Yes, they learn.

I will say this: Any questions you have about unschooling have been answered before. If it didn’t work, no one would do it. Yes, children learn math, music, to spell, to wake up on time, to finish projects and to follow rules.

SandraDodd.com/sustainable
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Courageous, selfless and honest

The world doesn't always give people opportunities to be courageous, selfless and honest, but being an unschooling parent does it every day. Choosing relationship-supporting options over expedient or fear-based options is part of "goodness," in parenting, and marriage, and friendship, isn't it?

"Peaceful Parenting" (page, recording, partial transcript) has ideas about how, in practical terms, to come to make better choices. And "better" requires a compass, a moral compass. And "better" requires discernment.

Parenting Peacefully
photo by Sandra Dodd

Living thoughtfully

There is a danger in living an entirely reactionary life. If you do everything the opposite of what your mom did, it's as bad as doing exactly what your mom did without knowing why. Be discriminating and thoughtful. Don't chuck the ghost of the baby you were out with the bathwater of your emotional memories.

SandraDodd.com/relatives
photo by Sandra Dodd

Focus on others

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Wanting your family to be happy, joyful and learning seems a perfectly fine goal! But you won't get there by focusing on what you want. You'll get there by focusing on what they want.

What are your kids interested in? What do they want? How can you support that?

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/deschooling has a bit more of that, near the bottom
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Get the world swirling

If you want unschooling to work just because you stick the curriculum under the couch, it won't! Get the world swirling around you (first) and your children (second) so there are sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures for them to process and build their internal model of the universe from. GET MOVING, mentally and physically.

SandraDodd.com/addlightandstir (from 2002; pretty old)
photo by Sandra Dodd

Thought and belief

Terminology reflects thought and belief.

Sometimes just a slight shift in terminology will release the mental block that keeps people from understanding unschooling.

SandraDodd.com/parentalauthority
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Joy and optimism!

If joy and optimism seem stupid, don't even try to unschool until after you've gotten some therapy or made direct strides toward recovering from the sooty veil of negativity. Children won't benefit from a life guide who is sure he or she is smarter than all the rest of the world. Arrogant certitude prevents learning.

From the notes for a talk given in 2012 in Sacramento
SandraDodd.com/hsc/unschoolingwell
photo by Sandra Dodd
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See the light

In 1999, I addressed the note below to unschoolers about something I had written in 1993 to a general homeschooling discussion. As I link this, it's 2013. Twenty years since the first writing! So when I mentioned "40-year-old houses" (in the link, if you go there) those houses (and I) are twenty years older now.

Part of what this sort of exploration takes is the willingness to let go of an "outline" or of a hope that you will find something, and an ability to go with what you do find. It's the big airplane hangar door to unschooling, through which, if you can leave the schoolish building your own mind has built, that has "academics" sorted and stacked against old walls with bad memories, you can see the light of the real world outside. Just move out toward those cliffs and flowers and see what kind of birds are out there.


SandraDodd.com/dot/elvis
photo by Sandra Dodd

Kotex, The Mummy and the talk

Lyle Perry, who unschooled two boys, wrote:

While watching a movie, a Kotex commercial came on and spawned a lengthy discussion on menstruation, and how all the different methods of protection work, or don't work, the reasons why women pick one method over another, and what did women do back before companies like Kotex existed. Then the discussion moved to the different methods of birth control, then to birth itself, and C-sections, natural childbirth, etc. All from one little Kotex commercial.

While watching The Mummy (cartoon), we talked about Egypt and the pharoahs, and then slavery, which eventually led to the civil war and Abe Lincoln, and then on to other presidents that had done "great" things.

That's just a few off the top of my head, but the main thing to remember is that none of these discussions were planned, and it's always the kids that initiate the talks, and when they stop asking "why, when, how, who and where" the talk is over. They may come back at a later date and want more information to add to what they know, or they may be satisfied and leave it at that.

TV is not a "bad" thing. TV can be very, very cool.

