A presentation for parents interested in unschooling, given at the LiTTLe Conference in London in 2011:
When thoughts are stuck or whirling, which way can we go? Where can we turn? What helps with natural learning, and what hinders? Can people go too far, or not far enough? Is it possible to mess this up?
Below are the images and the sound file of that presentation (and a good-parts summary review by Katie Pybus who was there that day).
If you don't see arrows, try moving to the next picture with your finger, depending on the device you're using.
and change the image when it seems right to do so. The thistle/clover page stays a long time. 🙂
Note:
The introduction is by Julie Daniel. I wish to point out that to put a book in the toilet, in British English, means to put it in the bathroom. In American English, it would mean to drop it into the water in the toilet bowl. So the recommendation was to use it as a bathroom book. I think. 🙂
Corrections and clarifications:
BRUCE saved a journal from his great aunt. Bernie is his wife. I was nervous and fumbled a name. Sorry. Bruce Curtis's bridge is pictured there, and there's a link to more information.
When I said "the bus from Derby," I meant "the train." (I did ride the bus from Selkirk to Edinburgh, but I was sitting.)
"My van" is a mini-van—a seven-passenger Chrysler Town & Country. I've been informed that in the UK "van" is only what north-Americans would call a panel van, or panel truck. Sides without windows.
I asked people to translate in their heads, like unschooling to autonomous ed. Then after the conference, later, at Julie's house, Mike Fortune-Wood said that Automonous Education wasn't the same as unschooling, and never was. Well good. I hadn't thought so, but for years some Brits had said it repeatedly, "We call it Autonomous Education," or "...autonomous learning." And so for many years, there were people in the UK who were confused and frustrated.
Did you notice I said "We just let them play"? After I said to avoid "just"?
We let them play! 🙂
At 47:00 or so on the recording, there's something good about two people having different experiences from the same input or experience, or when people who hear me speak are all taking different information from it, and connecting things to their own experiences.
I've transcribed a part so I can find it again, from about 10:10:
If you're living in the past, that's a problem for now.
If you're living in the future too much,
In the future that you're imagining,
in the future that you're predicting,
in the future that you would like to imagine you can control,
in the future that you would like to imagine that you can even imagine, that's a problem.
So it's good to aim for living in the moment in a whole way—your whole self, not separated from your past or your future, but also not really over-focussed on it.
The bio from the website, which Julie was reading and elaborated on:
Sandra Dodd is an inspirational unschooling advocate from New Mexico, U.S.A. She has three grown up children who have been unschooled all their lives and who are delightful, engaging, polite, curious and fun to be around.
Sandra says "I've been interested in teaching and how people learn since I was six, and (as is usual in big busy lives) all I've done before has led up to what I'm doing now. I grew up in northern New Mexico, I've been blessed with curiously bright and curious friends who shared their questions and answers with me, and there's nothing to do with that but pass it on to any curious others."
Katie Pybus, of Pulborough West Sussex, wrote of my talk that day:
The second speaker was Sandra Dodd and she spoke very articulately about living in the now. Not focusing too much on the past or planning too much for the future. She had a fabulous quote that she heard at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
"If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future then you are pissing all over today."
She encourages parents to learn how to live thoughtfully in the moment and explained her view that if you do not think before you act then you are acting thoughtlessly. She also encouraged the audience to "Look at your life through different eyes" and she gave a great example of how, when she took her son to the zoo to see a star attraction he was more interested in the crow on the fence!
I first read Sandra's work when my first born was a baby, nearly 7 years ago now, and it is fabulous to see how successful her children, who are now young adults are becoming. They have secured careers for themselves in the fields connected to their passions in a very natural and organic way. Sandra talked about how, for about a year, one of her sons would only wear a tiger dressing up suit but has now matured into a pretty conservative dresser. I was interested to hear this as dressing up clothes are popular in our family and free choice of what to wear is important to the smalls.
Sandra's presentation was very inspiring, encouraging the listener to have faith in their child and to trust the process and not belittle or undermine what a great thing is happening by saying "just" as an adjective.
Our next speaker Sandra Dodd put me in my place, unknowingly. A lyrical speaker she regaled us with her tales of unschooling her family and had me nodding vigorously throughout her talk 'live in the moment' 'don't let the past bring you down' 'too much management is bad' 'wonder as it will make life more wonderful' 'live by principles rather than by rules' I could go on and on........it is about living in the now & enjoying it.
Her talk was so uplifting I bought her book 'Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling'
Transcript by machine (I hope I will edit it myself... haven't yet). Probably too rough to be useful yet; sorry!
That said that fabulous, first session and thanks. Thanks for kicking us off him, run, that was said that was fabulous. And our next speaker today and is Sandra Dodd, and Sandra is an inspirational unschooling Advocates from New Mexico. And certainly inspirational to me. And I spent many late nights, and browsing her website, which is completely encyclopedic. Somebody, somebody said to her, It was supposed to be an insult. Actually think it's quite a compliment. Somebody said it's like, Wikipedia on there, you know, there's links going all over the place and Sandra's been interested in teaching and how people learn since she was six. And indeed she trained as a teacher and worked in schools for a while and she has three grown-up children. And they have been unschooled all their lives. And they are delightful and gauging polite, curious and fun to be around. And I know that that's not just the blurb that Case to read a because I have actually met them. But I've met two of them at least and I'm sure the third one is just as delightful. And Sandra's articles have been published in homeschooling journals and have been translated into several different languages and she's also published two books, moving up, huddle, and Sandra dogs, big book of unschooling. I think a lot of you have found them already. There are books on the back table there, from all of the speakers who have books that they brought with them. And so in the brakes and at lunchtime, please go and buy those if you haven't already got them. I know a lot of you have. So Sandra's book, by the way, I think that's a great one to either put in the toilet for toilet, read, if somebody goes in there they can just read the article here and there or is the kind of book that you can slot into a few minutes. You know, the busy lives and that you have are the baby gives you five minutes and you can go and we don't read a quick article so I think that's a fabulous book for that and that's all from me. I let Sandra get on, please, welcome Sandra Dodd.
Thank you, Julie. I love everything about the UK. I just go crazy about all the little stuff I was in the bathroom and it was called a thermo tap 3 and I thought I was like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie or like Spinal Tap. But
I'm excited to be here. And thank you very much for coming. And thank you, Julie and Adam wherever he is and James for organizing a really, really big party. You were very, very little money on our part and it's a very generous thing they've done. I'm glad to be part of it.
