
SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Sandra Dodd
"None of us are perfect; we'll all have some regrets. But with my kids 19, 16, and 13, I can now say that I will never say anything like, 'I wish I'd let them fight it out more,' or 'I wish I'd punished them more,' or 'I wish I'd yelled at them more.' I will only ever say that I wish I'd been more patient, more attentive, more calm and accepting of the normal stresses of having young children.
"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
(whose daughters are now 20 to 26 years old)
![]() | "Each small way we’re tied to our children adds to the tapestry that our respective lives weave." —Ben Lovejoy |
Bob Collier wrote, of playing with his daughter: "So there I am, a six foot guy with a beard lying on the floor with a little girl playing Polly Pockets, smiling and laughing and making silly stuff up as I go along. My daughter's happy. She can see that I love what she loves because it's written all over my face. And I really do. Who knew Polly Pockets could be so much fun? The Polly Pockets though are just the excuse. Not the cause." | ![]() |
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Scatter it out and rearrange it!
"We have the ability to choose gratefulness in any situation. For me, this has been life changing, though I still have a long ways to go! And I have tried very hard to take the words 'have to' out of my vocabulary. Some of you may feel it's just semantics, butit's empowering to see everything I do as a choice.
"When I'm getting ready for work I have caught myself saying "I have to get to work now" and stopped myself, saying " I CHOOSE to go to work and I need to be there soon." Simple? Perhaps. But sometimes the simplest details lead to more mindful living. The richness of abundant living is in the details."
![]() | "It's much better to be their partner than their roadblock. If you become an obstacle they'll find a way around you. Is that what you want for your relationship with your kids?" —Joyce Fetteroll |
"My son has experienced a lot of wonderful learning through discovery and knows how to find instruction if that's what he wants. I have a wild idea that doing what he wants to do is more important than doing what science educators would like him to do. I don't think all innovators and leaders have to come fromthe molded and stamped process that produced a previous innovator. I think new understanding often comes from fresh and fearless approaches to discovery. So, while some people are working to prove Piaget wrong, I think he had a good idea when he said, 'If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.'"
The way to know the right direction is to identify the wrong direction. | ![]() |
"Maybe thriving at [the University of Wollongong] gave me an enhanced appreciation of blurred edges. I find the concept of interconnectedness of all knowledge, one of the tent poles of Unschooling philosophy, to be a no-brainer. Art as science as history as math as language studies as economics; skills acquisition as a function of activity rather than a separated prerequisite. I believe creativity is the foundation of all activity."
There's evidence galore! There's evidence throughout human existence. There's evidence in the fossil record. Stone age evidence and Bronze Age evidence and evidence in every archaeological site in the world. Humans learn.
They learn what the other humans around them are doing. They learn by living.
And now there's the evidence of my own son's life. He is surrounded by the things that interest humans in the twenty-first century. He is surrounded by the whole of human history. He is a citizen of the world in a time when access to information has never been easier. He is learning all the time.
![]() | I was reminded recently that I had told a relative NOT to teach my kids that fake "game." I'm still glad I asked that it not be done to them. The entirety of the rhyme, which has hand motions, was"Look up. Look down.I never wanted my kids to think for one joking moment that they were "dumb." I always stopped at the "look up" part, and life has looked up for all of us. |