—Lyle Perry

SandraDodd.com/t/learning
or (bonus link):
SandraDodd.com/presidents
photo by Dylan Lewis
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Living in the world

If unschooling is living in the world, then creating a sub-world defeats the purpose. I don't object to conferences, but I think people should go to a conference or two a year, maybe visit some unschooling friends, and also do other things, and have other friends. Mostly they should live in the town or city where they live, and not in an overlaid fantasy world.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolworld
photo by Sandra Dodd

Many options

Video games became one of the many options to chose from once I was able to remain calm and look at the child in front of me and see the passion, the connections, the light in his eyes, and excitement in his voice when he is playing a game he really loves.

—Heather Booth

Video Games Are Just One Of The Many Options To Chose From
photo by Joannah Smith

Little things connect

Small objects have stories, connections, histories, uses and alternative uses. Objects can be researched, compared and shared on the internet. We can learn a little or a lot.

I love the internet.


SandraDodd.com/internet/love
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a piece of art,
from the Vatican, where I have not been

Play lightly

All my life I was given advice like this:

Be serious
Act your age
Don't take this lightly.

Now, though, that I'm involved with unschooling I say to adults and to children alike, take this lightly. Play around.

Play with words, with ideas, with thoughts.

Play with music.

Play in the rain.

Play in the dark.

Play with your food.

But play safely. Play is only play when no one involved is objecting. It's only playing if everyone is playing.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd (click it)

Relationship building

"One interaction at a time. Just make the next interaction a relationship-building one. Don't worry about the one AFTER that, until IT becomes 'the next one'."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Colleen Prieto

Teaching is a problem.

"Teaching" is a problem, in an unschooling light. Learning is the goal, and teaching gets in the way.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Leon McNeill, of Holly Dodd looking at the original Bayeux Tapestry,
in France in 2005

All kinds of answers

Principles produce all kinds of answers where rules fail.

SandraDodd.com/coaching
photo by Julie D

Shhhh

Sometimes parents talk too much. Practice being quiet.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Karen James
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What do babies want?

What do babies want? They want to learn. They learn by touching and tasting and watching and listening. They learn to be gentle by people being gentle with them, and showing them how to touch hair nicely, and to touch cats and dogs gently. They want to learn which foods taste good. They want to learn how to walk, but you don't need to teach them. They'll want to know how to go up and down stairs at some point. They will eventually want to know how to get things off shelves and out of boxes. They will want to see what else is in the house, and in the yard, and you can help them do that safely.

A baby doesn't want to look at and touch the very same things day after day after day any more than you would want to watch the same movie every day for a year, or sit in the same place in your house all the time. Sing different songs with him. Play different finger games. Change what he can see in the bedroom sometimes.

A rich world for a baby is similar to a rich world for anyone else. A baby is a person. A lucky baby has an adult partner who understands that.

SandraDodd.com/babies/infants
photo by Anand Hariharan
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It's whimsical.

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Sometimes learning looks like flitting from one thing to another. But it's more like gathering a collection of something. If you imagine collecting world stamps or coins, seashells, leaves, 80's heavy metal CDs, Pokemon ... you don't begin with A, collecting only those that begin with A until that's complete, ignoring ones that are there right in your reach but out of order. You gather what interests you as you find it. It's whimsical.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Jasmine McNeill
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How will you be?

How will you be, as a parent, and why? What's keeping you from being the way you want to be?

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Bea Mantovani

Ponder the wonder

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Get interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"
SandraDodd.com/curiosity
photo by Colleen Prieto

Be still

Until a person stops doing the things that keep unschooling from working, unschooling can't begin to work. It seems simple to me. If you're trying to listen for a sound, you have to stop talking and be still. Some people want to see unschooling while they're still teaching and putzing and assigning and requiring. They have to stop that FIRST. And then they have to be still. And then they have to look at their child with new eyes. If they don't, it won't happen.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Marty Dodd, in Utah
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Not so extreme, please

If the old rules were that school is vital and "an education" (defined as the curriculum of an ideal school) is necessary, will the new rules be that school is not important and an education is not necessary? We don't make school disappear by turning the other way. It's still there. Our kids might want to go to school someday, in some form. We don't deny that knowledge is important by becoming unschoolers, but many come to prefer the idea of "learning" with its vast possibilities over the narrower "education."