I'm sorry people who heard the recording later that I might cough a little bit. Sorry,
I have a website.
That's not my website. Wait, I have three children
scurvy and Holly and Marty one day when they were dressed up. The boys. Want those suits themselves with their own money? Not that we wouldn't have bought him suits but they just wanted to and they were going to a friend's wedding, they're squinting into the sun because that's in our yard in New Mexico. I didn't ever think I would miss that squinting into the sun thing but lightly and especially the
yeah I'm a website and if you go to this page you won't. Anything. Except a page that says there's no such pages guess, but would you like to search?
So if you guess things like anything, unschooling TV food sleep, you'll probably come to pages. Because I've tried for years to make them things you can guess. So you'll either guess or you'll get a search. I stayed several places in Scotland but I stayed with the homeschooling family and parents are named Bernie and Bruce and after I was already really excited about a style which will show in the last picture I went to his house and he was a dry stone wall contractor and artists and master builder and he said no didn't call it dry Stone. Walling. Probably likes. So I know tons now but I shall we originally built that was good enough to get a WWII tank over even though he only built it for golf carts and want. And the long guys. Trick. But when I was at their house, BernieBruce had saved a book from his great hand and it was a man called an autograph, but they called it a writing writing journal I think or something. And this poem was in it. So I'm minding my own business staying at somebody's house, going through a little books on the shelves, learning about drywall dike building and I found this poem, it was written about 1905 into this girl's autograph book. And it says, every second is this gold for us. You all to have and hold every minute is a gym set in life's Fair, diadem every hour, a Diamond, Bright to be treasured up, a right every day, a precious mind and its riches, maybe nine, it's pretty nice.
And then, later on, I found her name. I couldn't read that. I was like, K all see, and I thought of the name in New Mexico. That's C de Baca. Some of the explorers that came early on most of their names are here. And one guy, whose name Cabeza de Vaca, which means cow's heads. Not really a pretty last name. Sounds prettier when you don't know what it means. But there are still some people named that but nobody wants to be named Cabeza de Vaca. It's too hard to spell, too hard to say. And so when people have that name now they write down driver's license, and everything, C deBaca, capital c deBaca and people who think New Mexico history. No, and no one else needs to know, but I thought about that and then I thought about seeing chicken places around, that's a AFC instead of KFC. So I figure there was some religious split in the fried chicken. America religion, and I guess that's American tried chicken, I don't know, but because I think it helps me be a good in school or because I can do that because I can jump from 1905 autograph to history of New Mexico to Kentucky Fried Chicken. And if you, if you have over the years not developed that, or if you shame yourself about that, about not staying on topic, try to undo that trying to get back to those days. I kind of miss dictionaries, because somebody would ask me to go look something up and about 10 minutes later. Sure. I'm I'd say what was I supposed to look out? But I had already looked up a whole bunch of birds of South America and you know stuff that I wasn't supposed to go in there about I think Google kind of serves that purpose to when Google was new. We used to play a game where two of us would say something at the same time in Hollywood usually just named him a pet. We knew for a color and then I would name something else. Sometimes I didn't read the first few sites that came up because the name of a color or an animal mixed with something else very often. Get you some sites little girls shouldn't see.
But that can be fun to just messing around with things. The signature of the person came up, I still couldn't read it but I think it's maybe KU clunes. So, I mean, whoever it is she's dead or he but still, I mean, they're being nosy, you know, looking around to see what the name is. And then the same room while I was still poking around, I'm going to come back to that one. There was a National Geographic magazine, I was surprised when I came here to find that everyone here gets National Geographic—fine American Magazine—and also that they will give you guys hoodies—like fleece jackets to get. Nash, didn't give us anything. I think, I'm not sure, it's required to stay in the country as an American but we just we don't risk it. We all get it.
And this is about Mormon called. They live in northern Arizona is called FLDS which stands for fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints. And so I was reading this article, all these girls are sisters and their dad is standing off in the back. That's not very good looking picture of him. It look better when it was big and sorry, I didn't know I was going to show you guys. I just took a picture so I remember And I wrote this down from that article that day, female FLDS members wear modest, attire ankle-length prairie dresses. Even while swimming it can get kind of cold subverted shapley 19, reaching for a cable trolley with her sisters at a pond near Hilldale. We do everything together says their father William at left. The foundation of this life is a quote from the dead. The foundation of this life is your belief in a life after this. Where are we going after this life? That's the big question. So they live in. A really odd life and they swim in long dresses with skirts. And they all have the same dad because of the afterlife.
They don't care anything about this, like they just care about the next life and that's a rough way to be. It doesn't work very well for unschooling, that's what the point I was hoping to make.
So free me is, is this? I'm just going to leave that there for you. Look at for a while. So I'm gonna talk about history,
I think... everybody has a past they say, and some people live there. Some people just get stuck and I've met people older than I am, who are still stuck on something that happened when they were 13, 15 5. And when you talk, you don't maybe talk to him for an hour but they've told you how terrible it was when they missed that goal and Junior High Sport, whatever, or when they were late for a test and so didn't get into a certain school and they just live there, in that horrible moment and there are some people who use their past as an excuse to be the way they want to be.
My mom had a bad habit of living in the depression and if I said something like I'm hungry, she would say you've never been hungry a day in your life. I remember when my dad had to work all day for five cents to buy us a potato that's like, oh sorry. I thought I was hungry, I'll go to the neighbor's house. So
if you are You might recognize this in yourself if you're living in the past, whether your glorious childhood past, which is a living is, I did really well in school and I lived there for 10 years after I was out of school, I suppose if you're living in your past, try to recognize it when it happens and goes that was nice or that was terrible and kind of put a cap on it and I don't mean separate yourself from it in an unhealthy way. I don't mean to him too. What's the word you separate your? So, I lost my notes from last night, I went through all my notes and got them all, nice didn't save and lucky, for me. I'm very hyperactive saw sitting back there and needed something to look at and thought it would be really rude to play plants Plants vs. Zombies.
