Interesting choices

Joyce Fetteroll, on choices:

When kids are given the choice between doing things they like and things they don't like, they choose things they like. When kids are give the choice between things they are allowed to do and things they aren't allowed to do, "aren't allowed" looks intriguing.

Have you ever seen a sign on a boring door that says "No Admittance" and felt the urge to open it? If there were no sign you'd not give the door a second glance. But that "No Admittance" sign makes it intriguing, like there's something special back there that you can't have.

—Joyce Fetteroll, 2004

Choose a point...
photo by Lydia Koltai

Improvise!

Be sweetly and courageously creative.

Old and New (creativity)
photo by Lydia Koltai

A very peaceful quiet

Esther Maria Rest wrote:

At first I thought we should go out and do something somewhere today, to do some kind of 'activity', but then if I felt into what I really wanted it was just to spend time in the garden and with my boys, and they were fine with that. When we were all outside, one in the hammock, another one observing the frogs, and me weeding and planting I remarked on how quiet it is, and my oldest said, 'yes, but it is a very peaceful quiet'. And we all enjoyed our very peaceful, quiet day, studying what interests us, playing games, laughing, thinking, and just being quiet, together.

—Esther Maria Rest

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Lydia Koltai
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It's all inside

Nothing on paper is learning. Nothing recited is learning. Nothing in a conversation is learning....

Learning is putting information together in one's own head so that it makes new and different sense. It always and only happens inside the learner.

The Problem with Teaching is...
photo by Lydia Koltai
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Learning by experience

"I think respectful parenting is similar to learning to ride a bike. The bike, gravity, pavement all provide feedback on whether you've got it right. Or right enough to work. And then you work on refining it. And you don't forget because it's learning by doing. Learning through immersion. We don't make them do it right. We help them think through the problem, provide information, and help them as they try out solutions. It's often the less than optimal solutions -- as long as they aren't going to injure themselves or harm others -- that are the most instructive because they can see *why* other ways work better. They can see and experience the consequences and the learning is far deeper than being told how to do it right."

—Joyce Fetteroll

"You are nuts!"
photo by Lydia Koltai

Now and then

Today I have seen two of my grown children. Keith saw all three, but not in the same place. We have three grandchildren. I saw two, today, but not at my house.

When your children are still young and with you, once in a while I hope you will look at them all, and maybe catch a photo. If you have one child who lives at home, breathe that in and know that it might not always be so.

Moving away or traveling, going to university, getting married, having children—those things are natural and fine. Time goes forward and people spread out. Today's reality is not what your younger self could have known. More waves of future will come along.

Find peace and appreciation and share it with your children.



Thoughts on growth
photo by Lydia Koltai

Firsts

Sandra's writing from 1993:

People want to see the first step and hear the first words of their babies, they say, when they don't put their children in daycare. I was lucky to be able to afford to stay home with my kids and I am thrilled to be the first to see them respond to their first-whatevers.

A couple of weeks ago I got to see the look of amazement on my six-year-old's face when he colored a Mobius strip and then cut it in two (or, rather, not in two) lengthwise. When I told him he would be ten or fourteen the next time there was an inauguration, I saw Lights Come On! Walking and talking aren't everything.

SandraDodd.com/wonder.html
photo by Lydia Koltai

A toddler's whim

Dawn Todd wrote:

Whim is such a dismissive word.

A toddler's "whim" is their urge to explore and understand! One of my greatest joys as a parent is being able to facilitate that!

—Dawn Todd

(Original)
photo by Lydia Koltai

Simple wisdom

One zen student said, "My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating."

The second said, "My teacher has so much self control, he can go days without sleep."

The third said, "My teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired."

My kids did that!
The quote came to me from Bela Harrington.
photo by Lydia Koltai

Comforted, entertained, loved

Too many parents talk and talk to their kids, and ask them how they feel and ask them what they need.

Learn to guess. Learn to provide in advance. Food is good to practice with. Soft, clean cleared-off beds are good to practice with. Clearing off space for video gaming is nice. Soon you start to think about heat, softness, clean clothes, toothpaste before it runs out, favorite foods when you shop. And then people feel heard and comforted and entertained and loved.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Lydia Koltai

Adding beauty

Adding beauty where it was not required is the heart of artistry.

Perhaps art is never "required."
Maybe art is always a choice.

Discovering or creating beauty
photo by Lydia Koltai

A big, easy difference

"If I can bring someone a snack before they come tell me they are hungry it can make a real difference in the kind of day we are all having!"

—Sylvia Woodman

Siblings: Attending to Very Young Children and Their Siblings
photo by Lydia Koltai
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Are you struggling to relax?

Leah Rose:

Sandra wrote: "They need to STOP battling, STOP fighting, STOP struggling"

This has been such an incredibly powerful, empowering concept for me. It's a total turn around from the way I grew up thinking, from the way we think and speak in Western culture. But I have made the greatest strides in my own deschooling by learning to notice when I feel myself "struggling," and to Stop! Then I can choose to let go, to relax about the disparity between what I want and what is. And what I have discovered is that that conscious mental shift releases the energy I need to step forward mindfully into the moment...and then that moment becomes, itself, a step towards what I want, away from what I don't want.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Lydia Koltai

"Body Smart"

There are eight or ten intelligences people have, in different combinations and degrees. One is "bodily intelligence," or kinesthetic intelligence.


Bodily-kinesthetic covers dance, body-awareness, physical talents that might be used for sports or knot-tying or wood carving or physical therapy. Some people are only slightly aware of how their bodies work and what their capacities are. Some people seem to be born knowing, or using their bodies well without even thinking about it.

See and appreciate physical skills.

Multiple Intelligences
photo by Lydia Koltai

Sweet dreams

Sleep is crucial and peace is good. We don't know what experiences and ideas our children are processing, but the more often they go to sleep gently and wake up sweetly, the better their lives will be.

Dreams
photo by Lydia Koltai

Souls and minds

I think if people divide their lives into academic and non-academic, they're not radical unschoolers. I think unschooling in the context of a traditional set of rules and parental requirements and expectations will work better than structured school-at-home, but I don't think it will work as well for the developing souls and minds of the children involved. And those who are not radical unschoolers would look at that and say "What do their souls have to do with unschooling?"

SandraDodd.com/unschool/radical
SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Lydia Koltai
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Dreamy

Dreamy. "Dreamy" can be attractive, or otherworldly. Dreams only take a moment, some say. "Dream big," others say. Let ideas float and flit, dreamlike, through your waking and sleeping. You don't need to catch them all.

SandraDodd.com/learnnothingday/2009
photo by Lydia Koltai

Gentle with a child

We make choices ALL the time. Learning to make better ones in small little ways, immediate ways, makes life bigger and better. Choosing to be gentle with a child, and patient with ourselves, and generous in ways we think might not even show makes our children more gentle, patient and generous.

SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Lydia Koltai
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River

"What I like most about rivers is You can't step in the same river twice; The water's always changing, Always flowing." —Stephen Schwartz lyrics, for Pocahontas to sing

Just Around the Riverbend
photo by Lydia Koltai

What helps?

I think one thing that helps is having a house. A detached house. . . . . It's not a requirement, but it seems to help. Then kids have dirt to dig in. I know some apartments have dirt and some houses don't. But still. Dirt. Bugs. Plants.

There is more of that, and more about what else helps, in a chat transcript:
SandraDodd.com/chats/whathelps
photo by Lydia Koltai