Their unique needs

"It helps unschooling and mindful parenting to be aware of your kids and their unique needs rather than treating them as generic kids with all the worst possible traits."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/mindfulparenting
photo by Colleen Prieto
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Natural growth

An apple seed grows an apple tree. No person ever born knows more about how an apple tree should naturally grow than that apple seed, if it's left to grow naturally.

I'm old enough now that I've grown trees from transplanted saplings, and from seeds I planted myself. I cannot predict or control or affect what kind of tree it will become. What I can do is make sure it's watered and protected from damage by animals, foot traffic, and lawn mowers. If it has what it needs, it will grow as it should.

If a child has what she needs, she will grow as she should. I know how to mess a kid up, and have chosen to try not to do those things. I'm trying to let them grow as they should.

SandraDodd.com/musicroom
(Follow-up page for a 2009 conference)
photo by Amber Ivey
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Get witnesses

One suggestion for moving toward more peaceful parenting:

Get witnesses.That's one reason people join support groups and confess to their friends what they're doing, because you've told somebody what your intention is. You've told them what your problem is and what your intention is and now you have witnesses and for some people that helps. Sometimes it needs to be an imaginary witness, sometimes it needs to be a real witness. But maybe, if it will help you, imagine that the friend that you most want to impress is there and would you do it if they were there.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
photo by Sandra Dodd
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When a tree is growing...

Each tree grows from a single seed, and when a tree is growing in your yard what is the best thing you can do for it? You can nurture it and protect it, but measuring it doesn’t make it grow faster. Pulling it up to see how the roots are doing has never helped a tree a bit.

What helps is keeping animals from eating it or scratching its bark, making sure it has water, good soil, shade when it needs it and sun when it needs it, and letting its own growth unfold peacefully. It takes years, and you can’t rush it.

So it is with children. They need to be protected from physical and emotional harm. They need to have positive regard, food, shade and sun, things to see, hear, smell, taste and touch. They need someone to answer their questions and show them the world, which is as new to them as it was to us. Their growth can’t be rushed, but it can be enriched.

SandraDodd.com/growth
photo by Andrea Justice
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Another starting place

Don't do what you don't understand.

Q: Any gentle methods of a peaceful bedtime after not having one for a while? A: I think being honest and saying, "This isn't working. I took some bad advice. Your dad REALLY needs to sleep quietly, and I do too, so let's come up with a better plan..." would be the starting place. —Sandra Dodd

SandraDodd.com/sleep
photo by Lisa J Haugen

Can laundry be fun?

Any tiny moment can be enjoyed: the feel of warm running water when you wash your hands...

...Can laundry be fun? If you have to do laundry and you choose NOT to enjoy it, an hour or more of your precious hours on earth have been wasted. Can looking at your child bring you joy even when he needs a bath and has lost a shoe and hasn't lived up to some expectation that only exists in your mind? If not, a paradigm shift could help you both.

"Laundry is Love" (a new page!)
The quote above is on the new page, though it is from
Rejecting a Pre-Packaged Life (SandraDodd.com/joy)

photo by Cathy Koetsier

Investing your time

The question was: "When do you find time for yourself as an individual?"

My response, once:

When children are very young, their lives ARE the mother's life. The more time the mother spends with the child when he's young, the easier it will be for him to separate freely on his own. It goes against some of the assumptions of traditional parenting (although it might not in India, and my comments might be too western here), to suggest that fulfilling all of a child's needs will make him more INdependent, but when a child is needy and feels ignored, he will be more demanding, not less.

As my children got a little older, I found other families to trade time with. Their kids would play at my house while the mom shopped or something, and she would reciprocate. If a mother is encouraged to look for more and more time without her children, though, it can make her feel unhappy thinking she's doing something wrong and should "find herself." Rather than encourage mothers to feel they have lost their individuality, I've found that helping them become the sort of parents they're proud to be can make them feel much better than outside interests might have. As children get older, mothers have more time, until someday the children are grown. People say it and hear it all the time, I know, but when they're little it seems it will never happen, and when they're older, it seems it took no time at all.

The more people one's children know and trust, the easier it will be for the parents to find some separate time, but I don't think time apart should be a high priority.

The graph was created for this article:
SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely

"Mindset"

"Mindset" is an odd word, and not an old one.

If I've been listening to, talking about, singing or playing music for a few hours or days, I think in music more than usual.

When a long conversation about politics occurs, I might dream about those things. My brain needs to shake itself loose and re-set.

Twice this week I have played a card game called "Blink" with young grandkids, two different sets of them. With no numerals or words, cards are played to match by number, color, or shape.

When I was looking for a photo for Just Add Light, I saw this one and thought One; black; bird. Round; red.

It reminded me sweetly of four children who are, this week, five, four, three and two years old.

