People you have met online
Sandra Dodd
I would like to collect some stories, here, of the results of online friendships, in response to this, from another topic:
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
Jo Isaac
Most of the other unschoolers I know I first met online. Sandra Dodd has been to stay at our house, I have visited Schuyler Waynforth and Kai gamed with Simon while we chatted outside, and i've made the effort to meet other unschoolers i've known online when we have travelled around Australia - in Queensland, Melbourne, Adelaide, etc.
Beatrice Mantovani, whom I first met online, and her girls also came to stay with us - Kai took them spotlighting for koala's and spiders in our local national park :)
We have other friends we still only know from online - Kai skypes most days with Astra - an unschooled friend who lives in Sydney - we hope to visit them IRL this year sometime. He also skypes often with Caitlyn, an unschooled friend who lives in the US - not sure when we'll be able to visit Caitlyn IRL - but Caitlyn introduced us to Pokemon - a friend indeed!
Jo Isaac, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research Assistant,
Centre of Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change,
James Cook University, Townsville.
Scientific Writer and Researcher: http://joisaac.wordpress.com
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:47:21 -0700
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] People you have met online
Beatrice Mantovani, whom I first met online, and her girls also came to stay with us - Kai took them spotlighting for koala's and spiders in our local national park :)
We have other friends we still only know from online - Kai skypes most days with Astra - an unschooled friend who lives in Sydney - we hope to visit them IRL this year sometime. He also skypes often with Caitlyn, an unschooled friend who lives in the US - not sure when we'll be able to visit Caitlyn IRL - but Caitlyn introduced us to Pokemon - a friend indeed!
Jo Isaac, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research Assistant,
Centre of Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change,
James Cook University, Townsville.
Scientific Writer and Researcher: http://joisaac.wordpress.com
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:47:21 -0700
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] People you have met online
I would like to collect some stories, here, of the results of online friendships, in response to this, from another topic:
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
Tam, on the other topic, wrote:
My son has online friends. They are other real human beings that he's communicating with via text/skype/video. Their conversations are real. Their fun is real. Their laughter is real (and contagious!) Their arguments, when they have them, are real. Their process of working through that and usually making up is real. Their connection is real. On the occasions he has met up with any of them in person, they're still real people, with the real history of friendship they've forged online.
Our kids don't live in the last century, with penpals and waiting several weeks for a letter from the other side of the world. They live here and now in this exciting time where they can not only log onto Skype and immediately see and chat with someone on another continent, and joke, chat and banter, they can also play together, collaborate on games and worlds and missions online in real time. That's absolutely real. The friendship, the play, the learning, it's all real, and in a form that's as natural to them as playing with the kids in the same street, because they've grown up with it as a real option.
Tam
____________
And I want to say that part of an interview I did with Jill Parmer (it will be in the upcoming issue of The Homeschooler magazine) is about online gaming leading to real-life meet-ups.
When Holly drove across the country last fall (Albuquerque to Washington DC, and back by a more southerly route) she stayed with LOTS of unschooling famiies, and one stop on the way back through Mississippi was with someone she used to play Halo with online when she was 14 or so, and they stayed in touch.
Sandra
My son has online friends. They are other real human beings that he's communicating with via text/skype/video. Their conversations are real. Their fun is real. Their laughter is real (and contagious!) Their arguments, when they have them, are real. Their process of working through that and usually making up is real. Their connection is real. On the occasions he has met up with any of them in person, they're still real people, with the real history of friendship they've forged online.
Our kids don't live in the last century, with penpals and waiting several weeks for a letter from the other side of the world. They live here and now in this exciting time where they can not only log onto Skype and immediately see and chat with someone on another continent, and joke, chat and banter, they can also play together, collaborate on games and worlds and missions online in real time. That's absolutely real. The friendship, the play, the learning, it's all real, and in a form that's as natural to them as playing with the kids in the same street, because they've grown up with it as a real option.
Tam
____________
And I want to say that part of an interview I did with Jill Parmer (it will be in the upcoming issue of The Homeschooler magazine) is about online gaming leading to real-life meet-ups.
When Holly drove across the country last fall (Albuquerque to Washington DC, and back by a more southerly route) she stayed with LOTS of unschooling famiies, and one stop on the way back through Mississippi was with someone she used to play Halo with online when she was 14 or so, and they stayed in touch.
Sandra
Megan Valnes
When I was in high school, I met a friend online that went to Havard and he came and stayed with my family for a couple nights. He was a really nice kid and we talked online for months. He was also someone I would have never met otherwise because he was a 16 year old Harvard student and I was just an average girl in high school, chatting with some kids much smarter than I about philosophy type things. He was an east coast kid, I grew up in Southern California. Meeting him was a great experience and I'm glad I got to spend that time with him!
--
Sent from Gmail Mobile
My son is online right now playing with his friends. They are real friends. They are laughing and communicating. They are wearing headphones and hearing one another's voices. They are asking questions about one another's families and home lives. Hearing him interact--real interaction--makes me happy. I smile when I hear him. He would be gaming anyway, so why not game with other kids that share his same interests? What a wonderful gift technology has given us, that my son, who is not so fond of leaving the house, can connect and play with other kids!
My daughter plays on the unschooling minecraft server every day. She has friends on there whom she skypes with while playing. She loves her friends! They build together and chat, laugh and play. Why would I complain? Why would I discourage that?? She's connecting. She's relating. She's building relationships.
I have lots of friends on Facebook that I have never met. Other parents mostly who share my same interests and we chat and share about things we're going through and help each other out.
I've recently had a baby and bought everything second hand. I bought the items from people I found online. People I had never met. We connected and met and I was able to purchase many necessary items for a fraction of the cost. If it weren't for online communications, I'm not sure how I would have found these people!
I also have many friends online that I have met but don't see very often. Family and old childhood friends. We are able to keep up with one another's lives through Facebook. I think it's such a blessing! I can watch my cousin's kids grow up and feel like I'm a part of their life. I personally really love online communication.
I listened to one Sandra's podcasts and one thing that really stuck out in my mind was when she said (paraphrasing here) a parent can really mess up unschooling when they don't allow their child to make lots of friends, wherever possible. This includes online. Our job is to encourage communication in whatever form that may come in. Just because you go to your neighbor's for coffee doesn't mean your neighbor is really your friend either, right?
Times are changing. I have friends from a trip to Myanmar that I still stay in touch with! They are on the other side of the world and I can still feel like a part of their life. I think this is huge!
On Friday, January 30, 2015, Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:I would like to collect some stories, here, of the results of online friendships, in response to this, from another topic:
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
--
Sent from Gmail Mobile
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
Moving this here:
On Friday, January 30, 2015 5:32 PM, "Megan Valnes meganvalnes@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
When I was in high school, I met a friend online that went to Havard and he came and stayed with my family for a couple nights. He was a really nice kid and we talked online for months. He was also someone I would have never met otherwise because he was a 16 year old Harvard student and I was just an average girl in high school, chatting with some kids much smarter than I about philosophy type things. He was an east coast kid, I grew up in Southern California. Meeting him was a great experience and I'm glad I got to spend that time with him!
My son is online right now playing with his friends. They are real friends. They are laughing and communicating. They are wearing headphones and hearing one another's voices. They are asking questions about one another's families and home lives. Hearing him interact--real interaction--makes me happy. I smile when I hear him. He would be gaming anyway, so why not game with other kids that share his same interests? What a wonderful gift technology has given us, that my son, who is not so fond of leaving the house, can connect and play with other kids!
My daughter plays on the unschooling minecraft server every day. She has friends on there whom she skypes with while playing. She loves her friends! They build together and chat, laugh and play. Why would I complain? Why would I discourage that?? She's connecting. She's relating. She's building relationships.
