Happy and safe

With my kids, it was a posture I took, partly physical, partly mental, in which I accepted and recognized that I had the power to make them unhappy, and the easy ability to allow them to be in danger (from me, in part) if I wasn't really mindful and careful to focus on their safety, comfort and joy.

Some of the same relatives and friends who were greatly in favor of my partnership with Keith seemed critical of our kindness to our children. There is a wide stripe of anti-child tradition in the world. I didn't treat my child as a real person. I acknowledged from the beginning that he WAS a real person. I recognized and nurtured his wholeness and tried not to screw him up. I became his partner, rather than acting like his partner or "treating him" as a partner. It's not just semantics, though it is semantics. It's about the power of words to show, affect and clarify thought and belief.

An idea, expressed in words, changed my life. "Be your child's partner, not his adversary."

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Julie D

Be your child's partner

Be your child's partner, not his adversary.

No child or spouse needs to go through life unsupported, because he has a partner! Maybe more than one. If a child can depend on a parent (maybe two, and maybe a sibling or friend) to help him navigate the world, he won't feel helpless or lonely.



SandraDodd.com/partners/child
Holly photo

Love

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Look at your kids. Really look at them and see who *they* are and not who you want them to be. Get to know them. Be nice to them. Nicer than nice. Be kind to them. Love them and kiss them and hug them and Be with them. Play with them. Listen to them. Talk with them, not to them. Be patient and calm.

Love your spouse or partner, if you have one. Be kind and nice and patient with your spouse or partner too. Love them and hug them and see who they really are without trying to make them who you want them to be.

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/colleenprieto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Become a better partner

Because you become a better partner, that partnership works better.

Partners
photo by Sandra Dodd; carving by Keith Dodd

Attentive parenting

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

What we're advocating is paying very very close attention to our children—the opposite of what people usually think of as "permissive" parenting. This could be called "Attentive Parenting"—observe, learn all you can about your children, listen carefully to them, anticipate their wants and needs, strive to be their partner—their adult partner who knows a lot and has a lot of resources and is THERE for them. Help them be the best they can be.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/attentiveparenting
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp Saran
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A certain flow or rhythm

Aiden Kathleen Wagner wrote:

"I think as you listen and try to partner with your child, you will find a certain flow or rhythm....

"I think what most children crave far more than routine is to be able to feel that their physical and emotional needs are going to be met in a timely and appropriate manner. Where there is not communication and awareness, they may cling to routine as the only way of making sure those needs are met, but when you are trying to listen and understand and be a partner, routines have the possibility of becoming a roadblock to a better relationship."

—Aiden Kathleen Wagner

From a discussion on Radical Unschooling Info in March, 2013
photo by Julie D
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A better partner

Because you become a better partner, that partnership works better.

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd; carving by Keith Dodd
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Really look

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Look at your kids. Really look at them and see who *they* are and not who you want them to be. Get to know them. Be nice to them. Nicer than nice. Be kind to them. Love them and kiss them and hug them and Be with them. Play with them. Listen to them. Talk with them, not to them. Be patient and calm.

Love your spouse or partner, if you have one. Be kind and nice and patient with your spouse or partner too. Love them and hug them and see who they really are without trying to make them who you want them to be.

—Colleen Prieto

Practice watching
photo by Chrissy Florence
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Safety, comfort and joy

I don't treat my children as partners. I was, from the time they were babies, partnered with them. I was the older, more experienced, more responsible partner. I protected our team, which often meant I sheltered them from things that would have upset them or that they didn't care anything in the world about. I've done that for my husband, too, who's been my official legal partner since 1984 when we declared our partnership in front of relatives and friends, God and the State of New Mexico.

With my kids, it was a posture I took, partly physical, partly mental, in which I accepted and recognized that I had the power to make them unhappy, and the easy ability to allow them to be in danger (from me, in part) if I wasn't really mindful and careful to focus on their safety, comfort and joy.

"Partners," examined
Photo by my friend Annaliese, with my camera, in 1998, for sending to Keith who was working 1200 miles away. Click it to enlarge, and to read more about those kids, those days.

