Cecilie Conrad: 0:14

Okay, so welcome to episode two of season two of the Ladies Fixing the World. We are not going to give up. We will fix the world. That's the plan, and I think we are in the process, all three of us. I am, as always, humbled and honored to be around these very wise women that I happen to have in my circles. Welcome, sandra Dodd, and welcome welcome Sue Elvis, for this conversation. I will just actually put a single word as a conversation starter. It's a word that flows in the unschooling world and I have never really understood it. So again, I'm lucky to be around these wise women. I don't know what it's about, I don't really understand what's going on with it, but I have a problem with it. It's the word self-regulation. There's something A lot of new unschoolers tell me oh, my kids learn to self-regulate really quickly after I let go of X, y, z, z Set. But what does that really mean?

Sandra Dodd: 1:32

It doesn't flow when I'm in a conversation because I always stop it. Stop because regulation has to do with measuring and rules or, in machinery terms, like by the 19th century, regulators were those things that kept steam engines at a temperature. You know, it's something about mechanical or measuring to keep something to the rule, to keep it flat and straight. And it's like wait, wait, wait, that doesn't. That's not where we're going. And I have for a long time been trying to help people see that instead of making new rules, instead of saying, well, if I'm not going to follow those rules, I need new rules, say, well, maybe move toward making decisions in the moment, deciding one way or another, like, think of two or three things and do the one that leads you closer to learning or closer to peace or closer to good relationships. So anytime anybody says, well, what's the rule? I go well, what kind of decisions do you want to make? But I think, with self-regulation, sometimes the parents mean I want my child to do what I imagine would be ideal. Yeah, so I have an imaginary rule in my head and I want him to find it and keep himself there. And it's too much. It's too much about rules, but a friend of ours. I'll tell you who his name is Bela Harrington. He was born to hippies in Santa Fe in the 70s and we met him when he was in his early 20s and we were in a medieval studies. Group is where we met him and he was my husband's squire for years, and in 2019, my husband had a cardiac arrest out in public. He was not alive and Bela, who had for many years of his adult life by then been a firefighter of forest fires he knew all kinds of CPR and he resuscitated my husband. So he saved his life and I love that. We've helped Bela in some ways and he's helped us in that huge way. But he's been in our lives for a long time and he sent me this one day, just out of the blue. Sent sent this message to me um, it's a story.

Sandra Dodd: 3:47

One zen student said my teacher has uh sorry, I'm sorry. My teacher is the best. I'm starting over maybe's cut. Yeah, you read it again. One student said my teacher is the best. He can go days without eating. The second said my teacher has so much self-control he can go days without sleep. The third said my teacher is so wise that he eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired.

Sandra Dodd: 4:18

And I think that's the ideal for unschoolers is. Food should be about learning, should be about people understanding when they're hungry and maybe what they're hungry for, and thinking I'm tired, I need a nap, it's not nighttime, but I need to sleep. Or it's nighttime, I'm not tired yet, I'm going to stay up a while. Or it's nighttime, I need to sleep, or it's nighttime, I'm not tired yet, I'm going to stay up a while. Or it's nighttime, I need to sleep. And making and learning to feel their body's needs which is not something I grew up with and learning to think in the moment. What seems, what would what, what decision am I making now for myself about anything, about what to do, how to feel? And I think that I was surprised when we got into the flow of unschooling and I saw how much my children knew about themselves. And, of course, when I was a little kid, they said you'll eat what we give you and it was. I don't know about you. I like that.

Sandra Dodd: 5:20

We're all from different continents, but it keeps us from having maybe the shared history. But in the United States, my relatives were in the south central US where there had been the Dust Bowl People who were farming. Their farms didn't work anymore. They were hungry. Then the Depression was there too. Around the time the depression already started before the Dust Bowl. So they had grown up without much food, really hungry, really poor, and that was my grandparents.

Sandra Dodd: 5:48

My parents were kids in those days. So by the time I come along, it's like don't tell us, you want different food. You're lucky to have any food. We're going to put some food in front of you and you're going to eat it. So we didn't grow up learning to know what we wanted. What we wanted was something different. You know we just. So we got people who were I was born in 1953, people who were born in those days. I think what they came up with was restlessness, like I want something that I thought up. I want something that I want, not something that somebody else decided for me and gave to me, because everything was decided for us and given to us clothes and school and music lessons and everything seemed to be decided by other people. So I didn't realize and was surprised by how much my children given a lot of options, not being pressed to do or eat or be certain ways, how much they thought about it and how much they could instinctively feel what they needed. That surprised me. I liked it. I think it's good.

Cecilie Conrad: 6:55

It's very interesting to be the parent of unschooled children. They function in ways that are hard to understand. I find there are things I simply realize. Now they are teenagers. I don't know how they, I can't identify it's not like how it was for me can't identify, I can't. It's not like how it was for me, and I'm just impressed and and happy that they have this self-knowledge and and this strength to just be who they are.

Cecilie Conrad: 7:34

You talked about food. Sandra and wine is so powerful. They're very nice and will eat what I cook if it suits them to eat it, but if not, they'll just get up and make something else, because they're not gonna put something inside their bodies that's not supposed to be there and I would not want them to either. It's not out of not being grateful, it's just that you know what, mom, I don't need cooked food today, I need raw food, so I'll just make a salad, if that's all right, and you know, or vice versa? Um, I wanted to. I just don't know what the, the dust ball is oh the, it was a.

Sandra Dodd: 8:18

It was a drought with wind. So, uh, for a while it was very dry and then the wind blew all the topsoil away. It was in oklahoma, texas, mostly, and a lot of people needed to move away, and some moved to california because there was farm work there and okay, um, you might still wasn't as affected because it wasn't as much farming, farming anyway, farm industry anyway, or mountainous, but anyway.

Sandra Dodd: 8:48

Yeah, the dust bowl is such a big deal and the people who lived through it. It ruined their families, it ruined their farms, it ruined their and when was this? 1930s, 30s, yeah, so so younger the. The trauma on the adults of the depression, the dust bowl, then affected the next generation yeah, well, it's a bit like the war in our end.