I have lots of friends on Facebook that I have never met. Other parents mostly who share my same interests and we chat and share about things we're going through and help each other out.
I've recently had a baby and bought everything second hand. I bought the items from people I found online. People I had never met. We connected and met and I was able to purchase many necessary items for a fraction of the cost. If it weren't for online communications, I'm not sure how I would have found these people!
I also have many friends online that I have met but don't see very often. Family and old childhood friends. We are able to keep up with one another's lives through Facebook. I think it's such a blessing! I can watch my cousin's kids grow up and feel like I'm a part of their life. I personally really love online communication.
I listened to one Sandra's podcasts and one thing that really stuck out in my mind was when she said (paraphrasing here) a parent can really mess up unschooling when they don't allow their child to make lots of friends, wherever possible. This includes online. Our job is to encourage communication in whatever form that may come in. Just because you go to your neighbor's for coffee doesn't mean your neighbor is really your friend either, right?
Times are changing. I have friends from a trip to Myanmar that I still stay in touch with! They are on the other side of the world and I can still feel like a part of their life. I think this is huge!
On Friday, January 30, 2015, Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:
I would like to collect some stories, here, of the results of online friendships, in response to this, from another topic:
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
--
Sent from Gmail Mobile
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
Sorry It seems my copy and paste did not work! Weird Yahoo has been full of issues!Let's try again:
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is not???
Could have fooled me and my family!!
I met my husband online. Flew out to another far way state to meet him after meeting him online. Trusted enough that I spent 9 days with him. But I guess our interaction online was not real. Who knew?
My daughter has many online friends. She has met a couple in real life. She exchanges cards, gifts and has very real interactions with them.
Some of my best friends I met online!. Some I have met in real life after many years of "not real" interactions!
Some I still have not met but I feel like they are my very dear close friends who I absolutely love.
My childhood best friend lives in another country. We are as close today as we were. I am so thankful we have online ways to keep in touch . Just called her today from Facebook for free and chatted with her for hours.
I have not seen my dad in almost 15 years in person. But I see and talk to him online on Skype. That is how my kids have met him.
To think online interactions are not real is dismissive of all of the above and much more.
I am very thankful my daughter has many wonderful online friends that she loves and has so much fun with them. They are real! As much as my dear friends who I interact online everyday!
On Friday, January 30, 2015 8:00 PM, BRIAN POLIKOWSKY <polykowholsteins@...> wrote:
Moving this here:
On Friday, January 30, 2015 5:32 PM, "Megan Valnes meganvalnes@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
When I was in high school, I met a friend online that went to Havard and he came and stayed with my family for a couple nights. He was a really nice kid and we talked online for months. He was also someone I would have never met otherwise because he was a 16 year old Harvard student and I was just an average girl in high school, chatting with some kids much smarter than I about philosophy type things. He was an east coast kid, I grew up in Southern California. Meeting him was a great experience and I'm glad I got to spend that time with him!
My son is online right now playing with his friends. They are real friends. They are laughing and communicating. They are wearing headphones and hearing one another's voices. They are asking questions about one another's families and home lives. Hearing him interact--real interaction--makes me happy. I smile when I hear him. He would be gaming anyway, so why not game with other kids that share his same interests? What a wonderful gift technology has given us, that my son, who is not so fond of leaving the house, can connect and play with other kids!
My daughter plays on the unschooling minecraft server every day. She has friends on there whom she skypes with while playing. She loves her friends! They build together and chat, laugh and play. Why would I complain? Why would I discourage that?? She's connecting. She's relating. She's building relationships.
I have lots of friends on Facebook that I have never met. Other parents mostly who share my same interests and we chat and share about things we're going through and help each other out.
I've recently had a baby and bought everything second hand. I bought the items from people I found online. People I had never met. We connected and met and I was able to purchase many necessary items for a fraction of the cost. If it weren't for online communications, I'm not sure how I would have found these people!
I also have many friends online that I have met but don't see very often. Family and old childhood friends. We are able to keep up with one another's lives through Facebook. I think it's such a blessing! I can watch my cousin's kids grow up and feel like I'm a part of their life. I personally really love online communication.
I listened to one Sandra's podcasts and one thing that really stuck out in my mind was when she said (paraphrasing here) a parent can really mess up unschooling when they don't allow their child to make lots of friends, wherever possible. This includes online. Our job is to encourage communication in whatever form that may come in. Just because you go to your neighbor's for coffee doesn't mean your neighbor is really your friend either, right?
Times are changing. I have friends from a trip to Myanmar that I still stay in touch with! They are on the other side of the world and I can still feel like a part of their life. I think this is huge!
On Friday, January 30, 2015, Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:
I would like to collect some stories, here, of the results of online friendships, in response to this, from another topic:
______________________
Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Sent from my iPhone
______________________
A few of my stories:
Pam Sorooshian and I have visited back and forth, with our three children who are about the same age, and used to be from 4-10 years old and are now from 23 to 29 or so. It helped me to know another family with children about the same age, number and range as my kids, and they had fun together, many times.
Joyce Fetteroll and her daughter Kat came to visit us many years ago (and a few times after) and there are photos of Kat holding a tumbleweed up over her head (somewhere). It was a real tumbleweed, even if the rest of it was "not real."
After I met Julie Daniel's family in person, they invited Holly (who was a teen) to stay with them for a while. Recently after staying in India with someone I meet on the internet (and later in person), she wanted to stay with Julie's family on the way home, but they were driving across the U.S. (having visited people they met online) and so Janine Davies (someone I only know online) very generously offered to host Holly for a few weeks. Now I think they might be friends for life.
When I was frustrated, overwhelmed and depressed once, Jill Parmer drove from northern Colorado to my house in Albuquerque to help me and to cheer me up. It was VERY sweet, and for real.
I could tell a hundred stories without thinking hard, about doing real-life things with people I first met online.
Sandra
--
Sent from Gmail Mobile
Susan Lervold
Several years ago, my son met a kid on XBox whom he really clicked with; after a year or so of daily on-line chatting, they decided that they wanted to meet in person (they were then about 15 years old). We arranged with the young man's parents for him to come stay with us for a week. His parents were understandably nervous, but they had a relative in the vicinity who we met beforehand. The week-long visit turned into two weeks, and then another visit six months later. The boys had so much fun!
My son's other best friend is a kid in West Virginia (we're in Southern California); they met online when they were about 10, and they've talked or texted nearly every day for the past seven years. They've helped each other through first jobs, girlfriends, learning to drive, and more.
Some of my own favorite friendships have been "virtual" ones...some have led to real-life meetings (and even a girls' trip to Vegas!), and many haven't.
Online friendships feel (and look) pretty real to me!
Susan
Sent from my iPhone
My son's other best friend is a kid in West Virginia (we're in Southern California); they met online when they were about 10, and they've talked or texted nearly every day for the past seven years. They've helped each other through first jobs, girlfriends, learning to drive, and more.
Some of my own favorite friendships have been "virtual" ones...some have led to real-life meetings (and even a girls' trip to Vegas!), and many haven't.
Online friendships feel (and look) pretty real to me!
Susan
Sent from my iPhone
Katie Oxford
"I would like to collect some stories, here, of the results of online
friendships, in response to this, from another topic:"
Online interactions? Yes, please.
Like Alex, I also met my husband online. Well, it wasn't really the
'internet' back in 1996. We were on the same BBS, a local chat site that
required dialing in via modem to a local server. Because long-distance calls
cost too much, these servers were usually bound by city limits and many had
occasional gatherings. I saw my husband from a distance at one of these
monthly gatherings (the only one I ever went to), and though I was too
nervous to walk up to him, I did ask someone else what his username was. And
so a conversation between 'hiwaychild' (me) and 'nemesis' (him) began. We
chatted on the BBS for hours and hours nearly every day, often until the wee
hours of the morning. We didn't meet in person for weeks, though we were
already completely infatuated by then. I'd had a child at 16, and looking
back on it, it was a sweet way for us to have long, uninterrupted
conversations in a safe environment. I was almost 18 when we 'met' online.
