More and more cheerfully

You should help him pick up his toys, and the more cheerfully you do that, the more cheerfully he will help you.

Generosity
photo by Meredith Dew

Honest, attentive and reliable

Quote & reply quote:

Trust is a more useful word. Over time, kids develop a sense of whether or not parents are trustworthy sources of information and assistance."

—Meredith Meredith

"Good point. And very often, parents 'demand respect' without any idea that they need to earn it. For a child to trust a parent, the parent needs to be worthy of trust—trustworthy. Trustable. Then after many years of being honest and attentive and reliable, the children will respect them. Because they're respectable."

—Sandra Dodd

The originals are here, a few comments down, in a brief, good discussion on facebook. De Flowers saved and shared the part above in 2014.
photo by Tessa Onderwater
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Cool and cheery

Help them live without having things to be angry about. Promote peace. Be a cool, cheery cruise director.

Arrange for less anger to be around you. What they're angry about—avoid those factors.

from a chat on Spiritual/Existential Intelligence
photo by Meredith Dew
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Sharing life

I expected unschooling to cause me to be closer to my kids, when they were young, than I might otherwise have been. As time went by, though, I found that I was being kinder to my husband and nicer to my pets.

Others have reported this effect, and their surprise. As unschooling principles became a deeper part of their lives, they discovered a gentler homelife, and an expectation of kindness.

Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling
photo by Meredith Dew

Pancakes

Meredith Novak wrote:

The first time I made pancakes with white flour he thought they were the best pancakes he'd ever eaten.

Here's an interesting tidbit, though: after a few weeks of being allowed to have all the cakes and cokes he could eat at our house he out-and-out said "You know what, now that I can have all the sugar I want, I don't want nearly as much of it."

—Meredith

SandraDodd.com/eating/healthfood
photo by Sandra Dodd, of pancakes designed by Devyn, 8
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Just Do It

"Just Do it — show your kids by your actions that their needs and feelings are important to you."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Cathy Koetsier
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Because they're people

Meredith Novak wrote:

"A lot of unschooling involves learning how to listen to one another, how to build up understanding and partnership in relationships, rather than tearing it down. Virtually all of the principles of how that works work with husbands as well as kids — not because men are babies, but because men and children are people, and we know a lot of things about how people learn and build relationships."

—Meredith

Becoming a Better Partner (or Meredith's post)
photo by Brandie Hadfield
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What really matters

Meredith wrote:

"I always wonder what people expect when they ask unschoolers what materials they use, since it's a question that does come up now and then, generally by academic homeschoolers but sometimes in a daycare context.... The flattering reason, I guess, is that they think we're all geniuses at "making learning fun" but it's ultimately the wrong question. There aren't any special materials. Our homes are full of normal things, commercial toys, cartoon pajamas and pokemon sippy cups, tvs and video games, with piles of things that need to be sorted and put away slumped in corners, or cluttering up the couch and stairs. Many families unschool on slim material resources. The magic of unschooling is in the relationships."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/partners
photo by Rachel Singer

"The magic of unschooling is in the relationships." —Meredith
(I repeated the last line because it's good.)

Kindness, grace and generosity

"Kindness, grace, and generosity go a lot further toward creating warm relationships and a joyfully harmonious home than measuring out equality."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Chrissy Florence
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Open to wonder

Meredith wrote:

Unschooling doesn't start at the rules in your head, it starts with each individual child. If one of your kids is curious about something and you're tempted to shut it down—because it's scary to you, because it might be dangerous—that's a problem. It's a big obstacle in your relationship with your child, one that sets up your kid to have to choose between mom and wonder. Wonder, for many people, is worth some risk. It can be worth physical risk to physical people. It can be worth a relationship with a parent, or both parents, or a whole family.

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/open
photo by Amanda Lyn Custer

Watch your step!

Meredith Novak wrote:

I don't think too much focus on either rights or liberty is good for unschooling. When parents are invested in their rights, it's easy to step on kids' liberty. Worse, it's easy to step on kids' hearts."