So I looked at my notes and found that all of my notes were in my newest notes were gone. So there's a word, it is compartmentalize. Don't compartmentalize yourself from your past but just kind of, you know, coat those things. And yes, that was a bummer or something. So then it's not raw and still talking to you all the time. Because if you're living in the past, that's a problem for now. Is there something else? If you're living in the future too much in the future that you are imagining in the future that you're predicting in the future that you would like to imagine you can control in the future that you like to imagine, you can even imagine, that's a problem. So it's good to aim for living in the moment in a whole way. Your whole self not separated from your pastor, your future but also not really over focused on it. If you bank on the future, literally, that's a good idea. You know? I mean savings is a good idea. I'm not saying, I'm not to have life insurance or things like that. That's great. But banking on it figuratively, can be a big problem if you say well because my child is going to be a gold medal rower, then I need to do this, this this the problem with planning on being a gold medal, anything is that it Narrows your goals. So so much that being a silver medal. Olympic winner is a big loss. And if you don't even Place well why did you even live? Why did the mother even you know take care of you all those years? Why did they buy you? Those nice oars. So try not to do that. That's banking on something that you imagine you can imagine,
when I was a 30-ish late 20s. I broke my leg really badly and that led to me going to Adult Children of Alcoholics, indirectly a story I could tell that all these stories would take an hour and only have one hour, my mom kind of indirectly
Doesn't that ended up going to adult
AA, to Alcoholics Anonymous, where she went nine years without drinking which was nice. And then she started drinking again but for nine years she was sober.
I was already grown but I went to these built building about the holics meetings and I would go to those other meetings with my mom. And one thing you don't dream about the Hilux meetings are all really nice and it made me a better person and maybe a better parent but the people are nice to each other because they figure we've already suffered enough. We had a parent or two who were really kind of, you know, messed up and distract it. And Alcoholics Anonymous, they're not that nice. Because all the people in there are the people who were bad parents, who are messed up distracted, or who have messed up a marriage, or a life, or a job, or a business or something. They don't have much patience with each other and one thing that the guy say at least in the u.s., I don't know if it translates perfectly, it said you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you're pissing all over today.
A little bluntly put but I think it's true.
So let the past inform your decisions, you know? I don't want to be the kind of mother. My mom was
So I remember that a little bit but I don't recite that every morning when I wake up, you know, I remember this, I remember that or this, it affects my decisions but in a calm way that has to do with today, let the past me like a little angel on your shoulder. A little bit of a conscience to help you. Remember how you don't want to be your how you do want to be, that's okay. But don't let the voices in your head. Just tell you what to do. My son was 14. I guess he was at a conference in Somebody went to talk to Marty the middle one. When he was on this side, Somebody went up to us and said well Marty I don't know. I would like to be more like your mom and your family but I have these voices in my head saying blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. We talked a while and Marty said he waited till she was done and he said maybe you should stop listening to voices in your head.
That's a simple thing to say but part of the way people's conscience works is that you do have voices in your head head. I could talk about that for an hour and I won't but people super-ego are made up of your grandmother saying nanny. Right. And so some of those you want to keep and some of those you don't want to keep. So sort through that in your spare time or when they come up and scare you and go okay you know what I've played this tape 45 times your book smart but you have no horses that's enough, you know I don't need my granny saying that to me anymore, she died in the 1970s and I'm still letting her talk. So, I had a little bit of control over that not total control. Like I still remember it, but I don't let it make me feel bad anymore. Maya Angelou wrote, I did then what I knew how to do now that I know better, I do better.
And here's what I want to say about that. Make choices and people, yeah, I make choices all the time, I chose to have kids, I chose to get married. I chose to live in my house. I chose to get this card. So that car and I don't mean the big choice where you sign a contract or you swear an oath that's supposed to last you 20 or 100 years, I mean a choice of what to do right now in the next couple of minutes, the next half hour and you. And what I decide to do for dinner tonight, can't be binding now because I don't know for sure. I'm probably gonna stay here and eat pizza. But if somebody makes me a better offer something you don't say, I'm I leap, I don't know. So don't don't don't arrange your life so much. That if you check if you want to change your mind, you can't don't tie your own hands. That's not a good idea either. Friend of mine, my best friend in the whole world. I'm Jeff Cunico. He babysat Kirby when Kirby was one year old. The one on the far side when he was and I don't we just gon take the other baby to the doctor. I don't know what it was. No I guess we don't have another baby but anyway not very long. I come back. Jeff says had to spank Kirby. I'm really sorry and I you felt so bad that I wasn't mad. I was kind of amused because he's like mortified and I said, okay. And he said, well, you know, I told him to stop doing this thing and he Didn't stop and I had told him I would spank him. So I had to and I said okay well what if you just said if you don't stop doing that I'm going to kill you
so it's okay to go. Yeah, I said that but I think that was my aunt or my mom or my granny talking and I have I would like to withdraw withdraw my promise to spank or killed
So sometimes go to change your mind, and if, when you're going to do something say something sit here or sit there, eat this or eat that think. And the fancy way to think, is to make, give yourself two choices. I'm either going to do this to this really fancy thinking is three choices. But for starters, two choices and then choose the one that's better for the situation, the better for the most people or the better to get. You toward being the kind of person you want to be some criteria. You have is better or worse. It's raining. Do I put the umbrella over? Not, you know, better or worse in that moment. And when you make the decision, based on what you have, just really actually thought and decided. Then you made a thoughtful decision if you don't think before you act, then you have acted thoughtlessly just flat-out, literally.
So, and if you're going to write anything down a day or while they might be on a website,
if you act without thinking, you've acted thoughtlessly,
so, if you get to deciding that you're going to practice living in the present day in the present moment, There's something else to consider an extension or not. The kind of attention that makes you all jittery not nervous, tension, but equilibrium or like a tent stake to tighten a rope if you tighten it too much tent, falls down if it's not tight enough tent falls down. So you want to have that sort of tension in you, where you're aware enough, you're awake enough, you've eaten enough, your alert enough to protect yourself and your children but you're not so hyper alert that you're just going crazy and yelling at people. So that balance between too much and not enough. Is another thing about living in the present I don't serve because I don't swim and it's good to swim if you're going to serve. So I don't but my kids have and I haven't skateboarded because that would be crazy. But I have stood up in school buses when I wasn't, when I was in high school, the cool thing to do was just stand and not stand and hold the bar, but stand in such a way that it looks like you just casually standing there and when the best jerks and sways you look like you don't even know you're in a bus. And that was what was cool when I got good at it.
And the other day, I was coming from Darby on the bus was really, really full. So I'm standing by the toilets. I'm as cool as can be. Except I grab the bar sometimes because I'm also old, but but I that kind of stance is what you need to live in the moment. It's like because you don't know exactly what's going to happen. I mean we're right now the building could catch fire. Something exciting would happen and so I've decided that I'm going to stand here until my time is up and you guys are all leaving because building Fire. And I go, well, I can't leave that would not be good.
