25: Sandra Dodd | Learn Nothing Day - Unschooling and the Complexities of Parenting

Jesper Conrad: 00:00
We are again today, uh together with the wonderful Sandra Dodd. And uh, if you don't know her, just start reading, go to her website and look her up. And and Sandra, the reason we uh are here today is uh we have several. One of them is it felt like we could have talked for hours more when we talked last. So we agreed to continue the dialogue. Um, so should we where should we start? Do we have somewhere you want to start?

Sandra Dodd: 00:31
There was something that I forgot to, well, I didn't forget. I never, you know, we were going so fast and so scattery that I didn't get to to a point I was trying to make, which is that I grew up hanging out with a lot of boys talking about music, talking about philosophy. When I hung around with the girls, they were talking about fashion and boyfriends, and I it was awkward for me and I didn't really love it. When I grew up though, and had kids, or even even before when I was an adult children of alcoholics, that was a more male-oriented sort of discussion. But when I started having kids and I got involved in birth things, La Leche League, um you know, unschooling, then it was mostly moms, really 98% moms in those discussions. And a lot of them were used to discussions that I didn't love, that I was unwilling to participate in, that I it wasn't my specialty, and it seemed like a waste of time. So then I seemed harsh because a lot of them were used to either the feminist sort of if a woman says something, believe her, and people need affirmation and support. It's like, okay, well, uh I'm not gonna volunteer eight hours a day of my life to affirm and support people I don't know about whatever they say. That's I got stuff to do. And some of those, some days, if there was a trouble on the list, I would be there. I would just tell my family, I'd go, I'm sorry, sorry you guys, go buy burgers, bring me one, because I can't leave this right now. It's it'll be more so a mess if I don't. When the discussions that worked by email, um, you know, discussion lists were the big thing. We we had a couple of them. Joyce had my my cohorts for years were Joyce Federal, who has her own website too, and Pam Sarushian. And Joyce had a site, uh, uh a group, inherited a group, and Pam and I were the other admins. I've made a group called Always Learning, which I still have, and Joyce and Pam were the other admins. So we were used to working together, but the difference in the groups was Joyce didn't like strife, peace. So on Joyce's group, what kind of peace? On mine, it's like, what? What are you saying? Say it again. But I was used to, if you're gonna say something, back it up. Why are you saying that? And and and La Legendaged, people are sharing, I mean, really kind of oversharing because it's women, they don't let men come to those meetings because women are are nursing babies in front of other people. I'm I'm in my 60s and people my age, some didn't even see other women breastfeeding. So we needed to see it somewhere. You know, you can't just imagine it and do it as easily as you can see people do it and have them physically help you, like with their fingers and their baby's mouths and stuff. Yeah, look, look, this is how this can work and this is how this can work. So I was used to that. So this is the combination, this is the really good combination we got in those groups is sharing real things about our real lives, talking about our real kids and things that really happened, and also back it up. Like, why would this work? Don't just say, Well, it does, I just feel it in my little soul, you know, not flowers and unicorns.

Cecilie Conrad: 03:38
And is that what we would call feminine conversation or right, right?

Sandra Dodd: 03:43
So it's like, oh, okay, do you know any research about this? Can we look for some? Why do people say this is true? What, why, why, why? What you know, what in what in anything? Sociology, psychology, anthropology helps back this up. What makes this natural or unnatural, dangerous, safe? So we were we were doing that that sort of analytical discussion. At the same time, if somebody said, well, theoretically, like if I had this kid and we're like, stop, we're not analyzing theoretical kids. Let's talk about real problems that we really have.

Jesper Conrad: 04:15
Yeah.

Sandra Dodd: 04:16
Um, and and so that was a a for my tastes, a really good hybrid of male and female style communications. And so we just maintained it. It's like, this is what I'm willing to do. There are other discussions, but if you guys want to hang out here, that's the deal. Be be honest, be thoughtful, be serious, don't waste other people's time. But also, um nobody had to share anything. But we didn't want them making things up, we didn't want to be hypothetical. No. And and I also wanted it public, which was weird because some people are going, well, I don't want to talk to my about my kid in the public. Okay, well, and is there any way that you can just talk about what happened without naming? You don't have to name your kid's name. But say at my house, there's this kid who's 10 who likes video games. And we're like, okay. You know, let's talk about this. A real 10-year-old kid that you know who plays video games. So that that was fine. They didn't have to tell us where they lived, you know, not that kind of tell us everything. Um, and I so I just I did not feel guilty about that at all. But some people didn't like it because they wanted everybody to be soothed. Yeah, they couldn't pay me enough. Nobody was paying me anything. But you know, if I had taken money, they couldn't pay me enough to do things I didn't want to do with my life, with the limited life I have, or to say things I don't believe. Don't want to do that. So it worked out, worked out well for 30 years. And I'm kind of tired of it now. I don't, I don't let I let something through to that group recently because it seemed interesting and easy. And I thought, well, there are other people there who can answer this, it'll be fun for them. Nope. Sure enough. Um, somebody came in and said, Well, I'm not an unschooler, but and starts telling all of us that what we're saying is wrong and telling that other person what to do that's not unschooling advice. I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stay here for hours babysitting this.

Jesper Conrad: 06:04
No, no.

Sandra Dodd: 06:05
I used to, I used to, but I I can't anymore. I just can't.

Cecilie Conrad: 06:09
But is this discussion group on your website? Where is it?

Sandra Dodd: 06:12
If it's public, people could actually it's not on the website, it's on uh uh it used to be on Yahoo groups, always learning, and now it's on a thing called groups.io because Yahoo Groups shutting down. So yeah, it's uh I it you can make those groups private, but I wasn't interested in private. I wanted to put it there so that we I could send people to read it, yeah, so that people could just come and read it without needing to join or you know, because it was it was the kind of public that's that makes it like a web page. It did, it made it like it made it like a website because people could go in there and search for topics. And so I told people don't say things that you don't want said. Don't, you know, don't don't overshare, don't talk about your sex life. Let's just, you know, stick to six topics that can be public. And they would forget sometimes, but we would try to get back to it. So that was what I wanted to share is that I think having having been familiar with male conversations and what I consider to be the advantages, I was able to work that in. Still, it was probably from a male perspective, too much chit-chat, too much, you know, men don't like the as much noise as women make sometimes. Not that typing is very loud, but you know, a lot of words, a lot of words. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes men would come and sometimes they would just assume that they got to sit in the front and make the most noise. It's like, uh I appreciate the perspective, but but you know, you're you haven't been at home as much as she has, so it's possible she saw something you didn't see. And sometimes people would come who had a PhD in education or whatever, and they thought they got to sit in the front row, and it's like, oh, sorry, it doesn't count. You don't have a PhD in unschooling, and even if you did, how long have you been doing it?

Jesper Conrad: 07:55
Yeah, Sandra, what you uh just mentioned uh made me think about a conversation we had uh on uh since we saw each other last, we have

Jesper Conrad: 08:05
been in a world school uh uh co-living situation uh with a lot of other families, and we had a lot of talking, a lot of wonderful conversations.

Cecilie Conrad: 08:19
So we lived with 10-15 families who unschooled teachers. Yeah, it was amazing for four months. It was there was so much to learn. I was what I was looking at. The pictures you were posting. Yeah, it was at the castle in uh in Normandy.

Jesper Conrad: 08:34
But one of the uh the mothers, I talked with her about life and stuff, and she told me about my my point of view was I think uh not enough men is entering the conversations. That's also why I like to uh Cecilia and I to have this uh our podcast together because the men are a lot in the background, and she shared a story about um she has is it six children, this woman I'm thinking about. No, but but she she has a lot of children, and under COVID, uh everybody was at home, and it started not working out for them. Uh, and so one day she just got tired of it, and she said, Okay, let's have a family meeting. And she has brought all the books she had read about parenting, unschooling, homeschooling, and said, This is all I have read, this is all I have tried. I want really to do the best. Show me what you have done, then we can uh start the discussion. And I just love that because for me, I come to the conversations with Cecilia, where I sometimes like, okay, I have not been at home as much as Cecilia. Absolutely not. Now I've been at the stay-at-home dad for five years, but the first four years I was mostly working from home, stay-at-home dad. Um, and and and still in our life, I see that I can have some points, uh, um sometimes even valid points, but but sometimes even valid points, but the reality is the parenting is still mostly Cecilia who has the overview and all the details, uh, and I don't.

Cecilie Conrad: 10:13
I think what you're trying to say, if I can, yeah, because he likes words more than I do, actually, as a rare voice. What you're trying to say is you have learned over the years that the husband, especially if he's working outside of the home, needs to be very humble with his going on. And you were not humble to begin with, you had very strong opinions on how I was supposed to do it and what I did wrong, how children functioned, and you know how we should tighten the belt. And and and I love you, but it's a very valid point that you know you can have a PhD or know things from your old childhood. It didn't hurt me to do this and that, but but the women who are actually in the flesh doing the doing the what doing the parenting. I I don't even call it unschooling anymore. It's a funny thing. I'm just a parent, with the kids, I'm with the children, and they I we just left my sister's house today, and she's 10 years, 12 years younger than me, and her kids are like what younger than our kids. So she's doing the same thing just 10 years ago in our life, yeah, and we discussed, you know, how come the men can go to the bathroom and close the door last along for whatever minutes they need in there, and whenever I I still, I mean, my youngest child is almost 12, and I still have conversations through the bathroom door, it's not over.

Cecilie Conrad: 11:56
What's going on with that?

Jesper Conrad: 11:58
It's a male privilege necessity.

Cecilie Conrad: 12:03
Well, I don't know, but I think just in many cases, not all cases, but in many cases, the woman takes center stage in the life of the children and in the life of the home element of the family life.

Sandra Dodd: 12:16
And and we center stage and backstage too. Because I the other day, the other day, uh the grandkids are over, and their their mom, one of one of my daughters-in-law came and her sister, whose kids are older, are like teens now, maybe grown. And I and um I was telling them that now that all my kids are gone, I stay up really late, which I never used to do, uh, and I wake up whenever I want to. I just stay asleep until I want to get up. And if I wake up and I want to go back to sleep, I do. And I said, in my whole life I haven't done that. When I was a kid, I had to get up at 6 30 to catch the bus. And I always had early

Sandra Dodd: 12:52
morning jobs and I would have the key to open up, or I was a teacher, whatever. You know, I had to go early, go be there at 6 30, be there at seven. And then when I had kids, I was up until the lesson was up and we didn't do bedtimes. So that was, you know, you don't know for sure. And then I, if the first one who wakes up wakes me up like it's Christmas morning, you know, mom, I'm hungry. And so my because my husband was working and he had a really strict schedule and he got up early and went, I really guarded his sleep time. So after 10, I made sure the kids didn't bother him. And he doesn't, I don't think he fully appreciated what was happening while he was asleep. Because I would invariably get up and check on all the kids when they got old enough that they weren't asleep. Well, we I used to sleep in the in the next room with them in a one of those double decker, uh like a double bed on the bottom and single on the top. So I would be nursing the little one at the bottom and you know, biggest kid at the top or whatever. And so I would be with them all night. Yeah, and if I could sneak away, sometimes I did, and if I couldn't, I didn't. And that's that was so he could sleep, and so I could nurse a baby without waking him up. And I never reminded him, you know, I wasn't sending him the bill, I wasn't saying, guess what? Did you have a nice sleep? Good for you. You look blessed. Did you enjoy your shower in peace? I'd like to take one maybe Friday, if you could. Um, yeah, yeah. So that went on for years without me realizing that he didn't really know. So he said something. So he overheard me telling that story, you know, about how how nice it is for me to just go to sleep when I feel like it, when I'm really tired, and wake up when I feel like it. For the first season, really, in my life. You know, it's been a couple of years. But you know, if they try to make me a doctor appointment in the morning, I'm no, I'll come after lunch. I'm done. I'm retired from that. Um, if grandkids are over, if I have to you do something, I can still get up. I have I'm good at it. But that was it was fun for me to be telling him. I said, I know you guys can't because you have little kids, and I know you've just been through years of having little kids. So I was kind of like going, ha, I can and you can't, you know, to these younger moms. But but my husband hadn't heard that before. And I didn't, I forgot he was in the room. He was over on the other side of the room playing with one of the granddaughters, and then he said something to me later, and like, oh yeah, I forgot you're there. Well, yeah, what do they do? Because I didn't mean to say that all in front of him, you know. It wasn't too embarrassing, it was true.

