Happy, safe and comfortable

Jenny Cyphers wrote:

There are so many small generous happy-making things that parents can do for their kids throughout the day, and week, and month and year.

When kids are accustomed to feeling happy and safe and comfortable, they can move through life knowing that life is happy, safe, and comfortable, and that even when it sometimes isn't, they can always come home to find it and feel it again.

—Jenny Cyphers

Building an Unschooling Nest
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Rhythm and connection

"I learned how to breathe and relax into the rhythm and connection that define the learning life of unschooling."

—Leah Rose

The precious principle of abundance
photo by Gail Higgins

Alphabetize your shoes

To someone who thought unschooling might be hard because she liked structure:

If you like structure, reorganize your spices, or make a birthday calendar and buy cards for everyone for the coming year and start putting clippings or little stickers inside the envelopes of various individuals. Alphabetize your shoes. Do something that doesn't hinder your kids, to fulfill your need for structure and organization.


That was from 2003. People are less likely now to send clippings, or birthday cards. The principle still holds true, though. 🙂

What about structure?
photo by Manessah Ellender Garcia
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Time and seasons

When I was younger, I couldn't yet grasp the meaning of loving something and letting it go. All I could think of were birds.

As a parent, and as a grandparent, I see it more clearly. I remember a pregnancy, and a baby, and a toddler... but we let them move on, and grow, and appreciate then where they are, while knowing we can't keep them that way.

The new plants grew, and some survived, and harvest came, and fall. This photo shows a garden that's already gone, but will be back in some form next year.

Life flows through us and around us.

Seasons
photo by Cass Kotrba

Freeing advice

"If there is one piece of advice I could give people it would be to see everything they do as a choice. It is so incredibly freeing. 🙂 It seems like the only reason we do so many unpleasant things in life is because we don't have a choice. But it's the perception of not having a choice makes them doubly onerous." —Joyce Fetteroll

The Value of Choices
photo by Amy Milstein

Accommodations

The more that parents can accommodate children's simple desires, the calmer and happier those children will be.

Nice, and patient
photo by Destiny Dodd

Curiosity and beauty

You can't see beauty without wanting to see some. Once you're looking through curiosity-tinted glasses, you will see a thousand interesting things.


(a little longer, on facebook)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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