So be ready to move. One way, or another, with your children, with yourself, whatever it is be thinking of it in those terms that you're surfing, you can't control the ocean, you're skateboarding, you can't control what other people have dropped on the road or who's going to jump out of a doorway or come? What kind of item bicycle. So assuming and knowing that all those things will be happening in your life that you don't get to think up a day and have it go the way you imagined it then learn how to live thoughtfully in the aunt. It's kind of like Goldilocks only without the creepy home invasion. You know, I've heard that story my whole life and nobody ever said, stay out of people's houses. You know, that didn't seem to be the point in the story at all, but that the too hot, too cold, too, soft to hard. That's a good part of the story in a weird way. In a creepy home invasion went, but that's the way you can decide things about about your house about your life about the way, you will set up the environment for your children to have a great life.
My husband does not like things in cars and we've been sharing a car because my daughter was in a car and got rear-ended. And so, we've all been oh yeah, no, I first I wrecked a car and I was my fault and then it was okay because we still had two left and then Holly got rear-ended. And then that's okay. Cause we still have one left but my husband listens to Crazy Viking metal. And I'll get in the van and turn it on and they're screaming at me in faroese, I didn't like that much. And then he takes everything out I think and this is my van, the last one that's gone but it's not it's rude for me to go. That's my van since I'm the one During the settings. So,
but I think a car should have extra shoes, a blanket, a bunch of water, maybe a bicycle, a skateboard. I'm not going to use and, you know, dog bowl frisbee which can be the same thing, you know, I think cars should be provisioned and my husband thinks car should all look like rental cars. So, we're not wearing compatible car shares, but for me, it's like too hard, too soft. Yeah, cars can have too much stuff, but cars can have not enough stuff. So for me, what's just right. It's having maps to places. I went last year and and my husband doesn't even have AB stories going now. So that's another thing, when you're balanced in the school bus of your life, that's a terrible analogy for humble.
Remember that other people are not going to agree with you, with what's, what's optimal and peaceful, and all of that. So, you're going to have to remember that you're living with other people, too. I would like to imagine my life just the way I wanted. I would like, for my husband to be See the male version of me and do what I imagine. He should do, be me when I'm not there and do things my way. But I know when I get home after being gone for two months, there will be things. I don't find in the kitchen for another months because he thinks that when he watches something he can just put it anywhere he wants to.
So being forgiving of people living their own lives in your own space, is something I plan to learn sometime.
I promised that I would talk about something that I I have in my notes, so I'm sticking it in right here. And that is good examples, and bad examples of parenting and a facilitating learning. I've seen a lot of bad examples and I've seen some really good examples. What some people do, that's not good. Is they say they want their children to learn naturally and they tell them how to do it. So they follow him around and go. This would be really good. Don't you think you would like this? You liked it yesterday and I paid money for it. We like it. And so they they think just because it's not a curriculum that they can still tell the kids. It's 10:00. Could you do this cool thing? That isn't a curriculum and that so too much control too much management of the child's thought and activity and presence and attention is bad. And it's bad in the very same way. School is bad. It's bad because someone else thought you might want to do this because it's 10:00 in the morning.
But then there's also a kind of parenting where they say oh who I'm schooling or autonomous education translate all of my words into all of your words if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it because I'll get mixed up when I try to do it. So I think I'll go around stealing now. You can make all decisions you want, you can do anything you want and the parents sit back and go tell me when you're doing it.
And then after about six months ago, we tried on schooling. But my kid had no imagination, my kid didn't develop any passions. He just kind of like, you know, watch TV and play video games and I waited For him to do something cool, but he did it. So I think the parents should be as partners to their children doing cool. Interesting things without forcing the child to do it, you know, like this. You try one thing that doesn't work. You want to eat, want to look, you know, you won't look Suave and cool. And so, you lean the other way, try something else and something is going to work, and as you do that, you get better at it. You figure out what your child likes, what style of interaction your child likes. Pretty soon is just smooth and that's the way you really are. Even though at first you were it was awkward. Dan you were baffled. If you practice it a little while, you get really good at it and pretty soon you forget as happening. You just get to where you pay attention to what they want. In a good marriage. It's like that where you just know your husband needs to be by himself for a while or he's probably hungry or he's going to forget that the football games on or something. If there are husband's like that mine will forget what he's gonna watch on TV. So I'll tell him it's Thursday and you want to watch CSI or whatever.
So you can do that with your kids too and if you do that with your kids and you get really good at it, then you realize you haven't checked on your husband for a few months,
you can then with those same skills that you've just learned to deal with your child, go deal with your husband a little bit, all the men pretend you can't hear this. I'm going to say this two women inside. Every man is a little boy and a lot of them didn't get all the attention. They need to when they were little boys and they could really use some attention. So although it's popular among women, Sometimes, especially when they're having a little bit faster. Talking about divorce to say I'm not his mother. Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt sometimes to act a little bit like, as if you were his mother, especially if your husband's mother wasn't very nice. If your husband's mother was really, really nice. Then be more like her. If your husband's mother wasn't very nice like mine, husband's mother's wasn't very nice. Then sometimes I see him get jealous of the way. Our kids are things that our boys got to do or ways that I treated our boys because I know, no, I could see it in his eyes flick. He's remembering that he didn't get to do that. And so I would try to extend those allowances and freedoms and understandings to him and it really helped a lot. Our marriage got a lot better, but I understand that when a mother is as imran's a totally brain changed, it has the baby. It's kind of hard to remember the baby came from in a way, you know, it's like get you. I forget your name, get away from me and my baby.
