At peace, at home

Today is different.

Well every day is different, but this week the world is trying to figure out how to pause and wait. This affects us all. Some people got quiet. Some ran around.


Two important jobs have fallen on parents. Distract children who might be afraid, or sick or restless. Needy children.


Find and share beauty and joy in familiar things—in things you can touch, hear, see, smell, taste, drink from, eat from, sit on, sleep on, tell stories about.

The links below go to previous posts that might help you be at peace, at home.

Live lightly with patience
Arts and sciences
History at your house

photos by Sandra Dodd

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(Note added in January 2022: The post above was written as the Covid-19 pandemic was being announced, in many places, and lockdowns were beginning.)

Intangible gifts

For many families, this can be a time of stress and love and joy and exhaustion and fear of failure, concerning procurement and presentation of food or presents.

Remember intangible gifts. Remember to be kind and quiet and sweet, around and through the sound and swirl. Be grateful and express your gratitude to others, for help, for health, for being, for smiles, and for love. Touch and speak gently.

Gifts
photo by Meghan Pawlowski
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Connections and thoughts

Remembering, considering, thinking, playing, resting—all of those are part of learning.

What a person thinks isn't as important as the thinking itself is.

Connections are being made.

Quiet idea-journeys
photo by Janine Davies
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A very peaceful quiet

Esther Maria Rest wrote:

At first I thought we should go out and do something somewhere today, to do some kind of 'activity', but then if I felt into what I really wanted it was just to spend time in the garden and with my boys, and they were fine with that. When we were all outside, one in the hammock, another one observing the frogs, and me weeding and planting I remarked on how quiet it is, and my oldest said, 'yes, but it is a very peaceful quiet'. And we all enjoyed our very peaceful, quiet day, studying what interests us, playing games, laughing, thinking, and just being quiet, together.

—Esther Maria Rest

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Lydia Koltai
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Nine Years of Adding Light

September 2 is Just Add Light and Stir's anniversary! Thank you for reading.

Nine was one of my favorite age, in childhood. I was able to do new and bigger things. I liked my teacher. I felt strong, and smart. If you have a nine-year-old child at your house, think of me. 😊

If your only or oldest child is younger than that, this blog will be filled with posts and photos you've never seen! Have fun. There is a randomizer, on the web version, upper right. If you usually read this on a phone, consider spending some time at a computer, where the format and colors are nicer, and there are resources in the sidebar.

Having forgotten I had written and scheduled the tasteful, quiet note above, I came in and worked long on the following fizzy-whizzy post. The one above is better, but I hate to throw all this out. So, BONUS! I'm sending both as one.

I didn't make a cake this year. 😊 It would have been a good year for it. I have a granddaughter who spent a lot of the summer learning to decorate cakes, but I didn't plan ahead.

Last year, on the 8th anniversary, there was a cake photo and I wrote "May the richness and riches of this trove of words and photos seep into your soul and give you sweet dreams and good ideas."

At the end of Year 7, I posted from the Free to Be conference, in Phoenix. There's a photo of me and some others there. I wrote, in part, "I hope some of the posts have helped you be patient, and to smile. Thanks for reading!"

For the sixth anniversary, in 2016, I confessed to having not noticed the fifth.

Fourth anniversary, another homemade cake. My shared message that day is still good:

"Thank you for looking, for reading, for thinking. Thank you for being a conduit for peaceful ideas."

By then there were way over 1000 posts. Somehow I hadn't projected very far out into the future. I do think more in words than in numbers. 😊

I didn't remember the third anniversary, but I made a post worth remembering. When I went to get the link, I stabilized and repaired the photo a bit too, so good! How will you be?
Second anniversary, I wrote "Thank you for reading, for trying these ideas at home, and for sharing them with your friends." I set up a gift exchange. I should do that again for the 10th anniversary! Postage outside the U.S. has become very expensive, though. I might need only flat gifts outside the U.S. I could probably do well with that, if I plan ahead, though! This cake, I bought:


On the first anniversary, I wrote about my methodology and concerns, and everything there is still true.

And the first post ever, about having created the blog at someone's request: The Very First Post, and why, September 2, 2010.

Best wishes to all readers, and to those who will randomly come across this in the future!

About Unschooling (site news)
photos by Sandra Dodd (photos are links)
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"I'm flying!"