Cecilie Conrad: 10:01

Basically, it's the same poverty. I think my parents so it's the same poverty. I think my parents. So you're the same age as my mom would have been and she grew up with this post-war poverty and the same. You'd just be happy you have a pair of shoes, because they didn't and yeah, and for some of us you'd just be happy you're alive, kind of thing. Um, but I'm I'm younger, so my context was different, obviously so we're all.

Sandra Dodd: 10:39

We're all moving, though, from something I only know one mom. Pam cerisean's parents were really sweet and gentle and gave her a lot of choices, so she didn't have to recover. But she also said it seems sometimes harder for her to get the things right away. She didn't understand why people didn't get it. You know what I mean. She didn't have the experience of needing to make a big change. So that's interesting too.

Sue Elvis: 11:04

The experience of needing to make a big change. So that's interesting too. I think it's really interesting when we join our kids in their experiences or similar ones, for example video games. And I didn't understand video games, so I started playing them and then I got really well. My first attempt at video games was pathetic. I wasn't very good and I gave up. And then my girls said well, mom, maybe you're playing the wrong game. And so they found me a different game and I I'm a puzzle person. So if the game involves puzzles I enjoy it.

Sue Elvis: 11:39

But the problem I say the problem, the problem if we weren't on school is would be I get really into the game and I want to play for hours and hours, and hours. And so I get that insight into my kids aren't big gamers. But I get that insight into parents who tell me their kids get involved with their games and they don't want to. It looks like they're not self-regulating. The parents are waiting for their kids to get over the game, to have enough of it and then to get back into all the other activities that the parent thinks are valuable. And so parents come back and say, well, it didn't work. I let them have limitless hours on the computer and it's been so much time. They're not self-regulating, they are just still there playing and playing, and playing, and I'm not happy with that. So they have these preconceived expectations.

Sue Elvis: 12:36

But when I've been playing games, I sometimes get to the point where I'm playing and then I'm thinking about something else, a writing idea, and my attention gets taken away from the game and it comes to the point where I think I want to go write that blog post or I want to go and do something else, and I'll put the game down and I'll go away and I might not come back to that game for a long time. But the other thing I've worked out well for myself, knowing myself through playing the games, is that sometimes I get this overwhelmed feeling. My head starts to ache, my eyes get a little bit out of focus, I just get fed up with it all and I think that's the time that I've got to close the lid, get up and go. Not when somebody comes along, oh mom. Not when somebody comes along, oh mom. You've been on that game all day, don't you think it's time?

Sue Elvis: 13:31

And we tend to find out about ourselves and our needs and how much what we really want to do and how much of something we can cope with or how much we are enjoying it. And then we're not enjoying it and we can do. And I was thinking about maybe that I haven't thought about the word self-regulation much, but maybe we're regulating towards our own needs, that we're learning about ourselves and then regulating our activities which gives us the most peace, so we're the most effective, so that we're happy, and that sometimes we can go past our limit, and that sometimes we can go past our limit. But it's a limit that we have to determine for ourselves, not from the outside, because how can somebody from the outside know what's going on within us? We need that self-knowledge, how it feels to us, what's important to us.

Sue Elvis: 14:23

And if somebody else comes along and says, hey, mom, you've been there all day and I think you ought to go out and get some exercise, yeah, it doesn't work the same way. It's just oh, I'm in the middle of this game here, I'm on another level and I can't leave it right this moment. I'll go and get fresh air another time. Can't leave it right this moment, I'll come and get fresh air another time. Yeah, it's just been a learning process, putting myself in the place of my kids instead of standing on the outside watching them and wondering what's going on inside them. And what's going on inside them is different to what's going on inside me, and that's the thing I think as well that we have to value each of our children or whoever in the family, the people around us, that they know how they're feeling and they can tell us, but we will never really be able to decide for them, because, yeah, I don't like people to assume they know what my needs are and how I'm feeling about something.

Sandra Dodd: 15:22

But when you said you have a limit or we figure out what our limit is, that still sounds like a timer to me. It sounds like you mean, okay, the limit is three hours.

Sue Elvis: 15:31

No, no, the limit could be different all the time I get to my limit, just like I get to my limit about how much I'm going to eat off my plate, right, okay, okay, that makes sense, that sort of limit, not the limit of a particular time, because we don't know. But those feeling inside say right, you've come to your limit for today. That's all you can cope with, that's all you can do to make yourself happy.

Sandra Dodd: 15:57

Today You've reached the limit as not in a particular limit but my personal limit, it might even need you limit, it might even need you. It might be that you need a break and then you come back. I'm saying this, I'm saying this not for me or you or cecilia, I'm saying this for somebody who's listening and went oh good, then there should be a limit no, I think also so.

Cecilie Conrad: 16:20

If everyone understood the word self-regulation the way Sue just talked about it, as a journey into getting to know yourself and what makes you happy and what makes your life meaningful and what you really want, and all these things, if that was what it was about, I wouldn't have this problem.

Cecilie Conrad: 16:43

I wouldn't make that face in the beginning of this podcast that I just did.

Cecilie Conrad: 16:48

The problem to me is that I hear the word always around things where adults would normally come up with rules around children the awful, stupid concept of screen time another lame word in my opinion and also it could be sugar, it could be sleep, it could be many things. And unschoolers they learn oh, we're not supposed to have any rules for our children, so now we let go. We're not supposed to have any rules for our children, so now we let go. And then they will self-regulate, as if they will reinstall the exact same ideas and systems that the parents just let go of. Now they just have to do it, and I've been through this process. I mean I suppose we all have to some extent, and I have a running joke with my now almost 19 year old son. I think I might even have mentioned this in episode one as well, where I tell him that he's unschooled and he's free to do whatever he wants, as long as what he wants is what I want him to want.

Sue Elvis: 18:31

You might laugh, cecilia, but I think a lot of people think that.

