Showing posts with label tube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tube. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

What is "better"?

Approach "better."

But "better" is unmeasurable. Too much measuring, too much counting.
Better is perceptible.
Better is a relief.
Better is better.

Arguing with "better is better" is saying that better is not better.
Worse is certainly not better.




Happiness Inside and Out
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Comfort and entertainment

Here's how unschooling can help: Look right at her, this moment, and do what will comfort or entertain her. Do that as many moments as you can, until she's helping you find things that are comforting and entertaining.

Comfort and entertainment can lead to all the learning in the world, if you start when a child is young.
SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Amy Milstein

Monday, September 3, 2018

Magical and transformed


Parental encouragement, smiles, acceptance and support are what turn plain or unsettled life into magical and transformed shared lives.

"Getting it"
photo by Lisa J Haugen
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Sunday, January 14, 2018

Looking back...

Older moms are irritating. They're always saying things like "appreciate them when they're little," and "you will miss this stage." "They grow so quickly," say those parents of bigger kids.

I've been the exhausted mom of babies. I became one of those older moms.



The child in this photo might not fit in that space anymore. I'm still working through photos people sent me two years ago.

Today is my son's birthday. He became a father two and a half weeks ago.

They grow so quickly.


Being where you are
photo by Erika Ellis (thank you again, Erika)
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Friday, June 30, 2017

In the world

I will know more later, but from my vantage point as someone with two "of age" boys and a girl about to turn eighteen, it seems that the adult products of unschooling turn out to be adult humans who were relatively unhampered as they learned and grew.

 small wildflowers in the bottom of a glass bowl

Many things we have been told and assumed were natural human behavior seem now to be natural side effects of schooling.

School promises a child that if he's good, someday he can take his place in the world. They're still making him that promise when he's a young adult: "Someday…"

Unschooled children are in the world from an early age. When they reach adulthood they have a carriage and calm that I believe came from having being respected as people for many years. It's hard to describe, but impossible to ignore.

SandraDodd.com/youngadults
[page 264 (or 305— "Young Adults") of The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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Friday, March 17, 2017

Peacefully and respectfully

Karen James wrote:

Living in the world peacefully and respectfully are good places to begin to focus when new to unschooing. The best advice I was given was to look at my son. Not at ideals. Not at freedom. Not at school or no school. Not at labels. Not at big ideas. Look at my son. Be with him. Get to know him deeply. And, then to read a bit about unschooling. Give something new a try. See how it goes in the context of our real day to day life.

I still do that. I'm still learning.
—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/freedom
photo by Karen James
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Sunday, December 11, 2016

Newness and excitement


Energy is shared, and that's how unschooling works. Whether I'm excited about something new, or my children are excited about something new, there's still newness and excitement enough to share.

SandraDodd.com/balance
photo by Chrissy Florence
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Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Loud, happy homes



A loud, happy home is more peaceful than a quiet home where people are afraid to "disturb the peace."

SandraDodd.com/bignoisypeace
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sunday, November 23, 2014

No doubt


Because my children learned to read without having been taught, they have no doubt whatsoever that they could learn anything else. Few things are as important or as complex as reading, yet they figured it out and enjoyed doing it. If I thought I had taught them, they too would think I taught them, and they would be waiting for me to teach them something else.

SandraDodd.com/thoughts
photo by Amber Stippy

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Safe in his own home


One of my main principles has been that it's my job to protect the peace of each of my children in his or her own home insofar as I can. I'm not just here to protect them from outsiders, axe-murderers and boogie-men of whatever real or imagined sort, but from each other as well.

More of, and comments on, settling kids' fights
photo by Colleen Prieto

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Thinking and being

This was accidentally sent as an extra, in mid-May. I hope you've already seen it, since today is Learn Nothing Day.

Some people say "no" before they even think, and then they justify it by all kinds of child-belittling means. You don't have to be one of those people.

SandraDodd.com/yesGraphic
photo by by Ashlee Junker (of Marty)