When you breathe

When something makes you sad, breathe in a lovely thought.

When you're worried, breathe in hope.

When you're afraid, breathe in calm.

Let breathing bring you closer to better, for your family and for yourself.


SandraDodd.com/breathing
photo by Jo Isaac
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Curiosities

Learning proceeds from being able to touch and see things, maybe to hear, smell or taste things. To discuss new or unexpected things. To think about interesting things.

SandraDodd.com/museum
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Look for light

Look for light, literally and figuratively.


Early, in the kitchen, a basket of light:


One side is white with dark holes. The other side is dark with pink morning sun. Had I used a flash, both sides of the basket would have looked the same and the soft spots would have been gone.

Downstairs, another light show:

SandraDodd.com/mysteryart
photos and little video by Sandra Dodd in 2010

Sweet and playful

"Don’t underestimate how wonderful your happy presence can be for your kids. Be sweet and playful and optimistic and involved. Give them lots of your time."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/abundance
photo by Eva Witsel

Remember...

"I will never forget how I realized that I could be an independent person from watching "That Girl," or how seeing Barbara Jordan give the DNC speech as the first Black Woman ever to do so impacted me in ways that stay with me to this day."

—Jocelyn Cooper

You remember learning things. Your children are learning, too.
Read more: SandraDodd.com/t/memories
photo by Sandra Dodd

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Sorry for the American references, but here:

"That Girl" was a game-changing television program, and Barbara Jordan (a U.S. Representative from Texas) gave a speech aired on TV at the 1976 Democratic National Convention at which Jimmy Carter was nominated to run for president.

Traction

Get your footing so you can make progress.

"That picture you paint for yourself will get in the way of seeing the whole, real person right in front of you.

"Be precise in the words you use to describe those you love, aim to support and care for. Be as generous as you can too. The clearer you see your child, the better you can respond to their needs. The better you learn to listen to them, see them, and be of useful service to them, the more they will have confidence in your ability to have their best interest in mind."

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/condemnation
photo by Sandra Dodd

Cats, for real

For fun, today, maybe think about the nature of cats. There are pet cats, acting-and-modelling cats, folklore and humor about cats, fantasy cats, cartoon cats, imagery, song, and story of cats. Wild cats, musical cats, cool cats. Thinking about what IS a cat will help with thinking about the "is"ness of all other things.

SandraDodd.com/reality
photo by Brie Jontry of painting by Noor JontryMasterson
who also created the cat art here: SandraDodd.com/art/

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Kirby is married

Kirby, our oldest, was married October 14, 2016. The wedding was in the foothills of the Sandia. The reception was at "Event Palace," a rental facility, but the party (with karaoke) moved to our house and is still going on while it's time for me to create this post. So I will report a new daughter-in-law, many compliments tonight on Kirby, Marty and Holly all, and gratitude that Kirby's new wife loves him.


SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo of Kirby and Destiny singing "A Whole New World,"
with her sister listening
by Sandra Dodd

Same door

The same door can lead to different spaces, different times, different associations and memories. This door has seen joy and sorrow. People have passed through merrily and dreadfully. They wore clothing, shoes and hats of many different times. They thought of their relatives, their jobs, their problems, and their hopes. I passed through that door in 2016. I saw the stone arches, the flint wall, the woodwork, the iron latch. I saw the sunlight without and the darker, quieter space within. Our days are full of doors and portals, some physical and some in our thoughts and ideas. Bravely see with your very own eyes.

http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/p/doors.html
photo by Sandra Dodd

Stronger, and calm

As you understand unschooling better and have stories of your own child's learning, you will be stronger, and bigger, and relatives will start to love those stories of natural learning, too. It takes a while. It will always take a while.

When the stories are about YOUR children, and not just other people's children, you'll be in a more stable, calm place.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Sandra Dodd
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the best Now

Colleen Prieto wrote:

"I know that no matter how wonderful a childhood he has—no matter how accepted, nurtured, loved, and cared for he is—I can’t control his Future. His Someday is his—and he will run up against a whole world that is full of potentially confusing and potentially damaging things and people. We give him the best Now we can, in hopes that’ll carry him through his Someday as well as it can."

—Colleen Prieto

That's an almost-direct quote. There's a "but..." coming in the original,
but you might not need it today.
SandraDodd.com/addiction
photo by Sandra Dodd

Really reading

My recommendation to worried parents is to smile and wait and hold your child lovingly and to do no damage to his happiness while you're waiting for the day he can really read.

SandraDodd.com/r/real
photo by Quita Gray
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Simple joys

If you practice noticing and experiencing joy, if you take a second out of each hour to find joy, your life improves with each remembrance of your new primary goal. You don't need someone else to give you permission, or to decide whether or not what you thought gave you joy was an acceptable source of enjoyment.

SandraDodd.com/joy
photo by Kirby Dodd
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Magic (it isn't)

Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Unschooling cannot be learned by reading or writing.

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SandraDodd.com/readalittle
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Wrapped in thought

"Self control" is all tied up with being bad, and with failure. Choices, though, are wrapped in thought, power and freedom!


SandraDodd.com/control
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Secondary benefits

Look at all this impermanence—pixels showing a digital photo of the shadows of paper banners. Nothing very solid. Nothing that will last a century. But when you share an observation with a child, or with a friend, it is possible that you will be offering a missing piece, an inspiring opening, a near-magical life-changing clue.


What seems small to one person might be life changing to another.

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The text above was written for the image, but here's an example:
SandraDodd.com/mylittlepony
photo by Sandra Dodd

Mysterious everything

If you don't know what something is, another person probably does know.

If your child knows something you don't know, be glad of that! When you know something your child doesn't know, it might not be something he wants or needs to know. Calmly accept the mysteries of life.

