Wondering, questioning, answering

During a drought, what is lacking? The recommended answer: rain Marty's answer: a boat ride

SandraDodd.com/betteranswers
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A peaceful, homey home

One small tip for a peaceful, homey home: Sometimes when a mom is really frustrated with doing the dishes, it can help to get rid of dishes with bad memories and connections, or put them in storage for a while. Happy, fun dishes with pleasant associations are easier to wash.

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Sandra Dodd

Richer, meaningful, lasting

"As I became happier with myself and the world around me, I would say that real learning started to happen. From my experience, when trauma heals, learning begins to become more fluid again. Richer. More meaningful. More lasting."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Giving up, gaining strength

De Smith wrote:

At one point in my early struggles to grasp the concept, I "threw in the towel", thinking that it wasn't "working", and decided I was going back to traditional parenting! Within a day, I knew I could never be that parent, again—if I ever had totally been that parent. I found that once you learned how to respect someone, you couldn't ignore that and treat them with less value, with less honor just because you decided so. For a day or so, that had me desperate and flailing. Eventually, I found it strengthening—it backed up the ideas I so loved and wanted for my family.

—De Smith

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Sandra Dodd

Convenience foods

Life was harder, not long ago. Food preparation and availability are easier than ever. Appreciate the advantages of living where you live, when you live! Rejoice at convenience.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Beyond the door

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

A computer, a hand held game, an iPod are doors that lead to a vast world of experiences. Just as your front door leads to a vast world of many different things you can do. Would you refer to all the things your family does by going through your front door—walks, shopping, visiting friends, mowing the lawn, vacations—as "door stuff"?

. . . .

Stop looking at the door. See the richness that exists beyond the door.

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/screentime.html
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Questions and curiosity

"In each moment of questioning, or inquiry, or curiosity, you get to choose how you respond. You can respond in such a way that a child's question, their learning, is honored, with kindness and lightness and joy, or you can shut that down with your own opinions and ideas. The more a parent can honor a child's curiosity, the more that child will genuinely listen to their parent's ideas about the world." —Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/eating/control
photo by Sandra Dodd

Slight, subtle change

Slow, careful little changes make eventual big differences. Learn to see in different ways.

SandraDodd.com/unschoolingpeace
photo by Colleen Prieto, who wrote
"Fantastic little snake—he was watching us watching him.
Newburyport, Massachusetts"
__

Canada... dude!

I'm happy to know I'm not the sole source of information for my kids.

Last night I came to use my computer and there was a dialog on the desktop, a leftover instant message between my thirteen-year-old son Marty and an older homeschooler. This was the entirety of that dialog:

Marty: You coming down?
Other kid: yeah.
Marty: Did you know Canada has Prime Ministers?
Other kid: yeah
Marty: dude

Now I will never have to explain to Marty that Canada has a prime minister. I don't know why he cared, on a Friday night in New Mexico, but it doesn't matter.

SandraDodd.com/words/words
For the record, "last night" was in late 2002, and the other kid was Brett Henry, also unschooled, who is now a firefighter in the Los Alamos Fire Department.

photo by Sandra Dodd
__ P.S. Since writing this, since taking that photo, I went to France and discovered that their stop signs say "Stop." Why, I asked my French host-mom, do they say "Arrêt" in Quebec? She said Quebec wants to be more French than France. One more bit of information that won't be on the test. Trivia.

Helpful and kind

The idea of doing what is kind to do, whether it's bringing food to someone who is engaged in something interesting, or hanging around a long time just in case help is needed did not get dusty. That's the way our kids think others should be, and it has made countless differences in all directions in our lives.

To read about the idea that DID get dusty, go here:
Radical Unschooling Info post by Sandra Dodd; September 6, 2016
photo by Megan Valnes
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Unfurling

Look at that curled up leaf:


Something that will be big, and full, sometimes starts small, and in another form. If conditions remain good for that leaf, it will open up like the others. It won't happen sooner from wishing or pressure. The leaf won't be bigger from speeches or promises. It will open gently to be itself, if it is allowed to unfurl in its own way.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/definition.html
photo by Holly Dodd

What happens is...

What happens when you see other people differently is that you cannot help but see yourself differently. When you choose to find opportunities to give other people choices, you yourself have begun to make more choices.

from The Big Book of Unschooling, page 192 (or 222)
which links to SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp (her kids and Adam's family)

A thousand to one

For unschooling to work, parents need to stop looking into the future and live more in the moment with their real child. BEING with a child is being where the child is, emotionally and spiritually and physically and musically and artistically. Seeing where the child *is* rather than seeing a thousand or even a dozen places she is not.

SandraDodd.com/being/with
photo by Chrissy Florence

Organic learning

Learning happens all on its own when the parents stop looking at life in a schoolish way, and can appreciate and encourage that sort of organic, constant addition to a personal body of knowledge.

SandraDodd.com/substance
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sixth Anniversary, Just Add Light and Stir

I missed announcing the fifth anniversary, in 2015. By the time I noticed, six weeks had passed. Happy anniversary to us all, 2016.