Learn and be an example

Colleen Prieto wrote:

Realize your unschooling life and someone else’s unschooling life won’t look exactly just the same, and that’s because your kids and their kids, your partner and their partner, your house and their house, your interests and their interests… they’re not the same either. But still read, talk, and think about what you are doing, and listen to what others are doing. Learn from the example of people who have been there/done that, and be an example for those who will come after you on the unschooling path.

—Colleen Prieto

From Colleen's writings at the bottom here: SandraDodd.com/video/doright
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Lovable and respectable

(Warning people away from "unconditional love," I wrote:)

Probably the idea started, in the 1950’s, with Carl Rogers’ phrase "unconditional positive regard."

If you’re a big fan of "unconditional love," consider backing it back to "unconditional positive regard" to help clarify and ground you for the real world.

Unconditional Positive Regard (at wikipedia)

Also, try to respect your male partner if you have one. He’s probably doing some good for you even if it seems like he’s not giving you unconditional love. And the difference between "love" and "respect" is about language anyway. Try to be lovable AND respectable, whether or not you have a partner or an audience, because it makes you a better person. Try to be trustworthy and dependable.

Being a better person will make you a better parent.

“Deserve” is a problem.

The SandraDodd.com/deserve link followed that, but the quote is from a longer post, "Love and Respect," in the archives
photo by Janine Davies

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Note to clarify, years later: I think that in a long-established relationship with any other adult, raising children, that love and respect are intertwined. Biochemically, in more youthful people who are "in love," that has a reality beyond and apart from respect. In the context of the topic from which that was taken, it's clearer.

The Wikipedia article has been amended, in the past few years, to credit Stanley Standal with the concept, and the phrase "positive regard" (for therapists).

More or less

The more you do for children, the less needy they will be.

(When your choice is "more or less," go with more.)

Being your child's PARTNER, not his adversary:
SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sarah Elizabeth
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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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Slight shifts

Unschooling is more like a dance between partners who are so perfectly in synch with each other that it is hard to tell who is leading. The partners are sensitive to each others' little indications, little movements, slight shifts and they respond. Sometimes one leads and sometimes the other.

—Pam Sorooshian

Being your child's PARTNER, not his adversary
photo by Sandra Dodd

Going forward

Janine Davies wrote:

Respectful parenting and parenting for social change is where my main focus is now, and of course radical unschooling is all those things and more. For me, that all begins and ends with being a good mum in the eyes and minds of my children, and going forward being remembered as a kind respectful and happy mum—someone they could trust implicitly, and who was their partner and friend.

Hopefully they will then carry that forward to how they treat their children, regardless of what the current trend is, or fears they have, or the current scaremongering circulating. Even if they don't have children of their own, my hope is that they treat and speak to all children that they come in contact with throughout their lives with the same respect and kindness that they afford their partners and friends, and that they treat them like the people they are.

—Janine Davies

SandraDodd.com/janine/success
photo by Jihong Tang
(her son's painting, left)

The benefit of untangling

Any parent with unresolved childhood trauma might want to gradually start untangling those memories for the benefit of your children, of yourself, of your partner, of your family, and in order for unschooling to work well.

Untangling
photo by Alex Polikowsky

Partners in growth

"It's much better to be their partner than their roadblock. If you become an obstacle they'll find a way around you. Is that what you want for your relationship with your kids?"

—Joyce Fetteroll,
Unschooling Basics,
June 2008

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Jo Isaac
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A quiet, soft place

What kind of partner did baby Kirby Dodd need? He needed someone to pay attention to him if he was uncomfortable, and to make sure he was safe. He needed someone to help him access the world, to see it, to experience it safely. He needed a quiet, soft place to sleep. Maybe it was on me or on his dad, in a carrier of some sort, or a sling. Maybe it was right next to me in the bed.

SandraDodd.com/babies/infants
photo by Sandra Dodd, of art on the wall outside Bhava Yoga, in Albuquerque
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Roadblock

"It's much better to be their partner than their roadblock. If you become an obstacle they'll find a way around you. Is that what you want for your relationship with your kids?"

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/partners/child
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Succesful and happy

"In my mind, partnering with kids isn't about having them be In Charge—and it isn't about having parents be In Charge—it's working together, with the more experienced partner (the parent) taking the initiative to help days (and nights!) be successful and happy."

—Colleen Prieto

Child-led? Problem...

Who's in Charge?
photo by Sandra Dodd
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