Sunday, October 25, 2015

Slowly but quickly

"While we have faced many attachment challenges as a result of my kids' foster care experiences and my own difficult childhood experiences, our home has experienced so much positive as a direct result of moving "slowly but quickly" into unschooling."
—Rebecca F.
SandraDodd.com/special/
photo by Chrissy Florence
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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Everywhere, all the time


My response to this question, from 2009:

What resources do you use for your children’s “educations”? Feel free to comment on the word “education”.

We don’t “educate” our children. We help arrange so that they have so many learning opportunities they can’t possibly take advantage of them all. We have friends with interesting jobs and hobbies. We invite them over, and we visit them. We have a house full of books, music, games, toys, movies, art materials, plants, food and dress-up clothes. We don’t expect learning to happen in the house, nor in museums, but we know it happens everywhere. We don’t expect learning to happen during daylight hours or on weekdays. We know it happens all the time. So we don’t “use resources” except that we see every thing we discuss or see, smell, touch, hear or taste to be a resource. It’s not a word we use, because it’s all of life.

SandraDodd.com/education
photo by Cá Maciel
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Friday, October 23, 2015

Foundations and preventions

"Asking how to prevent kids from lying is sort of like asking how to get a steeple bell 50 feet into the air. The answer begins with building a foundation on the ground which hardly sounds like a way to get something into the air."
—Joyce Fetteroll
SandraDodd.com/issues/morality
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thursday, October 22, 2015

More learning

All other things being equal, for me I decided in favor of something new and different, over something same-old, when there was a draw about which thing to do or which way to go.

SandraDodd.com/depends
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Toys in every room

Colleen Prieto wrote this, at the end of a longer, spookier story:

My son has toys in every room of our house, and his dad and I provide lots of bins and shelves and baskets to make straightening up for visits from friends and grandparents easy for whoever wants to help with the pre-visit clean-up. Because to us, a neat and orderly house with lovely, Perfect rooms and a minimum of Stuff isn't worth trading a relationship with a Child Who Will Be An Adult Before You Know It. — No way.
—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/deprivation
photo by Sandra Dodd, at Collen Prieto's house
(There was a Lego Viking ship behind me, on a shelf.)

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Monday, October 19, 2015

Healthy gratitude


I'm writing this just after returning from a long afternoon at the urgent care center.

If you're reading it in health, at home or out doing something that takes strength and stamina, please breathe in a bit of appreciation of your abilities and breathe out enough gratitude to share.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Holly Dodd

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Relax into peace

"Power struggles can disappear when the person with the power stops struggling."
—Deb Lewis

Kirby Dodd age five asleep under a rocking chair

SandraDodd.com/deblewis

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Sandra Dodd
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