What adds to relationships makes the children's lives better. Whether you're improving your relationship with a child or a partner/spouse, it's still beneficial to the child.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Adding it up
What adds to relationships makes the children's lives better. Whether you're improving your relationship with a child or a partner/spouse, it's still beneficial to the child.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, February 18, 2013
Half a cup...
Half-empty cups are substantially different from half-full cups. It's not just theoretical holy water in those cups. The half-empty cups hold a concoction of frustration and need and irritation. The half-full cups contain joy and hope and gratitude.
page 185 (or 213) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo of and by Holly Dodd
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page 185 (or 213) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo of and by Holly Dodd
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Future grandparents
| A child, no matter how young, is a potential future grandfather or grandmother. Looking back on joys and sorrows in people they actually know, perhaps parents can avoid damage they have witnessed in others or felt in themselves, and emulate the empowering and joyful things they have seen or remember. |  |
photo by Holly Dodd
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Start with them.
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.
—Schuyler Waynforth
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, February 15, 2013
Clear and solid
Living mindfully and making conscious choices for clear reasons is what a solid, thoughtful life is all about.
photo by Sandra Dodd
of flowers and clear, solid water in the compost pile
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
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.
photo by Julie D
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
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.
(The original said 2012, but I changed it. I can do that.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
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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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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Monday, February 11, 2013
Joy in the sky
You do indeed have choices.
You can take joy in the sky as easily as you can be irritated about the ground.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
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
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
Saturday, February 9, 2013
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.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Friday, February 8, 2013
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 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.
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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Thursday, February 7, 2013
Notice joy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Real life in the real world
"Scientific studies have their place in the world, but we can't let them stand in the way of seeing the real-world behavior of our real life kids."
—Meredith Novak
photo by Julie D
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Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Shared fun
The side benefits are family togetherness, common experiences, and fun!
As partners and supporters, if one of us is having fun, the others are glad, and happy, and often right in the midst of that same fun.
photo by Julie D
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Monday, February 4, 2013
A softer vision of the world
What happens when you see other people differently is that you cannot help but see yourself differently. When you choose to find opportunities to give other people choices, you yourself have begun to make more choices.
When you begin to see learning from new and interesting angles, you yourself are learning about learning (in addition to all the things about bugs or food, bridges or clouds or trains that you're learning with your children, or when they're not even there).
Your softer, clearer vision of the world makes you a softer, clearer person.
photo by Orion Larson
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Sunday, February 3, 2013
Breathe. Smile.
If you're just starting to homeschool I have a few words of advice: Breathe. Smile. Your kids will be sharing your stress and fear, so move quickly to get over them. Meet experienced homeschoolers and model your practice on families you like and respect. Deschool yourselves, and the kids will follow easily.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Lighter and brighter
(The quote is not from there, but it's a good page.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, February 1, 2013
Life is lumpy.
Susan May wrote:
I am reminded that this path I'm on isn't really "just" about parenting. It's really about me and becoming the person I want to be. As I do that I am also becoming the best possible parent to my children. And I am slowly learning that when I love myself in my lowest of lows, then I am quicker to forgive myself, recover, and move on the next moment."
—Susan May
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a lump of century plant in a lump of snow
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
Look here
Karen James wrote:
Living in the world peacefully and respectfully are good places to begin to focus when new to unschooing. The best advice I was given was to look at my son. Not at ideals. Not at freedom. Not at school or no school. Not at labels. Not at big ideas. Look at my son. Be with him. Get to know him deeply. And, then to read a bit about unschooling. Give something new a try. See how it goes in the context of our real day to day life.
I still do that. I'm still learning.
—Karen James
photo by Julie D
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Ease into change
Instead of just going from lots of control to "do whatever you want," a really sweet way to do it is quickly but gradually. Quickly in your head, but not all of a sudden in theirs. Just allow yourself to say "okay" or "sure!" anytime it's not really going to be a problem.
If something isn't going to hurt anything (going barefoot, wearing the orange jacket with the pink dress, eating a donut, not coming to dinner because it's the good part of a game/show/movie, staying up later, dancing) you can just say "Okay."
And then later instead of "aren't you glad I let you do that? Don't expect it every time," you could say something reinforcing for both of you, like "That really looked like fun," or "It felt better for me to say yes than to say no. I should say 'yes' more," or something conversational but real.
