What if a parent is afraid?

Part of my response to a request for advice to fearful parents:

Turn away from the school and look directly at your children. Look at them as individuals, rather than as students, or third graders or eight-year-olds. Look at their potential, their interests, their sweetness, and find ways to preserve and nurture those.
. . .

Don't do school. Do life as though school didn't exist. Live to learn; learn to live. If after really trying it as hard and as honestly and fully as you can for an extended period of time you can't get it to work, then you can always go back to a curriculum.

School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Sandra Dodd

High, low or average... (Don't ask.)

Of all the things I believe strongly, one that has changed my life as profoundly as any one other belief is my personal knowledge that test scores can and do (can't fail to) affect the treatment a child receives at his parents' hands. High scores, low scores, average scores—no matter. Parents cease to treat the child as his original, known self and color him soul deep with that number.

My life would have been different. My husband's life would have been different, without those 5th and 8th grade ITBS scores. I venture to say without even knowing who is reading this that your life would have been different, and specifically I believe your life would have been better, had not you been branded with a number on your "permanent record" (there's a big mean scary joke, the "permanence" and important parts) as a young innocent ten or thirteen year old full of potential, at some unknown point on a learning curve that might soon be at its settled-out level, or might just be beginning.

SandraDodd.com/testing/tests
photo by Sandra Dodd
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What if a parent is afraid?

Part of my response to a request for advice to fearful parents:

Turn away from the school and look directly at your children. Look at them as individuals, rather than as students, or third graders or eight-year-olds. Look at their potential, their interests, their sweetness, and find ways to preserve and nurture those.
. . .

Don't do school. Do life as though school didn't exist. Live to learn; learn to live. If after really trying it as hard and as honestly and fully as you can for an extended period of time you can't get it to work, then you can always go back to a curriculum.

School has already taken twelve or more years of your freedom and individuality. You don't have to let it take your adult life as well. You don't have to let it have your child.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Goals

I wrote this in 1996, when my children were 9, 7 and 4.
As I'm posting it today, they are 25, 22 and 19.
So far so good.


Here are my goals for my children: I want them to learn something every day. I want them to greet the morning with joy. I want them to see strangers as potential friends. I want their lives to be adventures without a map, where there are innumerable destinations, and unlimited opportunities for “success.” I want their definition of success to include things they can see all around them, not just in Washington, not just at medical conventions, or the Olympics. I want them to wake up, look out the window, and be glad of the view. I want them to be content with their choices and their abilities. I want them to be realistic about goals and philosophical about failure. I want them to be happy.

SandraDodd.com/president
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sparkly and wonderful newness

Part of what makes something sparkly and wonderful is the observer being new to it and seeing it as a giant wall of glory and potential.

Be patient and understanding if your child is growing tired or more cynical about an interest or pursuit.

When unschooling isn't as new, it can begin to dull for the parent. Find what you can see as new and sparkly, in your child and his interests.

The first paragraph is a quote from the Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions chat.
photo by Kinsey Norris

A respected child

I really believe unschooling works best when parents trust a child's personhood, his intelligence, his instincts, his potential to be mature and calm. Take any of that away, and the child becomes smaller and powerless to some degree.

Give them power and respect, and they become respected and powerful.


This is a good one to read in context: How to Raise a Respected Child
photo by Sandra Dodd

Funding future learning

If a child isn't interested in college, the parents shouldn't do the happy "we won't have to pay for college!" dance without considering whether there are other ways a portion of that college savings or loan potential could be applied to helping the child toward learning and experiences they couldn't have partaken in as younger children, and which might also lead to a career.

If your child wants a camera or art supplies, a musical instrument or skis or a better computer, don't see it as a toy, but as a tool and as an entrée into a community of people from whom they can learn more.

from the "Interesting Alternatives to College" section of
The Big Book of Unschooling, page 304 (263 of first edition)
photo by Chelsea Thurman

Dads and unschooling

Usually moms find unschooling first, and understand it more easily than dads do. It does happen, though, that if and when a dad does find his way to appreciate the potential of unschooling, he can surpass the mom's understanding in no time.

What can help? Patience on the mom's part. No ultimatum. Ease in lovingly. Seeing other dads with their unschooled children has helped many, many fathers see a kind of relationship they had never imagined.

See words and images of dads here: SandraDodd.com/dads
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't be schooly or schoolish.

Paul McCartney was doing okay musically without knowing musical notation.

---

I would hate to even start to imagine how many potential musicians just turned away from the idea of singing or playing instruments because they were pressed to learn music theory and notation at a young age.

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They can just learn. That’s what unschooling is about.

Take away the school, the school language and practices and expectations.

And all that’s left is the learning.

Don’t be schooly or schoolish.

Be UN schoolish.

Chat with Sandra Dodd on Mommy Chats, 4/25/07
photo by Marty Dodd, of a jack-o-lantern he started, and let squirrels finish

Be aware

BE AWARE of who this child is and of your potential to help or to harm.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Sarah Dickinson

High, low or average... (Don't ask.)

