Questions and curiosity

"In each moment of questioning, or inquiry, or curiosity, you get to choose how you respond. You can respond in such a way that a child's question, their learning, is honored, with kindness and lightness and joy, or you can shut that down with your own opinions and ideas. The more a parent can honor a child's curiosity, the more that child will genuinely listen to their parent's ideas about the world." —Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/eating/control
photo by Sandra Dodd

Slight, subtle change

Slow, careful little changes make eventual big differences. Learn to see in different ways.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingpeace
photo by Colleen Prieto, who wrote
"Fantastic little snake—he was watching us watching him.
Newburyport, Massachusetts"
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Canada... dude!

I'm happy to know I'm not the sole source of information for my kids.

Last night I came to use my computer and there was a dialog on the desktop, a leftover instant message between my thirteen-year-old son Marty and an older homeschooler. This was the entirety of that dialog:

Marty: You coming down?
Other kid: yeah.
Marty: Did you know Canada has Prime Ministers?
Other kid: yeah
Marty: dude

Now I will never have to explain to Marty that Canada has a prime minister. I don't know why he cared, on a Friday night in New Mexico, but it doesn't matter.

SandraDodd.com/words/words
For the record, "last night" was in late 2002, and the other kid was Brett Henry, also unschooled, who is now a firefighter in the Los Alamos Fire Department.

photo by Sandra Dodd
__ P.S. Since writing this, since taking that photo, I went to France and discovered that their stop signs say "Stop." Why, I asked my French host-mom, do they say "Arrêt" in Quebec? She said Quebec wants to be more French than France. One more bit of information that won't be on the test. Trivia.

Helpful and kind

The idea of doing what is kind to do, whether it's bringing food to someone who is engaged in something interesting, or hanging around a long time just in case help is needed did not get dusty. That's the way our kids think others should be, and it has made countless differences in all directions in our lives.

To read about the idea that DID get dusty, go here:
Radical Unschooling Info post by Sandra Dodd; September 6, 2016
photo by Megan Valnes
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Unfurling

Look at that curled up leaf:


Something that will be big, and full, sometimes starts small, and in another form. If conditions remain good for that leaf, it will open up like the others. It won't happen sooner from wishing or pressure. The leaf won't be bigger from speeches or promises. It will open gently to be itself, if it is allowed to unfurl in its own way.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/definition.html
photo by Holly Dodd

What happens is...

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.

from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 192 (or 222)
which links to SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp (her kids and Adam's family)

A thousand to one

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.

SandraDodd.com/being/with
photo by Chrissy Florence