Pressure-proof

Give your kids so much love and self-confidence that peer pressure will mean nothing to them. They will be pressure-proof.

Detox
photo by Holly Blossom

Adults, not children

Don't worry about them. Delete "socialization" from your vocabulary. Give your kids so much love and self-confidence that peer pressure will mean nothing to them. They will be pressure-proof.

You want to aim toward a happy, balanced, confident adult, not "a successful third grader." You're raising adults, not children. You're keeping them warm and alive and happy until they become adults, because they will, with or without you in the picture. We have the power to screw them up to the point of life-scarring, or to just give them some room and peace and security to grow well in. We can't very well make them be what they aren't.

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Kerrin Koetsier
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Without pressure, without shame

I believe that if children learn happily, without pressure and without shame, that they will continue to do so for the rest of their lives.

Why Radical Unschooling?
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Lessons and pressure won't help.

Each person who learns to read learns almost suddenly, at some point. It happens whether he's in school or not. Before that point, the words are scribbles. After that point, he sees a word and knows what it means, without sounding it out, without looking it up. The scribbles turn to words. . . . .
Before a child can read, He Cannot Read. Lessons and pressure won't help. It's not making sense yet. One day the marks become words, IF he has not been pressured and shamed, rushed and blamed.

Some Thoughts About Later Reading
photo by Andrea Quenneville

Playing with dolls

Holly was here today. She's 22 years old now. In this photo, she was 14 or so.

Today she was trying out a new basket, for the possibility of being a babydoll bed. She has a babydoll collection. She was carrying one of her favorites around while we were talking, and asked me seriously why, when she has had it out in public, people have reacted so oddly. The only acceptable answer seemed to be that she was taking a class of some sort, and needed to carry a baby doll. Otherwise, they didn't know how to respond.

I gave her some possible responses to use ("I really like it" or "He feels almost like a real baby" or something conversational), but the real answer was that there is often pressure on kids to stop playing with certain things at certain ages. Baby dolls, maybe by the time girls are eight or so. Boys even sooner (if they were allowed to play with a doll at all).

Holly grew up without much pressure to conform to arbitary age rules. I'm glad.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

No pressure

There was a question once about a resistant child.

Model trains, WWII, Japan—any obsession or "limited" interest touches on geography, history, materials, technology, cause and effect, human actors, religion, engineering, art, languages, all kinds of stuff.

The best thing an unschooled child can have is a parent who realizes there is learning in everything. As to "resist," it can only happen in response to force or pressure, right? Parents should resist pressuring their kids, I think.

SandraDodd.com/panel
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Means, encouragement, time and space

If the child is allowed to sit with mom or walk across the room, read or not read without pressure or fanfare, walk or not walk as he wishes, if his environment is kept comfortable (taking his personality, fears, needs into account when arranging his comfort) and if he has the means and encouragement and time and space to explore his ever-expanding world, he will learn.

SandraDodd.com/labels
photo by Sandra Dodd, at a tile museum in Lisbon
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How Many Days of What?

I think there should be 180 great days a year—parents should feel enough pressure that they have as many shiny show-off days as there would be school days. And that leaves 185-186 days per year for "doing nothing."

I don't think anyone should count, but if they feel like they're in a frenzy of doing too much, then that's too much. And if the mom is feeling like maybe she should do more, then she should do more.

Enough "great" that the mom feels like she provided greatness. And enough happy that the kid felt like it was good, too.

The "180" number came from the number of school days required by the State of New Mexico. YMMV.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bright and confident

I couldn't have predicted how easy it would be for them to learn to read starting with huge vocabularies, and without pressure and tests and measures. When they could read, they knew it because they started reading.

The symbols turned to language. When I started reading my vocabulary was very small, and the books we were reading didn't help that. I couldn't read anything outside of that first grade "reader," but the teacher told me I was reading.

Most people have never known a later reader who was bright and confident. I hadn't before I met unschoolers. Three fifths of my family now consists of people whose late reading was not detrimental, and I have made the acquaintance of many others like them.

SandraDodd.com/persephonics
photo by Sandra Dodd

Learning and peace

Peace and calm help learning. Stress and pressure never help learning. If you set your priority on learning and peace, it makes other questions easier.

Peace and calm
photo by Sandra Dodd

Temporary beauty

Be ready to discover temporary fragile beauty.