Jesper Conrad: 15:20
Yeah, but but do you miss male voices in the whole uh unschooling, homeschooling, parenting movement?

Sandra Dodd: 15:29
What happened was well, I really miss Pam and Joyce. And if and if they're not there, because Joyce is off writing on Quora, she writes all the time on Quora about unschooling about parenting and unschooling. And Pam Um Cerushian is really busy in California, she's got a bunch of grandkids, and she I don't think she's teaching anymore, but she's been having some health problems, so she's just doing other stuff. And we talk once in a while, but they're not they're not involved in it anymore right now and in the discussion every day. And I it was like going to work with people you really liked.

Jesper Conrad: 16:01
Yeah.

Sandra Dodd: 16:02
And it even though we were all in the US, we had other people uh in in in Europe and Australia that we could count on to spot us overnight. And we knew that the conversations wouldn't get too crazy. But over the years, there have been other little batches, like one batch of really good uh moms who wrote really well. Their kids have just all three families that only had a boy, and they all joined up, started talking with us when their kid was of six, eight, nine, and it was Colleen Prieto in New Hampshire, Karen James, who was in New York State for a while, but now she's in California, Karen James and Joe Isaac in Australia. And they all came about the same time and they were all really enthusiastic. And I loved going to work with them, you know, to go there and see what they said. So there have been other batches like that where there'd be a season when a when a lot of voices joined. I'm like, this is a cool batch of people. And then their kids grow up and then they're done, you know, they they they're they're through. And like that's that's what like Joyce and Pam, all our kids are in their 30s. But when our kids were little and we first met, when I first met Pam, our youngest were four and five years old. Yeah, and so we got to see those other families daily, daily growing up too, because we knew that Joyce came to visit us. We went to visit her, not the whole family, but some of us went to her house, and she and her daughter came to our house at the time when she was nine. And another time they came to see some. Her daughter uh was involved in in heavy metal bands and came to a concert in Albuquerque. So from Boston, that's a long, long, long way.

Jesper Conrad: 17:35
Absolutely.

Sandra Dodd: 17:37
So we were we were close like that, um, like co-workers. Yeah, and then you don't work together anymore. So that's a little sad, a little hard. Somewhere, some some discussion. I overheard something about judgment, and I know it comes up, it comes up once in a while, and people will say, Well, I don't want anybody to judge me. Or or I'll say, 'Well, you need to use good judgment.' Well, I don't want to be judgmental. And that may be just an English language problem where we have judgmental, which is like a sin to be judgmental. Yeah, and then we say, Use your own judgment, use good judgment. Those words are like touch each other, and people get nervous, they don't know what how to think about it. So judgment being being judgmental means that you just walk around all the time going, well, that's stupid, that's dumb. I don't like that. You know, just sort of being in a negative, I'm and I'm kind of like that myself because because all could also can be called pedantic. Like I see people's misspellings. Um, I call the plumber and I don't like the way the receptionist treats me, or you know, whatever, whatever. So I can't. Some people are like that. For unschooling to work, they need to try not to be. They just roll it back, roll it back, be more positive, see things as much as you can. What's good about it? Wait till your kids are grown and then then grump at the plumbing company. But um, like I'm like it's Wednesday, and I I was promised to call back from the part from the chimney cleaners by the end of Monday. You know, but that's just the judgmental part is like I'm not sure I could do better. You know, so that so that's me complaining about other people when if I had that job I might be worse. So it's just not it's not a good character trait. Judgmental, being judgmental is not a great character trait. It's it's something that people should try to recover from and avoid. But if you don't use good judgment, if you don't think about why you would do something or whether something's a good idea or not, how can you make any good decisions? You're just gonna flip a coin, roll dice. So you need to, people need to have some discernment and some analysis of factors, that kind of judgment is what I think is crucial for good parenting because you're gonna let kids have choices, you need to model how you made your choices. So if if uh if the if the some parents just say, well, my child will never see the inside of a school, and I'll tell him how to be, and I'll tell him what kind of person to be. And um he he should not be judgmental, the mom might say, while being very judgmental about how that child is being. So it's better for the parents to figure out what how they want the kid to be and then be it. If if there's a trait that they would like to pass on to kids, the best thing to do is to do that thing and let them see you do it and maybe talk about why you did it. Like, not just incessantly, not like in class or actually, but to just say, ah, I was thinking about doing this, but then I remembered that it's better if we, you know, it would be better if I do this because her feelings might be hurt, or you know, grandma's coming, or what whatever reasons there were that day to do this thing instead of that thing, just talking through it a little bit will help kids when they need to decide something to know what kind what kind of factors are legitimate concerns. Um if decision making is all done silently or in secret, or it looks like the mom's just always right, because some people like that. They like to seem like they're always right, so they just hide their anxiety, they hide their angst, and then they they they come out with a poker face and they they make their declaration. So it's sometimes it's better to go, I'm a little nervous about whether we should do this or not, or whether we should go, or we should invite over. Um talking through it doesn't hurt the kids unless they're clearly showing an indication that they don't care. And so helping them use good judgment would be like help them talk through a situation if they come and go, I don't know what to do. I don't know whether to go to this party or not. This guy's gonna be here that I don't like. Well, is it is it is the party in more than one room? Is it in the whole house? Could you just kind of like politely be in another room? Or could you make a joke of it if you guys get too close? You know, throw some ideas out and then don't ask them to report back how it went. I think that kind of judgment like I had some options. And I had some factors and I thought through all that is, I think it's really important and good.

Cecilie Conrad: 22:07
I think some unschooling parents that I've met, I don't know if they actually do it, but they talk about it as if they they wind it back from

Cecilie Conrad: 22:18
the judgmental point of view to a non-existent point of view. And they think that being a good unschooling parent is the same as being a non-person almost from what that's what I call it. Obviously, that's not what they call it, but you're not allowed to have any opinions because they will influence the opinions of your children. You can't say if anything is good or bad, or and and I see how all of these things can go wrong if if it comes from the wrong point of view, but at the same time, I don't see the value of being a center person in the family trying not to be there, not to have any any opinion on anything or anything.

Sandra Dodd: 23:06
And I've seen some people, so some moms just they they don't they don't like, they don't like to use when you say use good judgment, help your friend, help help your kids, coach your kids, you know, help them think, they're like, Well, but I would be telling them something's better than something else. It's like some things are better than something else, some things are better than something else. Um, you know, if you're advising your kid who's really angry with somebody, he could go punch somebody in the face. That's probably not the best thing. You know, talk them down. How about just say, I'm really angry, I feel like punching you, I'm gonna go home. There are there are things that keep people out of jail. One is learning to calm yourself down and breathe. Um, but anyway, yeah, I think I think when sometimes moms have come to unschooling discussions and they get all excited and they, you know, hear a bunch of stuff, and then we don't hear from them for a week or two, and they come back and go, Well, I told them they could do whatever they wanted to, and I left them alone, and they didn't, they didn't do anything. You left them alone. What do you mean? Where are they? Where did you leave them? Well, I'm right here. Well, but you weren't talking to them or hanging out with them or interacting with them, and so some people kind of miss that. They think child-led learning means they're just off leading themselves around and you're doing the dishes or something. I don't know. But I I yeah, I I never recommended that. Um and we've always said in the in the groups we were in, in the groups I was I was used to, the groups I like best, was yeah, coach them, help them, they need advice. My kids went to a wedding without me. My boys went to a funeral without. And so they they knew what to wear, but they didn't know what to say. And I said, Okay, well, at a funeral, because it wasn't a funeral, I was I didn't know the people at all. And I had uh, you know, my daughter was still at home. And I said, the family will be sitting on the front row and they'll stay there for a while. So everybody will go by and talk to them and you know, hear some things you could say, especially talk to your friend and his mom. You don't have to talk to everybody, just things like that, that unless you've been to five or ten funerals, you wouldn't know. And so that I think that sort of was I teaching them about funerals. I suppose I was just as I would with anybody. If I when I when I have people from way out of state who come to New Mexico, it's like if we go to a restaurant, it's like, okay, this bread is eaten like this, you take the corner off and you put honey in it. Just stuff like that. Like, like, oh, sorry, I'm I need to tell you, this is what that means when they say red or green at the restaurant. They mean do you want green chili, which is like the vegetable chopped up, or do you want red chili, which is the powder made into a gravy? And and so that it's just coaching, coaching and giving people a clue.

Cecilie Conrad: 25:44
We do have more experience. And what I do as a parent is I tell my children I could be wrong, but this is my point of view. Uh and in our family, we talk a lot about values with the children as well. They especially our second oldest child, our son of 17, he's very interested in thinking about ethics and and um he's to him, it's a it's one of his top five values to be a good person. So we talk a lot about how how how can you achieve that? How can he achieve that because it's important to him? And we talk as a family a lot about when we have to choose between options, how how how do we do that? We in in the end, we have to do that based on what's more important, and to know what's more important, we need to know what has value for us, and we know that this is for us, this is what's important for our family, and we choose based on that. I mean, that's not not having an opinion. I have strong opinions, I have clear values, and I share them with my children, but I don't tell them they have to have the same values, but you tell them why that you do, right? I tell them why I have them, and I I show, as you say, making good judgment for me is about knowing what are my values and how do I want to implement them in my life, and how can they how can I change between them? Because I don't go do the same thing all the time. Sometimes it's all about people, and sometimes it's all about health, and sometimes it's all about me. I need to get it out.

Sandra Dodd: 27:28
What you could easily do on one day, you couldn't do that same thing on a different day because you have to be somewhere at one or whatever.

Cecilie Conrad: 27:33
Exactly. And as we are nomads, very often we are it's you know, it's now or never. Now we're in Istanbul. Do you want to see that blue mask or not? Because we're leaving next week and we're probably not coming back the next five years. So we have a lot of urgent decisions to make about where to go and what to do, because we don't live in one in the same place. So that's that that's why we have a lot of conversations in our family about choices and those philosophy discussions I talked about before.