After 4 1/2 years of dating, we were married, and this year we'll celebrate
our 15th anniversary. Just recently, Dr. Doofenshmirtz even wrote a love
song about us! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9faYaGdLS4
Shortly after I met my husband, I joined him in an online Diku MUD he was
playing (kind of like WoW, but with only text and no pictures ;) ). I joined
the same clan he was in and even though I didn't really talk to too many
people in the game, names became familiar. So when one person in our clan
was looking for someone in the Bay Area to be an office manager at his
company, I offered to do it. Another person in the clan, along with his
Japanese partner, had started a business in Japan. The hardware they were
creating was infused with high-security encryption, and the US government
required them to have an office here in the states in order to sell their
products. I came on as the second staff member and held full
responsibilities as office manager and accountant, handling all the payroll
and business taxes (I read a lot of books :) and running the entire office
by myself. I was barely 18. As the business grew, they hired more people
from the game. Two came from Michigan, one of which was a hacker who became
a very skilled and in-demand software programmer, later starting his own
business and selling it, making him a millionaire before age 25. I'm pretty
sure he would not have had that opportunity in the small town in Michigan
where he lived. The company also hired a guy from Washington to be a
salesman, and the business even paid airfare and rented a fully furnished
home for these three guys near the office building. Once I left that
company, I had my pick of accounting jobs since I had done so many things
and I ended up as a consultant for KPMG before my 20th birthday.
On a personal front, I'm an extreme introvert and will rarely choose to be
around people. I have a great deal of social anxiety and had panic attacks
for nearly a decade whenever the phone would ring. I still hate talking on
the phone and will avoid it if at all possible. I often joke that texting
and Facebook were invented just for me. Now I regularly keep in touch with
friends and family all over the country. Thanks to Facebook, I say 'Happy
Birthday' to people whose birthdays I wouldn't have even known, and I can
comment on how cute their kids' haircuts are even though I've never even met
some of their kids in person. I am still in contact with people I would have
stopped calling or seeing a long time ago, and I have more friends now than
the rest of my life put together. I can send a quick note of love to my
husband or let my sister in Phoenix know I'm thinking about her any time I
want, even if it's not convenient for them.
And in May, when my good friends move to Ethiopia to work at a children's
camp there for three years, I will communicate with them by email, because
even though internet connection is not reliable in their village, it still
has a better chance of arrival than a letter. I may even get the chance to
Skype with them, if I'm lucky, so I can see their adorable 3-year old twins
and 10-month old baby as they grow.
-Katie
friendships, in response to this, from another topic:"
Online interactions? Yes, please.
Like Alex, I also met my husband online. Well, it wasn't really the
'internet' back in 1996. We were on the same BBS, a local chat site that
required dialing in via modem to a local server. Because long-distance calls
cost too much, these servers were usually bound by city limits and many had
occasional gatherings. I saw my husband from a distance at one of these
monthly gatherings (the only one I ever went to), and though I was too
nervous to walk up to him, I did ask someone else what his username was. And
so a conversation between 'hiwaychild' (me) and 'nemesis' (him) began. We
chatted on the BBS for hours and hours nearly every day, often until the wee
hours of the morning. We didn't meet in person for weeks, though we were
already completely infatuated by then. I'd had a child at 16, and looking
back on it, it was a sweet way for us to have long, uninterrupted
conversations in a safe environment. I was almost 18 when we 'met' online.
After 4 1/2 years of dating, we were married, and this year we'll celebrate
our 15th anniversary. Just recently, Dr. Doofenshmirtz even wrote a love
song about us! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9faYaGdLS4
Shortly after I met my husband, I joined him in an online Diku MUD he was
playing (kind of like WoW, but with only text and no pictures ;) ). I joined
the same clan he was in and even though I didn't really talk to too many
people in the game, names became familiar. So when one person in our clan
was looking for someone in the Bay Area to be an office manager at his
company, I offered to do it. Another person in the clan, along with his
Japanese partner, had started a business in Japan. The hardware they were
creating was infused with high-security encryption, and the US government
required them to have an office here in the states in order to sell their
products. I came on as the second staff member and held full
responsibilities as office manager and accountant, handling all the payroll
and business taxes (I read a lot of books :) and running the entire office
by myself. I was barely 18. As the business grew, they hired more people
from the game. Two came from Michigan, one of which was a hacker who became
a very skilled and in-demand software programmer, later starting his own
business and selling it, making him a millionaire before age 25. I'm pretty
sure he would not have had that opportunity in the small town in Michigan
where he lived. The company also hired a guy from Washington to be a
salesman, and the business even paid airfare and rented a fully furnished
home for these three guys near the office building. Once I left that
company, I had my pick of accounting jobs since I had done so many things
and I ended up as a consultant for KPMG before my 20th birthday.
On a personal front, I'm an extreme introvert and will rarely choose to be
around people. I have a great deal of social anxiety and had panic attacks
for nearly a decade whenever the phone would ring. I still hate talking on
the phone and will avoid it if at all possible. I often joke that texting
and Facebook were invented just for me. Now I regularly keep in touch with
friends and family all over the country. Thanks to Facebook, I say 'Happy
Birthday' to people whose birthdays I wouldn't have even known, and I can
comment on how cute their kids' haircuts are even though I've never even met
some of their kids in person. I am still in contact with people I would have
stopped calling or seeing a long time ago, and I have more friends now than
the rest of my life put together. I can send a quick note of love to my
husband or let my sister in Phoenix know I'm thinking about her any time I
want, even if it's not convenient for them.
And in May, when my good friends move to Ethiopia to work at a children's
camp there for three years, I will communicate with them by email, because
even though internet connection is not reliable in their village, it still
has a better chance of arrival than a letter. I may even get the chance to
Skype with them, if I'm lucky, so I can see their adorable 3-year old twins
and 10-month old baby as they grow.
-Katie
Sandra Dodd
This has bothered me again in a whole new way:
-=-Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.-=-
I'm quite tired of parents who insult children for things the parents themselves are doing.
Parents (usually moms) will go online to rant and rave about how bad it is for kids to be online.
Parents (usually moms) will write at length about the evils of "screentime," while spending that time NOT with their children.
Hypocrisy should be an embarrassment. Did the person who wrote "That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot." even think?
Thinking is required for unschooling to work well.
This group was created in November 2001. It has nothing to do with robots. There have been over 75,500 messages. Every single one was read by MANY people. Hundreds of people. That is real writing, for a real reason. It has changed the lives of thousands of children over those years. Readers are engaged, writers are engaged, lives are made better WHEN AND IF the readers are thoughtful, if they read a little and try some of those ideas out in their homes, with their real children.
That is real interaction, very locally between mother and child, and very internationally, because people from dozens of countries have written and read here.
The second-worst thing is joining a group like this to, and using an electronic device to insult the very media.
The worst thing is joining a group that is so intended to support children and relationships, and to so casually disregard children and relationships.
Sandra
-=-Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.-=-
I'm quite tired of parents who insult children for things the parents themselves are doing.
Parents (usually moms) will go online to rant and rave about how bad it is for kids to be online.
Parents (usually moms) will write at length about the evils of "screentime," while spending that time NOT with their children.
Hypocrisy should be an embarrassment. Did the person who wrote "That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot." even think?
Thinking is required for unschooling to work well.
