About Boys

Many men work around their childhood shame and trauma, or take years untangling and overcoming it. Some men live with it every day, thinking it's just a natural part of everyone's life. Some are timid; some are bullies. If their parents could have planned ahead to avoid shame and trauma, how much calmer and creative and courageous might their sons have been? There are inevitable sorrows enough without parents creating them. There are obstacles enough in life without parents setting them purposely or carelessly.

Young men who will thank their mothers and hug their dads and who want to come home when they have the option do not come from harsh, traditional, punitive parenting. If their mothers have been their allies and supporters rather than their owners and bosses, life is different. If their fathers have been their counsellors and partners rather than their trainers and overseers, those boys can grow up whole, in peace and confidence.

SandraDodd.com/interviews about boys
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Proof and Belief

I guess what makes me the most defensive is when people say, "I don't believe unschooling will work." Okay... based on WHAT? I want to say. Based on the fact that you went to school every day for twelve or sixteen years and "cooperated" and you want that to be the only possible way!? The fact that it has worked and DOES work (maybe not for everybody, but for a LOT of people) is right there for those who want to see it.

I might not BELIEVE a 747 could fly, but they do. Whether I can explain it or build one doesn't matter. They do fly.

I have friends with older kids than mine who do remarkable things their parents didn't teach them to do. They figured out how to do it.

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The foregoing was written in an online chat in 1996 (or late 1995) when my oldest child was nine. In the fifteen years since then, my own three have done many remarkable things they learned in all kinds of ways—from other kids, other adults, the internet, and on their own. The disbelief of others has had no effect on our family.

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Traction

Get your footing so you can make progress.

"That picture you paint for yourself will get in the way of seeing the whole, real person right in front of you.

"Be precise in the words you use to describe those you love, aim to support and care for. Be as generous as you can too. The clearer you see your child, the better you can respond to their needs. The better you learn to listen to them, see them, and be of useful service to them, the more they will have confidence in your ability to have their best interest in mind."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/condemnation
photo by Sandra Dodd

Starting to soften

Karen James wrote:

Being Ethan's mom changed me. I surprised myself in good ways. In learning to give to him, I grew to really like myself. The walls started coming down. I started to soften - to have compassion for myself.... I challenged myself to continue to do better, because I now knew I could. I had a found confidence in that new truth. Honesty and humility too. All good things for learning to really flourish.

As I became happier with myself and the world around me, I would say that real learning started to happen. From my experience, when trauma heals, learning begins to become more fluid again. Richer. More meaningful. More lasting.

—Karen James

More words and/or photos by Karen James
photo by Karen James
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Slowly amazing

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

It is amazing that the epiphanies seem to come so frequently in this life. The other day I was baking a cake and David got back from the grocery store and had to deal with the leaking coolant on the car and needed help putting the groceries away. I was up to my elbows in batter and asked Simon and Linnaea if they could help.

They both came in and put all the groceries away and went back to what they were doing. It was so sweet, so not coercive, so not eye-rolling. Just this generous gift of service. It came with an epiphany, an underscoring of these unschooling side effects that I see and read about from other people.

As you say, the proof is in the living! The rightness, the evidence, the closeness, the joy, those are all found in this life. You can read about them, but to experience them you have to get down on your hands and knees and play and hang out and tell stories and cuddle and talk and share and be willing to listen and to apologize and to work to make it better. And if you can do that without any other intention than enjoying being with them, without any ulterior motives, it plays out in ways that nothing else that I've ever seen does.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Breathing and baby steps

Breathing and baby steps are useful suggestions for new unschoolers. Both help us to stay in the moment, to relax right where we are rather than leaping ahead or getting mired in "shoulds." They help us cultivate soft, open ground upon which we can rest with joy, and know enough confidence to take the next step. —Leah Rose

The first sentence is slightly amended from the longer writing
(upper left, second item) here: SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Chrissy Florence

Doesn't yet...

I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

That came from this...

We've used this "someday you will" or "you just don't yet" about all kinds of things, from reading to caring about the opposite sex to foods. Holly doesn't like green chile yet. She figures she will ("When my taste buds die" she jokes), because her brothers didn't used to and now they do. Kirby lately started liking mushrooms. Marty still doesn't like spinach yet, but we haven't branded him "a spinach hater," and I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

...which is at the bottom of Encouragement and Confidence about Reading.



Those aren't the mushrooms Kirby eats. These are in our back yard after it rains.
photo by Holly
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Being online is good because...

If time spent here keeps you from poking and prodding and pushing your kids, that's good.

If time spent here gives you confidence to unschool that will save you TONS of money and energy and worry and heartache and interpersonal repair, that's good.

If you took a course on unschooling and had to go to class a time or two a week, with commuting time, and reading and paper-writing time, and if it cost what a college class costs in tuition, but you could just do THIS instead, that would be good. (And hey! It's true!)

SandraDodd.com/lists/justification
photo by Sandra Dodd, of the mailbox out front

Support

Supporting someone or something requires strength and confidence.

Support is holding something up.
Support is upholding something.

Support your child. Lift him up above you.