Of all the things I believe strongly, one that has changed my life as profoundly as any one other belief is my personal knowledge that test scores can and do (can't fail to) affect the treatment a child receives at his parents' hands. High scores, low scores, average scores—no matter. Parents cease to treat the child as his original, known self and color him soul deep with that number.

My life would have been different. My husband's life would have been different, without those 5th and 8th grade ITBS scores. I venture to say without even knowing who is reading this that your life would have been different, and specifically I believe your life would have been better, had not you been branded with a number on your "permanent record" (there's a big mean scary joke, the "permanence" and important parts) as a young innocent ten or thirteen year old full of potential, at some unknown point on a learning curve that might soon be at its settled-out level, or might just be beginning.

SandraDodd.com/testing/tests
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Finding yourself with your children

Being where you are, in a mindful way, with the potential and the tools to be still and know it, is the portal to a better life. Call it what you want to, finding yourself with your children will put you in a good place.



Finding
yourself
with
✵

---

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Five solid tools

Alex Arnott wrote:

Principles of unschooling that have helped me relate differently with my own highly active nervous system:

1. expanding awareness to include all the joy life offers rather than zooming in on the negative;
2. developing a habit of questioning the assumptions my mind make about potential dangers...learning not to take all my thoughts so seriously all the time;
3. developing mindfulness to slow down when my mind feels chaotic so I can reconnect with my values which in turn helps create the condition to make better choices;
4. learning the joy and privilege of being of service to others...I cannot overstate how vital this has been for my mental health. It’s helped me reconnect to others in meaningful ways;
5. deliberately choosing love, which is a wonderful antidote to fear/anger.

These are just a few examples of what’s helped me learn how to be solid in the face of anxious personality traits.

—Alex Arnott

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Karen James

How much time do you have?

Sometimes people say to me, "You're patient with your own children but pushy with unschooling parents." I don't go door to door asking people if they know about unschooling, and whether they'd like to know more. If they come where I already am, though, I might press. And when I do, it's because of the possibility that they will run out of time.

My kids have their whole lives to memorize 7x8 if they want to.

The mother of a twelve year old has VERY little time if she wants to help her child recover from school and spend a few unschooling years with him before he's grown and gone. She doesn't have time to ease into it gradually. If she stalls, he'll be fifteen or sixteen and it just won't happen.

If the mother of a five year old is trying to decide how much reading instruction and math drill to continue with before she switches to unschooling, I would rather press her to decide toward "none," because "some" is damaging to the child's potential to learn it joyfully and discover it on his own. And "lots" will only hurt that much more. "None" can still be turned to "some" if the parent can't get unschooling. But if she doesn't even try unschooling, she misses forever the opportunity to see that child learn to read gradually and naturally. It will be gone forever.
Forever.

That's why I don't say, "Gosh, I'm sure whatever you're doing is fine, and if you want to unschool you can come to it gradually at your own pace. No hurry."

SandraDodd.com/schoolinmyhead
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Access to tools

Karen James wrote:

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude for the many gifts in my life has taken me from a place of hopelessness in my mind, to one of abundant possibilities. Because my life *looks* more abundant to me, every moment holds more potential. That doesn't mean my life is all wonderful and easy. It does mean that I have access to more emotional, creative, and intellectual tools to help me move toward the kind of life I want for myself and my family.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Amy Milstein

Making the world better

"The longer I live the more convinced I am that the way children are parented/raised has the greatest potential for changing the world. Raising whole, healthy people makes the world better."

—Brie Jontry

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Interesting and good

From 2002:

One of my favorite things about my kids, and what makes unschooling easy with them, is that they're not cynical or critical about the interests of others in the family, or of the neighbors, or of their friends. They assume that everything has the potential to be interesting and good.

SandraDodd.com/halfempty
photo by Sandra Dodd
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So many paths

I love the potential in this photo. There is too much to explore, but the options are up, down, through, around. It reminds me that we live in the moment that connects the past and the future.

The world is too big for anyone to see everything. History will never all be discovered or known. The best we can do for ourselves and our children is to view their surroundings with wonder and curiosity. We can help them experience small things and large, old things and new.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sukayna
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Actual paths, and other choices

I love the potential in this photo. There is too much to explore, but the options are up, down, through, around. It reminds me that we live in the moment that connects the past and the future.

The world is too big for anyone to see everything. History will never all be discovered or known. The best we can do for ourselves and our children is to view their surroundings with wonder and curiosity. We can help them experience small things and large, old things and new.

SandraDodd.com/decisions
photo by Sukayna
___

Finding yourself with your children

Being where you are, in a mindful way, with the potential and the tools to be still and know it, is the portal to a better life. Call it what you want to, finding yourself with your children will put you in a good place.



Finding
yourself
with
✵

---

SandraDodd.com/being/healing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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