—Meredith Novak

(I dropped one clause, above, because
it referred to someone else's quote. —Sandra *)
SandraDodd.com/priorities
photo by Sandra Dodd

Stop and hush

Meredith Novak wrote: Ultimately, what helps most to do first was not set myself up to yell—and that meant going back a few more minutes and noticing how things went wrong in the first place and changing those dynamics. Most of them were about expectations I had—kids should or shouldn't do some thing. As I worked through expectations like that, there was less to yell about. So basically I worked the problem from both ends—I found ways for life to flow more smoothly for my family on the one end, and learned to stop and hush and start over on the other. —Meredith Novak

New at the bottom of SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Values

"Meredith Meredith" wrote:

If you value something, make it part of your life. If you value music, play music, listen to music, dance and sing. Invite the people you love to join you—maybe they will. If you value scientific thinking, think like a scientist. If you enjoy math, play with numbers and relationships. The catch is to live your own values without trying to foist them off on other people—because that's not a very good way of sharing what you love, and because personality matters. All your singing and dancing won't make your kids musicians if they're not so inclined—but they'll know a few things about music. If you push music at them, they may associate what they know with drudgery and unhappiness—and then you've failed and failed more utterly than if you never sang a note in their presence.

—Meredith Novak

Meredith
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Marty kid-art
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What matters

I am willing to watch it with her because I know she loves it. I affirm something about her by taking her interest, her pleasure seriously. I let her know she matters by making it clear that she matters to me. —Meredith Novak 10 Nov 2015

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Karen James

Joyfully harmonious

Meredith Novak wrote:

Expecting human relationships—of any kind—to be fair and equitable is a set-up for cynicism and disappointment in the human race. Human beings are marvelously varied in their needs and capabilities. It helps a whole lot to think in terms of needs and capabilities rather than rights or fairness or equality. What more can you do to support the people you love—including yourself? Kindness, grace, and generosity go a lot further toward creating warm relationships and a joyfully harmonious home than measuring out equality.

—Meredith

Being a Happy Mom
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp
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Tricked by "knowledge"

Meredith Novak wrote:

A great deal of parenting "wisdom" is made up of things "everyone knows" because everyone repeats them back and forth, over and over. Like "you have to go to school to learn" and "children need rules". Some of the things "everyone knows" are completely wrong, but because "everyone knows" them, it's very, very difficult for people to change their attitudes even in the presence of evidence to the contrary.

It was really shocking for me to discover just how much of what I "knew" was a result of that repetition. I accounted myself an intelligent, thoughtful person, with strong "alternative" viewpoints, but most of what I thought I knew about parenting was based in a kind of cultural conditioning. The ideas in my head weren't my own. That's humbling.

—Meredith

SandraDodd.com/sugar
photo by Sandra Dodd

Books and clocks. . . music, blocks

Meredith Novak wrote, on facebook:

If you live in a home with books and clocks, movies, music, blocks, games, dishes, furniture, toys, clothes, the internet, and adults who are interested in kids, then you have "the basics" all around your kids all the time. And because those basics are there, kids will learn about them&mdashthey'll learn that words are a valuable tool and there are many ways to use them. They'll learn that numbers and patterns are as useful as words and sometimes better than words for a given purpose. They'll learn those things without lessons, living and playing and snuggling on the couch with you without ever needing to draw a line between those things and learning. —Meredith Novak *

SandraDodd.com/meredithnovak
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Be generous.

"Whatever lights them up, spend as much as you can on it—time and money and creativity and the rest. Don't worry if it's more or less than someone else. Be generous. Fill them up to the brim."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingcost
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Peace on earth

In a longer discussion, Joyce Fetteroll wrote that people should be focused on helping a child "peacefully co-exist with the rest of the planet."

Meredith Novak added:

I think this is really key. If you're focused on who's "right" or which "side" to take, that's going to narrow down both your perception of the situation and the options you can envision.

Helping maintain peace within families is a direct contribution to peace on earth.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Measurements

"Sometimes the measure of unschooling's success isn't how much a kid meets normal expectations, but how much sweeter and easier life is."

—Meredith Novak
(original, on facebook)

SandraDodd.com/success
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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