Cecilie Conrad: 18:35

I think that's the exact problem and that's why we laugh and he sometimes has this but mom, what do you really want me to want? And I'm like you know what. I have opinions and I'll tell you what I think is good for you. But I don't want you to want that. I just want you to take my opinion into consideration, as I know you really well and you know I might, I might, be worth listening to. So it's, it's, it's a joke in our family, um, but I think it's a real problem out there and I think that that problem is attached to the word self-regulation and it becomes some sort of lying to ourselves. That we say the children will self-regulate is a way for us, the parents, to avoid the real letting go in the show notes.

Sandra Dodd: 19:24

Can I ask you to put some links? Yes, because I think it's not just regulation, it's also control. Yeah, that the idea of control, that the parents should control the children or the children should control themselves, or it's better to just get rid of control and it's better to just get rid of rules and think all right, there's another way to live, to live by principles. It's the idea what are we after, what's the goal, and not have a rule about that.

Sue Elvis: 19:54

Not just the goal.

Sue Elvis: 19:56

Let's just say one more thing about limits Like the word limit I find is very useful in some situations. I get overwhelmed by crowd and by noise and sometimes I'll go places like parties or shopping centers and I feel inside I have reached my limit, I have to go, and so that word is I say to my people around me, I can't take anymore, I've reached my limit. But that's only how I'm feeling on the day. Which could change. I could have more energy another day or I could really want to be where I am. So my limit will be a little bit. I'll move the limit. It won't be the same as the day when I'm extremely tired and feeling unwell, but I do have a limit. So that word limit I feel is useful in some situations because people understand what that means. It doesn't work too well on computer games, but as a word in the English language and how we feel and how we react to the world and know ourselves is a very useful one if we're applying it to ourselves, not to other people.

Cecilie Conrad: 21:15

Yeah, that's the thing.

Sandra Dodd: 21:19

Because it still sounds to me a limit sounds like a measurement set up in advance.

Sue Elvis: 21:24

Perhaps we're thinking of different things behind the word limit, because I'm just using it on the number or how I'm deciding changes to how I'm feeling inside and the circumstances I'm coping with outside. It's not a preconceived number, it's not an expectation, it's just a feeling. This is my limit today. I cannot play any more of this computer game because my head is sore. I cannot last another minute at this party because I've reached my limit. I need to go. So I wonder if people have mixed it up. You know you this? I for me, the word limit is very useful, but maybe different people are thinking different things with that word and it's getting mixed up in the conversation.

Cecilie Conrad: 22:18

Maybe, I usually call it my breaking point. You can want to go home. Maybe go a little further than you. Sue, I'm not that smart.

Sandra Dodd: 22:27

Maybe you just want to go home without saying breaking point or limit, I'm done. I want to go home without saying breaking point or limit.

Sue Elvis: 22:34

I'm done. I want to go home, but for me. I want to go home, yes, I do, but why Does it matter? You want to, let's go. I want to explain that I would have stayed because maybe the other people would like to stay longer. I can't because I've reached my limit. It's not an arbitrary decision. I'm just not having a good time and I'm not willing to sit here while you enjoy it. I have reached my limit and please take me home. That's the way I'm using the word.

Sandra Dodd: 23:11

That's the way I'm using the word. I think my concern has been when a parent it's usually the parent defending their own use of the word for themselves, but then they're keeping that word. It's like this word's important, and then they end up turning and using it on their kids. So that's about regulation and rules especially, but I think limits. You know there should be limits. They'll say my kids should have their limits. They're not limiting themselves. So I just I worry about parents, not de-schooling. I think it's all part of de-schooling. I think it's seeing the world in another way that doesn't have a schedule or a curriculum that someone else enforces, and so it just makes me nervous because that's on the edge of control. That's all I mean.

Cecilie Conrad: 24:01

I agree it's, it's, these words are dangerous and that's why I mean this podcast. We, we start with a word and try to understand what's in it and how can we understand it. And, and last time we talked about what does it mean, unschooling? And now we talk about what does it mean? Self-regulation? And I think you, sue, have a very valid point that if it means getting to know myself, if it means saying stop when you're overwhelmed, or maybe, in your case, before you're overwhelmed and, in my case, two hours after I'm overwhelmed, um, it's about you and your experience and how you want to be in the world and what kind of choices you can make based on how you feel and what you want. Yes, maybe the word.

Sue Elvis: 24:51

Maybe we need another, but I think the concept is very useful. If our kids have some way of expressing that I've reached that particular point with something, and whether it's food, video games, going out somewhere. If our kids know themselves, because we've allowed them that freedom to discover who they are and what makes them happy, what makes them feel at peace, if they have some sort of word to describe what I'm describing as my limit, then that's valuable, that they're communicating something about themselves to other people, communicating something about themselves to other people and, for example, if someone comes home from work my kids are going to work or if they'd come back from a day out and they've reached that limit, then it's good to be able to express that and people won't oh, come and tell me about your day. I need help with this, or we're going to do this. Next. There'll be more understanding of we would say you go and have a bath, I'll make you a cup of coffee. I can see you need some time to yourself. I can see that you've reached your limit.

Sue Elvis: 26:50

I think it's very useful to be able to express how we are feeling inside and what we can cope with in that concept. But I can really see what Sandra is saying about limits. People don't usually use the word, so maybe I just need to change my words, cecilia. I could call I've reached my breaking point and maybe encourage everybody else to say that and we wouldn't have a problem, because I don't think we're disagreeing about. We're just using the word in different ways. Maybe that we're not limiting each other, we're not imposing limits on children or other people. We're talking about ourselves and our self-knowledge.

Cecilie Conrad: 27:36

I think also rules and control come in where there is insecurity, where you feel maybe even anxiety. You feel you don't know what you're doing and you, you, you're afraid you you do it wrong and uh, and it's confusing and um, then what if I had a system, if I had a system, if I had, if I had some rules and there were some limits and I had, maybe, a list? I see it a lot in. This is different, but the same in relationships with the modern woman who wants everything to be so fair that you know you do the dishes half of the time and half of the laundry and half of the bathroom cleaning, and they have lists inside the cupboards in the kitchen and they have little tick boxes with dates and you know when did the husband actually clean the frying pan on the other side as well. You know all these things and it becomes all these rules and and this structure because you're so afraid of doing it wrong and you're so afraid of of being pushed over. And I see the same thing with parenting. So oh, shoot, I've got this kid here now and I don't know what I'm doing.