And I think it's there's a little bit of instinct to it and especially cause you just told him get away from me forever when the baby came out, right? It takes a while for that to we're wrong. So I think, I think if back to the men now you can listen. If you have a little baby, if you have a child one, or two or three, it probably seems like your life is over as you knew it, and I think you'll probably get better if you can stick around. If you manage to stick around, if the wife can manage not to run the guy off, things will get a lot better. When the kids are older it does and so maybe don't make the guy wait, two or three years if you can find it in your heart not to
I don't even know why I got off on that tangent. But I
So some parents don't do enough in some parents do too much. Some are too soft. Summer too hard, summer, too hot summer too cold. Look for just right. And take those Clues from your kids. They will tell you if you can pay attention to them, what's too much and too little. And I thought before I had babies just like a lot of people think before they've been around babies, the babies can't communicate so wrong because just when you pick them up, you can tell where the they relax into your stiffen up and they communicate all the time. And you can keep paying attention to your child like that even after he's older so just because a kid goes no that's fine, I don't mind. Okay, don't just go with the words. Did he mean it? What was his posture? And it might be about. Like I ask Marty. Would you clean the cat box while I'm gone for two whole months and he said, yeah, I don't mind, he kind of did. So, I said Marty and Zuma my husband and Holly keeping Holly. I said, could you check on it sometimes? Because Marty doesn't really want to do it. But cats aren't Marty's. He Dog. The dog is dead. So I know he's not busy because the dog is gone and I figured you could do that. But you know, I'm aware that that's not Marty's favorite thing to do. I'm also aware he'll remember because threat outside himself in his room. So that's another one of those Balance things, Holly is another whole floor way. Any other part of the house, if I'd asked her to do it she wouldn't remember Margot be mad at Holly. So, over the years, you get to figure out ways to keep peace among those individuals that, you know, really well, it's not theoretical, it's those real people and that real house. Ow.
Find the best in each moment I'm about to quote myself, I'm about to quote myself because somebody else pulled me on Facebook, two days ago and I picked it up and stuck it in here. I probably wrote it in an email to a discussion list, Always Learning or something. Because I write these things and then I hit send and I never think of it again and sometimes people bring a quote, I go "that's really good."
You said it, you did
well, here's what I said, one day find the best in each moment, the best moments in each hour and by focusing on what is sweet and good you will help others. See, the sweetness and goodness too.
I don't do that every moment of every hour, but I do know how to do it. If I find myself getting cranky and angry and tired and starting to complain about things, I recognize it when I was young, I thought I had an absolute right and duty to be negative and awful.
Because I knew things were awful in. Some other people didn't know, there's a t-shirt that some people have if you're not, if you're not in since you obviously don't understand the situation or something like that. And I know there are some parts of the world, New York City and some other places where it's really popular to complain about everything and it's really popular to say that everything else is stupid and wrong and that you could do better, no matter what it is and it's almost obligatory to be that way. But it's also a drain on people's emotions and joy. It's a joy preventative.
I'm really comfortable at my house. Now Bakr key. I really like my family. I like my town and so I didn't come here because I was unhappy at home
But lately, I've woken up in some pretty weird places, and it's need to wake up and think, oh, it's morning. And then, I'm in someplace like little Lithgow, or pennycook and buh-burn in the buh-burn. And I stayed in a little hotel. And, and I said, yeah, I'm in one of the maids have rooms in. My husband said, well, was it a great house? I said, I wasn't okay, house. I guess it was. It had been the home of the mine manager, owner, whatever. so I said no it's not one of the houses you want to brag about but you know woke up in Sheffield
I never did that before. And that's some waking up mean. I really wake you up, especially when you go mom. Nice sleep. It's morning. And then it's 4:30 in the morning because I'm used to his New Mexico, where sunup means, it's 6:30 or so at least, So, when I get home to Albuquerque is going to be all new and different, the kitchen will be rearranged, and it won't be just Albuquerque. It'll be like Albuquerque. And so I missed you guys won't. Let me clean up after the cats. Let me wash the dishes. It'll be really cool. Be kind of energized because I've been away.
But
to say it's just Albuquerque. When I'm there, belittles it, because it's always cool Albuquerque. But when I'm here, and taking pictures of all kinds of stuff, flowers, grow in, dirt on those drains from the roof, and that's exciting to me. I'm sure there are things in Albuquerque. That, if you went, there you go. Ooh, look at that and I wouldn't know what you were pointing at. Like, what? What? Same old dusty stuff. So there's another thing you might want to do and that's to look at your environment through fresh eyes. Kids are good for that because they some of We're just born yesterday.
When I took my little boy to the zoo the first time, Marty, they had a white tiger at the zoo real excited because Albuquerque Zoo has a white tiger and so we're all go there with everybody else in Albuquerque. Look at the white tiger and Marty who was two or one and a half, didn't care anything about the tiger—couldn't even probably see that far, but there was a crow on a big rope, a rope, this big that they had made a barrier with and there's a crow sitting on the car was right by him. He could almost touch it. And that's what he cared about it. He's doing it first. Said, Marty, Marty no over here and then I realized it's none of my business what Marty thinks is cool at the zoo. It doesn't matter. What he thinks is cool is what's cool to him and that's really important.
When you're unschooling, if you tell them no, no. You're looking at the wrong animal. Who was wrong in that situation, not the tiger, not the crow and not Marty. Me, okay?
So remember that you don't know what they think is cool and you don't know what they want to learn about and what they want to see but if you're going to be their partner, you should help them do that. You should support that and look and figure out what they're seeing. And you might see something really cool that you wouldn't have thought of because I wasn't even looking at that rope. It wasn't the coolest thing there, but to Marty had never seen her up that big never saw a crow sit on one and the tiger's still there, all his life. He's gone to the zoo and can see that tiger again. Crow's gone.
Avoid just avoid thinking that anything is just anything anytime you get. Well.
I'm just tired of it or I'm just thought for some reason, you said just and and let a little just alarm go off because it's not the best word to use. One if and if you think about it and you meant to use it, that's fine. But it's kind of a put-down this kind of a shutdown, kind of a word. They're just playing just playing, they're playing really playing honestly to God. Playing , not just playing.
So that or your local language or dialects equivalent of just and two other things to avoid. Even if you think it's a good thing to say, even if you think you're justified in saying it because you know things nobody else knows try not to say anything as stupid and trying to say that anything is awful or you hate it. I hate that. I don't love Opera but if I walk around saying I hate Opera offer a stupid. It's just screaming the my kids won't go to operas because I told It was stupid and every time like playing 20 questions, the best way to play 20 Questions is not to say. Is it Opera?