This group was created in November 2001. It has nothing to do with robots. There have been over 75,500 messages. Every single one was read by MANY people. Hundreds of people. That is real writing, for a real reason. It has changed the lives of thousands of children over those years. Readers are engaged, writers are engaged, lives are made better WHEN AND IF the readers are thoughtful, if they read a little and try some of those ideas out in their homes, with their real children.
That is real interaction, very locally between mother and child, and very internationally, because people from dozens of countries have written and read here.
The second-worst thing is joining a group like this to, and using an electronic device to insult the very media.
The worst thing is joining a group that is so intended to support children and relationships, and to so casually disregard children and relationships.
Sandra
mama25kids@...
<<That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction.>>
Soooo, if online interactions aren't real...does that mean the above comment isn't real?
Or the opinion isn't real?
Or my reaction to it isn't real?
If this mom doesn't believe online interactions are real, why is she online, interacting with (presumably real) people and sharing her opinions?
I, too, first "met" Sandra Dodd through online interactions on this very forum. Then one day, she came to my town and I got to meet her at a conference. And the next day she came with me and my husband to our church, and then she came to our house and we had lunch together. And the following day I got to hear her speak at another meeting. Since then we've had many more online (and "offline") interactions. I consider her a friend. If not for all my (apparently fictional?) online interactions with other unschoolers - most of whom I've never met - I wouldn't even BE an unschooler. Or at least not a successful one. Is that not real enough?
And in the spirit of unschooling, of regarding and respecting children as whole people, if online interactions can build friendships between adults that profoundly change their own and their families' lives for the better, why would we assume they can't provide similar benefits to our children?
Catherine Hassall
This topic made me suddenly emotional . . . it made me happy to think about people I have met online! It also made me sad: that there could be any doubt about the value of friendship that is possible between people who have not actually met in person but who share their thoughts and feelings through writing (and now skyping - although I'm not actually so good at this one!). Because I love writing, that idea makes the written word and its capacity to communicate across distance quite impoverished.
I met Sandra Dodd online - she and other people on this forum have given me so much real support and guidance in the last five years.
Sandra even came to stay with us in Cairns, Australia last year. That was a sweet manifestation in real space/time of an online friendship.
I have also a group of online women friends from when my ten year old girl was a baby. I joined a continuum concept forum when I was pregnant with my first child and eventually some of us formed another sub group on Facebook as we shared many similar perspectives, especially unschooling.
Recently we spoke about how it would be wonderful if we could somehow bring ourselves together in real time, even though we are from so many different continents. I think it is extraordinary that people from so many diverse geographical locations can actually become a circle of friends as if sitting around a kitchen table!
People have been communicating forever without being in the same space/time - ancient and modern people describe communicating with the dead, and with the yet to be born! In Australia there are stories of indigenous people who could communicate across distance 'telepathically', convey knowledge from one area to another, from one person/group to another without ever having been in that place, or with that person.
I met Sandra Dodd online - she and other people on this forum have given me so much real support and guidance in the last five years.
Sandra even came to stay with us in Cairns, Australia last year. That was a sweet manifestation in real space/time of an online friendship.
I have also a group of online women friends from when my ten year old girl was a baby. I joined a continuum concept forum when I was pregnant with my first child and eventually some of us formed another sub group on Facebook as we shared many similar perspectives, especially unschooling.
Recently we spoke about how it would be wonderful if we could somehow bring ourselves together in real time, even though we are from so many different continents. I think it is extraordinary that people from so many diverse geographical locations can actually become a circle of friends as if sitting around a kitchen table!
People have been communicating forever without being in the same space/time - ancient and modern people describe communicating with the dead, and with the yet to be born! In Australia there are stories of indigenous people who could communicate across distance 'telepathically', convey knowledge from one area to another, from one person/group to another without ever having been in that place, or with that person.
anna.black@...
Apart from all the wonderful unschooling people I've met online, I also have the Internet to thank for my dearest friend. I met her on a message board two years ago, we started PMing, then moved to Skype messaging and now kik. We are also Facebook and Instagram friends. I talk to her every single day, sometimes for hours on and off. I know more about her, and she about me, than anyone except for my husband. I supported her through the illness and death of her mother last year. She makes me laugh every day and my life would be so much less colourful and fun without her. We have never met in person.
At the end of February she is flying from London to stay with me for nine days. I am so excited! I hope my girls make as many wonderful friends online as I have, all over the world. Not being restricted to who lives near you geographically is a wonderful, freeing thing.
janine davies
-=-Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.-=-
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:00:00 -0700
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] People you have met online
On the car journey to our recent short break holiday my eldest son (12yr) sat in the front seat and chatted non stop to me for the whole ride.
What he talked about most was his closest online friend who is 15, nearly 16 yrs old. I hear them laughing and playing games together like DAYZ and Garys Mod, I have waved at him when delivering dinner or messages to my son, and made his friend laugh with my poorly timed and embarrassing expressions of love to my son - often not realising that he is there online, and my son not hitting mute in time... and he has told me a bit about his friends family, as in there is a mum dad and very young sister as it is a second marriage for mum.
But not really any other details until the car journey, and what he told me amazed me and made me feel proud and very grateful for this wonderful possibility of having online friends.
He told me his friend talks to him mostly about how unhappy he is that he has to go to school, and the fact that he is expected to go to college when he is 16.
He told me his friend also talks about how he doesn't want to drink or smoke weed like is expected of him at parties etc...how he feels different and lonely because of it, and that he think its boring and a waste of time. How he tries to tell his friends that they don't have to do this if they don't want too, and that they laugh and call him wierdo. He told me his friend also has a girlfriend who he cares a lot about but now she is feeling the peer pressure and had started getting drunk etc.. at parties and his friend and my son feel sad about it.
My wonderful son then told me that he courageously decided to come clean about the fact that he doesn't go to school ( he had previously let his friend think he did) in an attempt to help him, and maybe help him feel less lonely and less weird.
He told me he has been talking to his friend about the principles and changes of thinking of unschooling and that his friend loves it, gets it, and gets excited and says yes I get that!
He says If I didn't have to be at school there are so many things I can and want to do! So many ideas he has but school just gets in the way, and then college is looming...
His friend loves computers in a very technical way and buys parts and builds them and generally tinkers away when he is not at school or doing homework....He says he totally gets now why he feels differently than his peers and struggles against being different, and loves that my son talks about not having to do what is expected if he doesn't want too.
His friend said my son has helped him to see and taste the freedom and growth that is out there for him now, and he is happier and more hopeful, and more able to see past school.....He is excited and inspired, and very grateful that my 12 yr old son is his friend.
That makes me teary in a good way and so proud of him.
My son makes him feel better, and has thanked him so much for telling him about unschooling and thinking a different way and questioning everything, he even asked my son to talk to his 14 yr old girlfriend one day online and he did, but he said she feels so pulled and that she wont have any friends if she doesn't join in and party with them...
My son can see that his friend and girlfriend are drifting because of this, and he is sad for him as he says his friend has told my son that he loves her very much.
My son and his friend are helping each other in so many ways, and learning so much from each other because of this online friendship. They express gratitude to each other for their friendship and his friend more so, and says thank you so often to him and mostly for showing him that he is not alone in his thinking, and that there is a whole world of questioning and taking a different path out there.
What can possibly be 'disturbing' about this wonderful medium that has allowed my son to help his online friend (whom he would never have met otherwise) to be stronger and more courageous about how he wants his life to be, and my son getting, through his friend, the experience of what many many young people must be going through everyday with peer pressure and that awful feeling of being so controlled daily, and of wasting their time at school....
Janine
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:00:00 -0700
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] People you have met online
This has bothered me again in a whole new way:
-=-Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.-=-
I'm quite tired of parents who insult children for things the parents themselves are doing.
Parents (usually moms) will go online to rant and rave about how bad it is for kids to be online.
