[email protected]

Well, you're right. It shouldn't matter what the childrens ages are... I thought that also. Why should I ask for someone the same sex and age....(I don't feel singled out, I'm just relating a personal experience) but my 6 year old son wanted a pen pal and he asked for a boy that was his age. I'd love if my boys wouldn't say "ewwwww, a girl" especially when I "thought" I had done a good job of not creating/allowing/inducing an atmosphere where that would come out........But he didn't want to be writing with a girl even though I said "hey, I'm a girl and you like me!"..........I'm not as eloquent as i'd like to be but I think I'm relaying it close to where i'm trying to.............my boys don't want to play with girls right now. When they were younger it wasn't an issue but the past year or so it has changed. Maybe in a year it'll change again. Maybe it won't. Maybe we'll get hit by an asteroid next month...........
If you meant something much deeper and I totally missed it, I apologize.


I have alot more questions and am one of those globbing people about the rules vs principles. If a family principle is kindness and someone is not being kind, what then......do we say (and i realize I'm betraying my schoolishness and boy is it in there am boy am I trying every day to get it out)blah, do we say "hey thats unkind" or " hey, I'm getting hurt" or"is that kind?" or "stop!" (if its an emergency)......I know it depends on the situation but at this house I'm driving myself crazy with the constant guidnace thats needed.....I think its needed, anyway..........blah, sigh or do we let them do what they're doing, even though its not kind and hope they become kind..?no of course not. I know to not yell, and to choose my words carefully but I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record...here and here :)
Maybe , I'll write down a specific situation and example it here. I thoght I had one from yesterday but then I promptly forgot it so here I am rambling.........maybe theres a book someone recommended and I missed it......and maybe i need to start there...but I , "I" need specific examples to spark me and give me the idea.......

ok, done. but please offer a response.....somebody :)

















--- Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:

From: Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...>
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 08:07:56 -0700
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Re: rules vs principles (LONG)
On Jan 5, 2006, at 1:17 AM, Pamela Sorooshian wrote:
> -=-it seems useful to clarify, once
> in a while, that the underlying principles of unschooling are
the
> same for gifted kids, sensitive kids, autistic kids,
explosive kids,
> young kids, older kids, black kids, white kids, girls and
boys,
> etc. -=-
Yes.
"Yes, but that won't work because..."
--my kid is gifted
--my kid needs structure
--my relatives are all educators
--my husband is an engineer
--i have a strong work ethic (an actual quote from a recent
e-mail
from someone explaining to me that she would not be able to
stay home
with a child, because she had a strong work ethic)
Learning works at the edge of what a person already knows.
It's a
building on and connecting to what's already familiar and
interesting.
No one can install knowledge into another person. You can fill
the
air (or the screen, or a paper, or a painting, or a song) with
ideas
and clues, but each listener/reader/viewer is left to pick up
and
insert clues or not. They can try those puzzle pieces into
their own
a-building universe and keep or reject them. They can frolic
for a
moment or an hour with an idea they later abandon.
People have come to more localized lists asking things like "Is
there
anyone here with an eight year old girl?" Not even "in the
seven-to-
ten-year-old range" but eight (8). Girl. WHY!? It really
shouldn't
matter. Choosing friends by birthday and gender is more like
school
than diagramming sentences is. Finding a list of unschooling
parents
of eight year old girls would be too.
No one but maybe a koala or an aphid would eat all his food
off the
same tree for life. Living in a fully wide world means not
looking
for a narrowly-defined corner of it.
Sandra
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-=-I'll write down a specific situation and example it here....-=-

That would've been a better starting place.

-=-.but I , "I" need specific examples to spark me and give me the
idea.......-=-

http://sandradodd.com/typical
http://sandradodd.com/peace/fighting

those might help


> Well, you're right. It shouldn't matter what the childrens ages
> are... I thought that also. Why should I ask for someone the same
> sex and age....(I don't feel singled out, I'm just relating a
> personal experience) but my 6 year old son wanted a pen pal and he
> asked for a boy that was his age.. .. . .

That's not about how children learn.

Some parents new to homeschooling try to recreate schoolishness down
to thinking their children need to be with children their own age,
and that their friends need to be in the same neighborhood, and be
like them.

That makes life smaller, not larger.

Unschooling needs a big real world, not a limited little world.

-=-I have alot more questions and am one of those globbing people
about the rules vs principles.-=-

I don't know "globbing."

-=-If a family principle is kindness -=-

Then the parents should be as kind as possible and try to keep their
children in situations where they're experiencing kindness. Instead
of trying to control the children's actions to ensure kindness, be
and create more kindness in which they can bask and dwell.

A principle would be that kindness breeds kindness.
A principle would be that it's a parent's duty to keep each child as
safe and as comfortable in his own home as possible.

-=-do we say "hey thats unkind" or " hey, I'm getting hurt" or"is
that kind?" or "stop!" (if its an emergency)......I know it depends
on the situation but at this house I'm driving myself crazy with the
constant guidnace thats needed.-=-

It depends.
Sometimes you negotiate with another person to act differently, and
sometimes it's easier to rearrange people and places so that the
difficulty is diffused without words and directives and "guidance."

Planning ahead to give kids more room and attention is easier than
trying to coach them through crowded situations, or to reason with
them after they're already cranky and responding badly.

-=-I know to not yell, and to choose my words carefully but I think
I'm starting to sound like a broken record..-=-

If you're saying the same thing over and over, it's not working.
Try running the situation back to see what led to the difficulty and
see if you can't prevent it at an earlier point next time. Is the
child unkind because he's not feeling heard, or he's hungry, or he
hasn't been out of the house for two days?

Rather than trying to change their actions, it's often easier to (and
almost always better) to change your own.

Sandra