That mom I want to be

"If my kids grow up and feel they had a great warm childhood and that they were supported and loved and are now doing what they love because of it and are happy, then I did a good job being that mom I want to be."

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/otherideas
photo by Sandra Dodd

Positive and beautiful

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

Fear of electromagnetic waves? What if I tell you they are everywhere and that even earth has it?? (hey I am a huge Aurora Borealis aficionado!!)

Living with all this fear is not fun and it is anxiety inducing. Anxiety is a terrible state for you or your child to live in. Learning thrives when there is peace and safety.

Feeling unsafe because your library has wifi and making life about the dangers around is a soul sucking way to live for your children and for yourself.

Surround yourself with all that is positive and beautiful including amazing wifi!

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/radiation
photo by my neighbor, Linda G., visiting Iceland

Beauty

"Choose to look at the beauty around you and to see life and people through loving eyes."

—Alex Polikowsky

Sandra's addition: "... to see life and people" and fancy chickens, cupcakes, frost, sleeping puppies and your favorite mug as beautiful.

SandraDodd.com/alex/optimism
photo by Helene McNeill

What and how much to eat

Alex Polikowsky, the day after "Pi Day" one year when her kids were younger:

My kids can eat bowls of sugar if they want. They are not fat, obese of even chubby. They have lots of cookies, candy and sweets at home at any time. Just yesterday I bought two pies for Pi day and baked. My daughter ate a big piece of the pumpkin pie but only the filling. Then she asked for an apple and ate half of it. Then she went to the refrigerator and grabbed the red bell pepper that we got for the Guinea Pigs and cut a couple pieces for them and ate the rest. That was while I was reading [an unschooling discussion]. That was her late night snack.

My son ate a strip of bacon and left the other one and went to sleep.

They have chosen what they eat and how much all their lives.

—Alex Poliowsky
March 2012

True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets
photo by Sylvia Woodman, of candy sitting peacefully

Embracing, trusting, learning

Alex Polikowsky, to someone afraid of "screentime" and electronics:

If you embrace it all *with* your children you will learn with them—more than you think is possible.

You will trust unschooling and learning because you will be learning right along your children.

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo of child editing video, by Kinsey Norris

Attractions and fears

[Warnings can become attractions.]

It seems what will cause a kid to watch a show he doesn't want to watch is parental disapproval. If he's been told it's too scary, too adult, or forbidden, his natural curiosity might cause him to want to learn WHY. My kids, with the freedom to turn things on or off, turned LOTS of things off, or colored or did Lego or played with dolls or action figures during "the boring parts" (often happening to be the adult parts—what did they care?) and only looked back up when happy music or light or dogs or kids got their attention again.

SandraDodd.com/t/whatif
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Knowing how to respond

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

There are some big ways that are wrong and anyone can see that. Verbal abuse or physical abuse comes to mind.
But there are small things too.

Principles. The more clear, to yourself, you are about your principles and making better choices, the better you will know how to respond to a child or a situation.

—Alex Polikowsky
(longer original)

Living by Principles instead of by Rules
photo by Graham Dusseldorp

"A" is for Abundance

This photo is the background for the "A" on the current Learn Nothing Day logo.

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

In order for kids to feel and see abundance, they first must have parents who feel and see it too, even if there is no money. Go to parks, pick up sticks, ride bikes to new places, swing on the swing differently, make bubbles and blow them in front of a fan. Look at stars at night and try to find constellations, light things on fire with magnifying glass, roast hot dogs for dinner (it's cheap), the possibilities are limitless, but only if you choose to see them. THAT is what will help your kids learn how to be creative thinkers—seeing and doing creative things.

—Jenny Cyphers
at SandraDodd.com/abundance

The photo appeared here in First aid for scary, sad days of doubt
Thank you, Alex Polikowsky.

Be with your child

Jenny Cyphers wrote, of a parent getting up and going to do something with or for a child:

It feels infinitely better for my spirit when I do that too. It's easy to get caught up in one's own self thought. If I let a day go by, or hours, in that mode, at the end of the day, I find myself thinking that I should've, would've, could've, and once again, I'm in that mode. To just go and be with my kids as soon as I recognize that mindset, I avoid all the guilty afterthoughts of what I should have done better. So, I not only avoid the guilt complex, I get to relive all the fun and wonderful moments that I intentionally sought after.