SandraDodd.com/pressure
photo by Sarah Dickinson
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Someday you might

We've used "someday you will" or "you just don't yet" about all kinds of things, from reading to caring about the opposite sex to foods. Holly doesn't like green chile yet. She figures she will ("When my taste buds die" she jokes), because her brothers didn't used to and now they do. Kirby lately started liking mushrooms. Marty still doesn't like spinach yet, but we haven't branded him "a spinach hater," and I don't think anyone should consider a child "a non-reader," just one who "doesn't read yet."

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I wrote that years ago. I would like to soften it. "Don't yet" isn't as nice (or as true) as "might someday."

They did all learn to read, and I was confident that they would. But spinach, mushrooms and green chile might not be anyone's eventual go-to foods. It can seem to be pressure to say "Someday you will" about some things, but "someday you might" makes sense.

SandraDodd.com/r/encouragement
photo by Sandra Dodd

Launching a child wildly (try not to)

With anything, if a family moves from rules (about food, freedoms, clocks, what to wear) to something new there's going to be the backlash, and thinking of catapults (or trebuchets, more technically, or of a rubber band airplane, or other crank-it-up projectile) the more pressure that's built up, the further that kid is going to launch if you let it go all at once.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
another nice photo of the Rio Grande by Holly Dodd
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Unschooling's "educational supplies"

Unschooling's "educational supplies" are often toys, or things that kids in school would not want or need, because they have it at school, or because it's not "age appropriate." School is processing kids through an assembly line, and there is pressure to accept and then abandon various interests. Unschooling has a whole different operating system.

SandraDodd.com/screwitup
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Flitting

It's worth looking into the concept of process vs. product. People learn from figuring out how things work. One doesn't need to build a computer just to mess with computer repair or examine parts. Someone can play with yarn and needles and do a simple scarf without being made to feel like a failure for having no interest in making sweaters and socks.

Unschooling is about learning, exploration, peace and love. It shouldn't be about pressure, shame and failure.

SandraDodd.com/flitting
photo by Megan Valnes
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Climbing mountains and baking pies

In response to someone saying her child would rather take the easy route than try something tough, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

It's human nature to avoid what we feel is a waste of time, energy and resources.
It's also human nature to pour energy into what we find fascinating.

If someone is made to climb a mountain, they'll find the easiest path, and perhaps even cheat.

If someone desires to climb a mountain, they may even make it more difficult—challenging—for themselves if the route doesn't light their fire.

If it were human nature to go the easy route, I wouldn't be sitting here writing out a response! No one would write a novel. No one would climb Mt. Everest. No one would bake a cherry pie from scratch. No one would have kids.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/pressure
Photo by Sandra Dodd, of Holly Dodd riding a steam train restored and largely operated by volunteers. The easy route would have been for them to stay home and read books and watch movies about trains.
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Launched too far

With anything, if a family moves from rules (about food, freedoms, clocks, what to wear) to something new there's going to be the backlash, and thinking of catapults (or trebuchets, more technically, or of a rubber band airplane, or other crank-it-up projectile vs ...) the more pressure that's built up, the further that kid is going to launch if you let it go all at once.

SandraDodd.com/gradualchange
photo by Holly Dodd
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Safe and fed and warm

Pam Sorooshian:

Learning requires a sense of safety.

Fear blocks learning. Shame and embarrassment, stress and anxiety—these block learning.

Principles of Unschooling

Sandra Dodd:

So don't pressure, coerce or confuse your children.

Smile and laugh and provide.

Keep them safe and fed and warm and they will grow all sorts of ways.

Principles of Learning (chat transcript)
photo by Belinda Dutch

Who they are, where they are

My children are different from most of their schooled friends. They are more like their fellow unschoolers. They are comfortable with people of many different ages, they are kindhearted, and tolerant. Because they haven’t been shamed and molded by school life and expectations and "peer pressure," they’re more willing to appear different without adding value to that appearance. Some schooled kids conform to become invisible, and some rebel to become visible, but my children are who they are, where they are, now. They’re not embarrassed about their interests or hobbies, they’re not afraid to wear used clothes, or to play with younger children, or to hang around with adults. Because they are respected, they are respectful.

SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Ravi Bharadwaj, of Marty and Zoya *
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Dabble and Play

When kids are playing games, musical instruments, with toys—any sort of play—it's good to remember that there is a range from just looking at the game pieces, or seeing how an instrument feels or sounds, all the way to longterm obsession.

Nowhere along that continuum is parental pressure helpful. Because you can't be sure what they're thinking or learning, try not to be thrilled or critical about the way they're playing.

What's Happening? (the problem with expectations)
photo by Sophie Larcher