Lovely things

Ren Allen wrote:

Plato said: "The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things."

While I agree wholeheartedly, I think he should have said "The most effective kind of education is that PEOPLE should play amongst lovely things." Learning is for always. Playing amongst lovely things has the power to heal lives, heal families and liberate people. That's really what unschooling is in a nutshell—playing with lovely things, ideas, people and places. We say "living is learning" but "playing is learning" too.

—Ren Allen

SandraDodd.com/rentalk


photo by Janine

When children choose foods

A mom named Evie wrote:

"Everything I've read about has really happened. The first couple of days, my youngest ate nothing but Twinkies and Spider-Man snacks. Then, amazingly enough, he got up the next morning and asked me for grapes for breakfast. You could have knocked me over with a feather! It truly didn't seem possible until I experienced it for myself." —Evie

How does it balance out?
photo by Julie van der Wekken

Easy steps

Thinking of "better choices" instead of "RIGHT choices" is an easy step to a world of other easy steps.

SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Karen James
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Seeing peace

Words and photo by Belinda Dutch:



My teenagers who don’t always find it easy to ‘hang out’ together, sharing the fire. Dog is just out of shot. Louis is watching an instructional video on a game made by a friend and Olly is watching real people jumping horses. I ealised that this would normally be interpreted grumpily as ‘today’s teenagers always plugged in, should participate in the real world more,’ and instead I relish it as ‘my teenagers peacefully hanging out together and with me, while following their passions and engaging with the world.’

Thank you for helping me see that! And if you ever want to use the pic you are welcome :-) it’s nice and wintery….

Learning to See Differently
photo by Belinda Dutch

Make the world better

If by "change the world" a person means "make the world better," then step #1 must be to decide right then not to make the world worse.

SandraDodd.com/philosophy
photo by Lisa Jonick

Whole and healthy

We can see how controlling food is related to controlling education, sleep, playtime and other areas of our childrens' lives. We can mess them up early (which our culture applauds) or we can learn to let them grow whole and healthy and strong and free, not crippled in mind and spirit.

SandraDodd.com/eating/longterm
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't make a big deal

Something by Lyle Perry:

Plan on doing most of the cleaning for awhile. Better yet, plan on doing ALL of the cleaning for awhile, and whenever someone else pitches in, you may appreciate it more. Try not to look at it as "I have to do it all!", because you don't have to do it all. There's always a choice. If you don't feel like cleaning today, then don't. Will the house get messier? Yup. Is it a big deal? Shouldn't be. ... Cleaning doesn't have to be a big deal. Don't make it a big deal and your kids may be more inclined to follow in your footsteps. —Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/chores/intro
photo by Alex Polikowsky