You divide the world in half. And if you say all these things are stupid, you kind of divided your children's world at half every time. Even if you just chopped off Opera, you know, you're taking huge chunks of the world and saying we're not going to look at that. That's stupid. So try not to do that because your children might be so interested in something that you think is stupid that they will make so much money that they'll move into a bigger house someday this as an investment in the future because you can't see the future. My kid Kirby makes really good money at the age of 20. He was 21 by the time. He got to Texas because they moved him, right around his birthday and they paid for him to move to Texas, so we can work at Blizzard Entertainment. My husband goofed around, I knew my husband from the time he was 21. So I'm a very interesting phase of my son's lives because when my husband goes well you know, you're 23 bump up, I wait till he finishes and goes remember when you're 23 and you're putting windows and houses this year.
okay, so he can't, he can't really mess with my boys now, for a while, because I have the total Goods on him and the Poetry he wrote at the time, so
He's saying nothing. Nothing and my husband got his degree in 29 and got a job as an engineer at 30, but he didn't know how to negotiate a salary. So, he took the very minimum that they could get away with giving him and then looked around and saw that he could have asked for like twenty percent more and gotten it in a heartbeat
Kirby's first job with Blizzard made more than Keith's first job with Honeywell. And inflation hasn't been that much in those years and Kirby's benefits and vacation were better when he was 21 years old. And he swore at T. When we were, we were grown and had a mortgage and I was pregnant Kirby has no girlfriend. No pregnant wife? No mortgage and is saving his money.
So I think it's just wonderful but we could not have foreseen the job he got we thought we were just letting them play and when he was a little kid and we had a Mac to SI a big computer, you can't move around at all. We bought him a game called playroom, and it took 10 discs, 10 of those little, you know, you stick it in it worse and it goes are It takes forever to get one of those things to go because all tended to work and it was a black and white game where you clicked on things and they did something in black and white and it cost $50. That's first game we ever got him, and he was just a little baby that was to move the mouse around, and when he was 45, I got to look it up for. I think we got him on Nintendo entertainment center and he learned Mario and duck hunt. And
We always kept him provisioned with video games and when he was 13 12, 13 started playing Pokemon, which is a collectible card game. And so he started hanging around the places where they sold the cards, and he started being helpful because he just was. And so, have you got there, early would help him set up and if he stayed there late, and he was talking to him, you'd help him vacuum or put the chairs up. And one day I came home and said, oh good.
Somebody tell me when I have 10 minutes left, how much time do I have? Now, anybody wise in the ways of clocks,
And he said, whatever name was Jodi. Said, Jodi asked me the weirdest question. She said, how old are you? And I said 13. And she said, oh too bad or oh, darn. And he said, why would she ask me that is if she wants to hire you and he said, no, I don't think So next time he went to the shop, she said, "Kirby, when's your birthday?" And when he turned 14 and I hired him to run Pokemon.
And so he was working where he was selling Pokemon cards and magic cards and little Miniatures that they paint with expensive pain. So he knew all about that, no video games in that store, but that's
He worked there for five or six years or five years, I don't know if I've years and then all the time he was playing video games when he quit that job. A video game place up the road. From us called him and said, Kirby, you put it active, will you come work at gameplay or gamepro? Her of game, do off whatever it is. And he said, no, because he didn't like the guy and I was mortified, like someone called him and offered him a job. And I said, you've been, we've been preparing you for this job. Your entire, life goes sell video games, and he said, Mom the guys, Is not nice. I'm not going to work there so ability to get jobs and integrity, but the place he works at now is the biggest gaming place in the world ever and they do World of Warcraft and it's not likely to lose money anytime soon. And that's a steady job for him. He's had three promotions and he'll be 25 in July. So also just this last week, they put him on a new shift
after years and years of people, assuring me that if I let my kids sleep like they would never get a job, this current shift is starts at 5:30 and goes till 3:30 in the morning.
He's prepared.
There's a word that people don't use much: wonder. I mean, we use it like, wonder what time it is wonder if it's lunch but the idea of the emotion of wonder where you see something and you're amazed is a little out of style because it doesn't go with that. "All this is stupid, I could have done better than that with my eyes closed. All the world is so boring." So that's the opposite of Wonder?
But if you can appreciate your child's fascination with a crow,
that's Wonder. Again, you can remember again, what it was like to be young, or you can hang around with me and know what it's like to be in England and not ever have known what a saveloy was. I was so excited.
Or he can come to New Mexico and see tumbleweeds and I'll go don't bring the Tumbleweed in the yard. I did bring some when we had company in to put them in the back of the van and I didn't put a tarp down and he's like, why don't you put a tarp down? Because I was excited to find a tumbleweed, okay? We looked a lot of places so we were back there with the vacuum cleaner. Getting every little tumble weed, seed out, and Keith, didn't like me for about 15 minutes.
So if you make peaceful choices and then life's more peaceful, and then you seek out, wonder that. Make life more wonderful.
And who wouldn't want life to be wonderful.
Kids want to watch a movie repeatedly. This happens in the world.
This is a painting I've never seen but Adam Daniel who's sitting right here, has seen it three times and it's his favorite painting. So I'm going to go there and see that and it's at the National Gallery. I'm gonna go see after painting for some reason. Adam loves that painting.
And there's painting. I like a lot.
And I wrote to the museum and Albuquerque after I was already on the trip and I said, is there a picture of this anywhere? Because it hasn't been up at the Museum. But every time I've got a museum, I always check the gallery and see this paintings there. I had thought it was called "The Letter," but it's called "Letter." She sent me a scan. This is the excitement. It's kind of a postcard, okay? It's not like a professional giant picture of the painting. The painting is life-size.
And it was done in the early 70s. 1975.
So it's as big as people and it is photo realistic to the point that you can tell. When you see it really big, you can tell what the guy had in his pockets, where his jeans wore out. And it's not an exciting moment in somebody has gotten a letter, but every piece of furniture there, every piece of clothing that shirt she has on, they were everywhere. Telephones like that everybody had one. And so for me, having lived in New Mexico and there's a painting of people in New Mexico.
It's so perfect. I mean, everything about it is just like a photograph and I it's not worth loving, but somehow that's the pick, the painting, that I've logged onto of all the stuff that Albuquerque museum has a love this. And so now, I have a copy and I showed it to you guys, and she didn't say I couldn't put on the internet. So, until she makes me take it down. I'm going to say here. Is that painting? I showed you guys. It's because they said I could use it today.
Another painting. I like is this and it's in Vienna. I haven't seen the real one.