Cecilie Conrad: 28:54

Who of us knew what we were doing when we had the first baby in our arms. None of us knew that it was overwhelming, but what do we do about it? Okay, let me start from the beginning. Oh good, I've got a checklist here. My government will hand me a checklist and tell me what my baby is supposed to be able to every week of the first year. And oh, good thing she's grabbing a spoon now because otherwise I would have been failing.

Cecilie Conrad: 29:18

And you can go on and on with these. Tick the box, tick the box, tick the box because it's so scary and and unschooling is the ultimate letting go of all of that and getting into. Yes, this is quite scary and we don't really know what we're doing, but we have to find our way with our hearts. We have to find our way with real life. We have to find our ways with passion, staying in the moment, being who we are. And so rules and regulations and limits and structure. And, oh God, if someone would tell me how many hours of Fortnite it would be healthy for my children to play so that I could put a time. Have you seen that Even apps, now even the phone itself, will tell you you can make these rules for your children.

Sandra Dodd: 30:10

So the phone will shut off after they've spent a certain amount of time on the phone on televisions years back and it'd be like you could set the timer for one hour and the television would turn off. But very often they had turned it on before the show started and the show ends and the kids missed the last 30 seconds of the last minute of this of the story. That would be like walking up and tearing out the kids miss the last 30 seconds of the last minute of this of the story. That would be like walking up and tearing out the end of the book and throwing it in the fire. Yeah, I just thought it was the most horrible thing it is. Yeah, I I will.

Sue Elvis: 30:40

I don't use, uh, the function, the feature on my phone that tell, or I don't. I'm not on social media much, but but Instagram I am, where it tells you how many screen hours you have accumulated. I refuse to do that because I don't want somebody else telling me I've been on my devices for too long, because how do they know how long I need to be on there and how are they going to make me feel bad about, are they going to make me feel bad that I was on there 16 hours yesterday because I was doing this, this, this and this, which were all very important to me? And so in some ways I think maybe these apps, these features, are a bit like a parent regulating my or trying to regulating everybody's activities, activities, things like website blockers as well, so that if you're writing, you can block all these websites that you might like to visit while you're writing.

Sue Elvis: 31:44

But I think it's really quite sad that we're not taking responsibility for ourselves but relying on technology to limit our activity on the internet. And people say, well, it's so that we're productive, but in doing that, I think I don't want to give my life over to technology in that way. I find it if I can't work out a way to do all I need to do, that I want to do, and be happy about it and at peace, without technology blocking stuff, like a parent might. There's a problem.

Sandra Dodd: 32:28

Like a parent who doesn't like you much or doesn't know you very well.

Sue Elvis: 32:32

Yeah. So I just I wonder if that's indicative. All these apps you go through the app store and you can download all sorts of things to impose limits on yourself or to control your behavior Is that indicative of that society that we've become, that we're no longer willing to take responsibility for ourselves or we don't want to get to know ourselves and work it out for ourselves? Yeah, I stay well away from all those things because they make me rather angry that somebody wants to put those limits on my activities and yeah, so I don't use them.

Sandra Dodd: 33:12

If they measured me well sometimes, they'd know I'm using two devices at the same time, because I'm listening to a podcast or watching a movie and playing a video game on my iPad. How simple is that.

Cecilie Conrad: 33:26

I think was it you, sandra, who said something about the contrast between control and decision, or rules and decision, did you?

Sandra Dodd: 33:40

go down that line. Decision making is better than having rules. I say that all the time. To think of two things or three things and choose the better one and better depends what situation you're in, but you're making your own decision and I'm I still want to give sue permission to go back to her game, even if she hit her limit. Maybe you just feel like getting up to go eat or go for a walk or play with your dog. That doesn't mean you're you've hit the limit for the day. You could go back to that game.

Sue Elvis: 34:06

No, yeah, no, you know I, I agree, I agree with that. But sometimes it is the limit. By the end of the day I do want to go do something else. So, uh, and as I said, sometimes I, I want to go do something else before I've hit my limit on the computer game, because another, another desire appears. I, I, my attention's not all on the game. I'm starting to think about something else I prefer to do, and so I close it down before I have reached my limit.

Sue Elvis: 34:40

So it varies from day to day, and sometimes I won't go anywhere near my computer games for weeks on end because I'm doing something else that's more important to me and I'll forget all about the games. It's not like I feel that I've got to get my game time in every single day. Games might not be important to me for a month, maybe more, and then all of a sudden I'll come along and think, oh wow, I feel like playing a game and I'm not thinking about anything else at the moment and I need to relax. Or I'm mentally overstimulated in the world and I find games a very good way to relax and to get away from the other world and just give my brain a break.

Sue Elvis: 35:26

Well, puzzle games sometimes they overwork my brain, but in a different way. Yeah, so, and that experience with games has taught me so much about how limits with children just will not work, because you don't know how they're going to feel, what's going to work, what's going to be important to them and my kids, you know they won't go to their gaming computers the same as me for weeks on end if they're busy with other things, and then I might find one of my daughters sitting in front of her computer with a new game and she's all into it again. But how can we regulate that or impose limits on a situation like that that sometimes you know we do to be spent a lot of time and and sometimes we don't?

Sandra Dodd: 36:14

It depends. That's my favorite answer to almost every question it depends. Alex Polakowski came to visit me recently, in October, and one thing that we have in common we've known each other through unschooling discussions for a long time and I and she's run a couple of conferences in Minnesota, and so we know each other in person and online. But she came to my house and later some people asked did you watch any Korean dramas? Because we both do. She pressed that upon me as a hobby and we both watch a lot of Korean drama. I said no, new Mexico was outside All the time she was here. I didn't play games, I didn't watch any shows, I just talked to Alex and we drove around, we went to look at stuff, we went to the mountains, we went to my sister's, and so it depends what's the most interesting thing at the moment, what's the most pressing thing, what's the most needful thing?

