Abundance

Abundance in one person provides benefits for others. A child with all the trust he needs can trust others. A child with all the time he needs can share that time with others. One who has freedom won't begrudge freedom in others.

Most people have never known a kid who has experienced true abundance. Most have never met a child who had been given a full measure of respect, so that the child was respected (already) and full of respect (respectful). It is easy to respect someone who has that respect already, and who has so much that he can spread it around to others.

from "How to Raise a Respected Child"
https://sandradodd.com/respect/dodd

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
__

Respect

Karen James:

Your kids will learn to respect you when they come to understand from experience what respect feels like to them.

Sandra Dodd:

It can't happen all at once, but without taking the first steps, and the next, it will never happen.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Amber Ivey
__

Only a child?

"Respect" is not a light thing. It's not easy to respect your child, when it's new to you. There will be people encouraging you to see your child as "just a kid," and "only a child." Think of adults you respect, and think of them as ten years old, four years old, two, newborn. They were those people from birth. There was a newborn Mohandas Gandhi; a four-year-old Abraham Lincoln; an eight-year-old Oprah Winfrey; a twelve-year-old Winston Churchill.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)

"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil

True freedom and snake oil

Freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.


from page 220 (or 255) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
_

"Snake oil" might not be an internationally-known term, so here's this: Snake oil

Only a child?

"Respect" is not a light thing. It's not easy to respect your child, when it's new to you. There will be people encouraging you to see your child as "just a kid," and "only a child." Think of adults you respect, and think of them as ten years old, four years old, two, newborn. They were those people from birth. There was a newborn Mohandas Gandhi; a four-year-old Abraham Lincoln; an eight-year-old Oprah Winfrey; a twelve-year-old Winston Churchill.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Finding abundance

Neediness expresses itself differently with different kids. Abundance expresses itself similarly in all.

A family can learn to find abundance rather than lack, even if they're not wealthy.

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Plain and good

Plain milk tastes WAY better if it's your choice than it does when it's plain because someone else wouldn't let you put chocolate in it. Without free choice, how can a person choose what is plain and good?

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
(I painted the stripey glaze;
Holly did the spots in the same colors,
when she was four or five.)

Find abundance

Neediness expresses itself differently with different kids. Abundance expresses itself similarly in all.

A family can learn to find abundance rather than lack, even if they're not wealthy.

SandraDodd.com/respect/dodd
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Respect and acceptance

Respect and acceptance are more important than test scores and "performance." Understanding is more important than recitation.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Respect and admiration

On the topic of learning courtesy and responsibility from video games:

When a more experienced player helps a newer player, that rarely has to do with age. When an adult can take advice and assistance from a kid, or a teen can take advice from a young child, that's an all-new opportunity for humility, respect and courtesy, all three of which are lacking in many lives.

People have long valued the character-building sportsmanship and integrity involved in athletic games. "You never really know a man until you've played golf with him," I've heard. Tennis courts, swimming pools, public greens and sports fields all have rules and traditions.

Multi-player games provide opportunities to practice, improve and use one's interpersonal skills in many ways, with a chance to earn real-world respect and admiration.
from page 55 of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Perspective, attitude, emotion

I love my children and think they're really important, and that it is part of my privilege to be their mom and to introduce them to the fun and interesting parts of the world, and I hold them in esteem. They are of higher value to me than other things and other people. That isn't respect they had to earn. But it's emotional and it's attitudinal, and it's relative to me. —Sandra Dodd, in 2010

This and a bit more, near the bottom of a page on respect.
photo by Sandra Dodd (sprouts growing in my kitchen recently)

Honest, attentive and reliable

Quote & reply quote:

Trust is a more useful word. Over time, kids develop a sense of whether or not parents are trustworthy sources of information and assistance."

—Meredith Meredith

"Good point. And very often, parents 'demand respect' without any idea that they need to earn it. For a child to trust a parent, the parent needs to be worthy of trust—trustworthy. Trustable. Then after many years of being honest and attentive and reliable, the children will respect them. Because they're respectable."

—Sandra Dodd

The originals are here, a few comments down, in a brief, good discussion on facebook. De Flowers saved and shared the part above in 2014.
photo by Tessa Onderwater
__

Trust and respect

I hope you find some unschoolers you can trust and respect to help you through the rough spots if you have any, and to share your joys and successes. I know that some of you will become trusted and respected helpers for future unschoolers.

Thank you for the honesty and clarity you might bring to the lives of others now and in years to come.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 242 (or 282),
which links to SandraDodd.com/integrity

photo by Holly Dodd

It's all information

Respect trivia.

For school kids, "trivia" means "won't be on the test."

In the absence of tests, where all of life is learning, there IS no "trivia." There is only information.

Principles of Learning (chat transcript)
photo by Sandra Dodd, of tile in Austin
__

Understanding is more important.

Respect and acceptance are more important than test scores and "performance." Understanding is more important than recitation.

page 72, The Big Book of Unschooling (79 in new edition)
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Who you Are

How do you apportion your patience, attention, courtesy, time, money, material help, respect?

Those sorts of decisions make you who you are.

SandraDodd.com/eyecontact
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Bigger, wiser, more whole

Giving children choices helps create a partnership, it helps them learn, it makes them bigger, wiser, more whole.

Pulling them out or pushing them into things keeps them smaller and more powerless.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd

Whole people, now

Your children are not works in progress. They are whole people, now and from the day they were born. If you can try to see that, rather than think people are not finished until they're finished, it might help you.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Adam Daniel picking out a souvenir shirt
at the Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque
__