Choose more

Part of Pam Sorooshians's response to the idea that unschoolers are lazy:

Ask yourself really honestly, is there something more I could be doing for my child that would enhance my child's life? If the answer is yes, then make the choice to do it. Then ask this question of yourself again and again and, each time, make the life-enriching choice. Apply this to small things and to big momentous decisions. Small things—could I make something for dinner that would be special and interesting? Did I see a cool rock on the ground outside—could I bring it in and wash it and set it on the table for others to notice. Big things—would my child enjoy traveling? Can we take a family vacation that involves exploring things my child would find interesting?

In unschooling, 'lazy' means not thinking about enriching and enhancing your child's life. You change this by doing it—one choice at a time."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lazy/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Choose more

Part of Pam Sorooshians's response to the idea that unschoolers are lazy:

Ask yourself really honestly, is there something more I could be doing for my child that would enhance my child's life? If the answer is yes, then make the choice to do it. Then ask this question of yourself again and again and, each time, make the life-enriching choice. Apply this to small things and to big momentous decisions. Small things—could I make something for dinner that would be special and interesting? Did I see a cool rock on the ground outside—could I bring it in and wash it and set it on the table for others to notice. Big things—would my child enjoy traveling? Can we take a family vacation that involves exploring things my child would find interesting?

In unschooling, 'lazy' means not thinking about enriching and enhancing your child's life. You change this by doing it—one choice at a time."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lazy/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Not lazy

Part of my response to a 2008 question about whether unschoolers will grow up lazy:

I've done resumes for LOTS of my friends. Kirby wrote his and just needed formatting, because he doesn't have Word. He wrote this in his intro:

"I am a long-experienced mentor and coach..."
Some people put stuff in their resumes I roll my eyes at, or hesitate to type up. Kirby is telling the simple truth. He's 21. Since he was twelve or so he's been helping teach karate, helping run games at the gaming shop. They hired him as soon as he turned 14 because he was already running the Pokemon tournaments for four hours every Saturday morning and it was against the rules of Pokemon gymleadermanship (!?) for it not to be an employee of the store. For over a third of his life he's been coaching and teaching and organizing people younger and older than he is.


SandraDodd.com/hena08/lazy
photo by Sandra Dodd
at Denny's, with Holly

Friendly, calm and welcoming

Sandra Dodd, May 6, 2008, from a conference follow-up question:

Won't they end up lazy?
Do they expect other people to make their life good?

We visited our oldest son, Kirby, last weekend. We met nine of his regular guys. His friends and co-workers and his roommate really, really like him. Today I helped him format a resume, to get it all on one page. Twenty-one and his resume was two pages. Here's something he wrote:

---

Active Imagination, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Retail floor operator, Summer 2000 — 04/11/05

Constantly advanced the sales quota while upholding a friendly, calm and welcoming atmosphere in the store.

---

He did! He's good at creating and maintaining a friendly, calm and welcoming atmosphere. No one who knew him when he was five or younger would ever have predicted that.

More at SandraDodd.com/hena08/lazy
photo by Holly Dodd

Being a child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Curiosity and gusto

In the middle of something a little longer, about becoming an unschooling parent, Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Overly self-centered people can't do it because it requires a lot of empathy. People with too many personal problems that they haven't addressed in their own lives probably can't do it because they are too distracted by those. People who are too negative or cynical can't do it because they tend to crush interest and joy, not build it up. People who lack curiosity and a certain amount of gusto for life can't really do it.

On the other hand, we grow into it. Turns out that we parents learn, too.

So—when we are making moves, taking steps, in the direction of unschooling, turns out the trail starts to open up in front of us and we get more and more sure-footed as we travel the unschooling path.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lazy/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Your child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Look in a new way

"There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back."

—Joyce Fetteroll

The danger of "Lazy" and other thoughts
photo by Sandra Dodd

Grow into learning

In the middle of something a little longer, about becoming an unschooling parent, Pam Sorooshian wrote:

---

Overly self-centered people can't do it because it requires a lot of empathy. People with too many personal problems that they haven't addressed in their own lives probably can't do it because they are too distracted by those.

People who are too negative or cynical can't do it because they tend to crush interest and joy, not build it up. People who lack curiosity and a certain amount of gusto for life can't really do it.

On the other hand, we grow into it. Turns out that we parents learn, too.

So—when we are making moves, taking steps, in the direction of unschooling, turns out the trail starts to open up in front of us and we get more and more sure-footed as we travel the unschooling path.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lazy/parents
photo by Amy Childs

Look in a new way

Joyce wrote:

There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back.

—Joyce Fetteroll

The danger of "Lazy" and other thoughts
photo by Sandra Dodd

The trail starts to open up

In the middle of something a little longer, about becoming an unschooling parent, Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Overly self-centered people can't do it because it requires a lot of empathy. People with too many personal problems that they haven't addressed in their own lives probably can't do it because they are too distracted by those. People who are too negative or cynical can't do it because they tend to crush interest and joy, not build it up. People who lack curiosity and a certain amount of gusto for life can't really do it.

On the other hand, we grow into it. Turns out that we parents learn, too.

So—when we are making moves, taking steps, in the direction of unschooling, turns out the trail starts to open up in front of us and we get more and more sure-footed as we travel the unschooling path.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/lazy/parents
photo by Sandra Dodd

Deep down, and wide, and high

If you're sure someone else taught you to read, you'll be waiting for someone else to teach you to do other things. If you KNOW you learned to read on your own, you'll know deep down and wide and high that you can learn other things too.

from an old topic called "Lazy or realistic"
photo by Chris Sanders

Do more for and with your child

Someone wrote:

"My worry is that I am needing to do something bigger/more."

I responded:

If you don’t feel like you’re doing enough, do more.
Accept the uncomfortable feeling as you would hunger or sleepiness, and act on it, a bit. See if that helps. If so, do more.

Instead of offering suggestions, do things for him, and with him. There are lots of ideas on my site (and other places you could google up) but here’s a list Deb Lewis wrote a few years ago that I really like:

Things to do in the Winter
SandraDodd.com/strew/deblist

---

Original text here (fourth comment):
"Bored" and "Lazy"—Amy Childs podcast episode from August 2014

The player isn't working at that link,
but you can listen at SandraDodd.com/boredom/

photo by Colleen Prieto

Parenting

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Just as we've thrown out school for something better that works, we've thrown out conventional parenting practice for something better than works! And just as throwing out school doesn't mean throwing out learning, throwing out conventional parenting doesn't mean throwing out parenting. We're there *with* our kids, helping them, talking to them about life, helping them solve problems.
. . . .There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/lazy/kids
photo by Sandra Dodd

Things are connected

Jen Keefe wrote:

I’ve found it fascinating (I don’t use that word lightly) how many different things are connecting for me, as an adult, through learning to unschool well. I didn’t understand how things connected from school. Wars, geography, fractions, the Russian language... it was all individual stuff. I moved dutifully from one stand alone period to the next trying to do the bare minimum work not because I was lazy or stupid but because none of it *made sense*.

Now, daily almost, I’ll watch or read or hear or be talking about something and I’ll think "oh my gosh! That’s connected!" Or, "That’s why that happened there."

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/jenkeefe
photo by Kristin Cleague