Quick! They're gone!

Older moms say "Appreciate your kids. They'll be grown before you know it."

Younger moms think it's rude, and wrong, and can hardly endure the endless days of damp, stinky babies and toddlers, and messy, destructive, needy three and four year olds, and...

Life is made of stages that can seem long. I've had young children and felt sticky and crowded and exhausted. I've had teens I started to miss before they were gone.

Wherever you are, breathe and be patient and loving.


SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Ester Siroky

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This is a re-run from only a year ago. I usually wait longer, but I feel that this could help some parent (or many) every month. Please continue to be as kind and as appreciative as you can be, even when the world outside isn't helping. You could be the best part of someone else's day.

Two things at once

Here's a confession. While advice to focus and concentrate on doing one thing without distraction—singlemindedly performing a task in and of itself—seems very spiritual and clear, in my own real life I don't like it. Maybe it's because I can't succeed there.

I like to have conversations during video games, and sing while I'm driving, listen to audiobooks while I'm doing dishes, and that's probably why I like this picture of kids interacting just some, while also doing other things. I see evidence of activity and of choices made, and nothing taken too seriously. There can be clear and spiritual advantages to accepting that some people are that two-for-one way.

Doing Two Things at Once or, Leaning on a Truck and other parallel play
photo by Kinsey Norris

Be prepared to seem patient.

Planning for snacks and having them handy can seem like patience. Planning for clothing and having extra with you can seem like patience. Having a map and directions and having the phone charged up and a flashlight and an umbrella can seem like patience. Impatience is often the beacon of unpreparedness and the resulting embarrassment. Be prepared!

The quote is from the section called "Patience" in The Big Book of Unschooling
but this link has some other ideas: SandraDodd.com/patience
photo by Sandra Dodd

Just Do it!

"Just Do it — show your kids by your actions that their needs and feelings are important to you."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Cathy Koetsier
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Still, think.

"For a lot of people, thinking too deeply about what they believe is too painful. It's just easier to do what was done to them."

—Deb Lewis

The quote is the end of something longer here: SandraDodd.com/rules
Encouragement to think, detox, recover: Deschooling (newly improved page)
photo by Lydia Koltai

Count to ten, but WHY?

About calming down by counting to ten...
Counting to ten only works if you're breathing slowly and deeply and looking at (or thinking of) the sky or something else airy and big and peaceful. The purpose of counting to ten is to let the adrenaline pass and to think of some good options from which you can choose. If you count to ten holding your breath, holding your frustration, with a roaring anger in your ears, the adrenaline isn't dissipating—it's just being focused into a beam of extraordinarily dangerous power.

While you're breathing, you might want to think, "I love these people," or "whatever I say could last forever." Think of what you want to be and what you want to create. See what you want, and what you don't want.
A Loud Peaceful Home
photo by Sarah Elizabeth

Time and space

When you find ways to offer your partner space and time to be alone, it will eventually benefit the whole family.

SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild
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