New words, relating to older ideas:
SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Many, many ideas

Joyce wrote:

There is probably not an idea about how to be with kids that you have that we haven't seen and turned over. (Sounds a bit snooty!) What I mean is, that 1000's of people have wandered by us with the ideas they have. We've held them up for examination to see "Is this respectful? How does this help a child? How does this hurt a child? Is there a better way that will nurture him *and* help him?" —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Karen James

Trust can grow

"There are many things one can trust as one begins unschooling. Draw on what you know about your child, your partner and yourself to nurture confidence. Trust in unschooling will deepen and grow as one gains understanding and experience. Oh! Which reminds me! I trusted that others who had unschooled their children successfully before me knew some things (a lot of things, it turned out) that could help me. That trust grew as I tried some of the things people suggested and they proved to be very useful."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames/trust
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Becoming solid

When people first come to unschooling, when they want to be unschoolers, they're basing this on something they read that resonated, or someone they met that they'd like to be more like, which is the way I came to it, but I don't think it will really stick, and be solid in that family or in that person's way of being—in their behaviors and their thoughts—until they see that in their own children. Until you're doing it not because you think it will work, or because you've heard it will work, or read it will work, but because you've seen it work.
. . . .Until people get to that point in unschooling, they could relapse. They could easily forget that they wanted their kids to be more like someone else's kids.

But once they get to the point where their confidence in unschooling is not faith in other people, but certain knowledge, direct experience of their own children learning and being at peace, and of the parents learning to see the natural learning that happens when kids just draw for hours, or just play video games for hours, or ride their bike, or play with the dog—when they start seeing those things as equal in learning value, to things that look academic, then it's hard to relapse from certain knowledge.

20:45 in the sound recording of the interview at this link
photo by Emma Marie Forde
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P.S. By the time you get to that point, you probably won't want your kids to be different, but the comparisons are normal before deschooling, and can fade as unschooling ideas permeate and pervade.

Clearly

Writing is thinking clearly. For unschoolers writing will be helped by a kid having the confidence that if someone asks him about a movie or the lyrics of a song, that person will listen to his report, and to his opinion, and if he's misheard the words or misunderstood the plot, that they will help him understand it.

a nice match for Untangling Ideas, but the quote is from Seeing Writing
photo by Gail Higgins
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Slowly amazing

Schuyler Waynforth wrote:

It is amazing that the epiphanies seem to come so frequently in this life. The other day I was baking a cake and David got back from the grocery store and had to deal with the leaking coolant on the car and needed help putting the groceries away. I was up to my elbows in batter and asked Simon and Linnaea if they could help.

They both came in and put all the groceries away and went back to what they were doing. It was so sweet, so not coercive, so not eye-rolling. Just this generous gift of service. It came with an epiphany, an underscoring of these unschooling side effects that I see and read about from other people.

As you say, the proof is in the living! The rightness, the evidence, the closeness, the joy, those are all found in this life. You can read about them, but to experience them you have to get down on your hands and knees and play and hang out and tell stories and cuddle and talk and share and be willing to listen and to apologize and to work to make it better. And if you can do that without any other intention than enjoying being with them, without any ulterior motives, it plays out in ways that nothing else that I've ever seen does.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/confidence
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning from our kids

People assume they will teach their kids lots of things. Then they move on to knowing they don't need to teach, just help/assist/facilitate. But there's that other area where the kids know things we don't know (and maybe could use knowing). By the time you get to that stage, confidence is easy to have, I think.

From the transcript of a chat on Learning from our Kids
photo by Colleen Prieto

What are teens thinking?

Pam Sorooshian, on teens' natural fears:

Sometimes teens need a LOT of reassurance. So just keep showing him your confidence in him at the same time that you understand and sympathize with his fears. It is sometimes harder on our unschooled kids at this age than their schooled counterparts because our kids are entering adulthood eyes wide open—they "get it" that they are moving into adult responsibilities, etc., and they are (justifiably) sometimes freaked out by it all. The schooled kids more often don't really grasp what's coming—they're just following orders, going through the expected motions. Our unschooled kids are thinking—and their thoughts can be overwhelming and scary and they can easily feel inadequate to face the future.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/teen/angst
photo by Sandra Dodd
of directional signals
on a retired London bus

Keep learning

We don't know what our kids are thinking about what they're watching, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling in their lives. And we don't need to know. It does help for us to keep learning, too, ourselves, so we have more confidence that they're learning.

SandraDodd.com/deschooling/
photo by Janine Davies

Be the calming comfort

Sometimes life is spooky and frightening. Sometimes children are afraid.

Be the comforting, safe partner. Don't be another source of spooky discomfort.

Practice being braver and calmer so that when life is scary you have enough courage and confidence to share.

SandraDodd.com/nest/
photo by Karen James
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Clearer and better

Karen James wrote:

Be precise in the words you use to describe those you love, aim to support and care for. Be as generous as you can too. The clearer you see your child, the better you can respond to their needs. The better you learn to listen to them, see them, and be of useful service to them, the more they will have confidence in your ability to have their best interest in mind.

—Karen James

Karen James
photo by Sandra Dodd

Skills and talents

Knowing what's good about other people doesn't need to diminish your own self confidence. It will increase it, I think, to realize that you are surrounded by others who have skills and talents you might have need of.

SandraDodd.com/humility
photo by Sandra Dodd
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