Resources for Unschoolers | Podcast with Sandra Dodd, Cecilie Conrad and Sue Elvis

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

S3E1 | Ladies Fixing the World

Cecilie Conrad: 0:14

So welcome to the ladies fixing the world. We will not give up on fixing the world. We keep going. I have this hiccup today that I haven't decided whether we're starting a new season or continuing the old one, so I'll skip the season, whatever, episode whatever, and just introduce my good friends Sandra, dodd and Sue Elvis. We've been talking for a while now and we will keep going. Dot and Sue Elvis We've been talking for a while now and we will keep going. Sandra is joining from the big America. It's late over there.

Sandra Dodd: 0:45

Welcome Sandra and thank you for staying up so late.

Cecilie Conrad: 0:55

I'm in little Albuquerque, but, yes, united States. So a little place in the big US and welcome Sue from down under. So for you it's afternoon and you're far away from me as well.

Sue Elvis: 1:06

But you're here.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:08

Thank you for taking me.

Sue Elvis: 1:09

Hi Cecilia, hi Sandra. I'm just so pleased that we can find a time to chat and grateful that Sandra doesn't mind staying up very late. I've got the easy time at the moment 3 pm in the early evening, mid-afternoon. It'll be late or early evening when we've finished.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:33

Yeah, and I got up early, but that's easy because I'm in Scandinavia and sunrise is before 5 o'clock in the morning, so I wake up anyway with the birds and it's beautiful here. I had a lot of coffee, so I'm ready for this conversation. Today we are going to talk about the context that we live in, the surroundings, everyone and everything else around the unschooling family, how we communicate and how we participate and how well spoiler alert how most everything can be resources for a learning family, on school style, I think, I think.

Cecilie Conrad: 2:22

But I always think I know what we're talking about and then it goes poof. So let's see, I know Sandra has something to introduce to start to send us off.

Sandra Dodd: 2:33

I wanted to talk about resources, because some people have asked questions about how do I find people, how do I find things to do, how do I find information, and so I wanted to read something that Deb Lewis wrote. Deb Lewis lives in a really small town tiny, 3,000 people, so maybe medium size for Montana. Where she lives, in Montana, she had one child and did lots of things with him. So there were people in bigger places with more resources who didn't figure out how to do it. But Deb did, and I wanted to read something she wrote in a longer list on my site called Deb Lewis's List of Things to Do in the Winter, and there were lots of little things that a mom and a child could do without anybody else involved, but near the end of the list it got bigger. Call around this is Deb Lewis's words. Call around to the museums in your area and find out what programs they offer. Get on their mailing lists and go to their events. Call the universities and do the same. Find an astronomy club and go to star parties.

Sandra Dodd: 3:36

I have found many interesting things to do around our little town just by talking with people and asking questions. I ask everyone questions about what they like to do, etc. I've met so many people with interesting hobbies who have been happy to share what they know with my son and show him their collections. The man who runs the local greenhouse lets us transplant seedlings. He grows worms too and lets Dylan dig around in the worm beds. The guy who works at the newspaper speaks Chinese and draws cartoons. He's given Dylan a lot of pointers about where to get good paper and storyboards, etc. The old guy at the antique shop was a college professor and is a huge Montana history buff.

Sandra Dodd: 4:13

Whenever Dylan has questions we go browse his antiques. The lady at the flower shop keeps birds and lets Dylan hold them when we visit the mayor builds stock cars. He sometimes drives them to work. When we see one parked on Main Street, we stop in and say hello. The old guy across the street collects Chalmers tractors and the man at the sandwich shop collects John Deere, another brand of farm equipment. They love to show kids their toys. Cool things are everywhere, summer and winter. David and Dylan went to the tennis court on Sunday and tried to play with snowballs. There's no snow now, so whatever we do, this weekend will be wet and chilly, but we'll find something. That was Deb Lewis.

Cecilie Conrad: 4:53

She has a lot of good ideas. Is it about being playful?

Sandra Dodd: 4:59

I think so Loose and curious and willing to discover something you didn't plan. Because you can't plan those things, you don't go around town going. Let's find someone who keeps birds who will let you hold a bird. It's just something that happens spontaneously because it was there and you came upon it.

Cecilie Conrad: 5:18

One thing I really admire about my husband is his ability to talk to anyone and his willingness and the way he always picks up the conversation. And what he is good at is to see what people are passionate about or what their hobbies are and being really interested in whatever it is. If someone's doing something making crafts out of palm leaves or fishing or I don't know fixing up old cars or whatever it is he'll walk over and he'll start asking questions and be interested, and it sounds like that's a little bit the same strategy. You can't plan for your child to get to hold a bird, but you can be interested in other people's passions and in that way make a connection and get to know people and maybe understand why something like collecting stamps that you never understood. Why would that ever be interesting for anyone? Maybe you understand why it's interesting if you stop and take the time to ask questions.

Sandra Dodd: 6:27

And I want to say too, I know that some people are more introverted. If both parents, if both parent and child are introverts, it might be harder for them to do that. If they're both extroverts it might be really easy for them to go out. My husband and I took three grandkids to the zoo the other day, and the youngest is five and she might be six, but twice we saw her, just once at a table in the cafe and once at the place where the elephants are. There are benches and she went and sat on some other family's bench and was telling them her name and I could see her pointing us out and saying our names and they're just chit-chatty. And she did that at a table at the restaurant too, which was funny because I had passed by and there was a grandmother being a little cranky. One of the kids is going. I want to sit in that chair and she goes. You sit here and goes. You sit here and she goes. I want to sit in the other chair, don't say no to your grandmother. And I thought, oh, what a cranky person. So these kids aren't unschooled or anything. But I was just impressed that little Tommy, she's so brave and she was outgoing and she wasn't being obnoxious, it wasn't awkward. They weren't looking and saying don't you have other people? She managed to introduce herself and get into the situation in a calm way. She managed to introduce herself and get into the situation in a calm way.

Sandra Dodd: 7:42

They were rolling pennies down a vortex, one of the fundraiser things and so there was a little boy waiting to get in line to put one down and I said she didn't see him. And I said, tommy, this little boy wants a turn. And she said, ok, she scooted over, he put his coin down and then she gave him one of hers and he looked at her. Really he was surprised. But she so she's outgoing, she's not an introvert, she's able to get out there. So in a case where the child is more willing or able to do that, the parent might be an introvert but could follow along, could hang back until they get the flow and can jump in. But it might be the other way around. You might have a shy child and a parent might have to do the initial contact. So that's just something that families can figure out on their own and if both are too introverted they can find other things to do. But it's something to seriously consider is just getting out there and finding some situations that are already happening.

Sue Elvis: 8:37

I think it's where we're all introverts. But I have discovered that most people, if you approach them and ask a question about, say, some parrots, they've got on a stick. At the cafe, which we do have, there's a man that regularly goes to a local cafe and brings his parrots with him and you ask a question and most people are really delighted to be asked about whatever they're doing, their interest and the conversation. We don't have to say a lot. They're quite willing to put us at ease and to talk. But the other thing that helped with approaching people and this isn't for little kids, kids, but all my kids worked in hospitality when they were mid-teens, in cafes and that was so fantastic for talking to people and taking an interest in people. And yeah, they picked up a lot of skills doing cafe work, social skills, as well as other skills, cooking and money skills and all that. But I did notice that some people say you know, think about working in cafes just a job. But it's not. It's a wonderful, rich opportunity to learn how to talk to people and to meet some interesting people. And my kids have had lots of wonderful conversations while they've been serving coffee, sharing their own interests and asking people about their dogs or whatever seems to be of interest to them and that's a wonderful way for a teen to make connections in a community is to get some kind of casual job like that. The other one I was thinking about, which we have never done, is and I don't know if people still do it these days, or I suppose they do flyer drop-offs but the old newspaper round. Yeah, those sort of jobs really get you out there in the community talking to people and giving a child and an adult the sense of belonging to the community and to be part of whatever's going on within.