Sandra Dodd: 28:02
We talked a lot about ethics and duty and service and things like that. And and also that just I don't know because if it's because of my personality or because I saw the the value of it in helping people center themselves and be more mature, but that those discussions have come into unschooling discussions that I was involved in too. Service not just to your own kids and your own family, but to others, it makes you a better person, and whatever makes the parents better people helps the kids. So I just I don't know, I wasn't a missionary or anything. I just as things would come up, and it's like these discussions, like how do you decide? If if a discussion comes up, it's like, well, um I can't think of a good example, but I I know one time I we were walking, I was walking with my kids, we're walking up an alley, and I have a trash bag. I just picked up a bag and I'm putting trash in it, just not not trying to fill it up, but just casually as I would come to something in the road, I'd pick it up. And so the kids started helping me too for fun. They finding paper cups or whatever, because the wind blows a lot in New Mexico and it blows up against walls. And so after a while, my son, who's about six, I guess the oldest, said, Mom, are we getting paid for this? And I said, No, just to be nice. And he said, That's nice of us.

Jesper Conrad: 29:20
Um I love that.

Sandra Dodd: 29:24
Finding finding opportunities to I wasn't trying to set a good example. I didn't sit, I didn't do that so that they would do that. I just did it because I wanted to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 29:33
But I'm not, I mean, I think the whole idea, yeah. But maybe the problem is lies within the idea of having an agenda. I do this so that they can learn that. I don't. I I I to me I live my life as I want to live it, and I live it with my children, whom I'm yeah, grateful to have in my life. Um, but but I'm not, I don't, I don't ever have a hidden agenda. Now I will go here so that they can learn this or something like that.

Sandra Dodd: 30:00
Well, sometimes I did. If I if it looked to me like like they didn't have any idea about some particular thing, I'd buy a science kit or something just for fun, you know. But I wouldn't present it as a science lesson, just put it out like a toy.

Cecilie Conrad: 30:11
Yeah, but it would be a hidden agenda.

Sandra Dodd: 30:13
I mean, a science kit is but I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say, look, I got this thing with magnets because I want you to learn about magnetism because it has to do with physics and and no, I would just yeah, I would just put it out to play with. Yeah, but but early on, I was reading the state requirements for different grade levels and stuff, you know, when I was first starting, yeah, to reassure myself that they were on track, they were they were fine, but yeah, so sometimes I would get an idea from there and go, ooh, I could induce that by by bringing home some shells or whatever. Yeah, so I suppose that's hidden agenda, but not not horribly so.

Jesper Conrad: 30:51
No, no, there is um when talking about uh having judgment um about what we think is good and bad. I am thinking back about one of our earlier podcasts uh with uh Naomi Eldot. I don't know if you know of her. I do, yeah, and and and she um is against praise, but it's of course more um it's it's broader than that, but but her way of presenting it made me think that that I can follow her uh on a certain level that uh people maybe have an automatic pilot sometimes where they just uh every time a child comes and uh shows a drawing, then they just oh you're so good, and you get a ghost star. And and this way of getting children to to do stuff to get praise, it can of course be too much, but at the same time, I was also I can feel I don't agree with her because when my children come to me and show me a drawing, they make uh then I say if I think it's good or bad. I I I uh if I get excited and think, okay, this is so super beautiful, how you have becoming so good at drawing, then I say it, and then I am praising my children, which is not down the line, she thinks we should go as parents.

Sandra Dodd: 32:22
I I but she was she was working as a as a counselor, and the can't the rules for counselors and the and that whole alpha alfie con punished by rewards and stuff, that's for teachers, that's for schools. That's about competitive education and about about people only working to get an A or only working to get the praise. But if kids aren't working and they're not competing, I don't think that applies in in families. And one of the best things I ever learned in my whole life was in La Leche League, but I don't think it's a La Leche League slogan. But the leaders of the first meeting I went to said, one of them said, be your child's

Sandra Dodd: 33:02
partner, not his adversary. And that's one of the most valuable things I've ever heard in my whole life. And they were talking about breastfeeding, but I just kept it. I kept it for everything.

Jesper Conrad: 33:14
And you put some more words to how how you see that uh sentence, what it means to you.

Sandra Dodd: 33:20
Instead of the parents and the children being enemies or the parent manipulating the child with praise or with a a studied lack of praise, um, then how about just be an honest human with this other person who's your partner and say what you honestly feel without being hurtful? You know, I don't I don't mean is this the best you can do? Used to draw the same picture all the time. Not that kind of stuff. I drew the same picture for five years when I was a kid. I liked it. Um but I think between parents and children who know each other really well, they the mom the mom might know, the dad might know that a child would like some craze, that the child's had a bad week. So it's that same thing. One day you might want to go, this is really pretty. I like it. I would like to keep it. Can I have this one? Or let's put this one on the fridge. And another week it might be pretty good. Or was that fun? Something, some honest communication, but people need different things different days. Sometimes somebody needs you to bring them a cup of tea and pat them on the head, and sometimes they just need you to leave them alone. And the better you know your own family, the better you know that it shouldn't be run by dialogues that somebody else wrote. And that bothers me when people say, Well, you know, we were in a conversation, but then you told the story about yourself, and I'm like, Yeah. Because you were saying, I don't know what to do in a situation in which blah blah blah, and I did. I have seen it because I'm older or because I've been married longer, because whatever this the topic is. And I and it's like, where do you get that idea that a person shouldn't offer what oh from counseling classes, from classes about counseling kids at school, or from from therapy classes where you're supposed to let them talk, let them talk, let them talk, let them, you know, draw it out of them, draw it out of them, and then and then maybe let them see what what came out or show them something that came out, but don't tell them about your life because you want to get them involved with you. So like don't mix up the directions for being a school counselor with being a mom. So if my kids are saying, I I was really embarrassed when uh my like my if somebody says, I was really embarrassed when my uncle or my grandma on the other side, or you know, the when I was the mom and her grandma's did this, said this. You'd say, ah, my grandma used to do that too. Or I think that's how it is with grandmas. If I was a therapist, I wouldn't say that. I would say, what did it remind you of? Or you know, what how's this grandma otherwise? Is she is she often that way? You know, maybe just like what why? Why'd that bug you? But I'm just like trying to soothe them. I'm not trying to draw everything out of them, I'm trying to settle it down. Let's do something else. Let's not let's not repeat every couple of days exactly what grandma did that bug you. Just let it go. She's old and she'll die. You know, it's and that's and I hope they're saying that about me. She's old, she'll die. If if what the stuff I'm doing is bothering my kids or my grandkids, it's like, yeah, but I'm old. But I but I honestly think that whether it's praise or not, or sharing about yourself or not, it's conversation within a family. And I I really think that is that the the advice to not that whole punished by rewards thing. For one thing, the guy who wrote that doesn't like homeschooling at all, doesn't agree with unschooling. So unschoolers shouldn't use that as one of their main books because it doesn't make sense. And it does make sense with school because I I see, I mean, you guys surely probably see it too. There are people who did really well in school and then they get out of school and they don't know what to do because there's nobody to give them an A. There's nobody to say head of the class or you know, great. And so, and also the kids who kind of sloughed off in school will slough off at work too. That's one thing the school really teaches you how to look interested and how to look busy without actually doing much. My kids didn't learn that, and when they went to their jobs, they worked really hard all day and they had fun. And the coworkers didn't always like it. You're messing up the average here, breaking the curve. I don't what did that get off topic?

Cecilie Conrad: 37:37
I probably no, I think it's perfect. I'm thinking, so there is a relevant, in my opinion, critique to the praise, which is what you call the out autopilot. Oh, autopilot praise. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm just thinking it is a relevant thing for new parents to think about if the child is running. The example is always the drawing. Look, mom, I made this drawing and it's for you. And and then the mom started saying it's a beautiful drawing, how you're so good at drawing. And and maybe that was not what was needed in the situation. Maybe you just came back from being away for three weeks, and and the kid actually just needs to give you something and say, I missed you, but the way to say it is I made this drawing for you. And maybe the better response would be, I missed you too. I love you, I'm happy I'm back. But but I don't think it's a wrong response to say, and your drawing is very beautiful, thank you very much. I'll put it on the fridge. And I think this, and I don't really like naming people for when I disagree with them, but I do disagree with this point to be strictly against praising. And it it refers to the judgmental and judging theme. I can say it if I'm impressed by something my children do or don't do, or the way they handle themselves in situations, or something they can draw or achieve in some way. But I did learn from this uh idea of just being aware of what praise can do. I did learn that early on with our children, just to think about is praise what they need right now? Or is it actually something else that's going on? Maybe they I just want to make sure that they know that I I I love them and I am proud or whatever, impressed with who they are, no matter what they do. We just had it. We just came back to Denmark to because our daughter released her third book. And everybody at the reception asked me, because I'm the mother, if I was proud of her, proud of her book. And I don't, I'm not, no, it's her book to be proud of. I love my daughter, I'm impressed with her total being. I'm I'm happy that she's an happy artist and that she writes books she really likes to write. And of course, it's amazing that someone wants to publish them, especially in our very, very, very small language that no one can read except for in Denmark. Um so I think it's it's a good thing to just have an awareness with this theme of being impressed and praising. And I don't want my children to feel they have to be good at something to get my attention or my love. I want to make sure that they know that whether the drawing is beautiful or not, the day is beautiful and our relation is a loving relation. So let's not let's not swipe it completely off the table. It's a relevant critique.

Jesper Conrad: 40:58
No, no, I'm absolutely not trying to swipe it off.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:00
But having it as a religion that you can never praise your children.

Jesper Conrad: 41:04
That's that's too much.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:05
That one I don't agree with.

Sandra Dodd: 41:06
And I don't like I don't like dialogues. People say, well, you know, here's how you say it. And I know there are examples in certain books, you know, and and people can use examples if they really don't have any ideas at all. But some people take that example and they think that they're supposed to recite it. And there's another thing that I that I said years ago, like, don't use the poodle voice. Like if you like, like I don't know if people were talking to me, it's a sweetie thing.

Jesper Conrad: 41:31
Yeah, it it actually may uh make my hair uh stick up in the sky.

Sandra Dodd: 41:38
Yeah, that's that's too false. Yeah, so people can go too far where they're also kind of praising by a dialogue. Yeah, and and so it's better if it's honest communication between humans. That's that's why I believe.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:53
Yeah, and free-flowing, if it becomes a structure and there are so many rules and so many things you have to do and can't do, and have to remember to do twice a day, and and you can't use the word not, and you can't use the word and and you can't use the word use, then it becomes complicated to have a conversation. And I think the more honest and true we can be and present uh wholeheartedly, that's that's the key. And and we make mistakes.

Jesper Conrad: 42:21
And one one of the mistakes uh I know I've made as a dad is I have always when I see something, my first uh thought is how can that become better? That is how I like to learn, that is how I like to do stuff, and um, I've thought about how to say this in English, but um our daughter's uh oldest daughter's nickname for me uh in Danish is Hermen, which translate to Sir Bot, uh which is not your button, well not your button, but uh so it's you would always say yeah, but Korean Peru. But it could be so she called me Sir Bot, but in Danish, and it's fun in English, but and sometimes he actually said to me, Dad, I want you to read this, but can you forget Sir Bot for a second? I actually want to hear uh what you like about it, what you like about it, and then after you have said that, then you can come with Sir Butt to the table.

Cecilie Conrad: 43:19
You can, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 43:21
And I I've I've become better at that to to to hide him away a little because and it but it's actually I've been thinking a lot about it. And what I see is I like what I see so much that I'm like, oh, and this could be even cooler, even more something. And and that guy I've learned to to put a little back, uh, but without being dishonest in my dialogue with my child, but sometimes just taking a step back and thinking, okay, it's not now. Uh now now I need to respond to where my child is right now. Right. Took me some time. That's why it's good to have four children. So

Cecilie Conrad: 44:00
It can ruin the first one.

