Success and Joy

Little by little, years ago, I started to see that each little idea that had changed my own family had the potential, if I could explain it clearly enough, to change another family. Just a little was enough. As more and more families shared their successes and joys, the world changed.

Thank you, to those of who have shared your paths to unschooling with others so freely over the years. Thank you to those who have come and shared and gone on to do other things. Thank you to those who came years ago and are still helping others. Thank you to those who have just shown up lately, and whose enthusiastic newness inspires others to be kinder to their children.

The top paragraph is from SandraDodd.com/interviews/naturalparenting2010
photo by Julie D
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Past the horizon...

The world is changing, and anyone with a young child in 2013 should not expect it to be 2002 when that child is grown. Adults are often looking back ten or twenty years in their knowledge and expectations. It’s impossible to look forward with accuracy, but if you look around at some of the new jobs of the 21st century, you will see that there was no way to begin preparing for them in the 1980s or 1990s, except to let children play with computers as much as they wanted to.

from the Second Mommy-Labs interview
(The original said 2012, but I changed it. I can do that.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Newness unfolding

I can't really speak to any "end results," because they're still growing and experiencing the newness of many firsts in their lives. If there is ever an "end," the results won't matter anymore. But as long as life continues, the results unfold.

SandraDodd.com/magicwindow
photo by Marty Dodd, of himself and his girlfriend when they drove to Grants, New Mexico, on a whim to visit the Mining Museum
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Joy in the sky

Remember that every moment is precious.

You do indeed have choices.

You can take joy in the sky as easily as you can be irritated about the ground.

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Paraphrased (re-punctuated) from page 193 (or 223) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Disharmony for a good cause

Cognitive dissonance ROCKS. It rocks your thoughts around and old things can fit together in new ways. In case anyone here is spooked by the term "cognitive dissonance," it's just a disturbance in the mental force. Brain racket. Edgy discomfort. Wikipedia has a cool article on it, with links: Cognitive dissonance

The text above is the entirety of a May 31, 2005 post at Unschooling Discussion.
Poking around on an old hard disk, I found some text collected for a conference presentation, and wasn't sure if it was even my writing, but googled it up and there it was, from 2005. I do love the internet.

photo by Sandra Dodd

Nice harmony

This is from Gail Higgins, written around 2005.

As I became more aware of my kids needs and responded to that it just naturally carried over to my husband.

Our relationship is so much stronger now and part of it is just because I'm nicer now! I think I used to be so controlling of our lives that it affected us all in a negative way. I'm still working on it but just the awareness of what I was doing has led to changes.

There are very few times when our lives don't seem in harmony these days...it's the best bonus I could have ever imagined.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Sandra Dodd

Too much noise

I woke up with voices in my head, but it was my own voice. Too many words. "What if...?" and "How will...?"

The peace and safety of my children, even though they're young adults, was running through my mind, and what could go wrong, and what if one of them makes a bad decision, or an awkward mistake, or forgets to do something, or...

Then I remembered what I was doing at their age, each of them. Most of it ended up needing to be undone, or recovered from. But I remember, and those things informed my decisions ever after.


An agitated mom won't help any of us. And the agitation didn't show. It was nothing but thoughts racing and tumbling, tighter-than-necessary muscles, so early in the morning.

I made moves to calm myself, and to take several small positive steps. Breathe. Put clean cutlery away. Fill the birdfeeders. Feed the cat. Check on Holly, who isn't feeling well and was muttering in her bed.

And I began to think of things to be grateful for this morning. My children are alive and healthy. They are thoughtful and energetic. We have seed to give birds, and food for our cats. Holly has a good pillow and warm covers. She will feel better.

I can breathe and be still and not be knocked down by thoughts. Thoughts can lift me up. I can turn down the volume. I can switch channels.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd

The photo is a link to something written when I had three teens.
They were 21, 24 and 26 on February 7, 2013, when I was worried in the morning.
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