Sue Elvis: 10:56

You know your own area but just thinking, sandra, you were saying Deb Lewis had one child in a small town or a small place. I had lots of children, but we live in, I guess, a sparsely populated area with not many facilities. I was trying to think about the museums and art galleries, as you were talking about going through the list, and I was thinking well, if you go two towns over, we'll find a small art gallery, and if we go several villages over, we'll find a small museum. But for us there are other things that we got involved with and those art gallery, museum things were like special, once a year, maybe twice a year, outings where we all visited the big city and spent a day at science museums or art galleries or whatever.

Sue Elvis: 11:53

But finding things in our own communities I don't think. Sometimes I would think would be lovely to live in Sydney, say We'd be surrounded by people, surrounded by opportunities, surrounded by rich experiences. But I know from our own experience and we didn't meet any unschoolers locally that there are lots and lots of opportunities to meet people and to make connections, but maybe not with the people that we might dream of meeting. For example, my kids never made any unschooling friends locally. That was a bit harder.

Sandra Dodd: 13:18

I had a woman come to a group one time. She came into an unschooling discussion and her initial you know, hello, I'm, you know. Her introduction to herself was I need to find a five-year-old girl who's unschooled? And my response was no, you don't. And she was not taken aback. But it doesn't need to be a girl and it doesn't need to be five years old. This is so schoolish right To think I need someone just like my child. Same gender, same circumstances, same general religion, family background. I mean, that's what they really are dreaming of is another child like theirs, very much like theirs. But they'll learn more from a boy two years older who knows how to play Minecraft or something that the girl would be excited about. You know, that's cool, that's fun. Or for her to play with two little kids who don't know how to put doll's clothes on and off yet, but that girl might already know how to. So the idea that it shouldn't need to be a child just like you can be helpful too when people are looking for other people, because really they're looking for people and around where I am, we did.

Sandra Dodd: 14:24

When my kids were younger, I had created a park day and there was a precedent for it even in our growing group, because I had been active in the La Leche League and they had a park day. So it kind of turned into that. As those kids got old enough to go to school or not, the ones who hadn't gone to school I just turned it into an unschooling group, maintained it, found parks and we would go to a different park every week. I would send out a little on paper in those days in the 90s, send out a little pamphlet of like. Here are the next four or six things that we're going to do. Here are the maps to the parks. And so it was an explorer of the town and the kids got to play with some of the same kids repeatedly. Some people would just come a couple of times to ask about unschooling and then go on away. But it was useful. But my kids got tired of it after a while because we were the host family and they had an obligation and although they were pretty good at it, they were friendly, they were kind, they were welcoming of new kids it was a lot of work and after a while they just would rather do other things with their time. They didn't need it anymore so much. But some of the people that they met there and that they know from unschooling. They still know. So it's like having old friends from school in that way, somebody that you've known since you were eight or 10. So that was nice.

Sandra Dodd: 15:37

And then there were some years when I was just going to conferences or doing a lot of writing for the house, writing for magazines, and they had friends from unschooling or from little jobs they had done, or from a medieval studies group we were in, from sports, they were doing a little bit. And then I started doing some little local conferences in the winter, between Christmas and New Year's, when the hotels are cheap and when a lot of people even dads, maybe you, you know people with the jobs have a week off. And so I found a motel that was super cheap $50 for a room, or 60 if you wanted a microwave and there was a hotel. There was a restaurant that you could get to without leaving the hotel. You know you didn't have to go outside and the conference rooms they gave us had been an old, an old I can't think of the name of the restaurant anymore so one big room was for speakers and then there were just accordion doors so you could open all the way or leave closed and we made a room for little kids. So we brought a little rocking horse and a bunch of Lego and little trains, whatever stuff like that for little kids and just put them in there. But a mom or dad could sit where they could hear the speakers and see the little kids. And then there was another room, so it was like three spaces about the same size where we put a whole lot of folding that's where we put all the folding tables against the wall, a lot of electricity and the older kids could play games card games, table games, put their computers in there and they would be in and out. Sometimes they'd be in helping the little kids or they'd be listening to the speakers or they'd be playing games. It was really really nice and I did several of those and it was nice.

Sandra Dodd: 17:12

And then we lost the building. The kids were all grown, but that was a way for us to let other families see some unschooled kids, see them in action with their parents and see that they weren't weirdos. So we were inviting people, whole families, to come. But it wasn't like a big hotel conference where there were several things happening at once. The speakers were all like in a series in the same room.

Sandra Dodd: 17:37

The room for the speakers was just that room, so people would be in there with their art supplies, set up or knitting or whatever. The people in the audience would make themselves a little station. We had tables and chairs for them too, and they would just when Deb Lewis went, deb Lewis went and spoke and she's very shy and that's the only time that she ever went out and spoke, I think but she was painting bags, painting canvas, and it was nice to see people doing what they like to do, I think probably you see a lot of that, cecilia, in the gatherings you have, yeah, people doing what they like to do, I feel like the gatherings that I'm.

Cecilie Conrad: 18:17

So that's. There's been a lot of the world school pop-up gatherings that Rachel Carlson is doing that we've been attending, and now we have a gathering here in Denmark it's a more private one of a lot of our friends getting together for the long summer nights and early mornings and no sleep craziness. It is interesting, when you get people together with a low level of structure, how a lot of things happen. I think we have now something I don't know, I'm too tired to count towards 10 teenagers living in the same location right now maybe more, I don't know and they don't have hours enough in the day for all the things they want to do and all we needed to do to create an amazing. I think from an American perspective it almost looks like a summer camp but I've never seen one because I'm not American but a situation where a lot of these kids are. Are they all unschooled? Yeah, yeah, they are all unschooled. They get together. They are between 12 and 19 with some younger siblings down to 10. And lots of things just happen. It just happens and we're back to Shakespeare. They're reading Shakespeare. They're doing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, they're doing Twelfth Night and Hamlet at the same time, and some of the sonnets. And does it come from me? I don't know. It comes from Shakespeare, right?

Cecilie Conrad: 19:59

They do beach runs in the morning. They do cold dipping, they do cooking. They're starting morning. They do cold dipping, they do cooking. They're starting businesses. They're doing art. They have dance classes. One of the mothers is a ballroom dance teacher. She's doing dance classes twice a week. They can't stop dancing. They dance in the water, in the cold water, in the morning.

Cecilie Conrad: 20:24

There's just so much going on and we're at this organic farm, so sometimes the farm owner is asking can you all give me a hand with whatever moving some stone or removing poisonous plants or something. And they all go out in the fields and you know many hands make light work. But the thing is I didn't organize it, I just gathered people and then it pops up and of course we need some. There's a lot of organization going on now. I need to make sure everyone knows what's happening and bring their swimwear at the right time. And when 15 people go to the beach at the same time. It has to be at the same time. We can't wait for 15 minutes in the cars for one person when we're there. So of course there's, but it comes from inside the group and also between the adults. There's a lot of things going on. Where was I going with that that? Hobbies and passions? I don't like the word hobbies, to be honest. It seems so unserious. Passions is a better word, or interests.

Sandra Dodd: 21:29

I think hobbies is serious enough in English around where I am Okay okay. It can be like if you make quilts but you're not making quilts to sell, but you've made a hundred of them and you've been doing it since you were a kid, that's a hobby, but that's also a full-time, okay, okay.

Cecilie Conrad: 21:46

I will start liking the word again then.

Sandra Dodd: 21:49

Dabbling is minor. If you're dabbling in something, you're just kind of trying it for an hour, a week or a month and then you're not going to commit to that maybe.

Cecilie Conrad: 21:58

So I think, a good point to point at for those who are in a more beginning phase and maybe also in a I've been there in a more frustrated. How do I handle this situation? How do I unschool? How do I cope with the fact everyone else is living a more mainstream life and I can't find any other unschoolers? Maybe I'm in. I'm not personally introverted. I'm more introverted than my extremely extroverted husband, but I don't know, I'm not introverted, that's a lie. I'm very highly social.

Cecilie Conrad: 22:32

I think creating something, like you said, you created park days, you created conferences maybe that seems like a lot, but creating something where you would be personally comfortable in the situation, inviting for I don't know a party in the street, or should we all do a flea market together, or a park day, or a group outing to whatever see the local church, talk to the priest about the paintings, or whatever you feel comfortable in. When you create something that gathers people, eventually you create community. And, as you said before, sandra, what we're looking for when we're looking for people is community. Doesn't have to be another five-year-old, unschooled, white Christian child could be anyone basically becoming your friend. So if there is nothing, we have to create it and if we feel that that's overwhelming, then maybe just create something small, like put up a little poster. We're going to pick up garbage in the local forest next Sunday at four and see if anyone shows up, and don't give up if it's only one person, because next time might have created momentum.

