Showing posts sorted by relevance for query jen keefe. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query jen keefe. Sort by date Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Little tiny choices

Jen Keefe wrote:

I gave up New Year's Resolutions a loooong time ago.

I learned that grandiose resolutions rarely add up to anything that matters. Now I know it is the little tiny intentional choices made moment after moment that are good for me and my family and make our world better. Not just my world. The whole world.

How do I know? I am living proof.

That's the end of some sweetly powerful writing, about late-night learning. You can read it in full here:
Stories of Late-Night Learning
photo by Jen Keefe

Monday, January 14, 2019

Peaceful and stable

Jen Keefe wrote:

Every day my husband and I understand better how to create an environment so that our kids can learn. This involves making our home more peaceful and stable, making sure our kids have food, water, comfortable clothes, and good places to sit, work and sleep. It involves paying attention so that we can find resources to offer to support whatever thing they are currently learning about. It requires that they feel safe, respected, valued, appreciated, and loved.
—Jen Keefe



Jen, on facebook
(If you don't have facebook, look at Building an Unschooling Nest, maybe.)
photo by Renee Cabatic
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Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Distant visions

I love being able to see, and to share, pictures of things I have seen, or have NOT seen, in this blog. Jen Keefe's family went to New York City, and the technology of the day allowed her to share some of the things she saw. Her generosity lets me pass it on.

When I was a kid, our teachers encouraged us to have pen pals in other places. The purpose was to broaden our knowledge of foreign states and countries, but there weren't photos involved, and certainly not videos with sound! Messages weren't quickly exchanged.

Being able to see and hear other people, places, accents, languages, birds, animals, trees, foods... appreciate this as the recent miracle it is! Our worlds have expanded, even from inside our houses.

Your Own Model of the Universe

photo by Jen Keefe

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Expand your world

Jen Keefe wrote:

Getting to know my kids and subsequently all the amazingly cool "nerdy" things I never would have learned about otherwise has expanded my world. Cynicism always shrunk it.
—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/jenInterests
photo by Marin Holmes, in Tokyo

Monday, January 28, 2019

Choosing "better" better

Jen Keefe wrote:

Choosing peace over anything else seems so obvious. Except when I didn’t know there were more peaceful options I thought I was choosing them. I guess I thought the least unkind or least chaotic choice was choosing peace- if I even realized there was a choice, or that peace was a goal.

Last night the kids and I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. watching The Office. We typically go to sleep earlier than that but we were so into the show (we are binge watching and are at the place where Robert California took over).

We stayed up later so we slept later. So we went and got subway for lunch and brought it to the pool. The kids got chips and cookies and soda. That’s not a big deal anymore, but it used to be.

Now they are swimming so happily while I sit here typing this and chatting with them. It’s so... peaceful. As much as I loved my kids and was learning to parent gently this is not the way I was headed. I wouldn’t have had this moment, or the moments last night, or those moments this morning when we snuggled in bed right after we woke up, watching more of The Office. I wouldn’t know who my kids are.

This is better. It’s just better.
—Jen Keefe
(March 2018)

There is a bit more of that at Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Janine Davies
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Thursday, April 26, 2018

This is better.

"This is better. It’s just better."
—Jen Keefe

To read about what Jen found that was better, her writing is queued up here:
Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Heather Booth
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Friday, September 6, 2019

The mom I wish I'd had

"Being the mom I wish I'd had has been very healing. It's been the closest thing to having that mom I could achieve with the cards I was dealt."
—Jessica Hughes
SandraDodd.com/healing
Sydney Andersen's Guinea Pig
photo by Jen Keefe

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Saturday, March 9, 2024

Wonderful and unexpected


"It's wonderful how parenting this way heals parts of our own past unexpectedly."
—Jen Keefe


The quote is from a story of memories affecting parenting, and vice versa, here: SandraDodd.com/sleep/memories
photo by Jo Isaac