The purpose of that is to help ease them from the controlling patterns to a more moment-based and support-based decision making mindset. If they want to do something and you say yes in an unusual way (unusual to them), communication will help. That way they'll know you really meant to say yes, that it wasn't a fluke, or you just being too distracted to notice what they were doing.
SandraDodd.com/eating/control.html
photo by Julie D
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If something isn't going to hurt anything (going barefoot, wearing the orange jacket with the pink dress, eating a donut, not coming to dinner because it's the good part of a game/show/movie, staying up later, dancing) you can just say "Okay."
And then later instead of "aren't you glad I let you do that? Don't expect it every time," you could say something reinforcing for both of you, like "That really looked like fun," or "It felt better for me to say yes than to say no. I should say 'yes' more," or something conversational but real.
The purpose of that is to help ease them from the controlling patterns to a more moment-based and support-based decision making mindset. If they want to do something and you say yes in an unusual way (unusual to them), communication will help. That way they'll know you really meant to say yes, that it wasn't a fluke, or you just being too distracted to notice what they were doing.
photo by Julie D
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Safety and communication
My children have no reason to dodge or manipulate..., because Keith and I haven't concocted any made-up arbitrary rules and their accompanying punishments. With safety and communication as principles and priorities, we've had safe, communicative kids.
photo by Sandra Dodd
P.S.: That probably only works only if you begin very early.
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Monday, January 28, 2013
Experiences
For good or ill, your experiences create you, change you, become part of you.
SandraDodd.com/flow
photo by Sandra Dodd
| If a child will be molded or affected by his experiences, then unschooling parents need to provide great experiences. NEW experiences Repeat experiences. Surprising experiences. Comforting experiences. |  |
SandraDodd.com/flow
photo by Sandra Dodd
Sunday, January 27, 2013
From Faith to Confidence
When people start unschooling, it's often very tentatively. After a while, instead of telling stories of what they've heard other people did, they have stories of what their own kids have done, learned, seen, known.
That's one kind of learning.
Sometimes people start unschooling and they're doing more chattering than looking, and more asserting than questioning (not chattery questioning, but soul questioning). It's not as good a beginning, and at some point they do start really observing their children, and really thinking about the why and what of learning.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Sunrise and family
Those who went to school (and that's over 99% of those reading this) have based half their lives, give or take a decade, on school's rhythm and labels and categorizations. When things like "the school year" are as much a part of a culture as "family" and "sunrise," it's a radical departure to consider that maybe one of those three is unnatural. For many people, it disturbs the fabric of their lives. Some people's life-fabric is already kind of rumply, or they hated school and are glad to consider alternatives, but for those orderly folks who have life all neatly arranged in their heads, who do more accepting than questioning, unschooling is a disturbing thing.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Friday, January 25, 2013
Pure gold
"So I invite you to try a little bitty bit of unschooling: say yes more. Not about everything all the time and not at random—question your "Nos" and "laters", your "have tos" and "shoulds" and rethink some of those. Find more options, more ideas, more ways to say yes. Just that. And life with your children gets sweeter and more peaceful. That's pure gold."
—Meredith Novak
photo by Julie D
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Thursday, January 24, 2013
When you choose...
About how to take advice in unschooling discussions:
We can tell you what will help and what will hurt, but we can't give you any guarantees (except that hurt always hurts).
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Choose gratitude
Gratitude is about abundance. Resentment is about paucity. Choose gratitude. It is a choice.
page 185 (or 213) of The Big Book of Unschooling
bread pudding and photo by Sandra Dodd
bread pudding and photo by Sandra Dodd
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Clearer and larger
Unschooled children can organize their knowledge in free and better ways. They never need to feel they are through learning, or past the point that they can begin something new. Each thing they discover can be useful eventually.
If we help provide them with ever-changing opportunities to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, move and discuss, what they know will exceed in breadth and depth what any school's curriculum would have covered. It won't be the same set of materials—it will be clearer and larger but different.
photo by Julie D
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Monday, January 21, 2013
Just Say No
Sandra Dodd, response in 2000 to: Can anyone explain to me "unschooling"?
Just say no to school years and school schedules and school expectations, school habits and fears and terminology. Just say no to separating the world into important and unimportant things, into separating knowledge into math, science, history and language arts, with music, art and "PE" set in their less important little places.Several Definitions of Unschooling
photo by Catherine Forest
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It's like "just say no."