Sandra Dodd: 24:30

Sometimes people come around and say I need help finding resources and the picture in their head is books and math teachers. That's another moment when you need to say no, you don't, that's not what you need to look for. Look for a gaming store where you can sit and play games with people.

Sue Elvis: 24:48

If you go to the library.

Sandra Dodd: 24:49

Don't limit yourself to the books. See what else they have, see what the range of resources at the library is, and look at the library and not at a bookshelf, because libraries have to. They have for many years been branching out, but now they really have to.

Cecilie Conrad: 25:08

I also think when people ask me how do you find resources or what resources do you use, it's a schooly mindset of me coming up with this thing that I am using to create learning inside the brains and maybe bodies of my children, brains and maybe bodies of my children and my unschooling family does not work like that. It's like I said before about this community it pops up from the inside. What I use is conversation and relation. I am genuinely interested in how the world looks for my children and how they thrive or not thrive and what they need to thrive. It's not what they need to learn, it's what they need for light to be lit in their eyes and for joy to be felt in their hearts and motivation happening. Pushing, not pushing, but you know, starting that engine of wanting to keep going with whatever it is and it is really whatever it is.

Cecilie Conrad: 26:24

If this whatever is a video game or if it's, I have one child right now really passionate about driving the old, it's not a John Deere. Or if it's, I have one child right now really passionate about driving the old. It's not a John Deere, it's, or is it even? Well, we have an old tractor at the farm, really old one and that one has a thingy I don't know I'm not the one helping with it to cut the grass, and one of my kids just love doing that at the moment. So there's a forest they planted and we cut the grass on a running path in there and he just loves doing that. So it makes him happy and therefore that's what we're doing. He's doing it with his dad. I'm not driving that thing.

Cecilie Conrad: 27:08

So am I looking for resources and using resources to educate my children? It's a mindset I'm not using very often. I'm more looking for what do they need to be happy? What do they need to smile? What do they need to thrive? So the starting point is the conversation and the relation talking that I use a lot.

Sandra Dodd: 27:36

There should probably be some days that aren't out trying to find other people, you know, just quiet days. But they shouldn't all be frantically running around looking for mental arousal and they shouldn't all be just hanging out, being quiet, getting slower. So mixing it up helps and it's natural in any life that sometimes you're just going to want to be by yourself in a quiet place for a while. And, if the unschooling parent can remember, be aware that part of the job, part of the responsibility, is to get your kids out and about to see things that they can't see in the house. And one of the talks we had I think it was episode six of season one was about conversation, about the value of conversations, and mostly we were talking about things within the family and there's value in the shared experience and shared history, shared humor. But there's value in conversations with other people, even if they're really brief, in an elevator, or if it's a relationship where your child goes and helps a neighbor kind of regularly, you know, checks in on them every week or two and develops a long-term relationship with someone else. That's a really valuable thing too. It doesn't have to be something that the whole family is there for. I think the term and the idea of resources will be different for new unschoolers than for really experienced unschoolers, or they can get an annual membership or something and they can go more regularly. They might be able to volunteer there, they can find out what special events are happening and go on those days so it can be a place like a museum, can be a rich entry to a lot of other people special guests, topics, equipment that you could help maintain or set up, whatever there's a depth to any club or organization or church or community center or if they're in Boy Scouts or 4-H, I don't know what kind of clubs you have girl guides, whatever sorts of things there are for kids.

Sandra Dodd: 29:48

I think parents shouldn't look for other unschoolers so much as they look for other people, other humans. And if your child is interested in gaming, don't worry if the other gamers are unschooled or not, it doesn't matter. Look at the games. If they're interested in hiking, you could join a hiking group. If the child's old enough, maybe they could go without the parents and hiking or collecting rocks or gardening. If you're in a rose growing club, they'll trade roses. They'll give you rose bushes in exchange for cuttings from yours. Things are happening that real adults do with each other already and they would probably accept some teens or 12-year-olds in on that if they're interested. So I think considering the interest is way more important than considering whether those people are the same age or unschooled. Considering whether those people are the same age or unschooled.

Sue Elvis: 30:33

I think of resources as possibilities so that if I hear about well, if I heard, it still happens sometimes now, even with adult children. If I hear about something that I think might interest my child, then I won't hesitate to mention it. And when my kids were growing up, for example, all of my girls liked to run, so that when I heard there was a fun run coming to the next town, I suggested that maybe they'd like to enter. And sometimes the suggestions come to nothing. That particular one took three years before my youngest daughter suddenly thought yeah, I'd like to do that, but I don't think she would have heard about it without me. She didn't go looking, and so I do keep a list of things that I think might interest any members of the family, even as adults.

Sue Elvis: 31:35

Now it's not a homeschooling child thing, it's just I've heard something, discovered something interesting and I'm wondering if anybody could benefit from hearing about it. For example, my youngest daughter and I we've started going up to Sydney for a weekend twice a year and we usually go see a musical, have a harbour cruise, go to a museum. It's different every time. We came back from one. Two weeks ago we went up to Sydney to see the Vivid Light Festival and had a harbour cruise. But while we were there, I was doing some googling and discovered that there's an exhibition at the moment somewhere in Sydney about the Titanic, and I just happened to casually mention it and eyes lit up. But my kids are all adults. It's up to them whether they want to actually go now, but in their past, if somebody's eyes had lit up, I might have said, hey, should we organize a day in Sydney and go see that exhibition? And we did that a few times, so enriching our kids' worlds, maybe with some possibilities, some invitations, and many times we base those on the interests of my children, though I wasn't against looking for things that they weren't particularly interested in, but they might be interested in.

Sue Elvis: 33:03

Because sometimes we, yeah, we have our interests, but then we hear about something else and we think, hey, yeah, I might give that a go, something else. And we think, hey, yeah, I might give that a go. Um, yeah, so that's how I think of resources, uh, in the in, as in our real lives, as opposed to, uh, something that sounds a bit school-y. Uh, yeah, I'm, as I said, I'm still doing it with my adult children. They're, yes, all grown up, so we're not homeschooling, but I don't know, maybe it's just that we like to share things that could possibly be beneficial, interesting things that make our eyes light up, and you can't help but share it with somebody else, even down to things like movies and music and other things that we're talking about, things that will help us get out into the community, maybe and meet other people.

Sue Elvis: 33:57

I think just thinking about, on the cruise that we went on two weeks ago, we ended up chatting with this British couple who had two small children. It didn't seem like we had a lot in common and, as you were saying, sandra, we don't have to talk to people who are like us. We exchange comments about children and other things and came home and told those stories to other people in the family who hadn't been on the cruise, and it generated a lot of discussion about talking with people who are different from us, have different families in different situations. But we came together at a particular moment for an hour in our lives and chatted together, not all that whole hour, but on and off, and we listened to their conversation, did a bit of eavesdropping, I mean, I'm sure they listened to ours as well. But you make those connections, unexpectedly, and all enriches our lives, doesn't it that?

Sandra Dodd: 35:01

brought up two very recent stories. Just a few days ago, keith and I were playing a trivia game. Something came up about insurance companies on early maritime you know, early trade ships and Lloyds of London. And when the Titanic sank, lloyds of London paid them in full within a year it's not like that with insurance anymore. And it told the amount. I don't remember what it was, maybe $2 million or something like that total, but that was interesting.

Sandra Dodd: 35:31

And Marty, my middle child, has moved to Alaska with his family. It was maybe two million dollars or something like total, but that was interesting. And marty, my middle child, has moved to alaska with his family, but they just flew there and shipped their cars, so there was no ocean involved for them, just airplanes. And they went on a on a harbor cruise of some sort to go see whales and wildlife in a national park and some of the other people who were on that, on that little ship. It was small.