Parents (usually moms) will write at length about the evils of "screentime," while spending that time NOT with their children.
Hypocrisy should be an embarrassment. Did the person who wrote "That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot." even think?
Thinking is required for unschooling to work well.
This group was created in November 2001. It has nothing to do with robots. There have been over 75,500 messages. Every single one was read by MANY people. Hundreds of people. That is real writing, for a real reason. It has changed the lives of thousands of children over those years. Readers are engaged, writers are engaged, lives are made better WHEN AND IF the readers are thoughtful, if they read a little and try some of those ideas out in their homes, with their real children.
That is real interaction, very locally between mother and child, and very internationally, because people from dozens of countries have written and read here.
The second-worst thing is joining a group like this to, and using an electronic device to insult the very media.
The worst thing is joining a group that is so intended to support children and relationships, and to so casually disregard children and relationships.
Sandra
-=-Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.-=-
I'm quite tired of parents who insult children for things the parents themselves are doing.
Parents (usually moms) will go online to rant and rave about how bad it is for kids to be online.
Parents (usually moms) will write at length about the evils of "screentime," while spending that time NOT with their children.
Hypocrisy should be an embarrassment. Did the person who wrote "That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot." even think?
Thinking is required for unschooling to work well.
This group was created in November 2001. It has nothing to do with robots. There have been over 75,500 messages. Every single one was read by MANY people. Hundreds of people. That is real writing, for a real reason. It has changed the lives of thousands of children over those years. Readers are engaged, writers are engaged, lives are made better WHEN AND IF the readers are thoughtful, if they read a little and try some of those ideas out in their homes, with their real children.
That is real interaction, very locally between mother and child, and very internationally, because people from dozens of countries have written and read here.
The second-worst thing is joining a group like this to, and using an electronic device to insult the very media.
The worst thing is joining a group that is so intended to support children and relationships, and to so casually disregard children and relationships.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=-Not being restricted to who lives near you geographically is a wonderful, freeing thing. -=-
Historically, once "the post" was created and letters were carried internationally, there have been long-distance friendships, more documented among intellectuals than other groups but probably there were many among people who were never famous enough for us to know. Some had to do with research, when in the 19th century a lot of research was done by wealthy amateurs who had great houses and room to collect eggs, bird's nests, dead beetles and wasps—whatever it might have been. Some were chess games between people in England and India, or other colonial "outposts" and people back home (of whatever nation). Sometimes it was political discussion, or financial dealings.
Nowadays, these exchanges happen instantly, and information put online can be available to millions of people at once.
Not being restricted to even knowing the person who puts up information, in order to use it, is staggering, compared to earlier days.
Sandra
Historically, once "the post" was created and letters were carried internationally, there have been long-distance friendships, more documented among intellectuals than other groups but probably there were many among people who were never famous enough for us to know. Some had to do with research, when in the 19th century a lot of research was done by wealthy amateurs who had great houses and room to collect eggs, bird's nests, dead beetles and wasps—whatever it might have been. Some were chess games between people in England and India, or other colonial "outposts" and people back home (of whatever nation). Sometimes it was political discussion, or financial dealings.
Nowadays, these exchanges happen instantly, and information put online can be available to millions of people at once.
Not being restricted to even knowing the person who puts up information, in order to use it, is staggering, compared to earlier days.
Sandra
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
A couple or so years ago I saw a blog about Brazilian food on Pinterest. It was a pretty amazing blog so I followed and kept thanking the author. I then sent her a friend request on Facebook and became Facebook friends.
This blogger lives in San Antonio Texas and I live in Minnesota. Last year my sister was visiting San Antonio for a week with her husband ( he had a business trip and she accompanied him)>
I got my sister and this other girl connected and they went out for a lunch date. My sister said that this girl could have been my sister we were so alike. We both even graduated from Law School. My sister was really happy to meet my online friend! They had a great time!
This friend send me a ton of Brazilian products and I really hope I get to meet her someday.
So interesting how things are this days! I think they are wonderful! I love my online friends!
I got my sister and this other girl connected and they went out for a lunch date. My sister said that this girl could have been my sister we were so alike. We both even graduated from Law School. My sister was really happy to meet my online friend! They had a great time!
This friend send me a ton of Brazilian products and I really hope I get to meet her someday.
So interesting how things are this days! I think they are wonderful! I love my online friends!
On Saturday, January 31, 2015 10:28 AM, "Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
-=-Not being restricted to who lives near you geographically is a wonderful, freeing thing. -=-
Historically, once "the post" was created and letters were carried internationally, there have been long-distance friendships, more documented among intellectuals than other groups but probably there were many among people who were never famous enough for us to know. Some had to do with research, when in the 19th century a lot of research was done by wealthy amateurs who had great houses and room to collect eggs, bird's nests, dead beetles and wasps—whatever it might have been. Some were chess games between people in England and India, or other colonial "outposts" and people back home (of whatever nation). Sometimes it was political discussion, or financial dealings.
Nowadays, these exchanges happen instantly, and information put online can be available to millions of people at once.
Not being restricted to even knowing the person who puts up information, in order to use it, is staggering, compared to earlier days.
Sandra
Historically, once "the post" was created and letters were carried internationally, there have been long-distance friendships, more documented among intellectuals than other groups but probably there were many among people who were never famous enough for us to know. Some had to do with research, when in the 19th century a lot of research was done by wealthy amateurs who had great houses and room to collect eggs, bird's nests, dead beetles and wasps—whatever it might have been. Some were chess games between people in England and India, or other colonial "outposts" and people back home (of whatever nation). Sometimes it was political discussion, or financial dealings.
Nowadays, these exchanges happen instantly, and information put online can be available to millions of people at once.
Not being restricted to even knowing the person who puts up information, in order to use it, is staggering, compared to earlier days.
Sandra
Cass
I've been realizing recently that online communication & friendships are easier & more comfortable for me than being face to face with people. I like the breathing room that it gives me. I've been feeling like I can be more myself then I have ever felt comfortable with before.
One example- I have only 1 sibling and I love him but I find him extremely difficult to talk to. He and his wife (who is Japanese & also not easy to talk to) have spent 3-4 weeks in a camper on our property for the past 3 years. They live in Japan presently but his wife is required to spend a month in the US each year to maintain her status as a permanent resident alien. It has been a bit of a challenge as they are SO hard to talk to. Recently my brother & I have both become more active on Facebook & have been talking to each other. It is amazing how much more comfortable it seems to be for both of us to communicate through that buffer! We are able to share interesting things & ideas with each other and he sees pictures of my kids & what we are up to. It feels nice and I think that we are forming the basis for a new relationship. My hope is that if they come to stay this summer it will be more natural & comfortable for all of us because we have built a closer connection to each other - from across the ocean!
-Cass
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 31, 2015, at 9:40 AM, "BRIAN POLIKOWSKY polykowholsteins@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
A couple or so years ago I saw a blog about Brazilian food on Pinterest. It was a pretty amazing blog so I followed and kept thanking the author. I then sent her a friend request on Facebook and became Facebook friends.This blogger lives in San Antonio Texas and I live in Minnesota. Last year my sister was visiting San Antonio for a week with her husband ( he had a business trip and she accompanied him)>
I got my sister and this other girl connected and they went out for a lunch date. My sister said that this girl could have been my sister we were so alike. We both even graduated from Law School. My sister was really happy to meet my online friend! They had a great time!
This friend send me a ton of Brazilian products and I really hope I get to meet her someday.
