When Siblings Fight, August 28 topic

Last week's chat has been edited, and you can read it here: http://chattranscripts.blogspot.com/2013/08/internet-safety.html

August 28, the chat topic will be "When Siblings Fight," which is a three page article in The Big Book of Unschooling, pages 226-228.

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

August 21 chat on the Dangers of the Internet

page 225, Online Safety and related issues. Dangers of the internet, and related concerns.

Also, tales of internet glory and wonder!  

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

August 14, Empowerment

"Empowerment" (pages 223 and 224), links to this page: SandraDodd.com/empowerment

ALSO! Chat transcripts will be gradually filling in (even the older ones) here, soon. The July 31 chat on applying principles to partnerships is there already. It will be edited a bit more (spellings, recombination of a few lines to help those who weren't there to read it more smoothly. http://chattranscripts.blogspot.com/2013/08/partnerships-better-from-principles.html


If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

August 7 chat on Parental Myths

August 7 Back to The Big Book of Unschooling!

The next chapter is "Myths too many Parents Believe" (pages 221 and 222), which links to SandraDodd.com/myths

Since I'm not sure if this topic's enough for the whole chat (sometimes you do two chapters), the chapter after this one is "Empowerment" (pages 223 and 224), linked to this page: http://sandradodd.com/empowerment/

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

I'm Back! July 31 chat

I need help on an article tomorrow. I have a deadline and ideas, but I'm hoping for more ideas, or critique of my ideas.

So the topic will be primarily how the principles of unschooling can end up secondarily improving a marriage or partner relationship. Secondarily, perhaps the topic could be procrastination or priorities. :-)

Noon my time, which is MST/Mountain Standard, so if it's been a while and you need to look up your own time in relation to what will probably show on time zone charts as Denver, you have time to do it!

If I relax about the article contents sometime in the course of that, I'll tell stories about the trip to Lisbon, Leiden and London!

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.

July 31, I'll be back; LEARN NOTHING in the meantime.

I'm in my last week of Exciting Summer Travels. I've spoken in Lisbon (Portugal), the Yarrow Valley (Scotland), Leiden (Netherlands) and Ashford (England). Joyce Fetteroll did, too.

The next chat will be on July 31.

This coming Wednesday I will be on a plane on my way home. My Learn Nothing Day will last 32 hours, but yours will be easier. Be wary, guard against learning.

May 22, Respect (last chat for a while)

Wednesday, May 22, will be the last chat before my "Lisbon, London, Leiden" tour. I'll be gone until Learn Nothing Day.

The topic this week will be Respect. There are several page on the site you might want to read here: SandraDodd.com/respect, and here's what's in the book (page 220). It follows on "freedom."

Respect was discussed in the section on "being," earlier in the book, but in light of "freedom," respect can take another whirl. If I "give my children freedom" in a situation, it's because I had some leeway or rights myself. I cannot "give them freedom" that I don't have.

Some unschoolers become confused on that, and they begin to frolic in the "freedom" that they are pretty sure some stranger online granted them, and that unschoolers have inalienably from God, bypassing all forms of government and the limitations of wallboard. And so if an unschooling family is up at 3:00 a.m. playing Guitar Hero, they seem mystified that the neighbors have called the landlord.

I'm exaggerating. I hope I'm exaggerating.

If a storeowner says not to touch the crystal figures, a parent cannot "give her child the freedom" to touch them anyway. She could buy one and take it out of the store and let her kid touch the heck out of it, but she can't tell a store owner, "You don't understand; we're unschoolers."

So although I might seem to be wandering aimlessly here, freedom should involve a respect for others, and a respect for logic. And a family might not feel they "respect the law," but the laws still do apply to them, no matter how twinkly-eyed they have become in their newfound "freedom."

So if someone is selling you "True Freedom" (or snake oil, or the elixir of the fountain of life), have respect for yourself and your family and take a pass on it.

Meanwhile, parents with a realistic and considered awareness of what their own freedoms are within the laws of the apartment building, housing development, city, county/parish/township, state/province or nation are free to share some of those with their children. We let Holly choose carpet once, but we couldn't have legally required her to pay for it, as she was only eight or nine at the time. We have surprised waiters in many restaurants by turning to our children questioningly when the waiter asks the adults "Would you like to see the dessert menu?" They're even more surprised when the kids say, "No thanks," or "I'm full," while making friendly eye contact with the waiter.

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And the "being" mention refers to this passage, from page 220:

Being respectful

"Modeling respect" is misunderstood by some parents. It seems they think that if they are courteous to other adults in public and their children see it, their children will be courteous to adults, including the parents. That's useful and important, but it has to do with etiquette and courtesy, generally, more than with a depth of respect.

Probably a better way to explain it then, is to be a model of respectfulness and of respectability. That's confusing too, I know, but parents need to find ways to respect their children–their interests and ideas and preferences of color and texture and temperature and their tastes in music and humor and their need for privacy and for attention.

When a child feels what respect feels like, he will know what others mean when they say "You should respect [whatever]."

"Respect" is not a light thing. It's not easy to respect your child, when it's new to you. There will be people encouraging you to see your child as "just a kid," and "only a child." Think of adults you respect, and think of them as ten years old, four years old, two, newborn. They were those people from birth. There was a newborn Mohandas Gandhi; a four-year-old Abraham Lincoln; an eight-year-old Oprah Winfrey, a twelve-year-old Winston Churchill.

Would my mother have treated me differently if she knew I would grow up to write this book? How should I treat my children?

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.