Sandra Dodd: 35:56

Um, you know tour guides are pointing out what they can see goats on the hills and stuff but there were some people on that cruise who that shouldn't be called a cruise, whatever it's called. You know the little john boat trip yeah, the little boat trip. There were people who had come from a cruise, from a real ocean cruise, and they were there for the day, and some had gone on that same little trip that they were on. So they were hearing cruise ship stories and that was interesting for them. And so these people were interested in this young family that's just popped up in Alaska without going by boat, and so it was interesting enough for Marty to tell me, and it was interesting enough for Marty to tell me, and now it's interesting enough for me to tell you but it was. You know, that can't just happen, you can't plan it, you can't order it, you can't say I think today let's go find somebody who's been on a cruise ship and discuss with them the difference between that and flying here and it just happens.

Cecilie Conrad: 36:49

They just happen and it's great when they do, but these things only happen when we leave the house. And I think one of the things one question I've had a few times, many times, is what do I do if my child doesn't want to leave the house? So the mom or the dad, the parents, might have a lot of ideas about things to do, but the child disagrees. The child wants to stay home, and some families struggle with the child wants to stay home playing video games and that's all he or she wants to do, and the parents are really frustrated. They can come up with all these ideas that we're throwing now go to the clubs, meet the people, go to the museums, go for a walk, go do whatever join a chess club, play tennis or snowballs but they cannot make the children leave the house.

Sandra Dodd: 37:47

They shouldn't make their children leave the house. Why would you make a child leave a house? It's as bad as making a child stay home.

Sue Elvis: 37:55

And we're all going to have to. What if a child, though, needs everybody else to stay home with the child? I mean, if the child is too young to stay home by themselves. But the other children need to go out.

Sandra Dodd: 38:12

They need one or two people to stay with them, or if a child really needs to go out and the other ones don't want to find another family who's going to do something and send a child with them. There are ways to get around that. But to blame a child for wanting to do something or not wanting to do it is evil and harmful. It's not good for the child and it's not good for the parent's view of the child.

Sue Elvis: 38:32

I'm not disagreeing with you, Sandra, but I just was interested in your suggestions because we never had that situation. So I'm not disagreeing with you.

Sandra Dodd: 38:43

I was just genuinely interested in what you would say to somebody who said that we had kids who were determined that they had to go out or weren't going to go out, and I just had three. But we knew a lot of other families, mostly from La La Chille League, and so they had stated they knew those other houses and I would either take the kid who didn't want to go to wherever we were going to another family, or talk someone into staying at my house with them and take the other two or something. We'd mix it up like that. Sometimes, when a kid is away, I'm so tired of being in this house, so I would find another family. A couple of times I paid for everybody to go to the zoo or someplace like here's enough money to get all of your kids into something the children's museum. If you will take my kid, please take my child.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:32

And that can work. But sometimes it is actually a real challenge problem. I have a family I talk with regularly at the moment and the kids are small. The youngest child is very extroverted and wants to go out and wants to explore sandbox and fields of grass and other children and pet dogs and things and the other child wants to stay home and both children are under the age of six. They want and need to be around their own parents. They're not in a point where they want to be around other parents or other people looking after them.

Sandra Dodd: 40:14

If they have two parents, that can be split out for the day. And when we had the park days we would be in a in a public park, and albuquerque is a very driving kind of town, so everybody had their cars and sometimes if a kid didn't want to play, they'd be in the car with a game boy or listen to the radio or something, reading a book, coloring, and we'd all be aware that there's a kid sitting. There. Wasn't a danger, we wouldn't get too far from them, but that's another possibility. Not on a hike, but I just think forcing kids to do things is a good way to inspire them to leave home earlier than you would have liked, because you can irritate a 10-year-old so much that they start learning how to use a calendar because they want to know how to get out of there. So I don't advise that. Also, you said that can't happen unless you get out.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:06

But I disagree because the three of us are all at home, right now.

Sandra Dodd: 41:09

And we're communicating and kids. You said that couldn't happen. It was something about the conversation about being on a ship or whatever you know, meeting other people, and you said that can't happen unless you get out. But I think a lot of things can happen without getting out, especially now. I was reading something I wrote years ago and it was talking about being in the car with kids traveling, talking in the car and saying, if you have a cassette tape player, well, nobody has a cassette tape player anymore, but now they can use Bluetooth. You can put on the car stereo system all kinds of music and stories. And that's what I meant is you can share listening to something while you're driving, while you're in the car, and so I hope people will just translate that and go. She doesn't have any idea what she's talking about because she's talking about cassette tapes. Well, I've done it with cassette tapes and CD players and Bluetooth, so I do know what I'm talking about.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:59

Of course you do Sandra. We've actually taken it next level. I wish he would do it again. My husband started telling stories while we were driving. That was really fun. That's fun. He came up with stories.

Sandra Dodd: 42:12

We had a lot of word games and things that we would do. We didn't need the stereo either, but I think I could tell a lot of stories. We could all probably tell a lot of stories about people who have met online and then become friends. Or I remember when our oldest was a teenager, the only way that they could play computer games together was a LAN party, which involved taking computers into the same building, into the same house, hooking them physically together with cables because there was no Wi-Fi and playing games like that, and it was very exciting. But when Kirby was going to go to one of these parties, I remember Holly and Marty and I, the younger siblings, and the mom would help him carry his computer out to the trunk of the car. He would have to take the tower, the monitor, the keyboard out you know all of it out and the books that he needed, if he needed, you know whatever they needed with it codes or whatever they might have that were printed out from some webpage. And then he would go somewhere for hours and they did it at our house a couple of times. And so it involves having big, involves having big tables and electricity, and then came along. You can just play with each other from your house, which is much easier. And then came things like World of Warcraft where you can play and talk at the same time. You're speaking to these other people while you're playing. You can see there's the option to see each other, maybe on the side, maybe they're in something like this and they're playing a game on another computer, and I've seen a lot of that.

Sandra Dodd: 43:44

Holly used to play Halo and she kind of played with Halo. She wasn't a serious Halo player, but she would go in there and chit chat with people. She would sit in a Jeep with another player they weren't even in the battle, just like talking. So she was using it like high school kids go parking. But it was somebody in Australia or some kids in Mississippi. So these kids were from all over the place and their main question for her always are you really a girl? They weren't used to girls being in there, a girl, they weren't used to girls being in there.

Sandra Dodd: 44:18

So when she was 20 or so, 19 or 20, she went on a road trip. She drove from here to the East Coast, to North Carolina, to Virginia, went to see friends, and so she went on the freeway across I-40 that goes to Tennessee and she visited a lot of unschoolers that she knew. And then she came back further south on I-10, and she met some of those kids. She arranged to spend the night at their house a couple of the guys that she used to play Halo with, and it kind of scared them because they were more conservative than she was and they probably never had a girl stay over. It wasn't a romantic thing. It spooked them because they weren't used to it. They didn't expect it, they didn't know how to act. She was more pierced and exposed than they were used to girls being, I guess, and so it made them very nervous. But she was really glad to meet them and that she was brave and courageous. She had a cell phone. It wasn't dangerous. They were more afraid of her than she was of them and that they were more afraid of her than she was of them.

Sandra Dodd: 45:19

And my kids have many times met people that they first knew on the Internet and when they were younger, when they were 13, 14, they would take other friends with them in case it was scary or they didn't like the person. And as they got older it wasn't. You know, it'd be like an adult making a decision about that. You hang out with somebody, have a lunch or spend the night and it's not a big deal. But it's really kind of nice and it's not unheard of on earth, because in the 19th century, and probably much earlier, there would be people who would court and get married on other people's recommendation, like friends, set them up and they exchange letters and they become romantically involved without ever having actually met each other, and so this is another version of letter writing. Only you can hear voices and see people.

Cecilie Conrad: 46:05

I think there's a case to be made for almost a general rule of when we, the parents, are frustrated with some setup of the children's lives and we don't see the point of it. If we wait a while, as in Sandra's slogan, then later on we suddenly realize why this thing they did or did not do makes a lot of sense in the context of their lives. It comes in and suddenly we understand oh, that's what they learned, or that's why this was helpful, or this is what was the takeaway from that. But sometimes it just takes a very long time and we can't see it. When it happens, we can see something where we're like what is this? Is this enough? Is this harmful? Is this dangerous? Is this getting in the way? But then, a few years later, we realize oh, now I see.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:07

And this kind of patience and trust, I think, is a lot of the work that we, the parents, have to do. That said, I do agree with you, sandra If the child doesn't want to leave the house, why would we force the child to leave the house? On the other hand, I just want to say that sometimes, when we have multiple children or some other contextual situation where it really feels like now, I have to make you leave the house. No, you don't. You can persuade them.