Sandra Dodd: 37:08

And I think that's how my kids I found my kids making their decisions like that when they were really young. What's the thing that needs to be done today? That I, that it would make me happy, or that I'm going to wish I had done, and they just they'd be eight or 10 and really good at that, and I wasn't really good at that till I was grown Probably till after I had kids of really thinking okay, I don't have to do the dishes, I don't have to do this, I can choose. And so when I think about what I want to choose, I may choose to do the dishes, but it will be because it was more important than other things at that moment, not because it was time, and so I got better at it from watching my kids be good at it because they had the opportunity to practice to swim in those waters when they were still young.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:00

But it's about being able to make decisions for your own time on this planet, for your, for your own life. And when I was a child, I didn't have. My parents were hippies, so I had a lot of freedom relative to many other kids, but I still lived that life of having to get up in the morning and when I was little, I had to go to kindergarten and after that, school life, and I was always told what to do, more or less, and there would be someone who had an opinion as to why I had to do it and how I had to do. Happy was only something I could do in my very scarce free time and I think it's a really scary thing, just like figuring it out in your relationship. You know, maybe we can do a division of labor, maybe it's all right I wash the clothes and you take the garbage out and we don't have to discuss that every day.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:12

But having to live without setting up a structure and having rules and decide on a system is going to put you in a situation where you have to feel and you have to decide and you have to risk making mistakes. You have to risk going to bed at night feeling I should have done better, or I should have done different, or now I'm overly tired. I should have gone to bed two hours ago. Whatever, you risk feeling oh, maybe I should change that tomorrow, and that's not a nice feeling, but the problem really is to take the responsibility back to yourself and knowing these hours are my hours and it's my responsibility to create the life that I need, and also, as unschoolers, we have to give that freedom to our children, which is a challenge, maybe.

Sandra Dodd: 40:10

And maybe that's I wonder what personality maybe the same kind of personality of people who would prefer to live by a schedule and not have to think about it would be the same kind of people who would not want to unschool. Maybe it's possible that those kind of things um go together in batches of personality traits like some people would really rather be in the military, where they tell you what to wear, and some people really find that whole idea is frightening and odious to not be able to just decide one day that they're going to go to Hawaii and surf, because they can't because they're in the air force in some other country. I don't know. I think about that sometimes, that sometimes when we're encouraging unschoolers, it's a self-chosen group because we're not going out into public, we're not inviting everybody in one neighborhood to a talk about unschooling. That wouldn't make sense. But people who come and say I've heard about this, tell me more, that's different. And say I've heard about this, tell me more, that's different They've already said I might be interested in this and we can discuss with them to where they see.

Sandra Dodd: 41:18

It's hard, isn't it? It takes a long time to get it, but we can show them some things that might help and maybe notice some things about them that might not be helping, about their, their worries or traits or concerns or images. Like some parents will come and say okay, I let him do what he wanted to do and he's never asked for a science book. They think that learning is still you know. So they might've been unschooling for a year or two and it's like well, what part of de-schooling did you miss here? Because science doesn't all live in science books. At school it does, but in the real world it's everywhere, it's all over the place. So I think sometimes people, if they can't gradually come to change their entire view of schedules and choices and activities and in relationships which is a big change, that's changing everything If they're not interested in doing that, or they try it and they can't, they're scared, they jump back from the water to the dry place. Maybe I don't know what I'm saying.

Sue Elvis: 42:29

Maybe it just something about unschooling that you, you can or can't relax out of the rules when some sorry Cecilia, just um, sometimes we've go, we go back to the unlimited video games and you parents say, well, I, I've allowed my child to be on that computer for limitless time and they're not self-regulating and they're obviously the parent had expectations and they haven't been fulfilled.

Sue Elvis: 43:04

I wonder if in some ways it's better to be honest and say I can't, I will not, never I can't, I'm not going to be happy with my child on the computer all day, because that child knows they're just waiting for their parents to tighten up again. And so they're playing and playing, and playing and thinking mom's never going to, she's going to come in one day and say that's it, I've had enough, get back and do something else. And kids get to know you and they know they're not really free to do what they want. They're just waiting for the time the mother can't bear it anymore and tightens up the rules again. And yeah, that's not sort of very honest for the child. I don't know where I'm going with this, but the child knows that the parent is going to do that way.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:01

Actually, you're both talking about unschooling parents who think they have let go, and and I mean God bless us all. I'm not being judgmental here it just it happens. It's a. It's a normal dynamic, but unschooling parents who really wants to unschool? And they kind of get the idea and the point of it and they let go, but they're still attached to a specific outcome.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:30

But in denial about being attached to a specific outcome For example, waiting for the child to ask for the science book, or waiting for the child to turn off the computer after 45 minutes every day by themselves, setting up some sort of rule or whatever it is, letting them eat whatever they want, but want them to actually not choose the sugar. So so it's freedom, but with exactly our running joke you can do whatever you want, as long as what you want is what I want you to want. And this dynamic is. It's out there and I think from for me.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:09

That's why I get annoyed with the word self-regulation, because I think it's about letting children do whatever they want as long as what they want is, and it's lying to ourselves. And then we might as well just say you know what, I can't have it. I need you to take a shower at least once a week because I can't have it. You might be free to do whatever you want, but I can't have it Wash your hair or turn off the computer or whatever it is. It's better, in my opinion, it's better to be honest and say I'm your parent and this is just not working for me, and then take it from there.

Sue Elvis: 46:00

Could it work, though with more time?

Cecilie Conrad: 46:05

Well, I don't think lying ever works.

Sue Elvis: 46:08

No, no but being honest about how you're feeling, can you? I saw something we were talking about earlier and I didn't really understand it, but I'd love you to explain what. Explain more about your thoughts about this about. Can you let go gradually?

Cecilie Conrad: 46:31

you're asking me anybody?

Sue Elvis: 46:33

I um, do we have to let go all at once, or can a parent take it one step at a time? And yes, let go on some things?

Cecilie Conrad: 46:49

I don't know it's more about the parent than the child, isn't it?