But I have a jigsaw puzzle of it and I have a poster of it and I've always loved games, love games and because of doing the puzzle mostly We examined every little bit of this, when I after
This is my fourth trip to the UK. But on this trip in two different conversations a game is come up that I never knew and it's what time is it? Mr. Wolf and I was told about that by Julie and then I was told about it by one of the moms in Darby and and I Ever knew that game but that could be something that's going on in here. I don't know, but because I have that interest and because things like that come up then I learned more things. It's not important for me to know what time is it, mr. Wolf. Except that we're going to France next week. They're going to be level of kids there and one of the things that I said I would do is teach little circle and running games and so I can show them as a lot of American games but also on that one too. It's a good one and probably some of the other parents there might know it. When kids want to play a game repeatedly, or look at a picture repeatedly or listen to music repeatedly. Sometimes the parents say he's just doing that again. He's just watching Dumbo again. Dumbo was Marty's movie. All these movie was Stand By Me, which is about 12 year old boys and she loved it when she was two and three. One day, Marty who was probably five woke up and ran into the living room and said, mom, please don't let Holly watch them by me today,
and I did anyway for Marty
I said we used to watch Dumbo all the time and he said, yeah, but Dumbo's good.
[commentary about the slides:
Wrong way. Wrong way.
That's not a painting.
]
Sorry, this is a painting Frank Meyer likes, and he wrote an article on his blog and I put it on my site at center.com again,
and he wrote about this very thing about how parents get mad at their kid wants to watch a TV show that they've already seen or to do something that they've already done. You know, the same little pick you up, tickle, you throw, you upside down games and want to do it over and over and over. But Frank says, adults do that all the time and it's true, adults do it and they justify it. But they I want the kids to do it. It's odd, it's not reasonable. It's not rational.
Frank loves this painting. Frank went to a Jesuit school big-time Louisiana privates military Jesuit school where they were in uniforms and did gun drills and all the stuff. He's a little anti-catholic now, but this is still his favorite painting and he just gave his opponent. I doubt he's ever seen it in person. I saw the letter when it was new, I saw it and 70s which was kind of cool. I don't think Frank has seen this at all. Adam is His in person, but he didn't see it when it was new because from the 19th century, when I was a kid, I listened to Elton John's first album over, and over, and over and over. And I wore it out in about another copy. I listen to The Beatles And every format ever accept a track. I will admit not H. I'm too young Beach, Boys. And The Supremes, I've just listen to, like, crazy and my daughter Holly because of Stand By Me. And another few things that she slept Paper Moon. She got really interested in 1930s and I never liked the 1930s, but I liked Holly liking the 1930s. And through her, I learned to really appreciate Fred Astaire movies and things like that. So what she did helped me
Relax that appreciate something that I had always rejected and she really likes 60s. Now, she's off the 30s. Now, she's through it that she's onto the 60s. She likes the clothes, she likes everything, she likes stories of before. The women's movement, how it was between girls and boys teenagers about with the girls are treated in and how much they used to lie and pretend to let the boys win games and stuff. I learned to fly Blackbird on the guitar because my boyfriend who was 17 was struggling to learn it, I was 15, I went home. Learned. It came back and didn't say I learned it because that would have embarrassed and because it only took me one night and I and so he's struggling and struggling, I go, I think it's this and this was not like, oh yes, it was but in those days you didn't tell your boyfriend who was the lead player and a guitar in a rock and roll band that he couldn't play Blackbird right now. Hollywood just would holler go almost figured out together. But so to mazes her to hear stories like that
but she's likely started really liking Petula Clark and that's what this is about. About, she would love the art, she would love the dresses, but I was looking for a go-go dress. There was a video. She was invited to find a picture of her and a miniskirt with fringe and go-go boots and start. The Holly wants a dress. That way, she's just impressed that that was actually worn on the streets on TV.
I've given Holly a couple of mini skirts that I had left over from the 60s when I was skinny and minutes and she takes them down—they're too short for her.
She knows all about Donovan and I bought her a Donovan CD in Scotland. That's kind of cool. She knows all about The Monkees.
So is that living in the past that Holly liked the 30s for a while and I should like to 60 because I said living in the past is kind of bad and I don't think Holly's living in the 60s. I don't think she's pining for the sixties. She's studying the 60s
and all the connections that she makes about politics and social life and
vehicles that people thought were cool or not. Cool. What would he be? So driven and not driven, all of that stuff ties in with her own all the other things. She knows what she knows about the Vietnam War, she doesn't just know historically, she knows some from songs from the time and art from the time from watching Woodstock, which she did when she was very young.
I hate when I hear guilt. Fred, Astaire Gilbert Sullivan. They're antiques to me, you know, I hear them in a stork in historical context because I wasn't there, but I remembered what order the Beatles albums came out because I remember how old I was when I bought him. I still remember I can't, I can't get confused about what order they came out in.
But for Holly, they all came out the same time. And so, she hears, cheers later stuff at the same time with early, so she has to sort that out in her own way. Her experience of The Beatles is very, very different from mine. Her experience of everything is very different from mine. Even when we're in the same place, having the same experience at the same time, because I'm connecting it to things that I associate with that, or that I like about it, and she's doing the same thing right next to me.
So the like parallel play among toddlers. So when you're having an experience with another person, and just like, all the people who are here, all people are here hearing this. Now are remembering different parts, liking different parts, thinking different things, and you will make your own different connections. So the experience for people in the same situation will be different and it's good to accept that about your kids choose.
Sometimes people say well, I have three kids, how will I do this? How will I be with each child separately? You don't have to be separate. They can all be there at the same time doing the same thing and all have a different experience. That's good. That's cool. It's the only way it can be So don't feel bad about it because that's the way it is and one of them might be having the experience. He wishes he wasn't there at all and and so he may not be learning as much as the one who is really excited to be there and that's okay too so just don't make him stay there too long.
Do the best you can. So some people saw Edinburgh Castle when it was new. I was thinking about that the other day. They're like they built it around rocks. They didn't move the rocks. The rocks just start popping out of walls, like some crazy Star Wars, Star Star Trek thing where the plants are growing in the Enterprise, right in reforming. It was like that. Only the rock came first with some people saw it knew some people worked on it. Some people lived in it, and I just saw it as a museum, not even an old castle. But a museum with all kinds of lit up displays And ropes where you can't walk and things, you can't touch and doors that you can't go into.
So my experience is that can't be any other way. Your child's experience can't be any other way than the experience he's having so while /what? you can do is just make it pleasant, make it happy, and try to be there with them. Parent.
Parental judgment and preference can do damage. If you tell your child looks better and what's worse? How can he think for himself? If you tell him what's better and worse about little baby things, if you waste all of your "no" on a three, four, five year old, when he's 15, or 16 he won't listen to you anymore.
If you let your child practice on little things, like what what video to watch, what music to hear, what to eat, whether to stay up a little later or not. What to wear. Marty wore a tiger suit for almost a year. A tiger suit and cowboy boots. Not a mask just you know the bodysuit with the zipper cow Black, cowboy boots and a tiger suit when he was And for almost the whole year I have is really birthday. Birthday cake. He's wearing that
if I had not let him wear that, who knows what he would be wearing.