Sandra Dodd: 47:42

You can sell it, make it sound fun, find something that they want to do, but inside, me.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:46

I know I have to make this child come no you're saying have to too much.

Sandra Dodd: 47:54

If you can't find an alternative, then make it exciting. Make it fun. If that kid loves ice cream or popcorn, say, and we're going to go for ice cream, throw in a sweet, throw in a deal. Make an arrangement so that it is fun, because if a mom goes, okay, fine, but you have to go because I have other kids and I can't. You know, make yourself very unattractive and, you know, make the situation very unattractive. The child won't want to go. So it should be a skill that the parents are gaining as they move more into unschooling to make those trips and those situations attractive.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:27

And now that the family braid in our family that we take everybody's needs and everybody's passions and what makes everybody happy and we weave it into one thing like braiding what makes everybody happy, and we weave it into one thing like braiding a complicated thing. It's not just three. And we have the conversations in our family that we know this or that person needs something, or you know, I know that you're the one who has to give a lot today. You wanted something else. You have to give, but this is how I'm going to make this work as well as it can for you. And there are other days where your siblings have to give because of your passions or your personality. This is how I have to do it or we have to do. I see this and I'm always open for their critique If they say you think you have to do it this way, but how about this or that option?

Cecilie Conrad: 49:25

And it takes a lot of conversation time to be an unschooling family, we have to talk about these things all the time, but I do think we all have to I say have to way too much In order to make the ship sail with everybody on board, if we want to stay a community and we want to stay one group and we want to do it as a family. Together. We don't split up a lot of our family. We will have to give, I will give, I will let go of things I would rather do in order for the ship to sail.

Sandra Dodd: 50:01

And the analogy is to think of a cruise ship instead of a pirate ship. Or mine is a pirate ship.

Sandra Dodd: 50:08

No, don't have the pirate ship or the warship, have the cruise ship. And then the mom can figure out how to make the day exciting for everybody and that there's food and that there's entertainment. That's better than okay. The whole group has to get together and decide together and braid together. That may be too much talking. Maybe, if you're going, just get the sails up and go and figure it out as you go.

Sandra Dodd: 50:33

One analogy that helped us a lot was sometimes one kid is the star of the show. We're all going to do something because one kid is in a tournament or a game or a play and the rest of us are back up in support. So, yeah, it's not your day this time. Let's just go take a book if you want, take your game, boy. If you want to, you know, take a doll and then we'll go eat after.

Sandra Dodd: 50:56

So the outline of it might be this is the thing we're going to an ice skating, a hockey game or whatever it is. That they're skating rink and it's going to be cold. So don't forget to wear warm clothes, and that was my job to try to get us there on time. Make sure that marty had everything he needed if he was the star of the day and that everybody else had something to calm them and soothe them. Maybe take a friend with them that they could talk to or hang out with or play with. But I didn't expect them all to help me plan that, because I could see it. I knew enough to know what they wanted and needed.

Cecilie Conrad: 51:33

Oh, but we don't do family sit-down planning situations ever. I just do a lot of talking. I talk with this person and then that person, and then the first person again and then the third person, and then I do a bit of thinking and then I come up with a plan and then I talk with everyone about the plan and take their take notes on their comments. So, no, we don't. We don't do planning gatherings. We talk about doing that now that the kids are older, that maybe we should sit down and have some joint conversation all of us to just plan out. But this is more like planning out the year, the traveling year, where are we going? And yeah, but that's different. No, I think that's too much. It's too boring for the children. They shouldn't have to sit down and do stuff like that do stuff like that.

Sue Elvis: 52:17

Can I give two examples of how we handled a couple of things For a time? Going anywhere for us means going into town, so it wasn't something that's around the corner. And for a long time my kids had music lessons, piano lessons, singing lessons, things like that, choir practices, and I used to drop my older kids off at their lessons and that was an opportunity for me to do something special with the younger ones, either one-on-one, two-on-one, and we used to do things like go to the playground, have ice cream, and they knew that that was their special time with me, away from the older ones, that we had this, just what we, just what we did, and everybody enjoyed it. And the other thing that came up um, I was thinking about set where's the comment you just made, sandra, about somebody. Some days, somebody is the star, somebody. Some days somebody is the star.

Sue Elvis: 53:24

And I was thinking about music exam days, when we used to always go into town together while my older kids had their piano lessons, say, and the rest of us would. It always happened in winter, when it was cold and the wind was blowing and nobody really wanted to go out, but we would go out and cheer the older girls on, and then, when the exams were over, and for a long time, exam results were given out. As soon as the exam had been done, though that changed. We'd all go and have afternoon tea at a cafe something special and we would all celebrate at a cafe something special and we would all celebrate. And I think it's that joy of being happy for somebody else and sharing in that joy there's a lot of. I didn't have to persuade my younger ones that they wanted to come with us for those exams and those celebrations afterwards. It was just that we were happy for each other. We wanted to be joyful together. It was something we experienced as a family, and I think that the kids learnt to be very giving, very.

Sue Elvis: 54:37

I don't know it wasn't all about them, and I think sometimes I get that question with unschooling. Well, if all my kids follow their own interests and they all, they'll all become self-centered and only care about themselves, and if we cater to each individual child, we're going to be bringing up a family of individuals who don't really care about anyone but themselves. But I didn't find that happened at all, that the younger ones were happy to go out with the older ones and support them or give up their time. We all wanted to be happy for everybody else.

Sue Elvis: 55:55

I'm not saying that you don't have that day when you get up and someone's grumpy and tired and then we have to do a bit of persuading. But on the whole, I'm sure that you both as well have found that unschooled children are not self-focused. Can you expand on that a bit for me and do you find that sometimes they are willing to give, they are willing to be second and not the star. They are willing to do things for other people and they do share in the pleasure of doing that, because it is a pleasure to give your time for other people. Join in with other people's happiness, other people's interests, standing on the sidelines as people are racing and feeling excited for them and will they win. And you don't necessarily have to have the same passion, but the relationship being connected to the other sibling is enough for a child to want to put themselves second.

Sandra Dodd: 57:04

Maybe I want to tell two other stories. I might get back to that. But I wanted to finish tommy sitting at that table at the cafe at the zoo because I already was afraid of that other grandmother. You know she was crank, I didn't think she was very nice. And the next time I look around, tommy's over there sitting with him and I thought poor Tommy. And then I thought, oh no, no, no, tommy's going to make this better.

Sandra Dodd: 57:24

So sometimes a child in a situation, no matter who's the star, can be a catalyst to make more peace or more humor. So adding one child to a situation or having a kid on the side of a race cheering can change not only the relationship between that child and the kid who's running, who's probably not paying attention anyway, but just the matrix of the moods around. It can just make things nicer. The way they were talking to Tommy and with Tommy it was much friendlier than when they didn't have a witness. She didn't know, I had overheard her being cranky and the mom was there too. The middle generation was there, so she had been off to get the food and she came back and with that mom there and with Tommy there, everybody was laughing and smiling. So I think sometimes, even if a child isn't interested in what's happening or you know it's just an unexpected rearrangement of people, it can be nice, it can be a relief of something, a relief of frustration or boredom. So I think that can be helpful, even if there's not a star of the show or a focus, just the rearrangement of personnel.

Sandra Dodd: 58:35

And sometimes people will say, oh, I love unschooling because my child will learn whatever he wants to learn, or my child will decide what he wants to learn, or my child will somehow consciously make the decision to learn something. But if you keep it mixed up, if you get out and about and around or into the computer or shake it up so that it's not what they expected, something new is happening. There's a new input or visual and you can think of all the five senses, something new to see, something new to taste or hear or smell. All of those things are learning. And so I try to get away it's another level of de-schooling to get away from the thought that your child will decide what to learn to the thought that in a rich life your child is learning all the time and can't help but learn. Nobody needs to decide anything, just throw the world into a mix and all kinds of learning just flows into everybody involved. And when you said that all your kids had worked in restaurants, I realized for the first time that all mine have. There was no pattern to it. It wasn't the same sort of deal.