Sue Elvis: 46:55

And I always think that unschooling will always work with the child, but it will not always work with the parent. It's the parent who's the deciding factor, so it's the parent who has to adjust. Can a parent adjust gradually? That's the question I'd love to hear your thoughts on that I think there's no other way than gradually.

Sandra Dodd: 47:16

but there's also progress If they've decided okay, gradually means I'm going to take 40 years to change. You don't have 40 years, you have 15 or 18 years before your child is up and grown. So you need to make a schedule and self-regulate that you'll change this much. I'm joking. I have I have two pages on my site that that link back and forth, and one is called gradual change and the other one is called do it. So I think that's let's put them in show notes. You have to be moving and not moving too fast.

Sue Elvis: 47:59

Sandra, there's something, a quote, it's gone out of my head. It's something to do with do a little on your website. Can you tell us about that?

Sandra Dodd: 48:11

I didn't have. I wish I'd had this from the first day I ever talked about unschooling, but I didn't. My sister was an au pair in Quebec for a little while, for one few months, and I went up there to see her and we went to speak in Montreal. So she and I are just speaking to a small group of unschoolers and I wanted to have something special, different than I said there, that I'd never said anywhere else. So I thought of this thing and it was read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. And then it was so valuable that I carried it around a lot, gave it to a lot of people, because if you don't, if you read a lot, I've had people write to me and say I found your website last night and I stayed up till four o'clock in the morning reading and I'm like, ah, okay. Or somebody will say, well, I've read your whole website, which immediately is a lie, because I can't even find my whole website. I keep finding pages now that are like duplicates, like I made one but I forgot what I called it, so I made another one. So it's just a collection.

Sandra Dodd: 49:12

It's a big, jumbly collection, but if you read too much you're neglecting your kids. What were your kids doing during that time? And if you read too much, you become overwhelmed and you can't remember what you read and it becomes a mess. But if you read a little bit and go away and think about it, and then if that affects the way you respond to yourself or others, like if you told yourself, oh, I really should have done the dishes right after dinner and then you think, wait a minute, why? Okay, why, what's the purpose of doing dishes? You know, think through it a little bit.

Sandra Dodd: 49:47

Conscious decisions, even if it's about yourself, that helps you think about similar things in your kids. You know he didn't do his laundry. Okay, can he do it tomorrow? What happens if he does it one day later? And it may be disaster because he's going on a trip and he needs to pack, you know. So you figure out what the factors are. But that's what. Read a little, try, uh, wait a while. Read a little, try a little, wait a while. It's like and then how, how did that make you feel? Kind of like the therapy thing? It's like you. You say I had this idea, I read this idea or I thought of this idea and then I tried something. Okay, think about that.

Sue Elvis: 50:33

So it's you don't really learn until you try what you read it's the experiential way of experimenting with change.

Sandra Dodd: 50:41

Yeah, so it was also trying to talk people out of thinking that they could read enough to take a test to become unschoolers. You can't. You have to do it. It's like riding a bicycle it doesn't help to take a test on all the parts of a bicycle if you can't ride one. And so the same with unschooling you can read. Some people say, well, I'm going to go read everything John Holt ever wrote. Yet it's like, well, I wouldn't do that, because mostly he's writing about school in the 60s. So what are your kids doing while you're reading? A bunch of stuff that doesn't apply anyway. So read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch. Just watch yourself, watch your kids. How did, how did that work? That little thing you just tried, which might be not not pressing a child to stop using the computer, not whatever all the things we've been talking about. It could apply to those. But yeah, that's it. So let's read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch.

Sue Elvis: 51:40

That sounds a lot more useful than what a lot of people want to do. We're going to be unschoolers, we're going to let go of all control, we're going to dive straight in but not really understand what they're doing and haven't thought about it. And then they crash because it didn't turn out as they expected, because they didn't understand man, I have seen families divorce about that.

Sandra Dodd: 52:08

The mom gets all excited, says okay, no more bedtimes, bedtimes, no more rules. The kids can do anything they want to. They can eat anything they want to. They go to the grocery store and spend all the grocery money on the things that the kids never could have before, and the mom maybe like this has been mentioned earlier in this discussion the mom decides she can't handle that. So now the mom gets mad at the kids for what they chose or whatever you know. So now that the mom and the kids are having conflict, meanwhile the dad's off at work or whatever doing something and he comes home and goes.

Sandra Dodd: 52:40

What is going on? And the mom can't explain it. The kids are cranky because the mom's saying no. The mom is cranky because the kids didn't self-regulate and and and sometimes the mom is so attached to the idea that it would be cool to unschool. Or she has some new friends or some new identity, but she doesn't understand it well enough to explain it, even to her husband and they don't ever recover from that and that's bad. Or the mom doesn't recover from thinking unschool doesn't work and so she buys a curriculum or puts her kids in school and is angry at unschoolers because unschooling didn't work. So I think that read a little, try a little is a cure for that or a band-aid for that or a reaction to that, I suppose.

Cecilie Conrad: 53:29

I think another very important element is honesty. So we can't lie to ourselves and we shouldn't lie to our children. So when you asked about can this be done gradually, the only honest way it can be done is gradually can be done is gradually. You might want to do it in one go and you can say out of your mouth, you can eat whatever you want and you can go to bed when you want to, but then it will push around the parent and they will feel so much discomfort and so much fear that actually the children can't. And then it will be what does mom want me to want? And that will be the guidance, and it will be this unspoken law of how can we please the parents which just makes life really hard for the children. And though I disagree with unschooling being, I think is it John Holt who says something like giving the children the freedom as much freedom as the parents can handle?

Sandra Dodd: 54:46

Oh, that's not John Holt, that was Patrick Ferenga. John Holt didn't say that, okay.