Sometimes a child will tell you exactly what her thoughts are, and it can be a ton of fun. Other times, they might be thinking, wondering, dreaming, pretending, and it wouldn't be a good time to ask. Try to give them some privacy, in their imaginings, if they want it. If they want to share with you, then, consider it a special privilege.

on being more quiet...
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Exploring

Joyce wrote:

"Our role is to walk by their sides as they explore, not let them explore on their own. At times we need to hang back and be quiet so they can have the time and freedom to explore something that fascinates them. At times we need to share their enjoyment and be with them (even if it's the umpty gajillionth rerun of Spongebob Squarepants ;-) At times we need to point things out. At times we need to share the things we love. At times we need to take them to places they wouldn't know to explore."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/joyce/products
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Quiet depth and energy

Generally, parents and neighbors and friends tend to notice and maybe be impressed by a lot of noise and action and reaction. I'm happy to have learned, gradually, over the past 32+ years, that moving toward quiet acceptance and observation has more depth and energy and connection than a bunch of correction, direction and commentary, from parents to children.

in a discussion on Always Learning
photo by Chrissy Florence

Practice, quietly...

Sometimes parents talk too much.

Practice being quiet.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Robbie Prieto
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Ages and stages

Yesterday I bent over and picked an inch-tall tumbleweed sprout from a crack in a sidewalk. It was a tiny bit of community service.

The wind is blowing here, and all the big tumbleweeds will pass through chain link fences, or barbed wire, and scatter themselves into thousands of seeds. It happens every year.

A tiny baby hardly resembles adult forms, or the changes that take place in old folks. Where you are now is young compared to where you'll be later. Those changed old folks are always saying you will miss having those young children, and I found it to be true. It also irritated me for someone who was sleeping in a quiet, clean home to tell the baby-sticky, frazzled younger me that these were good days I would miss.

"Truth" is irritating, when we're sprouts, sprigs, teens, new parents, but just as the winds blow, people express the wisdom they gained as they aged and discovered that they missed having children in the house, as those other older older-folks had told them that they would.

"Results" (a half-random link)
tumbleweed photo by Holly Dodd
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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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There is another baby Kirby now, Kirby Athena Denise Dodd, born July 3, 2018. She's at our house three or four times a week, lately, and we help her see things, and help her sleep sometimes.

Stillness

One breath,
one pause,
one gaze...

A moment of stillness can make the next word or action more valuable.

Calm and quiet
photo by Gail Higgins
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Sparkly and joyful

Choices in an environment maintained with learning in mind are different from choices in a quiet, boring place. If I were a kid, my choice in a quiet, boring place would be to go to school.

Make your unschooling sparkly and joyful.


SandraDodd.com/schoolchoice (righthand box halfway down)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Like night and day

A rule that noise is okay at a park isn't as good as looking at the principles. Even in a park, time and place can be factors.

We met in a park with other families for years. Morning before lunch. LOTS of noise, sometimes staying longer, eating running, singing, rough-with-sand (if there weren't younger kids or kids who weren't with our group).



Keith and I also took our kids to parks after dark a few times, and swung them on swings to calm them down, and to have some fun in a cooler, quieter place after some big activity or other, or just for the fun of cold slides instead of the hot slides Albuquerque kids are used to. But we were helping them be quiet, snd screaming wouldn't have been good, in a residential neighborhood after dark. Yes, legally the park is open until 10:00 p.m. but "legal" isn't the only consideration.

Text (rearranged a bit) from SandraDodd.com/principles
photo by Kirby Dodd

Comforted, entertained, loved

Too many parents talk and talk to their kids, and ask them how they feel and ask them what they need.

Learn to guess. Learn to provide in advance. Food is good to practice with. Soft, clean cleared-off beds are good to practice with. Clearing off space for video gaming is nice. Soon you start to think about heat, softness, clean clothes, toothpaste before it runs out, favorite foods when you shop. And then people feel heard and comforted and entertained and loved.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Lydia Koltai

Looking, reading and logic

To say peace doesn't need quiet doesn't mean that all noise is peace. Quite a bit of understanding unschooling is looking at all your thoughts, and the things you read, with as much logic as you can gather up.

SandraDodd.com/peace/noisy
photo by Janine Davies

Real respect

Some people confuse respect and courtesy. Some people confuse nicey-niceness with respect. But real respect changes action and affects decisions.
. . . . Respect can be shown sometimes by being quiet. Sometimes it can be shown by thinking about what someone says and not dismissing it half-heard.

SandraDodd.com/respect/problems
photo by Holly Dodd
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Quiet focus

Moments of quiet focus, and photo evidence of those, are both a bit magical.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Ester Siroky
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Still

Still: quiet, calm; without motion, at rest, not moving from a place, not disturbed; moving little or gently; silent; not loud; secret; unchanging, undisturbed, stable, fixed; not vehement, gentle
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"Still" has meant those things for a thousand years. Longer. Still.

Be with your child, still.

Wiktionary is where I got the Old English definition
photo by Gail Higgins

A long, quiet time

If your purpose is just to be with your child, and relaxed, and have a chance to talk, go with something that's non-verbal and takes a long, quiet time.

SandraDodd.com/truckcomments
photo by Holly Dodd