Protection

For unschooling to flourish, parents might need to find ways to protect their children from the parents’ own fears and prejudices. The easiest way to do that is for the parents to let go of those fears and prejudices and see the world, and their children, through new eyes.

Protection can backfire
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Discovering ways to help

I do love words. I love their history. I love their sounds, and their power. I love the way they can reveal fears and other emotions, and prejudices and confusions. It's not that I like to see those things revealed, but when people are looking for clarity and we're trying to help them, it's good to see where they're limping or hurting, as it were.

SandraDodd.com/clarity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Step back and think

I did an odd thing, when Kirby was five. I consciously decided not to use the names of "subject areas," ever. Whether he liked something or not, I wasn't going to tell him it was "history" or "math" or "science." Each of those is made up of dozens, hundreds of interests and unrelated topics.

In school, kids decide to declare that they like or hate "science," when really geology has very little to do with psychology or surgery. Same with "geography." Would someone who "likes geography" because he's fascinated by maps and mapping necessarily care about the major production of different regions of the world, or traditional costume of Afghanistan?

But as an unschooling mom, I think it's important for the parents not to say "I don't like... (maps/science/costume/psychology), because if you have fears and prejudices left over from school, it's a good thing to do whatever internal work you need to get over that, so you can answer your children's questions without showing (and maybe passing on) an aversion.
SandraDodd.com/subjects
photo by Ester Siroky
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About food...

You don't know what your children need. They won't know either, if they're never allowed to live in such a way that they will learn to pay more attention to their bodies than to a book or a menu, a calendar, a clock, or to their parents' fears and prejudices.


SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Living with food

You don't know what your children need. They won't know either, if they're never allowed to live in such a way that they will learn to pay more attention to their bodies than to a book or a menu, a calendar, a clock, or to their parents' fears and prejudices.


SandraDodd.com/food
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Eating

Food and stress should never go together if it can be avoided.  My suggestion for today is:  Lighten up.     

Even if you feel that you've overcome all your prejudices and fears about where, when and how children MUST eat, there might be a few lingering concerns. Let one go. Maybe let two go. One way to think about it is that they will live for a long time and what they eat this week doesn't matter much, or they won't live much longer, in which case what they eat this week doesn't matter at all.

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd
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