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Sandra Dodd
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You don't have to make choices.

Thinking you "have to" do something keeps you from making a choice.

SandraDodd.com/haveto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Bigger and Better

A mom who's going to help a child learn from the whole wide world should herself become ever increasingly comfortable with what all is IN the whole wide world, and how she can help bring her child to the world and the world to her child.

Unschooling should and can be bigger and better than school.

If it's smaller and quieter than school, the mom should do more to make life sparkly.

SandraDodd.com/strew/how
photo by Kirby Dodd

All that is good

Be his partner, not his adversary.

Help him find and do and explore the things he's interested in doing. Encourage him. Facilitate and assist. See all that is good about your child.


SandraDodd.com/video/doright (there's a transcript, too)
photo by Susan Burke
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Finding peace today

Sleep can be peace. Food can be peace.

Sleep / Peaceful Homes / Naps
Photo by Sandra Dodd, of a Taco Bell sign in Bangalore.
It says "Visit Mexico for 18 rupees," more or less,
and it was a vegetarian taco.
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There is safety in happiness

I think the most dangerous thing for a kid is unhappiness. When a child wants out and away from parents, then things outside the house can seem appealing—even questionable strangers in cars with tinted windows, who will say "meet me in the alley."

And that has been happening since before the internet.


from a chat on Internet Safety and related, suprising matters
photo by Julie D
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Music lives in the air

Music doesn't live in notes on paper, it lives in the air.

People can be VERY musical without knowing how to read or write music, just as people can be very verbal, tell stories, be poetic and dramatic without reading and writing.

SandraDodd.com/music
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sustainable learning

This is more of a “why to” than a “how to.” The “why?” in unschooling can be answered with “To create sustainable learning.” Our children have curiosity and joy to last a lifetime.

SandraDodd.com/sustainable
photo by Marty Dodd, in Nevada, March 2013
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A touchy subject

In response to "I guess if I was totally honest, I think there are a lot worse things the kid could be doing the viewing dirty pictures." I wrote, "And there are better things parents can do than create situations that cause their kids to lie and sneak."

The quote is from SandraDodd.com/sex,
but the thought might be more about masturbation.
It won't be a regular topic, but people with older kids might need the links.

photo by Sandra Dodd
P.S. I called this "A touchy subject" but I considered calling it "Don't Add Light."

Limitations

My children are about as free as they're going to get, honestly. Always have been. Yet there are all these real-life limitations and considerations.

from the transcript of a chat on "Freedom"
photo by Colleen Prieto, of a legitimate exception
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Living proof

"We don't have to be tested to find out what we've learned. The learning will be demonstrated as we use new skills and talk knowledgeably about a topic."

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/principles
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Enough trivia

Enough trivia will create a detailed model of the universe.


Joy said "That is a poem," about the text above, when it appeared here. I decided to create a new page for this poem to link to.
SandraDodd.com/trivia
photo by Sandra Dodd

Today...

Live lightly.

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Sandra Dodd

Relax into it

Unschooling is easy for children, once parents relax into it and come to understand it. It's a way of living with children in a life based on sharing a joyous exploration of the world.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/successful
photo by Colleen Prieto

Don't miss it

"If I wasn't paying attention, and if I was afraid of the time Ethan spends at the computer, I would miss all of the creativity and learning happening. Worse still, Ethan might too, because my worry would become his burden."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/screentime
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a flag on a boat in Liverpool

Words

Please be careful with words, because they say what you're thinking. Be careful with thoughts because they affect the way you're responding to people.

SandraDodd.com/words
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Playful experimentation

Children learn from playing. They experiment with tools, materials, textures, movements, sounds. They imitate the older people around the. They imitate animals, and fictional characters. They try on voices, faces, postures and ideas. Parents should encourage and facilitate their playful experimentation.