It seems that unschooling, for me, is a compilation of all those moments of being with my kids instead of doing something else. It's fun to go out of your way to do cool things with your kids and seek out opportunities, but the real stuff seems to happen in those moments that could just go by within each and every day.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Sandra Dodd, at Alex Polikowsky's farm

Freedom and flexibility

Because I was able to be home with them, they didn't have to wait hours to consider whether to talk to me about something or to just share with school friends, as I usually did when I was a kid. Other kids don't always make the sagest of advisors.

We could watch movies together at leisure, and pause and come back to them, or watch the good parts over and over. Some families are trying to squeeze a movie in between "dinnertime" and "bedtime" and wouldn't even think of watching one in the morning or during lunch!

—SandraDodd, 2009

Two of several responses about the advantages of being home, at Homeschooling: Freedom and Fun For Your Family. Also on that page: Alex Polikowsky's answers to the same questions.

(studio photo)

See through loving eyes

Alex wrote:

Decide to not hold on to your pessimism. Choose today to be optimistic. Choose to look at the beauty around you and to see life and people through loving eyes.

That is all it takes.

—Alex Polikowsky

The Value of Optimism
photo by Karen James

The benefit of untangling

Any parent with unresolved childhood trauma might want to gradually start untangling those memories for the benefit of your children, of yourself, of your partner, of your family, and in order for unschooling to work well.

Untangling
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Peace might not be so quiet

In English there's a phrase, an idiom, a lump of words: "peace and quiet." People speak wistfully of "peace and quiet" as though one requires the other, but I haven't found that to be true in practice.

Is quiet always peace? I can think of lots of times I held my breath to be quiet, out of fear. I've seen families where people passed through the house quietly, out of nervous avoidance. Sometimes "Quiet!" can be very scary and dangerous. Some families live in fear and quiet, not peace and quiet. Quiet anxiety is not peace at all!

A Loud Peaceful Home
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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Emotional banking

People who cling to their right to hate things will have hatred in their lives.

It's worth rephrasing, rethinking, turning away, moving away from things you wanted to "hate." There are enough things you can find to enjoy.

Emotions are kind of like banking, in a way. If you deposit peaceful times and kindness and positive thoughts and joy, then you build up a stronger account of hope and all that.

Happy goes in the bank.

from the transcript of a chat on Mental Health
Kimchi and the photo of it were both made by Alex Polikowsky.
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Optimistic happy people

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

Surround yourself with optimistic happy people. Do not engage in conversation when people are complaining about their children or husbands. If a friend comes to complain about her kids I try to turn around and point out to them how that characteristic could be good or some other great thing about their children. Or I change the subject.

Look at what you have, not what you do not have. If all you focus is in negative things that is all you will see. If you always look for the positive slowly you will, more and more, see the positive and the beauty around you and that will become who you are.

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/
photo by Daniel Moyer Artisan

Art credits for LND 2020

Photo credits:
(Links lead to the Just Add Light and Stir post in which the art appeared first.)

L — Amber Ivey
E — Jihong Tang
A — Alex Polikowsky
R — Cass Kotrba
N — Shonna Morgan

N — Vlad Gurdiga
O — Karen James
T — Lisa Jonick
H — Holly Dodd
I — Nina Haley
N — Brie Jontry
G — Gail Higgins

D-A-Y — Janine Davies


Concept and offer of a remake: Holly Dodd
Outlined letters: Sandra Dodd— ("Similar to last time but different," Holly instructed)

Score some peace!

When there will be one winner and one loser, between a parent and child, between a husband and wife, between best friends, then both lose.

Partnerships and Teams in the Family
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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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?

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Read responses with other ideas here: Conversations with Sandra Dodd


photo by Alex Polikowsky

Approaching solidity

There is a danger when someone's own understanding and practice of unschooling is shaky, and she wants the approval of others more than the solid joyful everyday life of her family. I've seen a few of those.

Another problem comes when someone's reasons for unschooling are not about learning and family relationships, but about being way cool and out there, and cutting edge, and anti-this'n'that. But that sets the stage for lots of problems in insecure people, when they want to glom onto something that's wild and new and shocking.

Unschooling is...
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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Supplies for parents

Unschooling doesn't work out for every family, for various reasons. In a conversation, an unschooling mom said some families don't have the time, money and benevolent patience it takes to unschool. I thought it was a good checklist of needs: Time, money and benevolent patience.

What it takes
photo by Sandra, of Alex Polikowsky's son and a snowman as big as he was