Cecilie Conrad: 54:51

I can't remember who said it and it sounds nice, but then again it's it's more complex than that, but I think the good, the thing that I can take away from it is it's. It's it's only fair to to express to our children when we feel discomfort, when we say I know that it could be great that you could do this all day, whatever it is.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:20

We keep going back to video games. We could actually be all kinds of things, but it makes me uncomfortable. I feel fear, I can, can't. I'm so afraid I'm failing. I'm so afraid it's wrong for you. I'm so afraid that this is not going to be a thriving life for us that I need to express that, to say that. And that could be many things. That could be children choosing to not be social because they're reading a book that's so interesting they can't put it down. When the grandparents are coming over, let's say or it could be what they eat or don't eat, or how much they sleep and you look at them and it might be that you believe in your mind that it should be okay. They decide how much sleep they get, but you look at them and it looks wrong and it feels wrong. So not saying that waiting for this self-regulation to happen is essentially lying, because you have a strong emotion as a parent, but you're not sharing it with the child, who clearly can feel you have that emotion.

Sandra Dodd: 56:39

It depends for me. At which point in unschooling is this happening? If it's the first few years, sure Say. This really makes me nervous. I'm uncomfortable. I would like to be more comfortable with this, but if it's something about the parents coming over, that should have been dealt with two or three days before, okay, your grandparents will be here. What would be fun to do? We could do this, this. They can only be here for a half a day, or they'll be here for two days so that the child is in on the planning, this activity, this event, not like the parents show. The grandparents show up while the kid just got a new book that he's really interested in and he was unprepared, and that's the. That's the parent's fault If there wasn't some preparation for an event or a situation. I think I agree.

Cecilie Conrad: 57:21

But I've met unschoolers who wouldn't do that preparation because that preparation would be controlling, that preparation would be having an idea of an outcome. That preparation would be having an opinion on what the choices the child should make.

Sandra Dodd: 57:38

And well, I do that prepare for things and say what my expectations are there's a difference between saying when grandma comes, you must wear this, you must sit here, you must say this. That's too controlling, but just but to say but, to let the kid be in on. What do you think would be a fun thing to do? Where should we go eat, or what should we? We went to the children's museum last time. You want to go to the zoo or children's museum again and let the kids invite the grandparents to come. Do the cool thing that helps the child the next time, to plan a social event. That's something people do, that's part of culture, that's part of just living in the world, and I think those are the sorts of things that unschooling can help kids learn without teaching them. It's another thing that can be demonstrated and done as a group and you can explain why it's important and you can state your concerns. Then, and when what you're concerned you can state your concerns, then I'm afraid that you'll ignore grandma, or I'm afraid grandma will feel uncomfortable if she won't know what to talk to you about. So let's think of some topics, think of some things to show her. Show and tell is great with little kids. Show her your new toy, show her what the puppy can do, show her your slide, and it's better if that happens in advance than right in front of the grandparents, so that it's kind of a here, here's some things we might do. What do you think? And they may not be needed. And they may be needed. Yeah, I know what you're talking about, though Some parents are just like so hands-off and then they want to blame unschooling for it.

Sandra Dodd: 59:18

Maybe that personality thing again, maybe they don't have whatever it is that it takes to be a cruise director, an activities director Some people are really good at that. Some people are really good at that, and some people can't imagine how somebody could invite people over for a party and run out of ice and toilet paper. It's like, how can that happen? But some people can. Some people run out of gas in their car.

Sandra Dodd: 59:51

Some people totally forget to do the laundry when they're about to have a bunch of company for a week. So I don't think checklists will save anybody really, because it involves looking at the larger picture, looking a few days in advance and having some priorities of the moment, not priorities of all time, not rules for every week of your whole life from now on, but what's happening now and how can I make it easier, instead of thinking of how can I make it right, how can I do? What I have to do, it's how can we make this smooth, how can we make this comfortable, and I think unschooling parents should be doing that all the time.

Sandra Dodd: 1:00:29

Remind me of your definition from last episode Unschooling is creating creating, the creating and maintaining an environment in which it's, I would say, atmosphere, environment I don't know, I don't have it right here Creating and maintaining an atmosphere in which natural learning can flourish, give or take a word, I think that was it.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:00:53

Yeah, but creating that environment, atmosphere, it is taking some sort of I don't want to use the word control, but responsibility maybe well, you can control an environment.

Sandra Dodd: 1:01:14

I can make sure that the front door is unlocked when somebody's about to come over because yelling come in and come in and then having to go up the stairs to open the door, that's no good. I'm downstairs where the fire is because it's winter here. I think you can control the laundry and the dishes and make sure that you went grocery shopping, control things. Make sure the lawn that you went grocery shopping, control things. What I've told people if you have the urge to control, reorganize your closet. You know you just have really the urge to control something. Don't turn that what I wrote something one time. Don't. Don't turn that. That control beam on your family. Yeah.

Sue Elvis: 1:01:54

Could be done, yeah.

Sue Elvis: 1:01:57

Talking about control Becomes very easily buy some little jars and a nice pen and get that really organized, not the kids I just thought of a time when controlling the environment, of controlling things a story about that somebody in a facebook group said that they were unschoolers and that her kids she was totally happy with her kids doing whatever they wanted because she had controlled their environment so much that they were able to there. She only wanted them to pick and choose from what was she had given them. She had controlled their environment so much that they were able to. She only wanted them to pick and choose from what was she had given them. She had controlled the environment so much that she was happy to let them do whatever they liked because she knew they weren't going to encounter anything that was outside her comfort zone. And I thought well, that's one way of convincing yourself you're unschooling and taking away the fear or the uncomfortableness of it. But is it really unschooling? It's just funny how people define things.

Sue Elvis: 1:03:08

But going back to what you were saying, Cecilia, about responsibility, our kids we don't want to control them. They can choose what they want to do, but we all live together with other people and sometimes we have to be responsible for like. We wouldn't stay up late playing loud music if someone wanted to sleep, and in your case, Cecilia, you often talk about being in your vehicle, travelling, and you're in a small space, and so everybody's got to be sensitive to other people's needs. So sometimes we will put aside our own needs and our own desires for the sake of the people that are around us. And I wonder if that so it's not sort of controlling kids as such, as allowing them to think of other people around them, grandpa and grandma who are coming around.

Sue Elvis: 1:04:09

We do have a responsibility towards other people in the family that we want to be kind, we want to be caring, we want to have a good relationship with those people. And so talking, Sandra, about preparing our kids, it helps those relationships. It's like practising relationships so our kids can go out into the world and have good relationships with other people, learn those social skills, learn things about. Sometimes we have to do things we don't particularly want to do for the sake of somebody else. Yeah, I don't know, that's what was coming up when you were talking there.

