Piece of cake

In April 2011, Schuyler wrote this, about a mom feeling underappreciated in her marriage:

What makes you feel good? I like a root beer float and a chip butty when I'm feeling particularly low. It doesn't make anything external better, but it does help a lot with my internals. Stock your cupboards with things that bring you pleasure, fix meals that make you happy, play games that you enjoy. Smile, laugh, swing, skip, dance, listen to music and play. Sometimes it may feel contrived, but try not to dwell on that, try and move it forward to not being contrived, like laugh therapy.

When your husband feels bad, bring him something nice, a piece of cake, a hug, a gentle touch, a thank you for something. Don't see his low point as something that you have to compete with for attention. And don't see it as a personal attack. Just see it as an unhappy moment, a point of stress, a need to express something to a safe ear.

It isn't self-sacrifice to work for your team. It's teamwork.

—Schuyler Waynforth

SandraDodd.com/negativity
More by Schuyler Waynforth
photo by Holly Dodd

Support and accept

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

I really can't imagine villifying anything in their lives that they might find very exciting. Well, I can imagine it, so I guess that's why I don't do it.

—Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Susanna Waters
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Morals and optimism

I live without religion, but not without morals. I know that being good is better than "being bad" (harmful, thoughtless, irresponsible), and I know that optimism is better than negativity. That doesn't mean I think there is magic at work in the fact that stepping out into the day joyfully will make the day better. People don't need to have a construct of "manifestations" or wishes or visualizations to make good better than bad. It just is, in ways linguistic and logical and biochemical.

photo by Tessa Onderwater

The quote is from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 199 or 231.
Best match on my site is SandraDodd.com/mindfulness.
A deeper match is from a discussion in 2001, on Always Learning, with Pam Sorooshian, Joyce Fetteroll, Deb Lewis, and others, on what some homeschoolers claimed about religion and morality.
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Happy heroes

Better biochemicals

Once I jokingly complained that a package of citric acid was marked "chemical free." Several people joked entertainingly, but a couple were humorless and critical.

I noted:
Citric acid IS a chemical. Looking for harm is, in itself, harmful. Fear and negativity stir up chemicals your own body makes, that aren't good for you. Induce the better biochemicals by being sweet, hopeful and calm.

Irrational fear of chemicals:
SandraDodd.com/chemicals
photo of a navel orange slice hanging by thread, by Sandra Dodd
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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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More positive

In a world of choices, every choice that moves one toward positivity (hope, optimism, joy, sweetness, peace) and away from negativity (cynicism, anger, disdain, dismay, pessimism) is a solid step toward "better" (IF the person wants to be more positive).

In a world of partnership, when one partner is more positive, the partnership is more positive.

In a home with a mother, when the mother is more positive, the family's life is more positive.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Peace and love and health

Things get done, and there's no benefit to stressing out. If dinner's going to be late, a late dinner after some calm sweet mom-time is going to taste WAY, way better than a late dinner after an hour of mom-screech and accusations and whining and crying (regardless of who's making the noise). Be as sweet and as peaceful as you can be. It will make a difference to you and to the kids and your husband and your dog (rat, cat, horse, neighbors).

Whatever negativity is put into the house affects everyone.
Whatever peace and smiles are put into the house affect people too.

So you can take an hour to make dinner, and that hour might not start until 7:00, or you can take two or three crazy hours to make dinner, and the dinner won't be any better.

Ramen in a happy environment is better than four dishes and a dessert in anger and sorrow.

original; Sandra Dodd, 2006

Advantages of Eating in Peace
SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd

Up and above

Negativity will weigh you down and make life heavy.

Hope and optimism will help you float up and above.



SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Abby Davis

Up and above

Negativity will weigh you down and make life heavy. Hope and optimism will help you float up and above.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Abby Davis
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Nothing you "have to" hate

Try not to hate anything more than you "have to," and once you get to thinking more positively, you might find there's is nothing you have to hate.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Lydia Koltai

Joy is better

Happiness helps learning. Biochemically, joy is better than dismay. Optimism is better than negativity.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Chrissy Florence

Be abundantly supportive.

