Happy monkey

I went to the grocery store alone. It was crowded and people were moving fast, but were calm and smiling. I saw three young children. Their relatives were being very sweet to all of them. In other families, older kids were being helpful.

On the way to my van, a man who was 35 or 40 was happily riding the back of his shopping cart down the hill toward his car, with the wind blowing his hair.

On the way home, I thought of the cutest thing I had heard. A young mom had been holding a toddler, and he said something and touched her mouth. She said, "Monkey?"

He indicated that she was right.

"You're a monkey?"

"Happy," he said.

"You're a happy monkey? Happy monkey!"

And he was. He was very happy.

So easily, we can tip two degrees over into the sorrows and fears of the world. Without trying, we can fall into a pool of despair and take our friends and families down with us.

Not everyone can be happy today, but if your child is whole and well, for one moment or for ten do your part to help him be as happy a monkey as he can be.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude/health
photo by Julie D
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For one moment, or ten...

This post is from April 2013. It was called "Happy Monkey," the first time. It's a good time for a re-run.

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I went to the grocery store alone. It was crowded and people were moving fast, but were calm and smiling. I saw three young children. Their relatives were being very sweet to all of them. In other families, older kids were being helpful.

On the way to my van, a man who was 35 or 40 was happily riding the back of his shopping cart down the hill toward his car, with the wind blowing his hair.

On the way home, I thought of the cutest thing I had heard. A young mom had been holding a toddler, and he said something and touched her mouth. She said, "Monkey?"

He indicated that she was right.

"You're a monkey?"

"Happy," he said.

"You're a happy monkey? Happy monkey!"

And he was. He was very happy.

So easily, we can tip two degrees over into the sorrows and fears of the world. Without trying, we can fall into a pool of despair and take our friends and families down with us.

Not everyone can be happy today, but if your child is whole and well, for one moment or for ten do your part to help him be as happy a monkey as he can be.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude/health
photo by Julie D
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Touching, playing, learning

Toddlers touch things. That's learning. New experiences and opportunities help them to learn. They're learning while they're holding new things, playing with water, or rocks, or feeling the air on their wet hands, and the mud on their feet

When they feel the touch of parental encouragement and approval, they learn from that, too.

Toddlers in other posts
photo by Roya Dedeaux

A toddler's whim

Dawn Todd wrote:

Whim is such a dismissive word.

A toddler's "whim" is their urge to explore and understand! One of my greatest joys as a parent is being able to facilitate that!

—Dawn Todd

(Original)
photo by Lydia Koltai

Looking at whole lives

People live all over the world, and each life is different. Some people have horses, while others don't. Some can see the ocean every day; some never will. Some know all about snow, and others can't really imagine it.

We don't know in advance how lives will flow and grow, even while we're living in that flow.

Looking too closely for too long can bring frustration. "We had a meal today without vegetables, Oh NO!" or "This toddler didn't nap, and so Oh NO!" Look back at those in a week or a year, or in thirty years, and the diet will have averaged out, and the toddler will have slept.

Looking at details is good, but once in a while, take a long view of the lives of your grandparents, neighbors, friends, even maybe fictional characters. Sometimes the details dissolve into history, or are fleeting, or can be smiled away.

Find peace and hope in everyday ways.

Perspective
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Hold on principle

Instead of having a rule that kids had to hold my hand in a parking lot, I would park near a cart and put some kids in right away, or tell them to hold on to the cart (a.k.a. "help me push", so a kid can be between me and the cart). And they didn't have to hold a hand. There weren't enough hands. I'd say "Hold on to something," and it might be my jacket, or the strap of the snugli, or the backpack, or something.

Toddlers
photo by Gail Higgins

Shapes and meanings

Toddlers want to name things. They're learning words. This picture might show a circle and a square.

For an older child, thoughts might be about "window" or port hole or whether it's still a window if you can't see through it.

Some adults might think about materials or purposes, and others about what plant is portrayed and why.

Things are seen at different levels and depths by different people in different circumstances. Connections are made to prior imagery and knowledge in each viewer. Thoughts of what something is or isn't, and ideas about what it is like or unlike, are the thoughts learning is made of.

That's how learning works.

Connections: How Learning Works
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Touch and calm presence

The more touch and calm presence parents can give a baby, the better, and if they can maintain that as children get older, it might turn into unschooling.

Quote matches Infants, Babies, Toddlers—source material for German translation of some of my writing published March 2018 as Sei ihr Partner, nicht ihr Gegner

photo by Ashlee Dodd
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Quietly and gently play

Jigsaw puzzles are wonderful, and you can get them at yard sales and thrift stores for less than a dollar. Greeting cards cost $2 now, but you can get a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for 50 cents and so what does it matter if it might have a piece or three missing? Cheaper than a greeting card. Work it and throw it away.

While you’re working it, the picture on the box will inspire questions, stories, ideas, tangents. The shapes of the pieces will remind people of other connections in their lives. Except for those toddlers who eat puzzle pieces, puzzles can involve people of all ages together. There are some on the market now with big pieces at one end, medium in the middle, and small for the rest. Some bright parent thought THAT up. They’ll be coming soon to a yard sale near you.


SandraDodd.com/truck
That was written in 1999; greeting cards can be $4 and $5 now, and used puzzles might be $2.

image by Sandra Dodd, made with a scanner (pieces set face down)
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Be gentle

"Gentle. Gentle with infants. Gentle with toddlers. Gentle with little girls. Gentle with little boys. Gentle with stinky 12 year old boys. Gentle with pubescent girls. Gentle with teenagers. Gentle with young adults. Gentle with oneself, and one's spouse or partner or friends and relatives. But strong. And sure. Passionate, but not a bully. And the possible results of all that (...): Joy, improved relationships, trust and confidence, not just for the mom, but for each member of the family and for the family as a whole."

