Hopeful and helpful

Be up! Be happy when you can. Be hopeful and helpful! Everyone who can do that makes the world a better place.

SandraDodd.com/feedback
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a preemie calf, still damp
and a matching, watchful cat
at Alex Polikowsky's farm

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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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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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

Unschooling takes more

Alex Polikowsky described unschooling for people who think there's nothing to it:

Unschooling takes more,
more presence,
more guidance,
more attention,
more mindfulness,
more connection,
more thinking and questioning,
more choices and better choices.

SandraDodd.com/misconceptions
photo by Dylan Lewis

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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Don't make a big deal

Something by Lyle Perry:

Plan on doing most of the cleaning for awhile. Better yet, plan on doing ALL of the cleaning for awhile, and whenever someone else pitches in, you may appreciate it more. Try not to look at it as "I have to do it all!", because you don't have to do it all. There's always a choice. If you don't feel like cleaning today, then don't. Will the house get messier? Yup. Is it a big deal? Shouldn't be. ... Cleaning doesn't have to be a big deal. Don't make it a big deal and your kids may be more inclined to follow in your footsteps. —Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/chores/intro
photo by Alex Polikowsky

In the world

I will know more later, but from my vantage point as someone with two "of age" boys and a girl about to turn eighteen, it seems that the adult products of unschooling turn out to be adult humans who were relatively unhampered as they learned and grew.


Many things we have been told and assumed were natural human behavior seem now to be natural side effects of schooling.

School promises a child that if he's good, someday he can take his place in the world. They're still making him that promise when he's a young adult: "Someday…"

Unschooled children are in the world from an early age. When they reach adulthood they have a carriage and calm that I believe came from having being respected as people for many years. It's hard to describe, but impossible to ignore.

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
[page 264 (or 305— "Young Adults") of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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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

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

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)

Spend time more joyfully

"[T]he more willing I am to help Simon and Linnaea to do what they want to do, the less needy they are. And, conversely, the more joyfully I spend time with them, helping them out, the less needy I am of my own space, my time to myself." —Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Alex Polikowsky