Sandra Dodd: 59:44

Holly's been a waitress a few times. For the third time now she has a liquor service license. She's working at a comedy club. She loves comedy and has some friends who do local comedy, but they haven't been at this club where she's gone to work, and so she's serving drinks and snacks. They don't have full meals, they just have something to have while they're listening to the show. And so she had to reapply for her liquor service license. So a few things have changed and the way that you do it online. You give them $35, take a course online takes a couple of hours, there are videos and they build up to. There's a little test, and if you pass the test then they'll eventually send you a physical license, and so it was interesting for her to see how that's changed. But she's been. She's been, she's worked at several different kinds of cafes and restaurants and done other kinds of jobs too. Marty, for a, was a busboy in a Persian restaurant where a friend of his had gotten him in. She was a waitress and the tables were very fancy and it was his job to reset those tables as fast as possible. And he showed us one time what the whole deal was. There was glass over cloth and then all kinds of cloth napkin folded. It was pretty cute. And then Kirby for a while worked at a pizza place where he was a salad specialist and he taught other people how to make salads and it was just. It was interesting. And so one of the things that they that I saw them getting to do or learning or an op, and something that never goes on the resume or that people don't think of they saw a lot of people candidly you, you know living their lives, where there were conversations they weren't in on, but they could hear and saw how people interacted. And they also saw backstage. They saw the kitchen and the prep rooms and saw how those people got along. So there's a lot of learning there that you can't arrange. There's not a college class. Well, there may be college classes in, you know, hotel management and stuff, but it's not something that you could arrange. What is it? You know, because the job is take food to a table, take dirty dishes away, be friendly, be helpful, make sure they have water and coffee. But the learning that came from it was so much interpersonal how families interact, how moods are. I remember when my kids were little and we would go to a cafe. I remember the surprise of the waiters when the waiters would come and ask me or Keith, do you want dessert? And we would look at the kids and they would very often say no, thanks, kids. And they would very often say no, thanks, no. But it never failed to surprise a waiter that we didn't say no or yes, that we asked the kids what do you think? And so they will see families that they think are too controlling or not controlling enough or whatever, but they see it without being part of it, without being part of the conversation, and I think that's a lot of learning right there. And that was all when they were teens. I probably didn't, yeah.

Sue Elvis: 1:02:46

We're talking about. Well, Sandra and I have shared a little bit about kids with hospitality jobs. Do your kids get an opportunity to do work along the way while you're traveling? Do you do, for example, fruit picking if you're in the right season, or a few weeks here or there with casual work?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:03:09

No.

Sandra Dodd: 1:03:10

They're moving rocks at the farm. You said driving a tractor.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:03:13

True, we're moving too fast for it. Most of the time they work at the farm. When we're here, we're always at the same farm in Denmark when we're in our home country, and they work at the farm. Right now one of them has also a paid job some cleaning and an Airbnb. They work for our company so they can do that while traveling. So they help out with the things Jesper and I are doing and they are setting up their own little gigs, but online gigs because we're traveling. They do want to. They say especially one of them, that they would want to have a job, a cafe job, something in real life but at the same time they don't want to slow down long enough to actually do it. So that's the navigation of priorities. Sorry, we have not done that yet. I think it's coming, it's on the horizon. They're just very busy traveling.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:04:10

Now we came up with this new idea of the world school villages we're setting up where we're gathering a lot of families to live in the same area for a while.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:04:21

Other nomadic families and my kids are going to have to work for that, because it's a lot of work to set it up and Jesper and I simply don't have the capacity to do all of the work involved and obviously, when the event is going on, they will be the host family. So they have to do a lot of things they would not do if they were participants I wouldn't call it work, I don't know but they will have obligations in a new way that they have not tried before or haven't tried to that extent before. So there's a change coming with that. Mine obviously don't need to get out there quote, unquote because we're out there most of the time. Our context changes all the time and they are very good at adapting and good at making new friends and good at talking to strangers and picking up bits of languages. So they can talk to children, small children, small children come up to them, can I pet your dog or can I join, whatever they're doing, and they have to communicate. So it's a different situation as they are travelling kids.

Sue Elvis: 1:05:43

I have a question, sandra, you were saying about kids don't necessarily need friends their own age or of their own background, but I'm sitting here thinking that I love having friends, not necessarily the same age, but with the same, who are the same deeper down, like I'm enjoying this conversation with you both of you much more than I would if I was sitting talking to other people who don't unschool, because we're connecting Something that's very fundamental to me. I'm connecting with you at the same, you understand where I'm coming from. We're sharing a passion and I'm thinking that my children never had the opportunity to connect that way with other children who are also unschoolers and I know that you're still, Sandra, and you have a lot of. You're always surrounded, cecilia, by other world schoolers, unschoolers, but for someone in our situation, I didn't even know any unschoolers except for people online, and we never had the opportunity for my children to form friendships with other unschoolers who really understood what our lifestyle was like. There's certain things you can't talk to other homeschoolers about because they don't understand.

Sue Elvis: 1:07:09

For example, I think when my youngest daughter was about nine, she was saying oh, mom, you know, really would love to get out more and meet more friends, and so I investigated what was going on in the homeschooling community and we started going to the local homeschooling group. And it was really quite funny because this homeschooling group we belonged to I don't know 20 odd years before and it would have been a really tiny group at that stage and it had expanded over the years and we dropped out a long time ago and somebody else was running it and a whole lot of new people. And we turned up for our first meeting and the first thing was very welcoming Hello, are you new homeschoolers? And we said, well, no, actually we've been around for a long time. Have you just moved to the area? No, we've lived here I don't know 20 odd years. Then they wanted to know why we hadn't been to their group and I says, well, yeah, we just want to meet people now for my youngest daughter and we persevered for about nine months and but I think that in the end it was the kids didn't really connect.

Sue Elvis: 1:08:32

It was all conversation about what grade are you in, what workbooks are you using and activities you were expected to join in with, and my biggest fear was that they were going to ask me to organize an activity that I didn't want to do, and some weeks we'd have cupcake week or book week, where they had to dress as a book character, swim week, cricket week week, where they had to dress as a book character, swim week, cricket week and we just did a bit of picking and choosing what we wanted to go to because I didn't want to force my girls to go to something they weren't interested in. And in the end we got this email about how we had to commit more to the group. Did we really want to belong? And we thought, no, we don't. We stopped going.

Sue Elvis: 1:09:18

But my kids never found those kindred spirit friends. Any suggestions for anybody? They survived. I mean, they can talk to anybody. They've made other friends but growing up I think they would have loved some friends who really understood what they were doing, education-wise, just at that deeper level of connection, and they never had it. So some problems you can't fix. You accept the situation.

Sandra Dodd: 1:09:47

But I'd be interested to hear what you would have suggested if I'd come to you and told you you just asked me just now and I don't know how to do it now, but there was a time when unschoolers learned from discussion groups and the parents knew where people lived and sometimes there would be somebody close enough or somebody's about to go to another city and they would meet up. They could tell from those groups that there was somebody else in that town, and so a lot of the friendships came from the parents knowing each other online, liking each other and happening to either on purpose, go to that town and take their kids, or we're going to be there, can we come visit? Do you want to go to a park? Do you want to meet up? And so sometimes those turned into lifelong friendships and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes it was just a couple of visits and either the kids didn't get on or it was too far or too expensive or something.

Sandra Dodd: 1:10:40

But I've seen a lot of that happen, sometimes from conferences. Kids met at a conference, but very often just that the parents were aware of where the other family was and that they had some kids in the general age range and would get together. So I don't know how unschoolers are communicating these days. People who watch these podcasts won't see each other or know each other. It's not the same as written discussion groups, so that's my main experience is where people are writing and telling stories and saying, oh hi, I'm in Denver and I have three kids and we're interested in mountain climbing, so somebody else knows that. Somebody else who climbs or skis or whatever they're talking about, might say, oh, we're going to be in Colorado, is there something happening we could do together?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:11:27

I think a lot of it happens on social media and the groups. I don't do it personally a lot, but I think there are unschooled or homeschooled groups for areas. That's how I have previously found like-minded people and, funny enough, I had it noted on my paper as well that we've talked about how we don't need that other six-year-old girl to be my child's friend, that we need to be open-minded, that we just need community and that is just other people. But I think there is sometimes there is an actual need for other unschoolers and even similar-aged unschoolers, and we shouldn't excuse me, we shouldn't pretend that there is not a need for that or that there is not a lot of benefit from hanging out with other unschoolers. I think it would be very much of an echo chamber if we did only that, but it would also not be the truth that I have lived that there is no need for it. My children very much have had the same as Sue's experience that it can be hard to connect with home-educated or school children Not impossible.