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Most of unschooling has to happen inside the parents. They need to spend some time sorting out what is real from what is construct, and what occurs in nature from what only occurs in school (and then in the minds of those who were told school was real life, school was a kid's fulltime job, school was more important than anything, school would keep them from being ignorant, school would make them happy and rich and right).
It's what happens after all that school stuff is banished from your life.
photo by Catherine Forest
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Sunday, January 20, 2013
Honoring babies
"Look for ways to connect with them. There are biological ways. Smelling their heads is amazingly connective.... Look at them. Watch them talk or move or bounce or roll or whatever it is they are doing and marvel at the fact that they are."
SandraDodd.com/bonding
an honored baby girl, in India, whose parents prefer for me not to identify her here
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—Schuyler Waynforth
an honored baby girl, in India, whose parents prefer for me not to identify her here
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Saturday, January 19, 2013
Living and Learning
 | "Unschoolers live the paradigm of lifelong learning. Instead of envisioning childhood for learning and adulthood for living, they see living and learning as inextricably and beautifully linked." —Pam Laricchia |
The photo is an octopus at an unschooling conference.(more)
Friday, January 18, 2013
Options and choices
If the parent finds ways to present options and choices and the children can say "Yes, more!" or "No more now," then each child will learn every day.
Choices
photo by Julie D
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Thursday, January 17, 2013
Home and relationships
"'I'm working so hard on my marriage!!' doesn't mean a whole lot if you're putting your work in the wrong areas. And honestly, I find that all the 'effort' I put into my marriage is fun, and makes me happy. It is so good to know that our home is a place my husband wants to be, and that I can do things to help him be happy." 
Aiden's comment in context
(if you go there you will see I started the quote in the middle of a sentence)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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—Aiden Wagner
"I'm working so hard on my parenting!!" doesn't mean a whole lot if you're putting your work in the wrong areas. And honestly, I find that all the "effort" I put into my parenting is fun, and makes me happy. It is so good to know that our home is a place my child wants to be, and that I can do things to help him be happy.
(if you go there you will see I started the quote in the middle of a sentence)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Little things and little moments
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. With an almost-four-year-old, little things and little moments are what you are most likely going to get.
—Schuyler Waynforth
switchplate and photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Learning that looks like play
Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
SandraDodd.com/hsc/interviews/joyce
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Learning that's pulled in will look like play. It will look like kids engaged with what interests them. That might be a video game or helping rake the yard or TV shows or getting a job to earn money or taking classes in college.
The unnerving thing is that it looks like very little is going in! But the important-to-learning part happens inside: kids pull in information to use it for reasons that matter to them. They use it to solve problems. They use it to create and test theories of how the world works. What you use, sticks with you.
—Joyce Fetterol
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Monday, January 14, 2013
Kinder and gentler
"It's never too late to be kinder, gentler, and more respectful. It's never too late to be a better mom. But sooner is ALWAYS better."—Kelly Lovejoy
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, January 13, 2013
Roses and music
If your child is having a slow week or month or year, don't worry. If your child is having a zippy brilliant period
of life where everything's coming up roses and the backswell of music seems always to accompany his glorious exploits, don't expect that to last day in and day out for sixty years. It won't. It can't. It shouldn't. People need to recuperate from stunning performances.page 73 (or 80) of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a truck at a silo in West Texas, 2011
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Life is lumpy; let it be.
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a truck at a silo in West Texas, 2011
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Saturday, January 12, 2013
Happy spiral upward
It can be a happy spiral upward, when feeling better about being a good mom makes one a better parent, and the child smiles and laughs, and the mom relaxes more.
SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a spiral Rex Begonia
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photo by Sandra Dodd, of a spiral Rex Begonia
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Friday, January 11, 2013
The mystery of the moment
"What's in there?" Even before children can talk they wonder. They want to look in boxes, suitcses, open drawers, look into cabinets. Life is a mystery—a puzzle full of wonder with things inside other things, surprises in disguises.When I was a kid, I was curious about buildings, houses, garages and sheds in my home town. I had a goal of going into every house. I tried to go into every business. Visiting friends, selling cookies, trick-or-treating and Christmas carolling got me peeks into private homes.
Some folks are curious about how machines work, or similarities in the skeletons of different birds. Some learn how guitars are built, or what makes a soufflé rise. Notice what your children wonder about. Help them explore the world. Nurture your own curiosity. You can't know what will happen, or what you will find, and some of it will be wonderful.
