Just look

Sometimes, just look.

You might look as an artist, or as a scientist. You could look in wonder. You could gaze lovingy, or observe suspiciously, but as you don't always know exactly what you're seeing, sometimes it's good to just look.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Gail Higgins

New tools

Kristin Burton wrote:

I have for sure felt like unschooling has been like recovery. It hasn't come easy to me. Recovery from using guilt as a tool, using control as a tool. Letting go of expectations of what it means to be a parent and how children should be.

It's ongoing for me, it take lots of thoughtful pauses to remain on the path of unschooling life. But it's seeped in everywhere now, how I treat my husband, how I even treat myself. How I see relationships, food, world issues.

Recovery is about emptying your toolbox of the broken, ineffective tools that have helped you scrape by in life. For me to feel joy in my own self and want joy for others I had to empty that tool box and find new tools. It's been scary and I ve had to take lots of leaps of faith.

The other day my daughter said she needed a hug, and in that embrace she said, "Mom you are like my compass."

That is what recovery feels like for me.

—Kristin Burton

SandraDodd.com/recovery
photo by Sandra Dodd (of someone else's painting)

Smile(s)

One smile is better than none. Don't cheap out on your child, though. You can afford three smiles, or five.

Small Gifts
photo by Eva Witsel

Looking back...

Older moms are irritating. They're always saying things like "appreciate them when they're little," and "you will miss this stage." "They grow so quickly," say those parents of bigger kids.

I've been the exhausted mom of babies. I became one of those older moms.



The child in this photo might not fit in that space anymore. I'm still working through photos people sent me two years ago.

Today is my son's birthday. He became a father two and a half weeks ago.

They grow so quickly.


Being where you are
photo by Erika Ellis (thank you again, Erika)
__

Enjoyment

Enjoyment is about joy. Find enjoyment in the little things you do. Choose joy.

SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Janine Davies

Souls and minds

I think if people divide their lives into academic and non-academic, they're not radical unschoolers. I think unschooling in the context of a traditional set of rules and parental requirements and expectations will work better than structured school-at-home, but I don't think it will work as well for the developing souls and minds of the children involved. And those who are not radical unschoolers would look at that and say "What do their souls have to do with unschooling?"

SandraDodd.com/unschool/radical
SandraDodd.com/spirituality
photo by Lydia Koltai
__

Stop / Go

Stop doing the thing that stops you from doing what you need to do. —Holly Dodd

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Sandra Dodd

Step it up

Do It.

If you're going to unschool, do it now and do it well.

Part of doing it "well" is moving into it deliberately and with clarity, and going gradually, but by "gradually" I don't mean over five or ten years. Childhood lives in weeks, days and hours, not in months, years and decades.

SandraDodd.com/ifonly
but the quote is from page 20 of
The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Megan Valnes

Trivial history

Knowing that we live in the flow of change is something anyone interested in learning or in history, or in learning history, might want to learn to appreciate rather than to resist.

SandraDodd.com/history/zebrite
photo by Sandra Dodd
__

Highlight now

Our parents grew up in a different time, with different pressures and realities, and there's no profit in trying to persuade them they should've had the sensibilities you might have now (or that you're developing or would like to have). If you focus on what you want to do with and for your own children and why, the rest of the family can begin to fade in importance.



Customized, thoughtful choices
photo by Sandra Dodd

Peace and health

"Candy fed with love beats the heck out of broccoli eaten out of fear." —Schuyler Waynforth "Ramen in a happy environment is better than four dishes and a dessert in anger and sorrow." —Sandra Dodd

Turns out it had been said before. See other quotes about eating a dinner of herbs, or a dry crust, or Twinkies and a Red Bull, here:
SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Janet Rohde Buzit

Individual needs

In an attempt to "be fair," parents can be very UNfair. Children don't all need the same things for the same amount of time. Measuring with rulers and timers and charts is often shortchanging one child or another. What they could use more than that is the opportunity to decide when they're finished for their own reasons.


SandraDodd.com/sharing
photo by Cátia Maciel

Pattern appreciation

People like patterns.

Most folks find symmetry soothing. Coincidences are fun.

Arranging food, or clothes, or hair, putting socks in drawers, stacking fire wood... feel richer from patterns you find, or create.

Pattern blocks and deep thoughts
photo by Holly Blossom
__

Thames and shadow

It was a sunny day, in England, to get a shadow like that.

Shadows prove sunshine.

SandraDodd.com/light
2011 photo by Sandra Dodd, from the Royal Windsor Wheel
which is hardly ever there

Which came first...

Which came first, curiosity or learning? Exploration or knowledge?

If you're lucky, and open to it, they will tumble and leapfrog over one another in all the best times of your life.

Exploring
photo by Gail Higgins
__

Sun and water

Something we have in common with our most ancient ancestors, and our most distant cousins, is our need for water and sunlight.

For fun (and for learning, but don't think so much about that part), maybe let that be the theme of your thoughts and connections for an hour, or a day. Wheat and trees, birds and bugs, ice and steam, waterfalls and deserts, all can be considered and compared.

Some things must be wet, so it's a good thing there's water. Others need to stay dry, and the sun helps with that.

Make a happy game of exploring ideas.


SandraDodd.com/water
photo by Janine Davies
__

Sweetness and goodness

Find the best in each moment, the best moments in each hour, and by focusing on what is sweet and good, you will help others see the sweetness and goodness, too.

Happy memories
photo by Karen James
__