Jesper Conrad: 44:02
You can ruin the first one.

Sandra Dodd: 44:04
But that's that's where judgment is. Instead of having a whole bunch of rules, like make each decision based on the actual factors in that moment. And I think um, can we talk? Are we up to decisions? Oh, I wanted to say this about judgment. I don't think judgment should be um aimed at shaming anybody, even ourselves. Like, ah, that was embarrassing. I knew better than to do that. I was really tired and I acted like my mom. Um, so I I I'll if it's convenient and not invasive, I'll apologize to the person. Um, or maybe next time we talk about it. Like, um, I was embarrassed last time that I did this, that I got mad so easy. I'm sorry. But to have remorse, to feel guilty, that's good. So those are really close, really close. And some people want to throw all of them away or have all of them. Like, well, you should be. I I think my daughter was probably 12 one day when I kind of jokingly said, Aren't you ashamed of yourself? And she said, What, what? Well, by the time I was 12, I don't know how many times I'd heard that, and they meant it too. They wanted me to be ashamed of myself, and she didn't know, she didn't have the concept. Like, wow, so that's pretty good. She got she got up into double-digit age and didn't know what ashamed of yourself meant. Wow, I was proud of myself. Well done. Yeah, I'll judge you now.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:30
Well done.

Sandra Dodd: 45:35
Once in a while you get a bonus, you get a bonus like that where you learn something that you didn't know how you could have you can't learn it otherwise. You can't test it. You can't, you know. I wouldn't have thought it. I wouldn't have thought it was possible.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:47
I think the shaming can sometimes be used as a way of doing the manipulation. And we could unfold the idea of how to handle when we think our children actually did something they shouldn't have done, or stepped out of what would be okay for our standards. That's one kind of shame. And there's another kind of shame which might be even more relevant for unschooling parents, which is when I'm cool with whatever is going on, the kid is not wearing shoes today, or I don't know, there could be holes in the jeans, or ketchup on the t-shirt, or loud voices in the museum, whatever. I'm okay with it, I don't have a problem with it. But then other people enter the scene, and maybe I stop being okay with it because the surrounding society, I'm afraid of their judgment, and I feel ashamed of my children's behavior. So that's actually a double thing.

Sandra Dodd: 47:15
There is that's that's a big jump though. Then then you you scan the situation and somebody's unhappy, and you and your team need to maybe tone it down.

Cecilie Conrad: 47:27
But we we're beyond that, more or less. I mean, we if there is a situation where we find we need like a funeral or whatever, we we need to give them instructions. This is how we think it's proper to behave in this context, um, they more or less just comply or don't come.

Sandra Dodd: 47:46
Um but when they were little, when what when they what okay, so people who have younger kids now, they didn't they can they can work by rules and say unschoolers don't have to be quiet in the museum, which is not true unless the unschoolers own the museum. You know, you want to buy um or they could they could they could impose all the rules on their kids out of fear of imaginary people who aren't even there, their own grandmothers who you know are gone to heaven or wherever. Um there, but still, you know, they're in their in their voices are in their head. Um so you can go too far either way. So in the middle is are we disturbing the peace? Let's don't.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:31
And also, I think this the whole idea of working by rules can be a problem. I think it's it's it has for us worked very well to say there's a context here where I can't have. I remember the classic example of there was a phase where one of our sons really liked to wear dresses, and he had a lot of dresses. He and you know, his older sister grew out of them and he liked them and he wore the dresses, and we didn't care. We didn't care, um we still called him a boy, and and so it was not a gender fluid kind of project in our family at all. He just, I don't really care that much about clothes. They put on some clothes, they like them. I'm happy, they're happy. That's it. But he liked his dresses, and one day we were going to his birthday party. Um and our son wanted to dress up really nice, so he took his most beautiful dress and put it on for going to the birthday party, and that one, uh yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 49:30
That that the um I the we had a long talk and ended with a dress with a shirt on top that he wore for like exactly 15 minutes, yeah. But I needed to appear for for the general public with a this is a boy, he has a shirt on, so all is good, and then but what I liked about the situation was you arrived at a point where you didn't need to say boys wear shirts.

Cecilie Conrad: 49:56
No, no, no, you you had the honesty to say, I'm sorry, I can't handle this. This is my mother, and she will probably not understand, or her and her friends will even more not understand. And and I and maybe you were even wrong. Maybe my mother-in-law wouldn't have cared.

Jesper Conrad: 50:16
If it was just at her place, it wouldn't have been a problem.

Cecilie Conrad: 50:18
It doesn't matter. The thing is, you own it, you don't put out a general rule that you can never say anything about what they wear, because you can if it really disturbs you. And on the other hand, you're not judging your child, you're saying it's a beautiful dress, I know you love it. Please wear a shirt on top of it, please. Yeah, for me. Yeah, that happens.

Jesper Conrad: 50:40
You have walked a long path uh with having small children and all the way up to grown-ups. Um, and taking this choice as being uh not taking a choice, but being an on-school mom. Have you had periods where you were now when we talk judgment, uh, were afraid of how other people looked at you, or how did you work with that in your life?

Sandra Dodd: 51:05
When my oldest was eight, seven or eight, he wasn't reading yet. A lot of boys aren't, even if they're in school. And my mother-in-law said, 'Well, why isn't he reading?' And I thought, I should try to get him to read. I think he was eight, and he really loved ninja turtles, and the toys used to cost five dollars, little ninja turtle figures. And so I said, if you read with me for half an hour, I'll buy you a ninja turtle. So we sat down and we did like reading lessons, and I bought him a ninja turtle. And the second time he didn't like it, and I bought him a ninja turtle. And the third time I asked him, and he just like thumped his head down on the table like that. And I went, okay, sorry. Let's just go get Ninja Turtles and not read. I thought, okay, this is stupid. You know, I uh the first time I thought, well, maybe my mother-in-law will shut up. And the second time I thought, he's not really gonna get this, is he? And the third time I thought, I'm not gonna make him happy so that she could go, he's reading. So then I I was cured, I was totally cured, but that was um that was before uh Marty was even old enough to decide he was gonna stay home. So that was an early sort of an inoculation for me. Yeah, um, I had the scar for years.

Cecilie Conrad: 52:18
Oh, oh, I have a much worse reading story.

Sandra Dodd: 52:21
Yeah, so it's like okay. Um, my I had I lost a friend over it, a friend who was a teacher. He used to come hang around at my house almost every day. And when I decided not to send Kirby to school, she said, that's very selfish of you

Sandra Dodd: 52:36
to keep him home. But she was she was she taught at the school for the deaf. She taught sign language to mostly kids who were deaf and had other problems, deaf and other special needs. So that's a very focused and niche job. And she worked in at for the state school for the deaf, and then she worked at a local preschool in Albuquerque for those kids so they didn't have to live in Santa Fe. And she would try to teach the parents sign language and a bunch of stuff like that, too. It's like, okay, I taught in schools, I know the arguments for if all the kids go here, there'll be more inclusion, there'll be more variety. Uh I know all of that, but I'm not gonna sacrifice my kids to the slight possibility that the school will shut up. You know, they won't. It's like my mother-in-law saying doesn't he read yet? So those things went together for me. It's like, I'm sorry, Barb, you I then don't come around anymore because I'm not gonna sacrifice my child's happiness for your occasional comfort. And I wasn't mean to her about it, and I didn't even say all that to her. I just let her go. And she was Holly's godmother, and she sewed a lot and used to make Holly costumes for our medieval studies club, and then she quit. She never, you know, she just quit. She got really angry with me. We can still be in the same place if we're at a party or whatever, or sometimes I go to her house to see something, do something. We're fine because we don't talk about how well unschooling went for our family. None of that. It just it's we politely don't talk about it. She was wrong, I was right, but she never had kids either. So um there's some disconnect. Yeah, there are some things I knew that she couldn't know.

Jesper Conrad: 54:17
Yeah, and that's fine.

Sandra Dodd: 54:18
That's but I did. I I've lost some friends, I've irritated some relatives, I've mystified some neighbors.

Jesper Conrad: 54:27
Mystified some neighbors. I love that. Oh, we have mystified some neighbors in our mystified a lot of neighbors.

Cecilie Conrad: 54:37
Oh my goodness. I think we also lost a lot of friends, but not in open conflict. No, more like obviously, we no longer have any friends who are school teachers.

Jesper Conrad: 54:50
I I have one.

Cecilie Conrad: 54:52
Well, you have one.

Sandra Dodd: 54:52
Yeah, okay. We have I have a couple, I have a couple, and then they used to tell people to call like if they had kids who were not doing well in school and were not gonna do well in school, they would slip the parents my phone number or my address, you know.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:03
Yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:04
That was nice. But as life evolves, the group of people we hang out with changes. We have I personally have some friends who are like life witnesses, soul mates that I will hold on to probably forever. But in my years on this planet, I've had this group of people and then that group of people, and and of course, when you start unschooling, then you meet new people and they will become your tribe or your friends for a while, and and then you grow and you meet other people. It's not like really has to be really a problem or a problem of values and judgment, it's also just having something to share and doing some parallel things that we so that we can but as to shame and judgment.

Sandra Dodd: 55:58
That's how I dealt with a couple of pressure, pressure stories. If I had just rolled over and changed and and done what that person wanted, my kids wouldn't have been, wouldn't probably have been as happy, and that person wouldn't have really been fully happy. You know, as it's just I'm a small part of that life, I'm a big part of my kids' life. Yeah, but it's better to better to go with what they need and want. I before my husband, before we had our first baby, um, my husband and I didn't really plan to have kids, or we didn't ever both plan it at the same time. You know, we'd one of us might be thinking about it, the other one's going, yeah, I don't think so. Um, so we were in our 30s before we had the first one, and he was an accident. Um, I had a broken leg and blah blah blah. It's a long story. But we had a lot of childless friends who didn't intend to have kids. Several couples, and we hung around a lot. And then I got pregnant, and then we had three kids, and then we didn't hang, we couldn't hang around with them much because it's just incompatible situation. And then when our kids were teens and we could get out more, we started hanging around with them a lot, especially my husband started hanging around with them more, and that was that was nice that they were still there, yeah. You know, I didn't say, Well, sorry, you've been gone for 15 years, so we're not interested in you anymore. It wasn't like that at all. It was just like it the same things that kept it from working before were you know, let it work now. The kids were old enough to take care of themselves, yeah. Yeah, let's go do some things. So sometimes things change back.

Jesper Conrad: 57:23
Absolutely.

Sandra Dodd: 57:23
Sometimes they do.

Jesper Conrad: 57:24
We we uh have uh in our dialogue back and forth on email, we have talked a little about talking about two subjects. One is for later, which is the learn nothing day. I look forward to go I look forward to going into that.

Cecilie Conrad: 57:38
It's because yes, it's a dessert.

Jesper Conrad: 57:41
Uh but uh you mentioned about uh talking about decisions, right?