—Sandra Dodd

Marta saved that quote and shared it in 2011. I don't know where it came from.

Babies
photo by Gail Higgins

Kids' stuff, and sunrise

At the age of eleven, Holly has had very little exposure to the idea of what is kids' stuff and what is not, and so her television and movie tastes are personal and calm. She will watch Teletubbies on the same day she might watch Stand By Me or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She likes music, she understands The Green Mile, and she's analytical about the messages various PBS children's shows intend to present, about school or self esteem or history or math. It's fun for me to watch her watch TV.


Seventeen years after that was written...
We have a toddler watching Teletubbies at our house sometimes now. Holly saw a sunrise that reminded her of the intro to that program, and sent it to me for Just Add Light and Stir.

How Unschooled Kids Watch TV
photo by Holly Dodd, November 2019

Old moon, new moon

That's last week's moon, as the sun was coming up, in our back yard. The same moon might've been in your back yard, but framed differently. Now, though, it's the dark of the moon, so this moon is old. Only they call the dark days "the new moon"!

It's really the same old moon.

Many things that are "the same old" whatever to you are new to your child. Or between spouses or friends, sometimes something one knows well might be interesting to the other. Maybe it wasn't, years ago, but it might be now.

Families with babies and toddlers sometimes find little time to gaze at the moon, but as children get older please remember that old things are always new to someone.

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The photo above is by Sandra Dodd. The one below was taken by Rick Sanders, an unschooling dad and a professional photographer, during the eclipse on December 21, 2010.



© Richard Sanders, Sanders Photographics, Inc.; used by permission

Naming things

Seeing new things and learning their names is the way babies and toddlers learn their native languages and how they learn about the world. It works for people of any age.

Each model of the universe requires identification, sorting, relationships between things, and other patterns. Whatever seems trivial in one context is of central importance in another.

Names and words and labels and descriptors have a glory about them.

Naming Things elsewhere here
photo by Denaire Nixon, of a young red-footed booby

Feel it; believe it

When you say something to your child, remember to feel it and believe it, or you'll be sending mixed messages, and the tone might be louder than the words. And with babies and toddlers, the tone might be the entirety of the communication.

The quote is from page 208 (or 241) of The Big Book of Unschooling
SandraDodd.com/tone
photo by Sarah S.

Quick! They're gone!

Older moms say "Appreciate your kids. They'll be grown before you know it."

Younger moms think it's rude, and wrong, and can hardly endure the endless days of damp, stinky babies and toddlers, and messy, destructive, needy three and four year olds, and...

Life is made of stages that can seem long. I've had young children and felt sticky and crowded and exhausted. I've had teens I started to miss before they were gone.

Wherever you are, breathe and be patient and loving.


SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Ester Siroky

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This is a re-run from only a year ago. I usually wait longer, but I feel that this could help some parent (or many) every month. Please continue to be as kind and as appreciative as you can be, even when the world outside isn't helping. You could be the best part of someone else's day.

Sleep

Whenever possible, let children wear something they could sleep in. Or let them sleep in something that wasn't really for sleeping. Put sleep above tradition or appearances. The purpose of sleep doesn't require special equipment or costumes.



Twice in the past week, I've fallen asleep in my clothes, and the sleep was wonderful. The photo is of a camphor lamp, to keep mosquitos away, in the room I'm staying in this month in India.

The top quote is from the "Toddlers" section of The Big Book of Unschooling
(page 66, or page 71 in the 2019 edition)

Not enough hands?

Instead of having a rule that kids had to hold my hand in a parking lot, I would park near a cart and put some kids in right away, or tell them to hold on to the cart (a.k.a. "help me push", so a kid can be between me and the cart). And they didn't have to hold a hand. There weren't enough hands. I'd say "Hold on to something," and it might be my jacket, or the strap of the snugli, or the backpack, or something.



SandraDodd.com/toddlers
"Hold on to something" or what?
photo by Sandra Dodd

Helping parents be awesome

photos are links

From a note that came in today from the mom of a toddler:

"Reading your book helped me make my relationship to my husband so much better. I only read the book a week ago and I already see a difference for the three of us. Our daughter is also so much happier because we are."

—Elaine Santana

and

"Sandra, I have been reading your Big Book of Unschooling and my 11 year old son started to read over my shoulder. He wanted to read more and took it away. When his 8 year old brother asked him what he was reading he replied 'It's this book that helps parents to be awesome.' That just about sums it up! Thank you xxx"

—Nicola Wright

Other feedback on the book is here: SandraDodd.com/bigbook
Cover art by Holly Dodd (black lines by Sandra)
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New cover, 10th anniversary edition:



2019; Forever Curious Press

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.

I'm grateful that I can leave my sewing supplies out, because we have no babies or toddlers in our home these days who could be wounded by pins or scissors. That might seem too small a joy, but for many years I couldn't start sewing projects I couldn't finish before babies awoke.

But maybe you need "a real gift" and you're out of ideas. Here's something I wrote a dozen years ago, when my children were... a dozen years younger (12, 9 and 7):

"Some people are just not cut out to cruise the Barbie aisles. Luckily there are alternatives and you were probably going there anyway. There are fine educational toys to be found at the hardware store, sporting goods store, auto parts store, and even grocery stores, but people usually go there with a mission and forget to browse."

There is more at: SandraDodd.com/gifts
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Trust and faith

Trust and faith are the most powerful tools parents of teens have. Too many parents squander those trying to control toddlers and young children.

SandraDodd.com/trust
photo by Sandra Dodd