Sandra Dodd: 1:12:56

Can we go with other words though. Need it's a desire, but it's not a requirement. A family can unschool without finding other unschoolers. It's cool. If they can, they can want that and they may get that. But if they don't get that, they shouldn't say well, we didn't find any other unschoolers and we needed them, so now we didn't unschool. No true, If you use need, it's like a hinge, so I don't think it's a hinge.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:13:32

I think it can be a desire, it can be a goal, it can be a goal, it can be a plan, a hope, a success, but need is too harsh, I agree. Well, we just look at Sue. She raised a lot of children, unschooled, with no unschoolers in the backyard, so she had eight of her mom, so there were some other unschoolers right there, sure.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:13:43

But even without that you can unschool, I agree. I'm just saying sometimes it's Without that you can unschool, I agree. I'm just saying sometimes it in the hope that there would be some other unschoolers or just someone that would be easier for my kids to connect with. That's a lot. I've been to a lot of that and a lot of it would look on the surface as fails that we just spend one more day trying to hang out with people we didn't really connect with.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:14:27

And it's my answer very often when people ask so what do you do about friends? What do you do about finding other people to hang out with? Is that? Well, sometimes this is kind of the price we pay for being home educators that we have to move a little further to see our friends. They will not be our neighbors, maybe we'd have to drive for an hour, but you match that up with all the hours of not driving kids to school every morning and taking them back every evening, it still comes out to my benefit and I do think that it's worth it to go a little further to see if we can find someone, especially if we feel that would be really nice. Then the gatherings, the conferences, the hubs, the festivals are good places to invest some time and money in participating in so that we can meet people for our family. It's been completely life-changing to participate in these things and we've made a lot of great friends and it's been inspiring and invigorating and mind-opening and so many levels to throw ourselves into the chaos of a festival or a conference or a summit.

Sandra Dodd: 1:15:59

I've seen all kinds of permutations of this. I saw some families who went to four or five conferences a year. They just went to conferences and they spent a lot of money doing that. And if you went to a conference you could be sure they would be there. And then I've seen some people who said I can't afford to go to a conference and so I guess I can't unschool like the rest of you are.

Sandra Dodd: 1:16:20

So I just tried to keep it away from seeming like a conference was a requirement or a need and just said well, you know, it's a way to get this information in person instead of in writing. And sometimes the kids like each other, sometimes the kids do not like each other. And, sue, you said it's nice to be able to talk here with other people who understand, but you couldn't put an ad in a magazine and go I would like to have a friend who's my age, who has my hobbies and who has kids, who didn't go to school. And then just find a friend like that, it might not work. You might not like the person at all. So that's not really.

Sandra Dodd: 1:17:11

I think if you were to find a child for your, you know, a friend for your child who's the same age, who's unschooled, who also likes my, likes my little pony or whatever it is.

Sandra Dodd: 1:17:13

That doesn't mean they're going to hit it off, and one of the disadvantages of school is that kids are thrown together for nine months or 10 months or however your school year goes, to be with these other 20 kids all the time, every day, eating with them, hanging out with them, doing sports and recess with them, and they might not like any of them. So that can happen with conferences too, whether personality or just a clash or an irritating kid. So I've seen parents try to match up kids like you should be friends, because on the chart you match and they're like I'm not going to another conference, that that kid's going to be there, and that's another place where you can't shove a round peg in a square hole. The parents might wish that they have that, but it's not a need and it's certainly not worth pressing a child to be with someone who wouldn't be their own choice in a natural world.

Sue Elvis: 1:18:07

One thing that didn't work very well. I had a lot of people I say a lot of people quite a few requests when my kids were younger, especially my four at-home girls, was pen pals. And people would stop by or send me an email and say my children don't know any other unschoolers. Can they be pen pals with your girls? And the number of times I came back and said to my girls oh, somebody I know wants to know if you want to be pen pals with their children and my girls' faces, they just sort of dropped and thought they weren't really interested but felt obliged to listen because it was something to do with what I was doing, that the parents were looking at me as their solution and my girls as their solution, at me as their solution and my girls as their solution, but my children weren't interested. It never worked out.

Sue Elvis: 1:19:19

Sometimes my girls would exchange a couple of letters or emails to be polite, but the friendships never lasted and I think it was all to do with parents organizing children that didn't really want to do it, that it was the parents' idea. The parents wanted it a lot but the children weren't interested. So that never worked. So pen pals I don't know if anybody else has had much success with pen pals, but they came to nothing with us. It just felt like it was a great idea for the parents, but the children weren't interested and only went through the motions a few times to please the parents.

Sandra Dodd: 1:19:55

This was an American problem, but there were some more school-at-home families In the early days of the internet. There was not a separate unschooling discussion. There weren't enough people and there weren't enough places, so we'd be all in one group and two or three times once I participated and the other two times I just said this isn't going to work. Postcard exchanges, so that kids who were studying geography for homeschooling would get a postcard from every state. Okay, I was in New Mexico At the time. New Mexico had just over a million people. There are towns in Texas you never heard of that, I never heard of that have over a million people. California you know so many cities in California that have tons of people, and so all of these kids would send a postcard. So we put our names on these lists and I would just look at the list. It's like there are two names in New Mexico or sometimes one name. There are 180 in California.

Sandra Dodd: 1:20:59

This is not a geography problem, this is a math problem. This is going to cost me a fortune to answer every postcard I get, and so the organizers would very simple-mindedly say but if you get a postcard, you have to respond. And I said within what limit. You know they didn't get it. No one ever understood what I was saying, that I don't think I should have to send out 300 postcards to get one postcard from every state. Right, so it was just. It was amusing, but it wasn't for kids to meet, it was for parents to check off. We studied geography. Look here's our proof we have 50 postcards at my expense and people from Alaska and Montana and places where there just aren't a lot of people and places where there just aren't a lot of people.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:21:47

I have one child who wrote a lot of letters and it was a big part of a good couple of years of her childhood. She really enjoyed writing and receiving letters. We did a bit of pen-pelling but that never caught on. It was on her, it was her idea. She was interested in this when she was little I want to say seven maybe she was just interested in the system. So what's up with the envelope and the stamp and the box and the guy who walks with the bag? He has all these things. And so she and she was interested in what we received in our letterbox and it was nothing interesting really and she was like but this comes from something real, something interesting people communicating, can I write letters?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:22:42

And she started writing letters to her grandparents and her cousins and her friends and a few kids from the homeschool community that she didn't meet up with very often, but mostly her friends that she saw in real life fairly frequently. They would exchange letters and as we started traveling that became more of a challenge, because where would we receive the letters to? But we've managed that and don't think any letters ever got lost, maybe one or two. It was an elaborate hobby for her for a long time, but it's a good example of how these things work perfectly well if the kid wants to do it. My boys never wrote any letters maybe one postcard to grandma, sometimes for funsies, but not like that my daughter. She would write and write pages and pages and include dried flowers and stickers and little things and ideas and quizzes and photographs and stuff. She has a letter book still going on, actually where it's a little book, and they send it between her and the second cousin, writing in the book, taking turns about their lives and where they are, and actually this second cousin is something like 20 years older than her. So that's a good example of how it doesn't have to be equal age to be fun.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:24:16

So, yeah, sometimes these things quote-unquote work, but only if it's authentic, only if it's something the child really wants to do. When we, the parents, have a great idea, we often have a really genuinely great idea. But if we push it down the throat of our children and we want it to be a great idea for them here and now, that can go awfully wrong and it often does the face drops, as you said, sue. You said so. Uh, it becomes. Yeah, we have to throw out ideas and also face it when those ideas fail or not fail, but just are not rejected.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:24:59

Yeah, it's just not a thing, you know. Is this a good idea? No is a very good answer. That's it's a good thing to to teach the children and also to teach ourselves. Do you want to be pen pals with this friend? They can say no and they don't have to. That's a good thing to teach the children and also to teach ourselves. Do you want to be pen pals with this friend? They can say no and they don't have to explain themselves.