Sandra Dodd: 57:48
Um, I think uh that's something that came out of that medieval study stuff. It's called Society for Creative Anachronism. My husband's off at an event right now, and my son is the king of the local uh of the kingdom southwest, most of the southwest US. Um, so they're still playing a lot. I played very hard for I don't know, 10 or 15 years, but I'm not doing it. I haven't done it for a while. But that's where that philosophy discussion was associated with that. And in within that club, we had a friend one night who was going to be knighted, and he so we'd have a we had a vigil where we have put up a tent and a fire, and then people come and speak with him one at a time about philosophical things, about the change in his life, about what kind of a man he wants to be. I liked those. They last all night. We keep the guy up all night, sleep deprivation like a cult, you know, and then there's the ceremony in the morning, and then he can sleep it all off. Um, but it wasn't sleep deprivation like a cult, it was a medieval tradition of staying in the colour.

Cecilie Conrad: 58:45
Well, if it had been a cult, he couldn't sleep at all. Making a joke, but it wasn't.

Sandra Dodd: 58:51
We know, we know. I know. Somebody's gonna come and quote me. Uh no, no, no, no. Oh, that's my sorry, my medieval name. So anyway, so the in that in that meeting, he said to me, I don't have a nice camp. I just have a commercial tent. I have a folding chair. You guys have all of this nice furniture and a you know, a big tent and you know, nice dishes, and I'm embarrassed that I will be, you know, of a higher rank in the club, but I don't have nice equipment. And I said, but we got these things one at a time. You know, I made

Sandra Dodd: 59:33
that tent and we, you know, bought this tent for used. And and I said, when I go to the thrift store, I just get things that look old, that look, you know, wooden or pewter or silver or whatever. One at a time, if I find something cheap, I'll buy it and replace something with you know, something gets replaced with something better gradually. And I said, And Keith made those benches. And you know, you just we didn't go get all this stuff at once, and you shouldn't even think about it. Just when you're gonna buy a tent, if all you can afford is a nylon tent, don't get the orange one, get the brown one. If you can, if you can afford canvas instead of nylon, get the canvas. And I said, just make the more medieval choice, I told him. And then somebody else like threw me out. He said, Oh, your time's up. I want I need to talk to him. Okay, fine. So I come out of there all like proud of this idea that I've just come up with. So I go back to my camp and tell everybody, oh, I just said this really cool thing to Leaf. I said, make the more medieval choice. Because now I'm telling him he's wondering how to make his camp better. And they went, Wow, that is good. When I came into unschooling, and people are saying, I don't know how to become the kind of unschooler you guys are, because I'm scared. I still think about school subjects all the time. I still have all these voices in my head saying, tell them to sit down, shut up, go to bed at eight, eat this, eat it now, eat it at the table. Um, I don't know how to get there. And I said, every time you make a choice, think which way do you want to be and make the better choice? So that directly telling Leif how to make a more medieval camp turned into how to move from being really traditionally harsh parent who thinks kids probably can't learn without school. Even though you want it, you want it, but you don't believe it, to a person who can be calm. And I said, So, right away, if you want to be more peaceful, I said, if you're really mad at your kid, the adrenaline comes and you want to hit him or yell at him, give yourself a choice. Don't don't do the first thing you think, don't do the second thing you think. Think this, make a choice. And it's all might with adrenaline, things go fast, it might happen in three seconds. But if you didn't think first, you acted thoughtlessly. And that wasn't worth telling Leif because Leif wasn't talking about hitting anybody, he was just talking about something peaceful, which is buying some better goblets or bowls. Um, but but when parents are like, I still spank him, I still spank him, and I'm always sorry, but I spank him because my parents spanked me, because that church they say to spank or whatever. You know, people had different reasons. And I'd say, well, just don't spank him, make a better choice. And so you didn't spank him, you just yelled. Okay, next time your choice starts at am I gonna yell or now think of something a little more peaceful than yelling. Make a choice. Maybe you don't have time yet, you're too mad and you yell, and you just pat yourself on the head that you didn't spank. That's a little step, that's one step. But then that if that becomes a habit, making the better choice and acting thoughtfully, thought by thinking, and making a decision based on thoughts and all the stuff we've talked about for the past hour, you know, factors. What are the factors today? Yeah, how calm can I make myself? And people get better at calming themselves. Um, I think that's that's what I wanted to say about making decisions is it does involve judgment because you need to know that something's better than something else. That whole denial of, as far as I know, the whole thing about uh, I can't think of the term right now, but the idea that that there aren't things that are better than other things, I think that came out of anthropology. Um, 20th century, like telling people it's not okay to judge the costumes of a tribe that live on an island in the Pacific by what people in New England wear, by what people in France wear. And the missionaries made that mistake. They they told people, uh a lot of the late 19th century missionaries, probably American missionaries, but maybe English, went out to Pacific Islands and they they talked the women into wearing like high necks, long sleeves, you know, boots, and dressing like they lived in London or something. And some of those people died, like physically died, because you can't wear those things there. Maybe the missionaries could because they were too ashamed not to. But that yeah, it was just a lot of people. But but the but the the idea that that all ideas are equal, that to say, to say you can't judge another culture by your rules, by the taboos of your own culture. Um I I wear shoes in the house, and people who are from places who don't wear shoes in the house think that's just disgusting. Well, okay. Live in the desert where you where there are stickers and you might, you know, things are just different, different places. Um, and so I think it's the same with the decision making that unschoolers do to get to where they're going. They start in a place. But if they like to believe, oh I start, I didn't get there. So the idea, the idea that anthropologists can talk about about uh you uh what's good a good idea in one place is not necessarily a good idea in another place. What's moral or ethical, even in one place? You can't you can't always impose your ethics and your rules and your sins on another culture. But some people took that too far and said all ideas are equal. Yeah, like everything is equal. There's nothing that's better than something else. It's like, wait, wait, wait. Within a culture, you where's the context? Again, back to context. If I go to Japan, I'm not gonna wear my shoes in the house. If I go to Minnesota, I don't even I try not to wear my shoes in the house, but I forget. I stayed with a Muslim family. I forgot once to take my shoes off, and then she had a big spider in the basement and I killed it, and then for a second we were all glad I had my shoes on. You know, it again, it's that was the best at the moment, but I've really tried to remember to take my shoes off. Not because having shoes off is better, but in the context of being in that house, in that place at that time, me wearing my shoes was not okay. It wasn't my house.

Jesper Conrad: 01:05:35
No.

Sandra Dodd: 01:05:36
And I've used that example about beds. Um, and because you said you can't live by rules. Can you jump on the bed? Maybe. And and I've always told people, maybe start with this answer when when you're asking when you're asking yourself a question. First answer, it depends. Can you jump on the bed? Maybe it depends. Yeah. Whose bed? What kind of bed? Where is this bed? Is it? carpet is it already kind of junky yeah jump are you five years old or are you a grown up man i cannot jump in a bed anymore and then it's not a bed anymore yeah but if a but if a but if a family says yes you can jump on beds they might be saying you can jump on all the beds in our house that doesn't mean then come jump on all the beds at my house because I know which ones are old and fragile or that I really like or are new or that if you fall off you fall on dangerous stuff or stuff I don't want broken. So it depends. And I think that's a really good answer when people ask questions it depends. And now you get that opportunity to go oh yeah right judgment what are the factors and so if people can make the better choice about anything making their marriages better um doing better at work making their dog or their cat happier um then then they it becomes a habit to give yourself a choice and and also I think it's a good a good way to remind people that just deciding once to unschool isn't enough. Like just deciding to get married isn't enough. Having a wedding isn't enough I promise I'll be nice to you forever and ever I promise in front of all our friends that's not enough you have to then decide that afternoon not to be a whiny brat you have to decide in the morning to smile when you wake up instead of saying I wish I was still asleep. Oh yes good morning on the first day of our real marriage. To be nice in moments is what being nice is about not just promising that you'll be nice and acting however you want to and saying well that's as nice as I could be and I think some people unschool like that. Well I decided to unschool and then I waited a few weeks and he didn't do anything. He didn't lead he didn't he didn't develop a passion. It's like what were you doing?

Jesper Conrad: 01:07:48
Yeah so I I I think it's all kind of related judgment and decision making well it has to be um we can't make any decisions if we don't have any judgment any value system we can't you guys are driving all around you guys are driving all around Europe right yes awesome you don't just randomly pick left or right when you come to an intersection right we have a plan we are open to changing it but we have a plan and we have a reason for our plan that's and and I think a schedule well yeah that too yeah but we we change everything is down to values or when we get in doubt we choose in favor of our values or as you would say we make the better choice we look at what is important in each of us lives and then we we go in in that direction that is the best choice uh for I'm super curious Sandra uh this medieval thing i i i it's popping up in my mind all the time how did that start because that is sounds so nerdy uh to have medieval tents uh i need to know how did it start yeah and where are you now you have tents and somebody is knighted and stuff it's it's oh yeah uh I can send you some stuff on the side people can look it up look up Society for creative anachronism but any historical reenactment groups there are so many there's civil war there um in in England they do the Battle of Hastings every year and people come with the best armor they have the first year and the next arm the next year they have better armor and I think that I know a friend of mine of mine in Berkshire is part of a Viking reenactment thing and sometimes they get to be inside a castle like some old castle that just the walls and they'll set up their Viking tents inside there and have their own little Viking party for a couple of days. But how did it start for you Sandra?

Sandra Dodd: 01:09:51
Oh how did it start for me? I was interested in the Middle Ages since I was a little kid and recently like 10 years ago recently 10 years ago I um bought the the DVDs of a show that was