Learning Styles and living big, on the Always Learning discussion
photo by Sarah Dickinson

Rain and sunny days

"If it's raining, focusing on what you can do instead of the walk you wanted doesn't make it a sunny day! But it does make a day of rain more pleasant." —Joyce Fetteroll

photo by Polly Griffiths, of an accidental pattern

Unschooling should be...

Unschooling should be about peaceful, supportive relationships, about modelling consideration and thoughtful choicemaking, and about learning.


SandraDodd.com/problems/toofar
photo by Holly Dodd
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Give generously

If you want to measure, measure generously. If you want to give, give generously. If you want to unschool, or be a mindful parent, give, give, give. You'll find after a few years that you still have everything you thought you had given away, and more.

SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely
photo by Sandra Dodd

Hold on to something

Instead of requiring that my kids had to hold my hand in a parking lot, I would park near a cart and put some kids in right away, or tell them to hold on to the cart (a.k.a. "help me push", so a kid can be between me and the cart). And they didn't have to hold a hand. There weren't enough hands. I'd say "Hold on to something," and it might be my jacket, or the strap of the sling, or the backpack, or something.

I've seen other people's children run away from them in parking lots, and the parents yell and threaten. At that moment, going back to the mom seems the most dangerous option.

Make yourself your child's safest place in the world, and many of your old concerns will just disappear.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 67 (71 of newer edition)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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That's all. Just that.

If I saw [unschooling] simply as a means to get them to college, I might be nervous. I see it as a way to live. I don't see it as keeping the kids out of college or hampering their opportunities for formal learning if they go that route. I'm not holding college up to them or me as "the goal." The goal, for me, is that they will be thoughtful, compassionate, curious, kind and joyful. That's all. That's not asking much, is it? I think if those traits are intact in them, they will continue to learn their whole lives.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Julie D
Words 1998; Image 2013.

Being a father

Frank Maier wrote:

Being a father means participating in, and belonging to, the world around me and not just sitting quietly, being an observer. I have learned from my family and blossomed within my own inner geography as much as the kids have blossomed and grown into the wide world around them. As with most kinds of growth, it's difficult to see the changes on a daily or short-term basis. It's when you look back over a longer period that you really see, and are amazed by, the amount of growth that has happened.

—Frank Maier

SandraDodd.com/dads
(I took an "also" out of the first phrase.)
photo by Colleen Prieto

A bigger payoff

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

Think about what is REALLY important and keep that always in the forefront of your interactions with your children. What values do you hope to pass on to them? You can't "pass on" something you don't exemplify yourself. Treat them the way you want them to treat others. Do you want respect? Be respectful. Do you want responsibility from them? Be responsible. Think of how you look to them, from their perspective. Do you order them around? Is that respectful? Do you say, "I'll be just a minute" and then take 20 more minutes talking to a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible?

Focus more on your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/pam/howto
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Do more.

If you don't feel like you're doing enough, do more. Karen James remembered me writing that, and a few years later she repeated it to another mom, with a nice addition: "Do more. Have fun. In my experience, it's truly contagious!"

SandraDodd.com/howto/precisely
photo by Sandra Dodd

Right and true

Live your life in such a way that other people will trust you. When you make decisions, make generous, selfless decisions so that others benefit. When you say something, do your best to say what is fair and right and true. When you write, write things you don't mind people taking out and sharing.

A person is only trustworthy if he has earned trust, if he is worthy of being trusted.

BENEFITS beyond just "be a better parent"
photo by Marty Dodd

Compass

"Compass rose" is a beautiful term for directions set in tile, or stone, or metal, or painted... It's a symbol for knowing what's what and where's where—where the viewer is, in relation to the rest of the world.

The word "encompass," meaning to surround and enclose, can be a soothing concept, for parents and families.

Within that compass, there are options. As children grow, the size of the encompassing circle expands.

SandraDodd.com/wordswords
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Fascinating

"One dark spooky night not so long ago, under a full moon and while the wind howled....my 5-year-old developed a fascination for monsters."

—Amy Kagey

Monster Mania
and one monster leads to another...
photo by Colleen Prieto