photo by Julie D
Friday, August 25, 2023
The important things
photo by Julie D
Saturday, April 8, 2023
Rebuilding yourself
in a passing discussion
photo by Sandra Dodd
of old stairs in France,
on a day I was with Schuyler
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Keep food clean
"It's hard to swallow around a big lump of guilt."
The sweetest thing about food might be the love with which it is given.
but matches Don't taint the ice cream
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Peaceful choices
Schuyler Waynforth wrote some years ago:
It was hard not to turn to the quick solution that never solved anything and left everyone upset, me included, me, maybe the most. But it was amazing to have to expand into the vacuum left by not having that blunt tool in my toolbox. Both Simon and Linnaea grew to trust me. It took less time than I expected.
I can remember talking about it, thinking about it, it was like a switch I could feel turning. I went from calm and in control to *switch* furious in no time at all. And I couldn't figure out how to not turn the switch on, to make the switch a thoughtful process. When it flipped the other day I felt it go and I stepped away and I turned it off. Most days I stop long before the switch goes. The thoughtful process was recognizing the grumpiness earlier in the day. Feeling a shortness that isn't normally there and doing things to respond to that like going for a quick breath outside or having a chocolate milk or a chai latte or something else that just ups my energy budget a bit. Taking five minutes to close my eyes and be still helps, too. Whatever works for you to buffer yourself is good. Come up with lots of little things.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, October 22, 2022
Time and attention
When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold.
art and photo by Holly Blossom
Saturday, October 15, 2022
Joyous moments
Schuyler Waynforth wrote:
Right now, in front of the television, there are a slew of origami papers and markers and paper dolls and other bits and bobs from Linnaea crafting one or another thing. As I peer closer I can see a bird she made and drawings she's drawn and planes she designed as toys for the kittens. I will probably go over and tidy it up in a little bit, to keep the pieces safer from folks walking around and to make sure that there isn't food for the ants.
It takes only a moment to turn what you describe as rubble into a series of activities, of joyous moments. They are still-lifes waiting to be interpreted. I can see the shadow of her sitting there and doing and making and talking and turning to Simon to show him or running to fly the plane she made in the hallway to see if it would fly well enough to engage whichever kitten it was designed to amuse, or calling to me to come and interpret whichever fold the origami book was describing onto the paper she was folding.
It isn't rubble, it is her life.
Life is Good and the amazing Schuyler Waynforth
photo by Cátia Maciel
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Playing, hanging out, listening
Schuyler Waynforth wrote:
You start by learning about your children. You start by playing with them. By hanging out and listening to them. By starting with them. The more you know about them, the more you know about what interests them, the more you see them and hang out with them, the easier it will be for you to find things that interest them. Don't start by looking at the wider world and trying to force it upon your children. Start with them.
photo by Cátia Maciel
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Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Having a good life
...we simply loved each other as we do most days. And we gave to Simon and Linnaea and we gave to each other and it was good.
I love that my sacred and my profane, my everyday and my for special occasions is one and the same. I hope all of y'all are having a good life. I hope the small things that infuse your day with joy come together and weave a tapestry of rich and royal hue.
(I left out the stories and shared the mushy parts.)
photo by Gail Higgins
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Happy DAY!
at Moments
Thank you, Janine Davies.
Monday, February 28, 2022
Positives (look around)
photo by Gail Higgins
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Music as healing
[T]his little ukulele has done for me what none of the stuff that I did as a child ever did, nor what my ranting and raving about my school experiences did. It has let me see how much I enjoy making music. And I enjoy the intellectual pursuit of the skill of making music. ...
So that's part of how I heal from school damage. I enjoy my life doing things that I couldn't do through school.
photo by Sandra Dodd (of Schuyler, with a different ukelele)
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Sweet little moments
Enough sweet little moments like that, and "the big problems" don't seem so big.
photo by Schuyler Waynforth
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Teamwork!
"It isn't self-sacrifice to work for your team. It's teamwork." |
photo by Marta Venturini
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Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Service as a gift
It's amazing to see doing for others as a gift. It takes the whole angst about servitude away
There isn't any servitude in it when it's a gift.
photo by Amber Ivey
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Thursday, September 10, 2020
Exploring, playing, relationships
We have chosen to listen to our children, to pay attention to their needs and their wants instead of telling them that they must conform to our needs and our wants.
It means that for me if Simon (my 8 year old son) asks me to help him play Tales of Symphonia on the gamecube and I happen to be doing the dishes I may ask that he wait the 10 minutes or more likely than not I may just let the dishes soak and come and play with him. The dishes will be easier to clean when I empty the sink and refill it with warm water and I will have gotten to spend an hour with my son talking and exploring and playing and continuing to forge a relationship that makes me so happy I cannot begin to express my joy.
That was from an unusual (for Schuyler) rant in 2007.
Here are some newer words from this ever-thoughtful unschooling mom:
Schuyler Waynforth Interview
photo by Sandra Dodd, of Schuyler's cat in 2009
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Saturday, September 5, 2020
An outpouring of growth
"I am often struck by how much of an effective method unschooling is. Maybe effective isn't the right word, but it feels right, or apt. I don't know of any other approach to people that helps them to feel more themselves, more powerful, more generous, more capable, more loved. And what an outpouring you get in response. And I feel so much better as this parent than I did as the parent I used to be."
photo by Cass Kotrba
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Quitters sometimes win!
Schuyler Waynforth wrote:
Maybe you can see how quitting what you don't want to do is a good thing.
I've quit lots of things, jobs, relationships, books, drugs, cigarettes, lots of things that weren't helpful, that weren't good for my life. Quitting them made room for other things. It also helped me to think about what I wanted to do. Some of the things I quit I went back to like photography or knitting, I quit knitting regularly. Others I've not yet returned to like smoking or working at a plastics factory.
photo by Gail Higgins
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Slowly amazing
It is amazing that the epiphanies seem to come so frequently in this life. The other day I was baking a cake and David got back from the grocery store and had to deal with the leaking coolant on the car and needed help putting the groceries away. I was up to my elbows in batter and asked Simon and Linnaea if they could help.
They both came in and put all the groceries away and went back to what they were doing. It was so sweet, so not coercive, so not eye-rolling. Just this generous gift of service. It came with an epiphany, an underscoring of these unschooling side effects that I see and read about from other people.
As you say, the proof is in the living! The rightness, the evidence, the closeness, the joy, those are all found in this life. You can read about them, but to experience them you have to get down on your hands and knees and play and hang out and tell stories and cuddle and talk and share and be willing to listen and to apologize and to work to make it better. And if you can do that without any other intention than enjoying being with them, without any ulterior motives, it plays out in ways that nothing else that I've ever seen does.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Step by step
Schuyler wrote:
I can almost pinpoint the minute when I turned from feeling a need to have my own needs met in a separate but equal kind of way to seeing how being with Simon and Linnaea was meeting my needs in the most involved and deep way....
For me, it was very clearly incremental, it was a step by step building from small changes to a point where I was in a position to find personal fulfilment in being with my children. It wasn't martyrdom, or it didn't feel as though I'd sacrificed myself for their joy. It did help to get the almost kinetic memory of being kind to them, of meeting them where they were instead of expecting them to meet me where I was.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, November 10, 2018
Grabbing hold and changing
"When I stumbled across unschooling I grabbed hold. I read and I tried things and I moved further away from the childhood I had known to the parenthood I wanted to know." —Schuyler Waynforth |
photo by Sandra Dodd