Better, kinder tools

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Someone said that principles can be summed up in one word. Rules can't. I'm not sure if I can always do that but it's a helpful distinction to get someone started on figuring out the difference.


For instance a principle might be kindness. A rule is "Don't hit your sister." If there's a principle of treating each other kindly then there isn't a need for a rule that says "Don't hit." "Don't hit," only says "Don't hit." Kids do pick up that it doesn't say don't pinch, don't poke until she cries, don't pull hair ... But as a child is helped to find better (kinder) tools to use to get what they want and their understanding of kindness grows it's understood that anything that hurts someone is unkind so there isn't a need to spell out every hurtful thing that kids aren't allowed to do.

—Joyce

SandraDodd.com/rules
photo by Sandra Dodd

Save some tickets.

...it's the idea that when a baby is born, the parents get a coupon book of "NO" tickets. After they're gone, they're gone. Some parents say "no" so much to a baby and toddler that she's through listening to them by the time she's three. You need to save some for the big stuff, when they're teens, and the big win is if the child grows up and the parents never used 300 Serious "NO" tickets.

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Someone quoted me in 2011, with the words above. I don't know where I wrote it, or spoke it. Sometimes I've said 200 tickets, for that story.

Save some tickets. 😊

Don't use up all your tickets
and
Rationing "No"
photo by Ester Siroky

No food fights

“Child-led weaning” and all the food awareness that went with that did a world of good for us, too. We never had fights over food with our children. They wanted to try what grownups were eating, and they were never pressed to eat anything they didn’t like the look or smell or taste of. They were free to spit it in my hand if they wanted to. I’m sure the common La Leche League phrase “child-led weaning” resulted in the phrase “child-led learning” which many apply to unschooling, but after nearly 20 years of unschooling, I think “child-led learning” is a detrimental concept that keeps parents from creating and maintaining busy, rich lives with lots of choices.

About attachment parenting, in this interview from 2009
monkey platter by Robyn Coburn

Reading will happen.

Reading will happen, and if it takes longer for your child than you think it will, keep them happy and distracted in the meantime. As their experience and vocabulary grow, their reading will be that much more effortless the day they're fully equipped to understand the written word.

Three Readers
photo by Quita Gray
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Hobbies and interests

My children’s interests affected mine, and ours affected theirs, and so there’s not a great dividing line between my hobbies and interests and friends and theirs. They have friends of all ages, as do I. I have hobbies I’ve had all my life, some of which one or more of my kids have picked up and some of which are still just mine.

Acceptance
photo by Ester Siroky

Happiness and joy

Cynicism and pessimism are poison and will destroy families and learning.

Happiness and joy will create more happiness and joy. Families and learning and the individuals within the families will be better off!

20 Unschooling Questions: Sandra Dodd from NM, USA
photo by Pushpa Ramachandran
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Changing focus

"I focussed on making sure that my son's life was better, bigger, more sparkly, and had none of the 'have to's' that my life had." —Jo Isaac

The path to peace
photo by Jonathan Medina
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