So interesting how things are this days! I think they are wonderful! I love my online friends!On Saturday, January 31, 2015 10:28 AM, "Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
-=-Not being restricted to who lives near you geographically is a wonderful, freeing thing. -=-
Historically, once "the post" was created and letters were carried internationally, there have been long-distance friendships, more documented among intellectuals than other groups but probably there were many among people who were never famous enough for us to know. Some had to do with research, when in the 19th century a lot of research was done by wealthy amateurs who had great houses and room to collect eggs, bird's nests, dead beetles and wasps—whatever it might have been. Some were chess games between people in England and India, or other colonial "outposts" and people back home (of whatever nation). Sometimes it was political discussion, or financial dealings.
Nowadays, these exchanges happen instantly, and information put online can be available to millions of people at once.
Not being restricted to even knowing the person who puts up information, in order to use it, is staggering, compared to earlier days.
Sandra
Juliet Kemp
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 09:26:43AM -0700, Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning] wrote: > === Historically, once "the post" was created and letters were carried > internationally, there have been long-distance friendships, more > documented among intellectuals than other groups but probably there > were many among people who were never famous enough for us to know. > ===
There's a lovely book called "Can Any Mother Help Me?" (Jenna Bailey) which is about the Cooperative Correspondence Club in the UK. It was effectively a private magazine written by a club of mothers across the country, each writing something for each issue and then posting it between them (no photocopiers back in 1935, when it started!). Some of them met, some of them I think never did, but they certainly built lasting friendships. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Any-Mother-Help-Me/dp/0571282172 It's a bit like a very slow Facebook group, or message board/forum, or mailing list, or any of the other much faster options we have now.
I wanted to answer the question about online friendships, but find it difficult because I find it very hard to disentangle online from 'real life' friendships. I engage online with most of my friends, in various different places. Some of them I might have first 'met' online and met in person later; some the other way around. I find it hard to remember. Which in itself is an answer to the question, I suppose. I've gained a huge amount from online friendships since becoming a parent; I can have far more thoughtful discussions online, where we can all take time when we have it, than in person when running after toddlers. And some of my most thoughtful parent friends live miles away and I can see them maybe once a year at a camping meetup.
Juliet
There's a lovely book called "Can Any Mother Help Me?" (Jenna Bailey) which is about the Cooperative Correspondence Club in the UK. It was effectively a private magazine written by a club of mothers across the country, each writing something for each issue and then posting it between them (no photocopiers back in 1935, when it started!). Some of them met, some of them I think never did, but they certainly built lasting friendships. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Any-Mother-Help-Me/dp/0571282172 It's a bit like a very slow Facebook group, or message board/forum, or mailing list, or any of the other much faster options we have now.
I wanted to answer the question about online friendships, but find it difficult because I find it very hard to disentangle online from 'real life' friendships. I engage online with most of my friends, in various different places. Some of them I might have first 'met' online and met in person later; some the other way around. I find it hard to remember. Which in itself is an answer to the question, I suppose. I've gained a huge amount from online friendships since becoming a parent; I can have far more thoughtful discussions online, where we can all take time when we have it, than in person when running after toddlers. And some of my most thoughtful parent friends live miles away and I can see them maybe once a year at a camping meetup.
Juliet
heatherpie@...
I met Jill Palmer online in Sandra's Wednesday chats. I met her in person at Always Learning Live. Her family stayed at my house and we toured San Francisco and Burlingame after the HSC conference two years ago. Her daughter, Addi stayed with us for six weeks last winter. Jill and I talked briefly about ways to see each other this year when I couldn't come to Always Learning in December. Our relationship has continued to grow over the years through conversations online.
I met Sandra in person for the first time at the HSC conference, but I bet she doesn't remember. :-) It was after her talk Partnerships In The Family. I bought her book and asked her if she would sign it. She was reluctant because she didn't want it to be something so special that I would be too gentle with it or not loan it out. I wish I had remembered to show it to her she came to have dinner at my house with Keith and Kirby. Or the other time when she stayed with my family before the HSC conference with Holly and we toured san Francisco.
I met Pam Sorooshian online, here at Always Learning. She met Austin (my son) at the Good Vibrations conference in San Diego. He made a lasting impression on her. Austin got a chance to play Settlers of Cattan with Pam, Roya, Robyn Coburn and Erika Davis at the Free To Be Conference in Arizona last year. He listed it as one of his top favorite experiences from the conference. The other one was when he and Jeff Sabo (I knew him from his blog) had a long conversation at dinner one night.
There are many people on this list I have online friendships with. Some I have met briefly in person, some I may never meet, but they are still very real friendships even without that face to face interaction.
Lisa Jonick and I have met. We've only had a couple brief interactions with each other at conferences. Our online conversations have gone very deep about love, life, family, and parenting. We didn't need a lot of face time for those conversations to happen. We have shared interests and like each other.
This was a 100% online interaction between Lisa and I. I didn't need to see her face in person or hear her voice on the phone for it to happen and leave a lasting, sweet memory for me.
Today Was Amazing: A Shared Cup Of Tea With A Thousand Miles In Between
I met Sandra in person for the first time at the HSC conference, but I bet she doesn't remember. :-) It was after her talk Partnerships In The Family. I bought her book and asked her if she would sign it. She was reluctant because she didn't want it to be something so special that I would be too gentle with it or not loan it out. I wish I had remembered to show it to her she came to have dinner at my house with Keith and Kirby. Or the other time when she stayed with my family before the HSC conference with Holly and we toured san Francisco.
I met Pam Sorooshian online, here at Always Learning. She met Austin (my son) at the Good Vibrations conference in San Diego. He made a lasting impression on her. Austin got a chance to play Settlers of Cattan with Pam, Roya, Robyn Coburn and Erika Davis at the Free To Be Conference in Arizona last year. He listed it as one of his top favorite experiences from the conference. The other one was when he and Jeff Sabo (I knew him from his blog) had a long conversation at dinner one night.
There are many people on this list I have online friendships with. Some I have met briefly in person, some I may never meet, but they are still very real friendships even without that face to face interaction.
Lisa Jonick and I have met. We've only had a couple brief interactions with each other at conferences. Our online conversations have gone very deep about love, life, family, and parenting. We didn't need a lot of face time for those conversations to happen. We have shared interests and like each other.
This was a 100% online interaction between Lisa and I. I didn't need to see her face in person or hear her voice on the phone for it to happen and leave a lasting, sweet memory for me.
Today Was Amazing: A Shared Cup Of Tea With A Thousand Miles In Between
Heather
michelle_m29@...
>Why would you encourage a child to make friends online? That's not real interaction.... I find the while idea >disturbing. Kids need real interaction. Your kid is not a robot.
Somewhere a while back I saw something about online bullies not seeing their victims as real people. I can't remember enough of the specifics to find it again -- but this snippet, with it's "not real interaction" and "your kid is not a robot" reminded me of that.
Right now, my teenage daughter is traipsing around Portland with a girl she met online. It was the moms on this group who gave me the courage to drive her up there. Sort of -- it started with a cosplay event that Alex wanted to attend and I didn't think too hard about whether or not it was okay to drive up her up a public park in another state and hang out in the parking lot with my book for a few hours (leaving and coming back would have taken more effort and it was no hardship to stay put since I had something really good to read and my sons were happy at home with their dad.)
It was when she wanted to go up again and spend the weekend that I started to remind myself of how many times on this list I'd read about kids going to spend time with friends they'd met online. I was driving my daughter, not sending her on a plane. If something went wrong, I was only a hundred miles away. (Don't get me wrong -- that two hour drive seems HUGE if there's a problem, but after three or four of these weekends there's never been any need for me to rush up there and at this point I'm not expecting one.) I think my husband was more worried about how awful it looked to the other girl's parents for us to drive up and leave our kid with someone she'd met on the internet and then seen in a park than about anything actually happening. By the time we had the discussion, I'd had plenty of time to decide that meeting online and hanging out with in the park wasn't any worse than "met at a homeschool function" or "taken a couple of karate classes with." Neither of those implies any kind of safety.