Sometimes it's hard to find a quote that hasn't been used. Other times I don't have a great photo to match the quote. But occasionally it's poetically magical, and I'm inspired, again, to continue.

Thank you for reading and sharing.



photo by Sandra Dodd, of someone else's good idea

Same but different

Some things are the same at a distance, or when the details are unimportant.

Up close, even things that are "the same" can be very different.

What you're doing, what people think you're doing, what you wish you were doing, all might be very different. By careful comparison and contrast, we can clarify our vision. Save the effort for things you care about, though.

SandraDodd.com/comparisons
photo by Sandra Dodd

One tiny step

Until you drop the idea of teaching, you won't see the learning all around you.

One tiny step opens up a new world of learning.

SandraDodd.com/teaching
photo by Eva Witsel
(Okay, maybe it's not a tiny step, but even if it's a series of awkward steps, get over there!)

Criss-cross trails

Do the best you can to survive the bumps and unexpected turns of the trails through the unschooling world, which will necessarily cross back over and through themselves, which is how learning works–a little now, a little more later to connect to what you've learned since, and detours that end up being short cuts.

The quote is from page 3 of The Big Book of Unschooling.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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A mysterious little door

Sometimes a litle door might be literal, or sometimes figurative, but little doors can lead to many wonderful things! All the doors you've ever seen are connected in you. They open into all different places and spaces in your memory and your imagination.


Hidden secret rooms...
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Cleaning the future

I had been unschooling for years before a few people suggested on a message board that requiring kids to do chores could be as bad as making them do schoolwork. I perked up immediately, and everything they said has proven true at our house. The first principle was "If a mess is bothering you, YOU clean it up." Another one was "Do things for your family because you *want* to!"

It was new to me to consider housework a fun thing to be done with a happy attitude, but as it has changed my life and because it fit in so well with the other unschooling issues, I've collected things to help others consider this change as well.

In the same way that food controls can create food issues, forcing housework on children can cause resentments and avoidances which neither get houses clean nor improve the relationships between children and parents.

Also, studies of separated identical twins have shown that the desire and ability to clean and organize has more to do with genetics than "training."

SandraDodd.com/chores
photo by Sandra Dodd
"That's a rad picture; I think I was eleven." —Holly

Inside, outside

Where I didn't expect to see it, there was a small, quiet, mysterious depth. A beautiful plant was growing from it.

It reminded me of every good thing about learning and parenting.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd

More or less

I often think back to the things I learned in La Leche League, from readings and other moms. If you nurse a child a long time does it make him dependent on the mom? Seems to be the opposite. If you hug a child every time he wants a hug, does it make him want a hug-a-day for life? You WISH!

The more they get, the less they need.

Quote from a very-early online chat for homeschoolers,
late 1995 or early 1996, SandraDodd.com/detox.
Photo of Kate Koetsier and her 10th Birthday cake
by her mom, Cathy, several years ago.

Then what?

With logic, or engineering, storytelling, sports or tricks, it's fun to wonder about the result one change or action will have.

Mindfulness is about remembering that what I'm doing right now is going to have an effect on what will happen next, not just in my own life, but in other people's lives.

SandraDodd.com/mindfulness
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wordless moments

Sometimes living lightly means letting things pass without comment. Words can be fun, but there is fun without words.

SandraDodd.com/reallearning
photo by Janine Davies,
of Kes and Holly

Upward and onward

Our future doesn't need to be a repeat of our past.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/karenjames
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Play as work

People like to say that play is the work of children Why think of something as "work" when it's light and fun? When you see that learning can happen all the time, play can be play.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Brigita Usman

Treasure-ish

One country's trash is another country's mysterious antique treasure.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

Facets and aspects

This morning I was playing Dixit with people I hadn't played with before. So different! The odd pictures can be many different things, and the clues given were unexpected and interesting.

This photo, by Shonna Morgan, looks like light. A harp. A sail. A bridge. Well, it IS a bridge.

A bridge can be figurative or literal, but it's a connection, and a short cut. A "real bridge" might be a log, or a traditional rope or plank bridge, or it might be an engineering marvel that brings people and places together.

See the same thing in different ways, as often as you conveniently can.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Shonna Morgan

Recent history

Sorting out news from "current events" from history isn't as easy as it once was, with the internet and with so many sources and resources. Some history isn't very old at all, while other history is archeology and paleontology.

If you think of it all as stories, people, places, things, trivia and connections, it won't matter what label school might have put on it. Have fun with history!



SandraDodd.com/history
photo by Sandra Dodd

Into the future

Do all the things that make unschooling better, and your life will be better in ways you never could have foreseen.

SandraDodd.com/unexpected
photo by Nicole Kenyon
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A good question

When people change directions concerning their children's lives and learning, sometimes they ask what they should do and how they should do it.

A better question to ask is "Why?"

SandraDodd.com/why
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Softer words

Some parents express their learning as "struggle" or "challenge," but those words are antagonistic. Try to relax, and try not to feel that you're wrestling (with your child's desires, or with your own thoughts).