Sandra Dodd: 01:10:02
on TV in the United States when I was a little kid uh Robin Hood series and I watched it again. So you know you couldn't a lot of the shows that were on in the 50s and 60s you just couldn't watch until recently and uh and I watched every one of them and I took notes um and I printed out the the episode so I could take notes with it. It's like that's where my interest in recorder playing came from I think that's where my interest in a lot of like I'm really interested in wheelbarrows um just as a historical thing. Weapons I was I was always interested in weapons and armor but there's there are things in those stories about cooking about the crusades about you know all this stuff so for me that was like I think my first time when I was really aware of how many connections could be made from one interest. And as I watched it I was seeing all these things the costumes were good. It was a good series it was in black and white but there were the music was real the music was was period music and the language the writing was good they weren't trying to fake older English but they were being a more formal than people were talking in New Mexico and 60s and and the acting was good. And so I so watching that and thinking of of me being little and watching it and not knowing as much as I did because I was really really little like seven eight nine when I watched it um that that for me seemed to be the seed of it but I used to draw pictures of knights in castles and dragons and whatever um just fantasy stuff. I liked fairy tales when I started playing playing guitar I liked older songs and then I started liking medieval ballads uh I just always was I was playing recorder I was I already was doing a bunch of stuff I already had a costume and then some friends of mine said there's this club and it at the time it was 10 years old and it started uh 12 years old 11 or 12 years old because they were deciding whether this was uh May 1st is the anniversary but it started in in uh California near San Francisco near Berkeley um by some people that I knew later but they just had a backyard party like they had a party and they dressed up and they played once and then they did it again and then other people were going to come. So it grew out of that by the time I was playing um they were it was all over the country and now it's all over the world but there are other ones too and then there's another thing called LARP live action role playing but that's not what we're doing. And that's more like DD and costume with casting spells and stuff. So that's like playing playing a game yeah that's different. And we're playing too I think I was the first person used to call it playing they used to call it participating in and so we're playing because I'm playing like I'm Alpha Ductor I'm playing like I'm a sex and you know and it's a thousand years ago. But it's it's an it's it's an excuse for people who have those interests to make costumes to make armor to make food to cook for a bunch of people food that's exotic and I have probably 10 medieval cookbooks and stuff like that. I don't do it anymore but it was so fun when I did and that's where I met my husband because I I lived in another town but I used to come to Albuquerque every Sunday to because they had a a gathering and somebody was supposed to start come running a madrigal group for us a nun from another another another town was supposed to come and teach us music. Somebody had arranged for it and she didn't show up so there's a group there a pretty big group almost 20 people and so we looked around twiddling our thumbs she's not coming and says anybody know some rounds that we could do and I was like I do I know a lot of songs that are period so I taught some songs and the next week she didn't come either well she'll come next week the next week she didn't come either I thought she might not and I had brought some music of these people who were there this one guy was a really good singer and he could read music and like ooh sexy so later on it turns out this guy uh Keith who's now my husband for a long time he was also a really good fighter and won tournaments and stuff and so a couple of times people said oh you must have liked him because he was so good at that I said no I liked him because he could sing. People have insulted me and said you're that's not true. That's not true. I say you don't know you don't know guys I know I always hung out with the with the musicians not the jocks but sometimes a person is both. Yeah yeah well thank you for that story wonderful I loved it it's not about unschooling but it is about it it's about following your passion which I think uh that uh a lot of unschooling is and there and that's and that reinforced my confidence about people learning what they're interested in and about the connections that can be made yeah and to go all in right I had a lot of confidence by the time I was unschooling nobody could tell me that you can't learn on your own for fun because I've been doing it my whole life and I was I was at one point the the corporate president of that club I was I was really all in um yeah for years and I in the days of newsletters I've done newsletters I'm the only person who was ever the chronicler the you know who did the newsletters and the record keeping for every level a small a small town group a city group uh principality kingdom and corporate um so yeah I did a lot of paperwork and now people don't even appreciate that when I go you don't you don't know how many newsletters I did they don't what do you mean a newsletter? Yeah those things change too yeah they do but still that's what my website is is keeping track of what has happened. Yeah it's uh kind of the history of unschooling and I like my website I made a new page the other day because whenever I I find out that there's a topic that I don't have a page on I try to make one. So if somebody comes and says I have this weird problem or this weird idea then I can just send them that one link and every page leads to at least three other pages. That's the design of it. Instead it's like a prairie dog village. So every hole leads to another hole or two but my my pattern is every every page leads to at least three pages. So if people start in there it's like a choose your own adventure book. Yeah they went in there to read about one thing decision making or whatever being your child's partner but it'll lead to another couple of things and they can read till they're tired and quit. Yeah and then come back tomorrow I wouldn't know that people could use that page on their own I kind of thought it wouldn't happen but as an as an adjunct to a really busy discussion is perfect. And people say save this one you know in the discussion somebody write something save that okay I'd put it over there it was like the bank put this one in the bank and um it is a very rich website yeah but I've gotten fan mail too in the past year of people who are just on their own somewhere and they learn to unschool from that website and wrote me a letter.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:16:54
I think it's very different in Europe from the states because we are such a small group here people haven't heard about unschooling it's very new it's very rare it's very different here in and we when we first started there was not much to find and probably nothing I don't think I read anything from Europe. Everything was American and it's good stuff but it's not exactly the same culture and very much not the same context especially because one big point of being on school in Europe is most likely you're all alone.

Sandra Dodd: 01:17:36
You'll be the only one in your town that's not fair because that's that happened here too a lot of people were isolated physically but they but then thanks to being able to be online they were able to yeah yeah so the physical isolation I just don't think people talk online the way they did because now people go to Facebook and it's so overwhelmingly about everything. But in the days that there were discussion groups you could go you open your computer and you go where there's nothing happening but unschooling and there were several I like them I like the forum bulletin boards or or bulletin boards or discussion lists. On bulletin boards you had to go deposit directly right there but with the discussion list you could just do it by email you didn't have to see anything else you didn't want to see and so that was clean and pure it was not junked up with you can't even get there without seeing stories about car wrecks and Donald Trump and a bunch of crap. Yeah so it's so depressing now being online because things have advertisements everywhere and just it's junky. It's junkie like a bad neighborhood with a bunch of junk in the alley compared to the way it used to be so when we used to be able to have a really dedicated discussion and then have pages that to send people to that was perfect. That was ideal there are a lot of unschoolers in England and there are a fair number in Spain. There are two different groups in Spain that don't like each other I don't know they probably like each other fine but they don't they don't mesh the beliefs are enough different that they don't work together that well but that's okay. But each has pretty many families and sometimes they have conferences or gatherings like camp out or something. Yeah Spain and now learn nothing thing can we talk about learn nothing do we need to do definition of learning first of unschooling I brought some oh I would love that first yeah okay in 1998 in 1998 I was interviewed and I wrote it was in writing it was an email interview but it was published in home education magazine and it's on my site and part of what I wrote near the end was try not to learn don't try to learn those two aren't the same thing but they're close enough for beginners um and then at the end of that paragraph I wrote given a rich environment learning becomes like the air it's in and around us so that was not exactly a definition but it was so that's 1998. That was while back and somewhere a few years after that I wrote I couldn't find out where I went to search for it. I had the quote but I don't know where I where the original is and sometimes the originals can't be found anymore because they're on some site that's gone. I wrote unschooling is a commitment to living in such a way that learning happens all the time every day all year and I wrote that and I saved it

Sandra Dodd: 01:20:22
and that was before 2008 because in 2008 I hope maybe 2009 I came up with learn nothing day but my best definition of unschooling is unschooling is creating and maintaining an atmosphere in which natural learning can flourish so that's that's my um distilled over the years best definition creating and maintaining because you can't just create it and let it run on its own you gotta you have to be there. Yeah so one day somebody said something about I don't see learning happening all the time and I said okay but that's that you're not seeing it don't you think no I don't think learning happens every day I don't think it happens all the time okay so then I made this just for fun I happen to know because of my birthday my birthday is not a holiday anywhere except in Utah in Utah July 4th is the day that the pioneers came over the ridge and saw the Salt Lake Valley and decided to stay there. So in Utah they have parades and picnics and so I thought you can't possibly go to a parade and a picnic and not learn something so I said the very first year I thought it was just going to be a one day I thought it was going to be one thing but it every every year it has come back I said okay uh on July 24th we're gonna have a holiday we're gonna have a vacation from learning all the unschoolers just don't learn anything that day okay one day you can do it. And it was partly a demonstration to prove that those people were wrong who were saying sometimes you don't learn it was it was a like a living demo of okay prove it put up or shut up let's see let's see you not learn and so I made a big deal I had an art competition Holly made me a logo and made a big deal that first year and reminded people every day 10 more days till we're gonna learn nothing nine more days till learn nothing day big countdown. And so of course people start writing immediately like nine in the morning I woke up and by the time I wake up in New Mexico even then when I was waking up at seven or six in the morning it's already half the the day's over you know New Zealand's already failed 12 hours ago by the time it comes around to here all of Europe is reporting in all of the rest of the United States because I'm in this third time zone across they're all going ah we only lasted till breakfast and so it was the most glorious day of people telling a story of how learning popped up and I didn't expect that. I did expect that people go okay it didn't work. But what I didn't expect was that it would be a festival of learning stories. It was that cool so every year I've done it the last few years weren't very fun. You know I mean it wasn't situations weren't great but I'm gonna do it this year I'm gonna I'm gonna put out some i've i've I've written a a letter of cease and desist of what cease and desist you know a cease and desist letter is a letter that you send to someone who's like violating your copyright or maybe owes you money or something and you say oh okay this is a formal letter cease and desist stop doing whatever okay I'm writing a letter to tell people to cease and desist but I always said from the beginning void in Utah and then it would that was a test too that was a that was a demonstration also and the way to lose was to write to me and say why why is it void in Utah and the first few times I kind of laughed and said you should look it up huh and the 45th time I was kind of pissed off and that's that's that's not fair because that person didn't know she was number 45. No but um you know it's like okay we're talking about learning we're talking about unschooling I just said all the unschoolers in the whole world except Utah need to learn nothing on this day. Why would I say that all you gotta do is go to Google and put in July 24th Utah and you read all about how far they walked from Illinois to Utah the Mormons in 1850 whatever it was and it's you know I didn't make that story I'm not Mormon I don't live in Utah but I just have a lot of friends who do and I remember that you know they said oh your birthday's on Pioneer Day will remember your birthday because it's Pioneer Day. So I remember Pioneer Day too. So that's what Learn Nothing Day is and I don't have it right here to read you but there is a page on my site I could send you the link if you want the criticisms of Learn Nothing Day where people have come and said well I thought unschoolers never learned anything anyway I would never tell my children not to learn it's just funny. I mean the the the kind of criticism that people would do it's like okay you need to maybe google my name or maybe you know maybe maybe at least read a little bit before you jump in and tell people they're wrong.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:25:34
So how will it be staged this year?

Sandra Dodd: 01:25:37
Learn nothing I'll just put online I have a blog about it and I'll just people can read the old stuff Holly made a new logo last year. Um so I'll just I'll just put that if the listeners want to participate or contribute oh then in your own place put in your oh on july 24th just try try not to learn see how long you can go it it really it's very confidence building because people who think well I could probably go till noon can't no they they all fail which is glorious which is proof that you can't go a day without learning and so sometimes people who were kind of lacking confidence not skeptical but they just hadn't really gotten there as to fully confident about unschooling sometimes that tips it for them it's a beautiful tradition.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:26:31
I love it.

Sandra Dodd: 01:26:32
I have a Facebook group but outside of Facebook and that blog I don't do other I don't do other platforms I I can't figure out Twitter. I don't like I like to I like to collect stuff clearly obviously so I don't like twitter because you put something out there and everybody shares it out and it goes a thousand places or 10 places and then there are comments I could I wouldn't be able to follow all the comments so I don't like it. I don't do the other ones.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:26:58
I think you should just keep going strong I mean you have everything on your site it's just for people to change behavior a little bit and get out of social media and go make a decision I want to read Sandra done and then and uh set aside three months at least I'm wondering do we have time for one more topic? Yes but wait don't tell don't tell them three months because what what I what I I came up with something uh I spoke one time in in Quebec and I said I wanted something new to say there that they could have for theirs and it was read a little try a little wait a while watch yeah so reading a little bit is better yeah dip your toe and uh do it again later yeah that's better true true I've just been having this little little insect in my mind in this conversation and that's because you said uh somewhat in the beginning when you talked about a group the group where you Know one rule was we only discuss real children, not imaginary children. And the example was I have this 10-year-old at home and he plays video games. I think the video game, which is maybe not any more called video game, but gaming problem or computer games. So um this topic takes sense of stage in many conversations on unschooling, and it's a little bit like the I decided to unschool, and then they did nothing. Now I hear a lot of parents saying I decided to unschool, and all they did was play computer games. So I stopped. It's one of the big dividers. Dividers, yeah. And I was just wondering, would you unfold your ideas on this theme?