Now, you know, the urge to do the urge to do what I didn't want, would have kicked in if I had tried to control him. So I let him dress like a tiger for a year and now he's pretty conservative, buys his own suit.
I could talk about that for an hour, if you tell your kids what books are good and what, what you're bad which movies are good and which are bad. They will listen to you when they're really little and pretty soon they'll stop listening to you. So don't use that stuff up. Don't use your power and magic to say no up because you're going to want it when they're older and they will still listen to you when they're older,
if you let them dress like tigers when they are three. That is my experience and not just for my family. I've been hanging around a whole lot of families and the family, the more controlling they are when they're young. The less likely the child is to care what the parents say when they're older.
Some parents have big judgments in their head that violin is better than piano and piano is better than guitar, and they're absolutely sure about it. And that guitar is better than kazoo and because he was stupid
Holly's been playing a kazoo lately which is what made me think that she's learning to finger pick guitar and play kazoo and she's not ashamed of playing kazoo. She's done some really cool things she can flutter tongue a kazoo, okay, I don't know if you guys can do that. All the saxophonists in the room. Probably.
And
sometimes that kind of judgment though will backfire on you and it's not worth doing if you would rather your child was riding a bicycle than a skateboard.
Try not to do that. Let him have a skateboard. Try to let them make decisions about little things going to tell you, for just a minute about Charles Montoya was a friend of mine and we were kids. I knew him really well. He was my boyfriend in seventh grade when we were—seventh grade is 13, We were 12 or 13, didn't mean a whole lot, but the next year, he killed himself, not about me. But I could talk about Charles for a an hour, he was great. He was a really nice guys, dad was our art teacher and when he killed himself, we all tried to figure out why. Everybody had a little story about something. Charles had one of them to do that, they didn't or something. He had, you know, said that they were not real nice about and none of those things would have done this, but all of them together built up and on the way back from school, that from voice gaps, the kids were teasing him and saying that he was gay, that he was a faggot.
And I don't know that he was or not because we don't get to know now. And I've thought about this for a lot of years, but I went to his funeral and I went to his burial. His parents were nice.
So it wasn't, you know, I can't say you had mean parents just enough, things didn't go well for him in one season of his life that he didn't want to mess with life anymore. And that can happen. There have been people who've come around homeschooling discussions and say, well, I'm not going to let my kid make choices about things like this. He'll do what I tell him to. He has to do what I say.
Charles Montoya is evidence that they don't have to do what you say. So you can hold too tightly. You can tell them what's right and what's wrong. You can make their lives uncomfortable enough that they don't feel like coming and telling you when the kids have been mean to them. Or when they're sad and bad things, can happen. The next year after this, another friend of ours who was also in band Charles played clarinet. So did I. Alice played trumpet. She killed herself the next year. And
this is a happy kid. This is Adam look Adam. This is the stile that got me so excited about stiles but after I saw the drywall stiles that Bruce had made, I went and so excited about this one because look it's got concrete and all you know, but I thought it's real, it's really beautiful.
So, I am on my page there. If you look up principles or rules, you'll get a lot about living by principles rather than rules. And my best friend, Jeff is wrong. Sometimes, when I first talked to him about that, he said "principles" is just another word for "rules."
What's not? It's not at all. If you know what your principles are even vaguely, then that helps you make those decisions when you're going to make thoughtful decisions, you know, what's important to you and what you believe that makes a decision.
ZZ if you want to be honest, if you want to grow up, to be an honest and trustworthy person. Then when you're making a decision about whether be honest, you're not one of them leads closer to trustworth or honest, it's like hot or cold are getting hot or cold. When you're going to make a decision, you're headed some direction or another And not always the same direction. Sometimes it's like it's late. I'm tired. My priority right now is to get some sleep, so you make the decision that goes towards sleep, but you don't every day day in and day out, make a decision that goes toward sleep. Sometimes you're driving a car, you know, don't do that.
So it depends. But if you're living by principles, you'll find all that decision-making really easy.
So I live today, but I live by the principles of someone who believes this: The way you live today creates the foundation for tomorrow. The little decisions you make today will make the rest of the weekend better or worse. Little decisions you make this week, will make the rest of the month better or worse, and it's not one decision, makes the whole makes it breaks, the whole month at all. One decision just makes breaks the next couple of minutes. Usually, when you're lucky.
I there's a sign around the outside. You might want to look at because it's kind of like this. It's about knives. Knives. Can you make decisions about knives? You have a peaceful life. It's on the wall somewhere outside. You can't see it, or you go to prison or you die by your own knife. Probably statistically. It says. So some decisions are really bad and I will not having seen that sign. Even without I will not go out and rob any of these stores in the night. Bad idea. I wasn't going to anyway, but it's a reminder.
Some people live for tomorrow in such a way that today is likely to fail. Because as the example of the gold medal, your tomorrow was not a good image. I didn't imagine that Kirby would grow up to work for a video game company at all at all, but he did and it's a pretty good deal.
Carolyn Jessop, who is one of the FLDS guys. Not that guy's not the mother of those five, any of those five girls, they probably had all different mothers, but she left the group and she's an activist against that fundamentalist Mormon church now. And she said, when she left that cult, "it was like stepping out onto another planet. I was completely unprepared because I had absolutely no life skills."
So there's a goal for you with your children is to help them have life skills. Help them learn to make decisions so that when they're out with you or with other people in public or in private that they're able to decide how they should decide what to do. It seems easy and it is easy. It's simple, but not easy, it's simple to forget, but that's all it is. Make a choice. If that felt good, make a better choice next time. And pretty soon you're doing it without even thinking about it. Pretty soon you're living thoughtfully in the present.
There's a Dalai Lama quote and I can quit. Lal Miah asked a question. I can't find it except people quoting this he was you gave a talk somewhere nobody said we're but there was a question from the Q&A part and they said what thing about Humanity As you the most, and he said, "Man, because he sacrifices his health, in order to make money, they sacrifice his money to recuperate his health and then he's so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present, the result being that he does not live in the present or the future, he lives as if he is never going to die and then dies, never having lived.
Sandra Dodd is an inspirational unschooling advocate from New Mexico, U.S.A. She has three grown up children who have been unschooled all their lives and who are delightful, engaging, polite, curious and fun to be around.