Someone wrote recently and mentioned an example I gave in a talk some years ago. It was "What happens if you leave wet laundry in the washer for a couple of days?"

Most people's answer is "it will mildew and stink." Where I've lived, it's more likely to just dry up in wrinkled lumps of dehydrated clothes, and you have to rinse it again before you dry it.

I have a similar but much better question. I bet we could collect over a hundred answers.

What will happen if you dig a hole in your back yard?

Let's say it's from the point of view of a child. Either one of your children now, or the child you were when you were nine or ten. What happens if you dig a hole in your back yard?

You can bury the treasure there! Then you can make a treasure map! (Jenny Cyphers)

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You'll have a place to hide and play.
You can fill it with water and make a huge mud pit. (Robin Bentley)

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Since I live out in the country in a farm I can do whatever I want with my yard.
No homeowners association to tell me my lawn is overgrown or there are too many dandelions.

I have friends in town that have a six=foot privacy fence and still the neighbours complained their yard was not clean and had a hole in it. (Alex Polikowsky)

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Molly (8) will put a cauldron in it, get her witch garb on, and rock a cool spell! (Diane Crayne Gardner)

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You end up with a bit of dirt and a bunch of rocks and a hole that's just big enough to bury the pet. In New England you don't dig unless you really really have to. The rock walls everywhere around here aren't just quaint. They're built from what the farmers dug up every time they plowed the fields. (Joyce Fetteroll)

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Down about a foot, the dirt is cool. (Sandra Dodd)

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We find pieces of black and white marmalade pots circa 1900, a metal toy soldier, a mouse skeleton, random pieces of a blue & white place settings, several pieces of blob top bottles and more. ( ~ Isabelle)

Once years ago at an HSC conference in California, I said people shouldn't be afraid to think. Pam Sorooshian summarized her memory of that in her foreword to The Big Book of Unschooling:

"Think dangerous thoughts." I heard Sandra Dodd say those words, and I felt a thrill go through me. She went on to tell us, the audience at a California homeschool conference, that if we were afraid, maybe we could duct-tape ourselves to a chair and get a spotter to stand by and watch us while we let ourselves really think about the possibility of simply NOT schooling our children at all. She pointed out that just thinking about it wasn't doing it, that it was actually perfectly safe to think about it, and that we could, afterward, go right back to whatever we were previously doing.

     

What if you keep your child home from school for one year?
What if you keep him home longer?

What if you create such a rich life that not only is your child learning, but so are the parents? So are visitors to your house?

What is the worst that can happen?
What is the best that can happen?
Can you accept that what might happen can't be foreseen, but would unfold based largely on choices you make and the environment you maintain?