It was when she wanted to go up again and spend the weekend that I started to remind myself of how many times on this list I'd read about kids going to spend time with friends they'd met online. I was driving my daughter, not sending her on a plane. If something went wrong, I was only a hundred miles away. (Don't get me wrong -- that two hour drive seems HUGE if there's a problem, but after three or four of these weekends there's never been any need for me to rush up there and at this point I'm not expecting one.) I think my husband was more worried about how awful it looked to the other girl's parents for us to drive up and leave our kid with someone she'd met on the internet and then seen in a park than about anything actually happening. By the time we had the discussion, I'd had plenty of time to decide that meeting online and hanging out with in the park wasn't any worse than "met at a homeschool function" or "taken a couple of karate classes with." Neither of those implies any kind of safety.
The girl my daughter is hanging out with attends public school. They never would have met except for the internet. But now that they have met, they've found a ton of common interests -- anime, costume design, and I don't know what all else. They get together in real life when they can and keep up online from day to day.
My fourteen-year-old son has plenty of online friends who he games with. I'm friends online with quite a few quilters and knitters. My husband spends time on forums for the old trucks he collects (and it turned out that I'd already met, and chased off, some of those guys when they turned up on our doorstep, hoping to buy one of the trucks that are lined up beside our barn.)
A former friend used to absolutely bash me for that. She insisted that I should find local friends who shared me interests. I could never convince her that there was something fantastic about being able to communicate by email in those moments when the babies were sleeping and knowing that I'd gt a response when the gal on the other end had time in her own life. That same friend has since moved halfway around the globe and couldn't be bothered to keep in touch through emails.
I think it was on this list where I read the idea that the best tip for online safety and the kids meeting their friends in real life was to offer to drive them.
Michelle
Sandra Dodd
-=-He is excited and inspired, and very grateful that my 12 yr old son is his friend.-=-
In school, a 12 year old would hardly be allowed to speak to someone 15. If the other kids didn't hoot them down about it, the teachers would probably try to prevent it.
When Kirby was 15 (maybe 14), he talked some married friends in their 20's out of a separation and possible divorce. They stayed together. (I don't know if they're still together, but not many kids that age get a chance to be listed to seriously, by adults, about life-changing situations. He knew them from the gaming shop where he worked so it's not an online-friendship story, but it IS a story of unschooling opportunity. He would have have had that job if he hadn't had so much time to volunteer to help out at the gaming shop when he was younger, and to be there when they needed him in later years.
Very powerful, Janine:
-=-What can possibly be 'disturbing' about this wonderful medium that has allowed my son to help his online friend (whom he would never have met otherwise) to be stronger and more courageous about how he wants his life to be, and my son getting, through his friend, the experience of what many many young people must be going through everyday with peer pressure and that awful feeling of being so controlled daily, and of wasting their time at school....-=-
Sandra
In school, a 12 year old would hardly be allowed to speak to someone 15. If the other kids didn't hoot them down about it, the teachers would probably try to prevent it.
When Kirby was 15 (maybe 14), he talked some married friends in their 20's out of a separation and possible divorce. They stayed together. (I don't know if they're still together, but not many kids that age get a chance to be listed to seriously, by adults, about life-changing situations. He knew them from the gaming shop where he worked so it's not an online-friendship story, but it IS a story of unschooling opportunity. He would have have had that job if he hadn't had so much time to volunteer to help out at the gaming shop when he was younger, and to be there when they needed him in later years.
Very powerful, Janine:
-=-What can possibly be 'disturbing' about this wonderful medium that has allowed my son to help his online friend (whom he would never have met otherwise) to be stronger and more courageous about how he wants his life to be, and my son getting, through his friend, the experience of what many many young people must be going through everyday with peer pressure and that awful feeling of being so controlled daily, and of wasting their time at school....-=-
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=- If not for all my (apparently fictional?) online interactions with other unschoolers - most of whom I've never met - I wouldn't even BE an unschooler. Or at least not a successful one. Is that not real enough? -=-
It's a pretty big deal. :-)
And I've been able to see lots of unschooling families in their own homes, so I have voices and faces to go with so many of the stories I've read. Many have seen me at my home (though now that the kids are gone it's unnaturally quiet, and safer around the floor. :-) )
Even without "making friends," people can learn, ask, see, hear, cook, repair from things they see on webpages and youtube videos.
I agree with Alex (not sure where she wrote it) that I wouldn't mind a bit being born these days, to have more years with the modern world.
Sandra
It's a pretty big deal. :-)
And I've been able to see lots of unschooling families in their own homes, so I have voices and faces to go with so many of the stories I've read. Many have seen me at my home (though now that the kids are gone it's unnaturally quiet, and safer around the floor. :-) )
Even without "making friends," people can learn, ask, see, hear, cook, repair from things they see on webpages and youtube videos.
I agree with Alex (not sure where she wrote it) that I wouldn't mind a bit being born these days, to have more years with the modern world.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=-By the time we had the discussion, I'd had plenty of time to decide that meeting online and hanging out with in the park wasn't any worse than "met at a homeschool function" or "taken a couple of karate classes with." Neither of those implies any kind of safety. -=-
Kirby was 15 and in a late-night anime club with adult friends. They took him to Nan Desu Kan in Denver three years. That third year, he met a small group of kids who were ALL HIS AGE! he reported excitedly, when he got home, and all went to the same high school.
People who went to school will only smile at that, but it was the first time in Kirby's life that he had been with a group of kids based solely on age. :-) So they invited him up to spend a weekend, and he wanted to go.
Holly and Marty and I found other friends to stay with, dropped him off, and picked him up Sunday afternoon. He was much less impressed with them after seeing them in their normal environment (even without the school itself), but he was polite and courteous.
Marty was probably 13 when a girl he knew in an online game (a dozen years ago, way before you could see photos of people as easily as can be done now) asked to meet him, at the local mall. Turned out they were both in Albuquerque. I was willing to drive him and hang out. He came up with another plan. He took three friends, and she took three friends, so they were hanging out in a group instead of just two people. Good idea, Marty!! And I left them a couple of hours and then went back.
It was not a good match, but because of the other kids, it wasn't very awkward and everyone still had fun.
Sandra
Kirby was 15 and in a late-night anime club with adult friends. They took him to Nan Desu Kan in Denver three years. That third year, he met a small group of kids who were ALL HIS AGE! he reported excitedly, when he got home, and all went to the same high school.
People who went to school will only smile at that, but it was the first time in Kirby's life that he had been with a group of kids based solely on age. :-) So they invited him up to spend a weekend, and he wanted to go.
Holly and Marty and I found other friends to stay with, dropped him off, and picked him up Sunday afternoon. He was much less impressed with them after seeing them in their normal environment (even without the school itself), but he was polite and courteous.
Marty was probably 13 when a girl he knew in an online game (a dozen years ago, way before you could see photos of people as easily as can be done now) asked to meet him, at the local mall. Turned out they were both in Albuquerque. I was willing to drive him and hang out. He came up with another plan. He took three friends, and she took three friends, so they were hanging out in a group instead of just two people. Good idea, Marty!! And I left them a couple of hours and then went back.
It was not a good match, but because of the other kids, it wasn't very awkward and everyone still had fun.
Sandra
Kirsty Harriman
I know of at least one successful union (they're not married but loving together) as a result of an online dating service. That folks are now happy and not lonely because they found each other through this medium when finding a partner in the traditional sense (as a lucky or chance meeting in person) send to be so elusive for busy working people these days. This is wonderful.