Sandra Dodd: 01:28:52
When my kids were little, a computer game cost $60. Just and you had to put one the first one we got was in black and white for a Macintosh. You had to stick 10 discs in, 10 little discs, and it might not totally load. So, but we had three games for them when they were little on the computer. When Kirby got a little older, he played um Nintendo at somebody's house. He played Mario on a Nintendo machine, and he loved it so much that when he was at their house, he couldn't do anything

Sandra Dodd: 01:29:23
but that. And then when I would come to get him, he would cry because he didn't get to play with the boys. But when he got there, it's like game or boys. So I told Keith we need we have to get him one so he can play at the house, and then when he goes to their house, he can play with the boys. And we did and we talked about it, and that really helped. And I could just see, I was because I wasn't afraid of things, I could just see all the learning he was doing, playing those games. So I wasn't afraid of it. But I also wasn't in communication with a whole lot of people at that early time when he was four or five. And um, so that was when this first Nintendo system came out. So we grew up alongside Nintendo. As he got older, the other Nintendos came out, and we'd always buy a new one. My kids played Rock Band and Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero as those came out. They were teens. We were a good age for video game learning. We missed Minecraft. So when Minecraft came out, my kids are too big, didn't care. One of them plays now with his son. Uh I could see the learning in it, and it didn't scare me. I didn't see it as different than a book or a puzzle or a game. I mean, it was a game. And I just never was afraid. And the other people that we were hanging around with said, well, you know, try it. What happens if you what what happens to your relationship with your child if he loves something and you say no? What happens to learning if the only way he can get what he wants is to be away from you, to be somewhere else, to be potentially sneaky, dishonest. There's no benefit to that at all. And invariably the parents who say, I'm not gonna let him do that, are just speaking in the voice of somebody else. They're channeling somebody else. It's not their own thoughts, it's not something that they made the better decision about, that they made the better choice. It's them just reciting what their friend said or what they think their mother-in-law is gonna say, or all those things that I already went through and said, No, my kids are more important than that. Or it's somebody who wants to unschool, but she wants it to look like school. She wants it to look like a Boy Scout meeting, she wants it to look like summer camp. And she has these pictures that you can take photos of. And she doesn't want it to look like a kid sitting there staring and not interacting with her. Um, if you go to Always Learning, I noticed just before I came here, I approved a post from somebody saying that she her kid just turned 12 and he doesn't want her to watch him play video games anymore. He's he wants her to go away, let him play. And she's wondering if that's okay. I I didn't, I just approved it, but it'll be in there if you if you if you want to join Always Learning, or you can go read it without joining. Um, so there'll they'll we'll see what discussion comes from that because all the people in that group who who write well, who have written a long time, who are experienced there, they let their kids play games. And especially sorry, I have pages and pages of of stories about Minecraft because I didn't I didn't my I missed it with my kids, but there are other people who have documented the heck out of the things that their kids learned with that.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:32:32
So uh should I say more or should I just No, I think I just think it's a relevant topic. I usually bring it up if it's you know, I find it. I'm sorry, we didn't prepare for this, I know, but I thought maybe I could put it in there anyway, because I know it's a worry, it's a real worry for many parents. And um I agree that the idea that it's toxic or dangerous or um that you can become addicted or whatever, it comes from not from inside the mind of the parents, it comes from the culture that we're in, and and in many ways it comes from people who never played a computer game and who have some ideas about how what childhood should look like. I I totally agree with you. I just on the other hand, I find it hard to really answer the question when I'm asked how should we cope with this in our family, or how should I handle this feeling that it's too much, or that we should maybe also do some of the summer camp things and the computer takes center stage. It's it is a real worry, and maybe the best advice is to let go and let the kids play. Um, but I'm I'm not personally not sure. I think it depends on I'm happy to hear that because I think we need some voices on the topic and some fearless voices.

Sandra Dodd: 01:34:08
I I've seen I've seen people try to limit it. I've seen people criticize the kids about it, I've seen people throw the machines away. Um, I've seen people lie and unplug them and say they were broken to

Sandra Dodd: 01:34:19
little kids. I've seen all kinds of nonsense. None of it helped the relationship between the child and the parent. Without that relationship, unschooling isn't gonna work. So it's not about video games, it's about what kind of human are you, what kind of parent are you, what kind of thinker are you? Are you just gonna believe you think you vaguely heard somebody say you can become addicted? What do you what do you mean by addiction? So a lot of times we just get people out of that by asking them questions. What do you mean, addicted? Well, he'll want to play it as soon as he wakes up. Is that game new? Is he it's a light? It's like a big puzzle with music and lights. And I play video games, and I want I want to keep up with it. If there's something you gotta show up every day to get this, you know, thing at the end of the month, you get a bunch of points. I'll do it. It's like playing cards. Some people really like to play cards or dominoes or poker or whatever. You know, they some some adults have some game that they like to play. Risk, some board game or something. And nobody criticizes that. Video games are way better than that because you can do it by yourself or you can do it with other people who your cousins in other cities.

Jesper Conrad: 01:35:24
Yeah. I I think something that changed my mind about it was uh we talked with Darcia Navis on a podcast in an earlier episode where uh she mentioned the the indigenous species, she's an anthropologist and looked into that. They let their children play with uh all the tools they use and are going to use when they grow up. They they they they can play with arrows, knives, whatever, but the poisoned arrow they uh remove from the child. Uh and I that made me think about then what is the poisoned arrow in what we are doing? There are parts of the internet uh that I find that's not a place I want my junkyard.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:36:11
We just heard that.

Jesper Conrad: 01:36:12
Yeah, the junkyard part of it. That's that's what I would find the poisoned arrow. But I need to, as a parent, think about then not all gaming is bad, absolutely not. But other some games I'm not fond of, then but then I need to look into them, understand them, talk with my child about what do I not like about this game or what do I not like about uh YouTube shows shows or whatever it is I dislike and and and tell them why I think stuff is good or stuff is bad. Uh so I like the poisoned arrow um idea about it, and I love playing games with my kids. We just bought VR headsets, and I am really enjoying listening to music and have a lightsaber and chopping down the stuff. It's so fun.

Sandra Dodd: 01:37:04
Well, I think sometimes the poison arrow is the parents. Yeah, people go to therapy not about a video game, but about the way the relationship between them and their parents.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:37:17
True. That's a good point.

Sandra Dodd: 01:37:21
That's a very good point.

Jesper Conrad: 01:37:22
Yeah.

Sandra Dodd: 01:37:23
And I've had kids who played all the video games they wanted to, and they would go days or weeks without touching one. So that's how I know. People will say, if I let him, I have a whole page of actual cut and pasted statements. Have you seen that page? It's fun. If I let him, he would and then say something crazy. If left to his own devices, he would just eat bugs and cigarette butts or whatever stupid, like like what try it. Okay, try it. Give him a bowl of bugs and cigarette butts, give him a bowl of MMs, give him a bowl of you know, fruit. Let's see what he eats. He's not gonna eat the bugs and cigarette butts, but I don't tell them, you know, and they don't try it. But the but uh one one friend of ours um who came from a very traditional part of the country from Bible Belt, her favorite thing to say was get a big bowl of MMs. Whenever anybody starts out any of this, any of this video games or anything, she's gonna get a big bowl of MMs and put it out on the table and see how long it is before they don't eat MMs anymore. But if you give, like with Halloween candy, here Halloween's a big deal, and people will pick up enough candy that if the parents say you can only have one piece of candy a day, it could last until Christmas. So if you say you can only have one piece of candy a day, those kids will eat every piece of that candy, no matter how bad it is, no matter how dried up it is, by the time they're getting down to the bottom of the bag, they will eat it because you limited it. All of the people who ever studied Economics 101 know that. They know why. Is there anything you want to give me? Give me the dark chocolate and the coconut. They didn't like that. Give it to me before it dries up. And it's like, yeah, have it. They'll eat 10 or 20 pieces, and the next day they'll eat five or ten. And at some point we throw it away because they're tired of it. They got down to the stuff they didn't want and starting to get hard. And you don't you can't know that that will happen unless you try it. So the parents who are one willing to try will never know. If you say you can only play video games for one hour a day, those kids will play an hour a day every day.

Jesper Conrad: 01:39:29
Yeah.

Sandra Dodd: 01:39:32
Yeah. Whether you say play it or don't, some days they might wake up, turn it on, and play till night because there's a brand new game and it's really exciting. All their friends are talking about it, it's an awesome game, and they haven't played it yet. And if that's so, then the parents should take them some food and some water and let them play because the game won't be new forever. And that once they've played through it once, they may not even play it a second time. So Marty had one called Knights of the Knights of the Old Republic, I think it was about maybe Star Wars. And he played it twice in a row because you could play making the the good guy decisions or the bad guy decisions. So there are like five options, you pick one, and then it goes to another part of the game, another part of the game. And so he played as the best guy he could possibly be, and then he played as the worst guy he could possibly be. And later on, when he played it, so those were like uh campaigns, marches, right? Like, yeah, I'm playing it, I will see what happens. And then he if he played it later, he played it for fun, he played it in the middle, like to go see the stuff he hadn't chosen before. Because you you'll never see that whole game. Because every time they give you five choices, you know, that's too many branches to ever see.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:40:44
Yeah, yeah, that's impossible.

Sandra Dodd: 01:40:46
Yeah, and there's also uh the idea of playing with a game that sometimes kids do with video games that parents often don't understand. There was a one that Holly played, it was Japanese, and it was called um Oh, it's a farming game. Oh, some everybody out there who knows this game is thinking of it. Yeah, uh Harvest Moon. Harvest Okay, and it's old, it's it was for a couple of the middle middle in the Nintendo sets, probably Nintendo 64 and S in uh the Super Nintendo. But she she would play it. You have a farm, you have to find a horse and tame the horse, you can trade something for a dog. If you go and wash the neighbors' horses, oh, that's how you get a horse. You go and wash neighbors' horses, they'll eventually give you a horse. You know, there's all this stuff. Plant these things, get these chickens. And so she um used to do things to see what would happen. She took her chickens to church. There's a church. And then that for me, I'm fascinated by the Japanese view of what you know, because it's a farm set kind of in the United States. It has American holidays and Japanese moon views. So it's sort of a hybrid fantasy world of the United States and Japan. And on Thanksgiving, uh, you give your girlfriend a cake, and I'm like, cakes and Thanksgiving don't go together. There's no cake at Thanksgiving. None. Don't do it. But it's so for me, that was fun. For her, taking the chicken to church was fun. I think the chicken became invisible and still laid eggs or something weird. Like, who would think that? But she's just doing, she's putting things in the wrong place. She watered chickens. That maybe that's how they became invisible. She watered chickens with the watering can, she took it inside the chicken house and started watering chickens, and they became invisible but still laid eggs. That's what it was. But something about the chicken in church, it just stayed there, I guess. And so that's experimenting with materials. That's like an a piece of artistry or storytelling where the the programmers didn't think you were going to do that. No, so they didn't know what would happen either because they didn't plan for you to do that. So sometimes something weird happens, and sometimes the thing just disappears. That's fine.

Jesper Conrad: 01:42:58
But Sandra, one of the things that uh sticks really with me with what you overall are saying is it's about which kind of relationship do you want to have with your people? Um, it's about how you can be honest to together with them. And as you said, you don't go to therapy about not playing a computer game. You get go there to if you have had a bad relationship with your with your parents.

Sandra Dodd: 01:43:27
Because there's some other reasons, but I just of those two, I think parents are more likely the poison arrow.

Jesper Conrad: 01:43:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 01:43:34
But how do you recommend people to work on getting better relationships with their children?