A mom named Amy left a comment on a Just Add Light and Stir post:
I had always wanted to learn to live in the moment, but it seemed a great mystery. Having my daughter and becoming an unschooler, I finally get it! . . . We are living together, happily, every day. What a nice way to be.
photo by Sandra Dodd
Thursday, January 10, 2013
The same and the safe
My favorite "new rule" has always been that learning comes first. Given choices between doing one thing or another, I try to go toward the thing that's newest for my kids, and most intriguing. "New and different" outranks "We do it all the time, same place same way." But there are comfort-activities, and to be rid of all of them would be as limiting as to only do routine, same, safe things. So we find a balance. Or we tweak the same and the safe, changing it enough to make it especially memorable from time to time.
photo by Holly Dodd
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Privacy and dignity
This regards the way I helped make peace between kids when they argued:
The reason I used the method of speaking to each child separately, and ME going back and forth, rather than summoning them to where I was is that I was trying to comfort them and help them be safe and to be better people—people they would be glad to be. They don't like it when they're all frustrated. If I can tweak sibling behavior and comfort the aggrieved child, and then go to the other one with comfort and ideas, each was better prepared, in private, without a witness knowing what he was "supposed to do" the next time. That was important to me, to give them some privacy and some dignity, and some time to think without other people looking at them or praising my suggestion, or criticizing them further.
There's more on the topic on Joyce's site: Siblings Fighting
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Learning is like a doorway
Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
Learning is defined not just as sucking in information about something the child is interested in. Learning is also figuring out the big picture and how things connect. Figuring out how stuff works, figuring out how people work, making connections, seeing patterns. This is a mechanical, biological process. It's how humans—all learning animals really—naturally learn, how kids are born learning.
Natural learning is like a doorway. We can't change the doorway but we can change the outside world so kids can more easily reach what intrigues them.
photo by Sandra Dodd, in Pérouges, France
Monday, January 7, 2013
Their own world
Someone came to a discussion and assured us all that children under five were like scientists from an alien world. That sounds good at first, until you remember that they are natural parts of their own world. A sixty-year-old man is no more a human, no more a person, than a newborn baby.
photo by Trista Teeter
Sunday, January 6, 2013
How to help
| On helping other unschoolers: If we answer questions with "yes" and "no," and give people what they claim to want, or what they think they want, we are chucking fish out instead of providing information on how to fish, how to make one's own custom fishing equipment and when and where the fishing is great. Unschooling can't work as a series of yes/no questions. |  |
photo by Sandra Dodd
It's a metaphor. Don't go fishing at the aquarium.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Seeing where a child *is*
| For unschooling to work, parents need to stop looking into the future and live more in the moment with their real child. BEING with a child is being where the child is, emotionally and spiritually and physically and musically and artistically. Seeing where the child *is* rather than seeing a thousand or even a dozen places she is not. |  |
photo by Sandra Dodd
Friday, January 4, 2013
Cocoon
Sometimes I get still. That's good, because sometimes I don't, and can't. If I were that zippy all the time, my body, mind and soul would probably wear out. ...
When I was younger and I would change, I thought something was wrong with me. I was under the mistaken impression that personality and mood should be constants. Life is better when I think of those fluctuations as tides, or as the weather of the soul.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Thursday, January 3, 2013
Design
| Form and function can be portals to countless connections. Form and function are the who, what, where, when, why and how of the design world. Those will lead to all other topics, and all the information is connected. |  |
(That link goes to clothing design ideas, but automotive or architectural or appliance or furniture or landscaping design could be similarly expanded.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Naturally nicer
Gail Higgins wrote:
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! 🙂
There are very few times when our lives don't seem in harmony these days...it's the best bonus I could have every imagined.
—Gail Higgins
photo by Sandra Dodd
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Resolutions
I don't make resolutions, and I think they're a bad idea. Deciding today what I want to hold important a year from now sets me up for failure.
Deciding that I want to make many good moments tomorrow, though, I can do with confidence and the expectation of success. I can't live a year at a time. I can't live a week, nor even a whole day at a time. I can only make a choice in this moment (or fail to remember to do so).
SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Sandra Dodd (or someone with Sandra Dodd's camera)
Deciding that I want to make many good moments tomorrow, though, I can do with confidence and the expectation of success. I can't live a year at a time. I can't live a week, nor even a whole day at a time. I can only make a choice in this moment (or fail to remember to do so).
photo by Sandra Dodd (or someone with Sandra Dodd's camera)
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