It is possible for someone to see through a lens of negativity. Pessimism and cynicism can do irreversible damage to relationships, so dismantle those if you're living with them in you. In your choice making, in your moments, choose to see the good side of each coin. Decide to see what you have, with eyes of gratitude. See the abundance around you. Be abundantly supportive. Be someone another will be grateful for.

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Janine (it's a link)
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Better biochemicals

Once I jokingly complained that a package of citric acid was marked "chemical free." Several people joked entertainingly, but a couple were humorless and critical.

I noted:
Citric acid IS a chemical. Looking for harm is, in itself, harmful. Fear and negativity stir up chemicals your own body makes, that aren't good for you. Induce the better biochemicals by being sweet, hopeful and calm.

original discussion, on facebook

or a page on the irrational fear of chemicals: SandraDodd.com/chemicals
photo of a navel orange slice hanging by thread, by Sandra Dodd
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Joy and optimism!

If joy and optimism seem stupid, don't even try to unschool until after you've gotten some therapy or made direct strides toward recovering from the sooty veil of negativity. Children won't benefit from a life guide who is sure he or she is smarter than all the rest of the world. Arrogant certitude prevents learning.

From the notes for a talk given in 2012 in Sacramento
SandraDodd.com/hsc/unschoolingwell
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Climb up a notch.

Tina Bragdon wrote:

For all you negative people out there, you really can change, but you have to want to change. That concept of changing the next moment is so powerful, especially if you feel overwhelmed like I did at the thought of a total life overhaul all at once. You can chose to read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch, and "climb up a notch." And even if it is "just" a tiiiiiinnny notch at first, the positivity and joy builds on the next moment and perpetuates itself, an beautiful ongoing circle as you climb up out of being cynical and negative.

And, the view is great up here!

—Tina Bragdon

Seeing and Avoiding Negativity
photo by Renee Cabatic
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Be sweet and soft

Once a mom came and said she was having a hard time being present with her children. She wrote:

I hate it, and feel like I'm missing out on so many sweet, little moments, but it is so hard for me to be fully present, almost like I can't control it.

I responded:

Well don't hate it. Hate's no good. And you can't "control it." It might be easier to see it as a series of choices, with lots of chances to zone out, and lots of opportunities to focus back in.

People zone in and out all the time. It's not a sin. Live lightly. That's good for your children, if you can come back as easily as you slipped momentarily away, and if you're not hardened with self-recrimination and hate.

SandraDodd.com/negativity

Be sweet and soft, for your children.

Now, 11 years later, I have a page called "positivity," though both pages are about making choices that take one incrementally toward the more positive.
SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Lydia Koltai

Look up

When I was little, there was mean little trick we did to younger kids, and I didn't know enough to feel guilty about it. It had hurt my feelings when I was younger, but still I passed it on.

It started "Look up." It ended, after a while with "Gee, you're dumb."

I was reminded recently that I had told a relative NOT to teach my kids that fake "game." I'm still glad I asked that it not be done to them. The entirety of the rhyme, which has hand motions, was

"Look up. Look down.
Look all around.
Look at my thumb.
Gee, you're dumb."

I never wanted my kids to think for one joking moment that they were "dumb." I always stopped at the "look up" part, and life has looked up for all of us.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learn to love

A new unschooler wrote:
"I hate when people say that adhd isn't real."

Any unschooling parent who hates anything is at a disadvantage.

If an unschooling parent REALLY hates something, or five things, or ten, the spaces around those dark places will be harder to fill with wonder, joy and curiosity to learn.

SandraDodd.com/wonder

SandraDodd.com/joy

Hoping to begin unschooling while clinging to hatred isn't healthy physically, socially or philosophically.

SandraDodd.com/negativity
photo by Marty Dodd

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P.S. You don't need to learn to love everything, but learning to move toward neutrality from "hatred" (even using the term "I hate") WILL make a difference in parenting and unschooling.

Being merry and light

If a single, childless person wants to spend a LOT of energy being negative about school, cataloging school's ills, revealing and reviewing school damage, then that's a hobby.

If the parent of unschooled children wants to do that, I think the energy and emotion could be better and more positively spent being merry and light with children who are not in school.

No one can have everything. You can't store up and identify with cynicism, pessimism and self-righteous ire and still pour out joy and happiness to your family.


moving away from negativity about school
photo by Nicole Kenyon