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Listening to your body


If food tastes like you should not eat it, don't eat it. If one bite makes you full, don't eat two. If one of your children balks at certain food, don't press him to eat it. Listen to your body's clear signals. If you get hungry, you'll FEEL hungry, and you might even know exactly what you would like to/should/can best eat, if you relax and pay attention.
SandraDodd.com/instinct
photo by Jen Keefe
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Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Following curiosities together

"Once I started to see how interesting so many things are, it reignited my curiosity about life. Now, my kids and I have a great time following our own, or mutual, curiosities together and one thing *always* leads to another. Always!"
—Jen Keefe


Connections
photo by Chelsea Thurman
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Saturday, January 21, 2017

Finding joy

"Looking for joy doesn't mean living in la-la land. Quite the opposite. For me, it means being grounded in reality instead of fear, and connected rather than living parallel lives with my family members."
—Jen Keefe


SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Antje Bebbington
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Saturday, October 21, 2023

The mom I wish I'd had


"Being the mom I wish I'd had has been very healing. It's been the closest thing to having that mom I could achieve with the cards I was dealt."
—Jessica Hughes

SandraDodd.com/healing
Sydney Andersen's Guinea Pig
photo by Jen Keefe

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Pathways and connections

"I learned early on that being excited with my kids about whatever they are excited about opens pathways and connections that are magical—not just for their learning but for our relationship and their relationship with the world."
—Jen Keefe

"Following their Interests": SandraDodd.com/jeninterests
photo by Ester Siroky

Thursday, January 13, 2022

One easy step

Thinking of "better choices" instead of "RIGHT choices" is an easy step to a world of other easy steps.


Make the Better Choice
photo by Jen Keefe

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Curiosity reignited


"Once I started to see how interesting so many things are, it reignited my curiosity about life. Now, my kids and I have a great time following our own, or mutual, curiosities together and one thing *always* leads to another. Always!"
—Jen Keefe


Connections
photo by Ester Siroky
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Monday, July 6, 2020

Warm food

Offering a child food instead of waiting for him to ask has been frowned upon by some people as being pressure. I think that's wrong.

Asking for cold pantry-food, or needing to ask someone to cook something isn't nearly as good as smelling food cooking, or seeing nicely-arranged food that's immediately available if you want it.

The Full Plate Club
photo by Jen Keefe
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Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Healthier and happier

Not only are our food choices healthier but since I have stopped controlling sleep and chores and T.V. watching and video games our family is healthier and happier. It didn't happen overnight but it's been like this long enough that I can't imagine our lives any other way.
—Gail H.
years ago


That's the end of something longer, at
SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
"True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets"
image by Jen Keefe

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Clouds and water

small clouds reflected in a lake
Clouds and water are two forms of the same material. Water can reflect clouds, too. Clouds can cast shadow on water.

There won't be a test, but sometimes consider how other things can be "the same," yet very different. Our perceptions depend on light, angles, our own knowledge and history. What you see isn't everything. What you know is smaller than the whole.

Be open to beauty and joy.

A Different Angle
photo by Jen Keefe
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Monday, December 30, 2019

Wrapped in comfort


"Being the parent to my kids that I needed when I was younger has wrapped my own self in a comfort I never got to have before."
—Jen Keefe (here)


SandraDodd.com/healing
photo by Kinsey Norris
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Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Upbeat and sweet

Doom and gloom make the world a gloomy, doomed place.
—Sandra Dodd


Here is a longer passage of something I wrote in 2016 on facebook:

I'm unfriending people I don't really know who are complaining about their kids, or about school, or about politics or the horrors of something or other.

I'm keeping people whose pages are upbeat and sweet, and more about them and their families than about corporate demons and evil foods. Doom and gloom make the world a gloomy, doomed place.



The post itself isn't very "upbeat and sweet" today,
but I hope parents who read it will be!
SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Jen Keefe