If you can find softer words, you will experience softer emotions.


SandraDodd.com/battle
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a flowering plant
growing out of a rain spout
on a castle
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Unexpected art

It's easy to think of art as colors on flat paper or flat canvas. It's too easy to think of that as what art *is,* but now that your life is all about learning and being observant, look up, look down, look all around!

SandraDodd.com/art
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a full-sized dog sculpted from sand
on a street in Windsor, in England

Disorienteering

So sorry to have missed two days! There was travel, and sleeping, and time change, and I'm on another continent. They drive funny and speak differently, and I need to think faster, so I sleep more.

There are advantages to staying quietly and peacefully in familiar places sometimes.

Try not to let confusion scare you. Set a good example for others. Relax if you can.

SandraDodd.com/calm
photo by Sandra Dodd

Surprises and discoveries

Rather than tell a child in advance what's about to be seen, it can be wonderful to let them feel they've discovered something on their own. A surprise can be so stimulating that the memories will be more vivid. And the discovery becomes a personal accomplishment.

If the parent is surprised too, that's a bonus, but if you can allow for someone else to be surprised, it can be a kindness and a gift.

SandraDodd.com/surprise/
photo by Lydia Koltai

Spooky for fun

Interesting mysteries are like amusement-park rides for our brains. Once in a while, think spooky thoughts, and come back happy.

SandraDodd.com/t/monstermania, or
SandraDodd.com/mystery/
photo by Karen James

Tricky, trickier...

Jeanette: This life is deceptively difficult, and yet so simple! Sandra: It’s trickier than it looks, and once the tricks are learned, it’s easy!

SandraDodd.com/moments
photo by Sam Baykus

Flower Bath

I lifted the title of this post from Lydia Koltai's name for this photo she took. Naming these posts is fun but sometimes difficult, as I try not to duplicate even those I've borrowed from years ago. I like to hope that someone who doesn't open the e-mail, or read the text, might still be inspired by the title. "Flower bath" qualifies in that way.

Combine things that haven't been combined at your house. Do something that has never been done in your life before.

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/courage
(The words above are Sandra Dodd's, new today,
but the link is to "Becoming Courageous," by Deb Lewis.)
photo by Lydia Koltai
__

Neediness, and lack of it

When I was little I didn't get things, and I was told no a lot, and I still get
a thrill from spending money, eating out, getting something new. It's as though
something in my broke, when I was little, and a switch is stuck that makes me
want something, vaguely. My kids don't have that at all, none of them.

Keith said he wanted them to grow up undamaged, and this might be part of what "undamaged" looks like. They're realistic and not needy.

SandraDodd.com/spoiledkids

photo by Sandra Dodd, of a design on a lampshade

This post is a repeat, but anyone who remembers it from five years ago
might see it differently now.

Gradually easier

When it starts to become a habit for a parent to consider peace, safety, acceptance, choices, service and gratitude in everyday decision making, parenting gradually becomes easier.



SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Colleen Prieto

Stuff

Old things, odd things, useful or interesting things...

Textures, shapes, colors, perspective.


Even if you don't share them with your children, the more you can see and appreciate them, the more understanding you will probably be of what they do notice and comment on. Seeing beyond "right answers," and seeing past what SHOULD be important will open up the world.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Sandra Dodd

Richly and joyfully

Unschoolers don't "just live." They live large. They live expansively, and richly and joyfully. Those are the things that make it work.

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp

Plans change

When you can, allow for flexible plans. Your vision of the moment might not be as good as what could spontaneously occur. Sometimes, instead of calling your child back, follow her out of the frame.

SandraDodd.com/priorities
(New words here, many good words there.)
photo by Beth Lamb

Your part

Make the world more peaceful by being a peaceful part of the world.

SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Eva Witsel

Here and now

You can only start where you are.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Abby Davis

Upward

Don't settle. Climb.

SandraDodd.com/enough
photo by Erika Ellis

What's the rush?

I saw an advertisement on the side of some webpage, aimed at me. "Homeschooling," I saw out the corner of my eye. It asked me whether I didn't want to make sure my child was ahead.

"Ahead" of what? Ahead of himself? That's considered a bad thing. "Don't get ahead of yourself," people say.

"Ahead" of other people? What's the rush?

When the traffic is slow on the freeway, sometimes someone will zoom along the shoulder and try to squeeze in. Why? It's not helpful. It's not polite. It's not safe.

My children are grown. They grew slowly, safely, politely, and I've always tried to be helpful. They weren't ahead. They were right where they were, all day, every day. There they still are, where they're used to being. They are themselves, here and now.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Sandra Dodd

Strolling along

Explore. Go for a walk. From special days in exotic locations to normal days in the same old place, there will be things to see and thoughts to share.

SandraDodd.com/substance
photo by Chrissy Florence
__ __

Your House as a Museum

There are stories behind the things you have. You're saving history, geography, social ties, mysteries. Share those stories with your children and your guests, if there's a lull, or a connection to be made.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd

Come back tomorrow.

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intentionally blank.