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Sandra Dodd

Comforted and loved

Too many parents talk and talk to their kids, and ask them how they feel and ask them what they need. Learn to guess. Learn to provide in advance. Food is good to practice with. Soft, clean cleared-off beds are good to practice with. Clearing off space for video gaming is nice. Soon you start to think about heat, softness, clean clothes, toothpaste before it runs out, favorite foods when you shop. And then people feel heard and comforted and entertained and loved.

SandraDodd.com/quiet
photo by Holly Dodd

Bigger, better life

We make choices ALL the time. Learning to make better ones in small little ways, immediate ways, makes life bigger and better. Choosing to be gentle with a child, and patient with ourselves, and generous in ways we think might not even show makes our children more gentle, patient and generous.

SandraDodd.com/parentingpeacefully
Chrissy Florence
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Bright clouds

Mix it up, with words and ideas. Be happily surprised.



SandraDodd.com/surprise/
photo by Robert Gottlieb
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Reading and watermelons

When learning to read happens naturally, it doesn't look like school's reading lessons. It doesn't take years. It might take only days, but the tricky part is when those days will come. If you plant watermelons, picking at the leaves and threatening the vine will not get you a watermelon before one was going to naturally grow and mature. It's the same with children.

The quote is from page 86 (page 95, in 2019 edition)
of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Amber Stippy

Zippy and otherwise

Sometimes I get still. That's good, because sometimes I don't, and can't. If I were that zippy all the time, my body, mind and soul would probably wear out. . . . .

When I was younger and I would change, I thought something was wrong with me. I was under the mistaken impression that personality and mood should be constants. Life is better when I think of those fluctuations as tides, or as the weather of the soul.

"Cocooning and other stillness" (a blogpost from early December 2012)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Be more

I closed a talk recently with this:

Be brave, be calm, be happy.

Be braver, be calmer, be happier.

The first line was written on my paper. The second one, I added just then.

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Sandra Dodd
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On a peaceful day...

Watching the news on TV, or following too many news sites, can harm the peace of an unschooling home. Some moms, especially when their children are young, have found more peace if they focus inward on their children than outward far away.

If someone WANTS to be afraid and pissed off, even on a fairly peaceful day, all it takes is to turn the news on and let it affect your entire nervous system, your digestive system, your adrenal glands and hormones, your chance of trusting your neighbors, or of sleeping peacefully.


SandraDodd.com/news
photo by Sandra Dodd, of someone else's puppet

Light and shadows

"Light" can refer to levity, in English, and also to illumination. So it can be sweetness, humor, and clarity all. One of the best places to live lightly is in the kitchen, with and around food.

Avoid shading or shadowing what works best when bathed in light and lightness.

SandraDodd.com/eating/peace
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't measure.

I've given this advice to newlyweds, and to my children about roommates:


Don't aim for 50/50.

If 50% is right, then 49% is wrong, and 65% would be something get angry about.

If you both aim for more than half, you'll meet around the middle, around half the time. If you want the other person to stick around, "around" is the goal,

SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
photo by Sandra Dodd

Sometimes yes

Sometimes saying yes is being patient a little longer than the schedule says you should. Sometimes being kind is not rushing toward or away from something. Sometimes magic, and learning, and memories, come from a patient, gentle, unspoken "yes."

SandraDodd.com/yesagain
photo by Sandra Dodd

Strewing might ring a bell

Once Colleen Prieto wrote:

Yesterday, a neighbor offered me something that looks sort of like a cross between a bell and a gong, a stand to hang it from, and a mallet. It was interesting and I figured we'd find some sort of use for it, so...

In the less than 24 hours it's been in the house, my 9 year old has:

• Experimented with the different sounds it can make (soft hits, hard hits, hit in different places)
  
• Used it to call us all to attention so he could announce important things (like "I'm hungry" 🙂)
  
• Told our elderly friend about it, and in turn checked out the links she sent to websites that have photos of gongs that are bigger than people, Tibetan singing bowls, etc.
  
• Added The King and I to our Netflix queue after my mother said she thinks they use gongs to summon dancing maidens in the movie
  
• Looked for other things in the house to bring into the living room to make it look "even more Avatar air temple and less ordinary living room" 🙂
  
• Put Avatar episodes on in the background and made up his own air-bending moves while they were on
  
• Wondered why a mallet is called a mallet and is not called a hammer
  
• Asked me to find the bell collection we used to have out, so he can play with the bells again

The fun (and learning, and connections) that can come from exploring one simple item can be amazing.

—Colleen Prieto

SandraDodd.com/strew/strew
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Protection

For unschooling to flourish, parents might need to find ways to protect their children from the parents’ own fears and prejudices. The easiest way to do that is for the parents to let go of those fears and prejudices and see the world, and their children, through new eyes.

Protection can backfire
photo by Sandra Dodd
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What's the question?

Instead of indulging in pretty phrases and lofty goals, strip off the words and see if there is a simpler, more direct question to ask. If you can find the question, you might discover that you know the answer.

https://sandradodd.com/change.html
photo by Sandra Dodd

A better choice

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

My suggestion to you is to focus on making a "better" choice each time you can. I think that was the most helpful advice I got as a parent of younger kids—it was surprisingly practical and encouraging to simply consider at least two choices and pick the better one. The next time, try to think of the one you did choose and then one other—pick the better one. If you make a choice you're unhappy with, after the fact, think then about what would have been a better choice—have that one 'on hand' for next time.

Don't expect to be perfect, but expect yourself to be improving all the time.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/betterchoice
photo by Sandra Dodd, of something Keith Dodd carved

Shared joy

Happy memories are good glue.

The quote is from SandraDodd.com/betterpartner,
but it applies to kids' friendships, and to family memories.
photo by Sandra Dodd
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