Sent from my Samsung GALAXY Note3 on the Telstra 4G network
-------- Original message --------
From: "Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning]"
Date:01/02/2015 7:34 AM (GMT+10:00)
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Re: People you have met online
-=-By the time we had the discussion, I'd had plenty of time to decide that meeting online and hanging out with in the park wasn't any worse than "met at a homeschool function" or "taken a couple of karate classes with." Neither of those implies any kind of safety. -=-
Kirby was 15 and in a late-night anime club with adult friends. They took him to Nan Desu Kan in Denver three years. That third year, he met a small group of kids who were ALL HIS AGE! he reported excitedly, when he got home, and all went to the same high school.
People who went to school will only smile at that, but it was the first time in Kirby's life that he had been with a group of kids based solely on age. :-) So they invited him up to spend a weekend, and he wanted to go.
Holly and Marty and I found other friends to stay with, dropped him off, and picked him up Sunday afternoon. He was much less impressed with them after seeing them in their normal environment (even without the school itself), but he was polite and courteous.
Marty was probably 13 when a girl he knew in an online game (a dozen years ago, way before you could see photos of people as easily as can be done now) asked to meet him, at the local mall. Turned out they were both in Albuquerque. I was willing to drive him and hang out. He came up with another plan. He took three friends, and she took three friends, so they were hanging out in a group instead of just two people. Good idea, Marty!! And I left them a couple of hours and then went back.
It was not a good match, but because of the other kids, it wasn't very awkward and everyone still had fun.
Sandra
ilmioposto@...
I met my husband online before the internet, through the campus bulletin board during our first year of college in 1985. We talked for three months before meeting. We were both so shy we may never have met and talked if it had not been for that forum. We've been together for 30 good, fun years so I feel very grateful for that. There are so many more people to meet because of the internet, it literally connects people. Our two sons have many friendships that happen be online because of the distance.
Best regards,
Isabelle
Sandra Dodd
-=-I met my husband online before the internet, through the campus bulletin board during our first year of college in 1985. -=-
A couple I know well, still together, met in the 1980's too, through a game server one owned and ran, and the other played on. An RPG of some sort, being run through messages. :-) They have three children, and live in France, now. Holly has visited them twice in Europe, and so have I, and not the same two visits. :-) They met in Albuquerque and their oldest is a year older than Holly, and they have homeschooled on and off over the years.
They played games, in the same town, by computer, and flirted, and finally met in person and have been together for 25 years.
Of course I bet all of us could tell stories of couples whose relationships did NOT last that long who met "in real life."
Sandra
A couple I know well, still together, met in the 1980's too, through a game server one owned and ran, and the other played on. An RPG of some sort, being run through messages. :-) They have three children, and live in France, now. Holly has visited them twice in Europe, and so have I, and not the same two visits. :-) They met in Albuquerque and their oldest is a year older than Holly, and they have homeschooled on and off over the years.
They played games, in the same town, by computer, and flirted, and finally met in person and have been together for 25 years.
Of course I bet all of us could tell stories of couples whose relationships did NOT last that long who met "in real life."
Sandra
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
<<<<<<<<I know of at least one successful union (they're not married but loving
together) as a result of an online dating
Well now you know two! I met my husband on an online dating service. I had broken up with a boyfriend and it was bored!
I had met my boyfriend ( the ex) online on a chat too!
I know several friends that met their husbands online , a couple on dating services.
I had met my boyfriend ( the ex) online on a chat too!
I know several friends that met their husbands online , a couple on dating services.
On Saturday, January 31, 2015 9:22 PM, "Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
-=-I met my husband online before the internet, through the campus bulletin board during our first year of college in 1985. -=-
A couple I know well, still together, met in the 1980's too, through a game server one owned and ran, and the other played on. An RPG of some sort, being run through messages. :-) They have three children, and live in France, now. Holly has visited them twice in Europe, and so have I, and not the same two visits. :-) They met in Albuquerque and their oldest is a year older than Holly, and they have homeschooled on and off over the years.
They played games, in the same town, by computer, and flirted, and finally met in person and have been together for 25 years.
Of course I bet all of us could tell stories of couples whose relationships did NOT last that long who met "in real life."
Sandra
A couple I know well, still together, met in the 1980's too, through a game server one owned and ran, and the other played on. An RPG of some sort, being run through messages. :-) They have three children, and live in France, now. Holly has visited them twice in Europe, and so have I, and not the same two visits. :-) They met in Albuquerque and their oldest is a year older than Holly, and they have homeschooled on and off over the years.
They played games, in the same town, by computer, and flirted, and finally met in person and have been together for 25 years.
Of course I bet all of us could tell stories of couples whose relationships did NOT last that long who met "in real life."
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=-I met Sandra Dodd online - she and other people on this forum have given me so much real support and guidance in the last five years.
Sandra even came to stay with us in Cairns, Australia last year. That was a sweet manifestation in real space/time of an online friendship.-=-
I got to stay in a beautiful older Australian house and learn about the local architecture, and meet a very sweet family (and then some other families, and an even older house later.) :-)
Even if I hadn't been able to travel, the communications online were good. Still are.
Sandra
Sandra even came to stay with us in Cairns, Australia last year. That was a sweet manifestation in real space/time of an online friendship.-=-
I got to stay in a beautiful older Australian house and learn about the local architecture, and meet a very sweet family (and then some other families, and an even older house later.) :-)
Even if I hadn't been able to travel, the communications online were good. Still are.
Sandra
Susanne Roberts
This is something that I saw online today that perfectly describes how I feel about my online friends
Susanne
On Jan 31, 2015, at 22:37, "BRIAN POLIKOWSKY polykowholsteins@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
<<<<<<<<I know of at least one successful union (they're not married but loving together) as a result of an online datingWell now you know two! I met my husband on an online dating service. I had broken up with a boyfriend and it was bored!
I had met my boyfriend ( the ex) online on a chat too!
I know several friends that met their husbands online , a couple on dating services.On Saturday, January 31, 2015 9:22 PM, "Sandra Dodd Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning]" <[email protected]> wrote:
-=-I met my husband online before the internet, through the campus bulletin board during our first year of college in 1985. -=-
A couple I know well, still together, met in the 1980's too, through a game server one owned and ran, and the other played on. An RPG of some sort, being run through messages. :-) They have three children, and live in France, now. Holly has visited them twice in Europe, and so have I, and not the same two visits. :-) They met in Albuquerque and their oldest is a year older than Holly, and they have homeschooled on and off over the years.
They played games, in the same town, by computer, and flirted, and finally met in person and have been together for 25 years.
Of course I bet all of us could tell stories of couples whose relationships did NOT last that long who met "in real life."
Sandra
Virginia Warren
I am a robot. Beep.
My family just came back from a fun weekend meeting up with other unschoolers who I only know because of this list. Because of this list, I joined the unschooling-gamers yahoo group. I knew it was legit because Alex P. was active there. :)
When my family was poised to go to Minecon in 2013 and my husband wasn't able to go because of work, I reached out on unschooling-gamers and found someone who needed a ticket, and made a new friend. This mom and I teamed up to show our three kids the best time we could, and that was a very good time indeed. We didn't wind up becoming close friends, but I have nothing but fond memories of them.
The unschooling-gamers list also allowed us to meet up with other list members who were at Minecon, and we all met up at a Dave and Busters, which was a highlight in itself. Then, one of the moms invited us back to her home so we could attend her park day. We did and had a great time. We've visited this family, and seen others they've introduced us to, several times since then. Including this past weekend.
Every step of the chain of events above involves online communications. The chain of trust that let a mom who had met me five minutes before invite me to stay in her home the next day started on this list.
I have made amazing friendships online, but most especially starting from this list.
Sandra Dodd
Robots...
This might help get the metallic taste out of your mouths:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoi1MSGu64
And here's "the music video." :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bgY8lQMFy4
This might help get the metallic taste out of your mouths:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoi1MSGu64
And here's "the music video." :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bgY8lQMFy4