If mindsets can be affected and changed, try to lean toward music and laughter when you have the option.

SandraDodd.com/positivity
photo by Sandra Dodd

Explore the world

"Children will flourish if their needs are joyfully met as they explore the world. Creatively support your child in what he's genuinely interested in."

—Debbie Regan

Sometimes they're exploring imaginary worlds.

SandraDodd.com/teaching/problem
photo by Abby Davis
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Good life; less needy

"Parents who do make meeting their children's needs a higher priority will find that life is good and they, often unexpectedly, find that they are, themselves, less needy when they feel like really good parents."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/priorities
Halloween photo by Lydia Koltai

What is needed?

There is personal growth in quietly providing what is needed. The world is made better by those who notice and attend to needs.

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Gail Higgins

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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Empowering Others

Helping people learn to find their own answers is vastly superior to distributing answers on demand. . . .
Empowerment is a principle, not a rule. Learning to examine one's own life and needs and beliefs is necessary for unschooling to work.

These quotes were about unschoolers helping other unschoolers, but the ideas work with parents and children, too. SandraDodd.com/rulebound

Younger Keith Dodd and his baby Kirby
photo by Sandra Dodd

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Totally lifted from September 20, 2010
so that I can go back to bed to recuperate from a long, hard week.

Solid and reliable

Integrity is a strong wholeness. The fabric of the being of a thing can't be broken. A bucket with one hole in it is lacking integrity. It's not a good bucket. A frayed rope lacks integrity. No matter how long or strong the rest of the rope is, that frayed part keeps it from being a good rope.. . . .

It's exactly why every person who hopes to have a positive influence on any other person needs to figure out how to find and maintain as much integrity as possible.

SandraDodd.com/integrity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't count, don't measure

Don't divide anything "fifty/fifty." Forget that concept. Give what you have. Do all you can do. Give/do 80% when you can, but only measure it vaguely, at a squint, and then forget about it. If you aim for half, there will be resentments. If you aim for 100%, small failures will seem larger than they need to be, so don't do that. You can succeed at "lots" without measuring.

If each of you gives as much as you can, your shared needs will be fulfilled more quickly, more easily, and more often.


That was advice sent to our friend Sadie, for her bridal shower. It works for roommates and other dyads, too. I quoted it here: SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Lisa Jonick

Embracing and supporting

Colleen Prieto wrote:

"For me I think the biggest applications of unschooling in terms of my marriage are the ideas of embracing and supporting other people's passions and interests—not just my child's, but my husband's too. And accepting people for who they are, not trying or wanting to change them or 'fix' them. Valuing everyone in our family for who they are and working together to meet everyone's needs. Unschooling is good for marriages."

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Joyce Fetteroll, of Marta's family
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Color and light

Physically, visually, emotionally, metaphorically, and in the sound and feel of the words we use, our days are prismatic, moving collections of brightness and shadow, of sharpness and smooth curves. We hear sweet, soft music sometimes, and loud, rough, noisy sorts before long.

When a baby needs to be entertained, you might clap, or dance, or make funny mouth noises. If a child is sleepy, don't do those things. Rock, and hum and touch softly, through cloth maybe.

All these contrasts and changes can be appreciated, and picked through to choose the best for the purpose, the most useful for the moment. Keep the sharp, dangerous things in safe places, and remember that the light and mood will change on their own, in various ways.



SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Holly Dodd

When? Maybe not.

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

We can't always fix everything for our kids or save them from every hurt. It can be a delicate balancing act—when should we intervene, when should we stay out of the way? Empathy goes a long long way and may often be all your child needs or wants. Be available to offer more, but let your child be your guide. Maybe your child wants guidance, ideas, support, or intervention. Maybe not. Sometimes the best thing you can offer is distraction.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Like nothing else

If a parent can learn how to "facilitate learning"—to help a child get what he needs or wants—rather than to direct or try to own it, all of unschooling goes better. And if a child learns to read without "reading instruction," that can open the world up like nothing else can.

SandraDodd.com/r/deeper
photo by Alicia Gonzalez-Lopez
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Food and its purpose

[When my children were little...] I always put the kids' needs ahead of dinner. Dinner happened after or around nursing babies and such.

You might have to do away with the idea of a peaceful mealtime for a few years. Maybe re-thinking meals would be the way to go.

I think it helps rather than to live by the idealized traditional model of dinner at 6:00, all at their seats, dinner conversation that could be reported to the media as an ideal mix of news of the day and philosophy, etc, to think of food and its purpose. People need to be nourished physically and it's uncomfortable to go to sleep hungry. THAT is the purpose of evening food, not the appearance of a well-organized dinner.

SandraDodd.com/eating/dinner
photo by Sandra Dodd, of one of the former Dodd babies