Sandra Dodd: 1:25:16

I got a postcard from Alaska and it went to the other house. Keith told me I have a postcard from Ivan, but Ivan's name is the biggest. But it says we saw whales Also. Alaska is great, that's all. But both of the kids signed it and their parents and that's sweet. But postcards are so expensive now. They used to be inexpensive to buy and expensive to mail. Now for this much information it's very expensive and so it's pretty much better to send a photo and a message. That can't be helped. Progress can't be helped, but I used to.

Sandra Dodd: 1:25:52

I have many letters saved. A friend of ours named Marty we named our son Marty after him was living in Alaska. Just coincidentally, years back he had lived with us and then he moved to Alaska and I have a lot of cards from him, letters from him with little drawings of himself, just in ballpoint pen. He was a good artist and could draw something recognizable with ink and I love having those, but it's a pile of paper. I have letters from both of my grandmothers and many from my mom and it's in these days.

Sandra Dodd: 1:26:25

My kids won't want those, it won't be. There's not storage for things like that anymore. It's just you know they're not going to have filing cabinets. I have filing cabinets with folders. They don't even know how to use filing cabinets and folders. So styles of communication have changed a great deal. Styles of how to listen to things in the car have changed a great deal. Styles of how to listen to things in the car have changed. The ways that kids can communicate with other kids online have changed, and so it's not dead space. There are people in there. There are people in that computer. I see both of you right now, even though we're on different continents, and I think encouraging kids to communicate with other people online is much healthier than the fright that so many parents had. Never send a message to someone you haven't met in person. Never accept a Facebook friendship from anyone you have not met in person. That's very limiting.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:27:34

Also limiting is this idea lots of parents have about screen time and limiting the amount of time that the kids and the teenagers use on their devices, especially the smartphone, is really being called, called out these years and there's this whole movement, the smartphone free childhood. It really shocked me when I realized that, because what they do on the smartphone-free childhood, it really shocked me when I realized that Because what they do on the smartphone and what also eventually slowed down the letter writing that my daughter did, is the communication options on the smartphone. I don't know how many text messages she sends every day now. It's probably a lot she sends every day now it's probably a lot. And I feel the parents are very often concerned about the time spent on the phones and the WhatsApp groups and well, other communication platforms.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:28:26

But really we do want our children to connect with their friends and what I see is that they use the smartphone to stay connected with people they care about and they take care of each other. They share their passions, they make jokes and they share photographs and they share ideas. They get advice, autographs and they share ideas. If one postcard is so important, why is a hundred text messages not important? It's a conservative point of view, that we think, oh, but this ball pen that I'm holding in my hand is real, but this smartphone that I'm holding in my hand is fake. It's not, it's just another tool.

Sandra Dodd: 1:29:11

And I'm old enough to think well, can't they be pen pals by email? But very few people use email. Email used to be a big deal, used a lot, and now it's not. So that's the CD in my car that used to have a tape player. It's already gone too, and now they're to text messages.

Sandra Dodd: 1:29:30

So to discourage that though is is like saying, if they wrote it on paper, if they spent money on stamps and envelopes and mailed it through the mail, that would be virtuous. But because they're texting immediately and getting and sending photos and getting immediate feedback, that's sinful, it's just prejudice. It's just fear and prejudice of change. And it's good if parents can go with the flow, modernize, accept the world as it is, instead of fighting and wrestling and whining about the world as it is. But I'm guilty too. So my teenage granddaughter was with us at the zoo and she kept being on the phone and texting. But I know, probably you know two or three of the people that she's probably talking to. That's nice, that's cool, that she could go to the zoo with us, help with her little sisters, you know, hang around with her grandparents and also communicate with her best friend and her boyfriend a little bit, you know.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:30:28

Well well I think there's a lot to say about how to handle the smartphone, but I also think we don't have time for it right now. There's a time and a place for everything and, yeah, whatever it's, it's too much of a conversation for the five minutes we have left, I think we need.

Sandra Dodd: 1:30:45

It's a resource's a resource and there's all the information in the world and all the people that they can get to with it and all the photos they can see and take and send. It's a marvel, it's wonderful.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:30:58

It is and we just need to, to the extent there are dangers and to the extent there are ways to not use it or conj culture around it when, why, how and where. We just need to learn about that. It's like walking to the mailbox maybe in some context would be a bad idea. Don't do it late at night because there's this guy out we know in town or whatever. It's just a cultural thing and a human experience and of course, we need to use our brains to think about how, how that is well.

Sandra Dodd: 1:31:33

Devon never failed to help and pay attention to us, so even though she would be looking at it, it would be at downtime or when she wasn't in conversation. It was not all disruptive or obnoxious, but I did notice that some people probably would have said something to her, but I didn't, because I was grateful that she went with us. It was easier for us to have two little girls with three adults. We count her as an adult when she's helping. It was better. So she needs to get something out of the trip too. If I were to go and put your phone down, I would be like that other cranky grandma at the other table.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:32:08

No, but I'm not by no means judging your zoo outing with your granddaughter. I'm just saying, on more general terms, maybe there are. We were just at a church event. A child got baptized. We turned off the phones completely and they did not come out until we had left, also the lunch coming after, because I believe that's the right way to handle situations like that. But we did leave early because there's a limit, and that's a different story, but there's a limit as to how long time they want to spend in a context like that and I respect that there is for me as well. So I feel we're venturing into a new topic, but I also know that I have to wrap up because I personally have a day that's starting here in my end and someone else needs to use the office and I need to take the kids to the beach and there's a lot of things to do.

Sandra Dodd: 1:33:02

Just wanted to remind people that resources shouldn't look like school's resources. They should look like the world around you.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:33:08

And resources really could be almost anything that can catch your attention and and that you would find interesting. It doesn't have to be a plan with.

Sue Elvis: 1:33:19

It doesn't have to be a outcome sometimes it's just slowing down, isn't it where you usually go, like stopping at the pet shop that was on deb lewis's list instead of walking by it, or taking time to stop at the playground on the way back from shopping instead of rushing straight home? Or looking at all the fruits in the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket instead of just grabbing a couple. Sometimes it's just living more slowly and with more curious eyes. Maybe and it doesn't have to be anything special or anything that involves a lot of money it's just giving more time to our own lives, because we do miss a lot, especially with I've got to rush down to town, I've got to do the shopping, got to get home, and you think, well, why do we have to do it that way? Why can't we? And we got very good at buying morning tea while we were out and then stopping at the park or the lake and just enjoying the day and the experience without spending any extra money. Just time Beautiful, maybe that's a resource is our time.

Sue Elvis: 1:34:41

Oh, it's the only really valuable resource when you think about it, and slowing down is sometimes a thing, and then, when we slow down and have that coffee, cecilia, and all those conversations that we enjoy, there's no time to talk and have great conversations. If we're always rushing, we need time for those, don't we? Which is always wonderful. When I'm talking here with you, I I really love how you have this long format. Long conversation format, cecilia, gives us chance to really dive deep into conversations and see where they lead.

Sandra Dodd: 1:35:20

So that's one of the pleasures, isn't it?

Sue Elvis: 1:35:22

We have a topic, but we don't really know where it's going to go, because we're all different and one idea leads to another, and it's not as if we've sat down different and one idea leads to another, and it's not as if we've sat down here and we're ticking off all the points that we've made. I'm actually sitting here making little notes about what you've both said, so I can think about it later and check back.

Sandra Dodd: 1:35:42

Well, have fun at the beach today, Cecilia. Have fun taking those kids to the beach, oh it will be fun, thank you.

Sue Elvis: 1:35:49

I like Cecilia. I liked how you said I need to take the kids to the beach. I mean that sounds like a great need.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:35:58

The sun is shining. I need to go to the beach. Thank you very much for this conversation, ladies. It's been, as always, a pleasure.

Sandra Dodd: 1:36:08

See you next time.

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