Sandra Dodd: 01:43:46
By by being by being their partners, by de schooling themselves by the parents, recovering enough from their own school fears and prejudices and conditioning that they are confident that learning is happening. I have light coming into that learning is happening um all the time. That learning can come from anything, from playing with a can and some dirt in the backyard

Sandra Dodd: 01:44:14
or playing a high-tech video game with a pelvic. The whole range. It's because it's what the child is thinking and discovering and trying out, and doing something that no one else has ever done before, or doing something that a million people have done before, but it's going to be different for each person because they have, they either did or didn't watch all the old Robin Hood shows. They either did or didn't um travel around Europe. So the connections that you will make from something will be different from even the other unschooling families that you know and hang out with because you have different experiences, because Danish might have different words for different things than their languages had. So there will be every it's so individualized, but school doesn't appreciate or or even reward kids for having more knowledge, outside knowledge, or to have more things to connect it to. It's mostly like just be quiet about that because the other kids didn't get to go. And so let's not talk about that. Let's just talk about what everybody can share. So at school, they kind of sand it down so that everybody's more or less the same and not making too much noise or getting too much attention. But within a family, one kid might just really need attention that day, might really need to play something loud, might really need to go to the water slides, and the parents just know this kid is frazzled and needs to have big muscle, dancing, singing, running around, playing with lightsabers. And another kid might not. Another kid might need to sleep it off or just play a really quiet video game by himself in a room by himself. Take him some food. So by being more in tune with what their kids need, by recovering from their own expectations, by not thinking that they're always right, that just because they think something that makes it true, by being analytical, I think that's with the discussions, the thing about female and male communication is males, I don't see males having that attitude. I thought it and that makes it true, but I see women having it. Because they say, Well, women's intuition, or I just, you know, I just have this feeling, or I just know how what my kid wants. I can tell what my six-month-old is thinking. No, you can't. But women are overconfident about what they just know to be fact. And so we used to say, based on what? Based on what? How can you tell what your six-month-old wants? Did your mom tell what you wanted when you were little? When you were six? Did your mom read your mind? So some I wouldn't like pound on them, but just bring it up. Like whatever, whatever little tweak can help a mom who's saying, video games are bad, video games are poison. I'm not gonna let my kid play video games. What did you like to do when you were a kid? I just like get them to shake off that dialogue or that monologue, that speech that they're making in their head, in their heart to and to everybody. The thing that they're the repeating loop that they have going, look at it. What what's it made out of? Is this whose voice is this that you're hearing in your head? Um is it possible that it doesn't help unschooling? So I think going back to what what makes you a better parent, what's gonna help learning, what's gonna help your relationship with your kids, what's gonna help unschooling. The decisions that are made, I I asked you earlier, but we both talked at the same time, but you said and I think of what you were saying. When people make decisions to make their relationships with their kids better or their marriages better and stuff, it's not one decision a day, even. It's not like you wake up in the morning and said, I'm it's gonna be a great day. It's an old coffee commercial. Um it's every time you're gonna act or speak or decide to do something or not to do something, it's all those decisions. And it's probably not a thousand conscious decisions a day, but it might be a hundred. And those lead you closer or further. It's not a random this or that, don't care, and there's nothing better than anything else. Because that'll just get you muddling around in one place.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:48:11
But I think it's also crucial. I can't remember the exact phrasing of your definition, but you said something like unschooling is creating and maintaining an environment where an atmosphere, yeah, atmosphere where learning can happen. Yeah, and the thing is, this creating and maintaining the atmosphere is about being present. I also like you said something, this uh lady asking, is it okay I leave my 12-year-old and not watch him play computer games anymore? Is it an okay thing that he wants to do it by himself? And I find it very beautiful that she's been sitting there for maybe not 12 years old. Oh, right. Exactly. A lot of parents are so afraid of the gaming, but they don't sit down to understand what it is. They don't try the game, they don't talk to their children about the game, they have no idea what it actually is. So, what I'm trying to say is just this peeling off the layers of our own fears and conditioning and ideas coming from other people or other cultures, even about how it should be. Um do we dare to be present in our lives and to take the challenge? I had the question recently whether I thought it was okay to unschool my children because that would leave them with. Maybe

Cecilie Conrad: 01:50:01
this was actually a very open question, but maybe it would leave them with lesser options when they were coming of age, maybe when they were 20 years old. They would have fewer options. And I said, well, they could just go take that course in mathematics or whatever they don't know at that point. And this person said, Yeah, but maybe they wouldn't. Maybe, you know, maybe they would choose the easy way, the easy path. So your children would never become doctors, even if they really want to be doctors, they wouldn't because they didn't have the math course. That was his idea. And and do I have the courage to face that now and think about it with my own ideas? Or will it scare me off and I'll run down to the store and buy a math book? I think that the job as an unschooling parent is to actually have that conversation, not just write it off, but think about it. Is it okay what I'm doing? Am I okay with it? And can I say more than I feel it's right?

Sandra Dodd: 01:51:14
This will be separated and might be chopped off, but the question about the judgment of other people is related to this too. If somebody else says, like you're saying, what if your child can't become a doctor because he didn't take math classes? Um, my kids learned all of school math in one remedial math class at the junior college. They tested into whatever level they had, and then they that's like a quick review of everything that they're assuming, and because except for my kids, all the other people who were in that class had gone to school for 12 years. So my kids go in there and they're like, okay, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. So they're going from like about you know multiplication and division up to geometry and algebra. Um, and they they were fine with it, they were great with it. They because they wanted to be there, they were interested. And they didn't feel like losers, they felt like this is their first math class. Kirby took his teacher an apple the first day. He said, This is my first day of school here. So I think if a parent, if a parent is too uh timid or or timid or insecure, or suddenly, you know, pick some word like that to stand up to the mother-in-law or the friend who's a teacher, or the person who's saying, What about, what about, what about, then how are they going to stand up to a social worker or somebody from the school district? They need to build their confidence. That's why they need to de-school. Those parents need for this to work well, those parents need to spend more time on their own prejudices and fears and clear that out so that they can see a kid playing video games and go, well, that's cool. Those games aren't even invented when I was a kid. If they had been, I'd probably been playing it myself. Instead of this is evil, we grew up without it, they don't need it. They need to go down and catch frogs.

Jesper Conrad: 01:53:15
The dialogue we're having reminds me of uh a dialogue I had once at work. Uh I talked with a female uh colleague, and she asked me about unschooling, on homeschooling, and she said, but it seems like you are thinking so much about everything. Isn't that difficult? And to be honest, yes, sometimes it is. Sometimes the uh she was just she actually was like, Aren't you exhausted of taking a stand on everything? Uh and and sometimes I actually are. It would be easier not to think things through and just go ahead with do some stuff. But on the other hand, is there anything more important than uh taking a stand on figuring out where am I with this point? What what does uh this my kid doing this, how do I feel about it?

Sandra Dodd: 01:54:10
Um sometimes UN schoolers are like that, just like that. They think about everything really hard. As soon as they wake up in the morning, they're thinking about things really hard. They can just do it all day and still be having fun, like if it was a video game. The same sort of energy. It's kind of a big thing, I think. Oh, the same the same sort of energy that goes into solving a problem, any problem, whether it's a video game or a puzzle or you know, some weird math problem somebody's given you for fun, you know, one of those puzzles like you have 40 pounds of lead and you need to blah blah blah. Um that is that's playing. And playing is really healthy. So if you're playing with those ideas, you're deciding about ethics and stuff, but you're playing with those ideas, just because you're playing with an axe doesn't mean you can't also split wood with it. Just because you're messing with sharpening it with weird tools or throwing it at a stump doesn't mean it's no longer any good for for splitting kindling. And so just because you're thinking really hard about what you believe about learning, or you're thinking really hard about video games or ethics, doesn't mean that that won't be a real tool in your life that you can use. But if if it's fun for you and you play around with those ideas just like Holly was playing around with Harvest Moon, that's healthy. And it's and it's it's exercising your curiosity, but I think partly because of school, partly because of religion, partly because of culture. You know, I don't know. I don't my grandparents lived during the depression. My parents were little kids during the depression, and that's affected everybody since who's still alive. Because my mom used to say, You've never been hungry. You stop saying you're hungry, you're not hungry. Stuff like that. It's like, uh okay. I there there may be stuff like that after COVID that will affect people for a hundred years. I don't know. But sometimes people just get harsh, they want to not laugh, they want to not be seen as childish, they want not to see be seen as thinking anything is fun or playful, and they think that's better somehow, that that makes them a better, more solid human.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:56:22
And her own schooling. You can only achieve something if if it was hard to achieve it, otherwise, it's not an accomplishment, and then you can't be proud of yourself.

Jesper Conrad: 01:56:31
I find that what if they liked it and figured out having fun doing it?

Sandra Dodd: 01:56:37
I have a friend who went to medical school. She had to drop out, she did all of the pre-stuff, and she went to medical school and the very first day that they took them in to observe a surgery, she threw up and had to quit. She couldn't see live blood. I know a friend who went to law school and he worked hard. When we were in college, he wouldn't party with us whatsoever. Well, not that we were huge partiers, but he would not at all. He would do his homework and he would go to bed and he would get up and he became a lawyer and he got a job at a law firm and next state over in Dallas, and he got a date. And we're thinking it's about time, you know. He he didn't he wouldn't date in college because he needed to get through with law school. I think he had student loans, and I I'm sad to think about what happened with that. But uh he got this job and he had this date, and on the night that he was going to meet his date, he got hit in the crosswalk and killed. So that's what I think about being doctors and lawyers sometimes. It's like it doesn't always work out. You can be super dedicated and get to that point, and then like can't be a doctor. Or can't be a lawyer anymore. So I'm I'm not that impressed by I haven't known I know doctors and lawyers, and I don't know any of them to just love their jobs to pieces.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:57:56
No, no, and some doctors and lawyers were even on school, so it's not really a worry. If they want to do it, they can go do it.

Sandra Dodd: 01:58:06
I know what you know what psychiatrist. Um, so she went to medical school and did psychiatry when she was on school.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:58:14
Happens. I'm I'm thinking maybe we should schedule a third conversation because now the sun that's it's uh I don't think I left anything out this time.

Sandra Dodd: 01:58:26
So next time you guys could just tell me stories and we would love that.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:58:31
There might be a thing or two about I'm willing to talk about again. But I'm just thinking now it's two hours, yeah, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 01:58:37
And I'm happy and I could go on, but somehow we we we try to keep the podcast episodes at one hour, so this will be a two-hour episode. But so Santa, where we are now is that uh we will first of all uh wish you a very happy learn nothing day. Uh and we will try to learn nothing at all that day, and we will probably yeah, we will have not.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:59:05
I'm not getting up knowing I'll fail. I'll just be uh people have tried it that way too. Yeah, no, and I will advocate and I will celebrate the day, but I know I will fail if I learn nothing, so I might as well not try.

Sandra Dodd: 01:59:21
Yeah, if you want to report your failure, you could come to either the blog, I'll I'll I'll send you the address. We'll put it on the room on Facebook, Facebook, which doesn't get fired up till now, but I do need to to publish my cease and desist letter to tell people to stop learning on July 24th.

Jesper Conrad: 01:59:38
Yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:59:38
I will share my failure. I enjoy sharing my failure by 24th. It's fun. I do it.

Sandra Dodd: 01:59:46
You can do it on your blog, you can do it on your own blog and I could link to it. That would be nice.

Cecilie Conrad: 01:59:50
I think I would do that because I try to actually avoid Facebook a little bit.

Jesper Conrad: 01:59:54
Yeah, yeah. Sandra, thanks for this wonderful talk, and we look forward to uh another two hour session with you later on. Thanks a lot.

Sandra Dodd: 02:00:05
Thanks, it was fun.