewhat related.
Also, perhaps, other posts about parents being quieter.
photo by Ester Siroky

Words and pictures, sent to you!

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.

Then, with this blog already ten years old, when I remembered that, I 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. This is post #3744. I guess I have inadvertently written some greeting cards.

Language first

Whole language involves language as communication, rather than as separate parts (writing / reading / spelling). First language; details later.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 93 or 102, "Phonics and Whole Language"
webpage connections: Phonics or Spelling
photo by Kirby Dodd
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