Sandra Dodd: 1:04:51

That becomes one of the factors when you're deciding should I do this or this? What are all the factors that you know of? Somebody's asleep, somebody doesn't feel good, somebody's coming over in an hour and I think, if parents talk through, okay, well, we can't start this movie because it lasts an hour and a half and we need to be here or somebody's coming, but we could watch a half hour show, or let's save that until tomorrow.

Sue Elvis: 1:05:17

I'll make popcorn.

Sandra Dodd: 1:05:19

So it's not scheduling their lives, it's helping them see how there are things to schedule around. I think we had a rule. I just thought of a rule we had when my kids were trying to think. Kirby was probably 14 and had just gotten a job and he worked on Friday and Saturday till midnight at a gaming shop, and so he would sleep late, but he would other nights he might stay up watching movies or playing video games and then he would want to sleep. So Marty and Holly were younger and they were more likely to get up, energetic, run around the house, and by then we had moved out of our small house into a bigger house.

Sandra Dodd: 1:05:55

But so when we came to the big house it was let's be quiet till noon. Don't do anything really loud, right? No power tools, no loud music, loud movies. It's okay to talk, but don't do anything really loud until noon or until everybody's awake. So it's not till noon. If everybody goes awake, there's no reason to go for noon. But it's like at noon, if he's still asleep, go ahead and make noise. And they didn't always do it. They nobody set an alarm for noon and started, you know, playing drums. But it was. It was a guideline, it was a, it was something to to have as a way to consider okay, let's, let's let the morning be quiet if anybody's asleep now.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:06:39

Wasn't that a rule based on a principle, the principle of respecting other people's need to rest?

Sandra Dodd: 1:06:45

it was, and it was a way that we didn't have to renegotiate every day.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:06:49

I'm trying to think about rules and we have a rule, but it's based on a principle as well that we don't cancel social events less than 24 hours before they're supposed to happen. Our calendar is always very moving and our plans change all the time and we just decided at some point if we have a social commitment, we are sticking to it if it's less than 24 hours, unless we are very sick or something really devastating. But that came from a principle of respecting other people's time. So if I say I'm coming over, or let's say, we're going for a walk in Barcelona together tomorrow to see this, that and the other other with another family and I canceled two hours before, they could have made other plans of fun things to do, but they were holding up that space for me and now they're missing out on that other thing they could do because I'm canceling late. And that happened to us many times with some friends we don't spend a lot of time with any longer for that reason, and we just. I remember standing on a corner in Barcelona discussing this with the kids, and it was one of the children who said why don't we make a rule for ourselves? Why don't we flip this so we learn something and we will never do this.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:08:18

So rules can, of course, make sense, but they are based on a principle. They're based on an idea and and a set of values, and in that way we have many rules. We also have that rule you don't disturb other people's sleep. So we need to align our sleep exact when we sleep in the van and with more space when we rent airbnbs. We never rent an airbnb with five separate bedrooms, so we do share the space in some way and and we respect other people's need for rest, we respect other people's need for work.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:08:57

So when I'm recording a podcast, the kids can't play drums. That's how it is. Um, we do the dishes before we go to bed because we respect my mornings. I hate, with a passion, to get up to a chaotic kitchen. I can't have it. It. It disturbs my peace. So, and I mean that's just, but it's not like we can't do it. Of course we can do it. It's not no one's getting executed by dawn if we break a rule Sometimes we break a rule. It's just more like guidelines. We, our family Like my rules.

Sue Elvis: 1:09:37

Oh sorry, go ahead. Sorry my rules. Oh sorry, go ahead.

Sandra Dodd: 1:09:38

Sorry, sandra, you go ahead I was just gonna say that our family hosted, uh, homeschooling gathering for a couple of years, like we were the main family and we would go to the park, whichever park had been chosen. That sometimes rotated and if it was too rainy or whatever, people would come to our house. Too rainy in New Mexico is any rain. If it rained or snowed, people would come to our house and my kids knew, like we have a responsibility, we have to be there. We have to be there on time because some new unschooling family might be coming by and if we're not there they miss it. But the kids were in. They understood it like we're providing something, an opportunity, and if we go there you'll get to play with other kids and some other people might come get to talk to other moms. So they were, they went along with that. They didn't argue about it. There was never a week and they said I really don't want to.

Sandra Dodd: 1:10:27

But that was a long-standing routine and responsibility and they knew why it was important and that and I and I think that's that's a case by case too when kids have been in plays or Holly's been in dance groups, she knows she needs to be there. Marty played ice hockey one year. He knew he really needed to be there, so they were used to that too. It wasn't do you feel like going today. But when he finally said I don't want to do it anymore, I would like to not do this next year, it was okay. But it wasn't a do we want to do this this week or do we just want to not show up to the park? That I don't think any of us would have thought that was a good idea. But that was also perhaps personality and genetics. I can't discount the possibility of that.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:11:12

Well, it sounds like it was also having principles and discussions about why are we doing the things we're doing, why are they important and why do we have to show up for them, and so that's again what you said in the beginning of the conversation. This is about decisions, and I had a little rant about do you dare face that your life is your responsibility, or would you rather throw it over to a curriculum and a set of rules? So if you face that your life is your responsibility, or would you rather throw it over to a curriculum and a set of rules? So if you face that your life is your responsibility, you have to make some decisions as to what's important and why is it important and how am I going to make these things happen that are important.

Sandra Dodd: 1:11:51

I'm wondering if self-regulation Now people who came in from the beginning here and wanted to defend self-regulation will go. We'll see. You had self-control. You controlled your going to the park day, but I didn't. I just knew it's Tuesday.

Sandra Dodd: 1:12:06

How can I make this easy for my kids? Maybe we stop for donuts on the way, or maybe I, you know, are we taking the dog. You know, I don't know things like that. Can we make it a little different for my kids, interesting for my kids? What can we take to play with that other kids could play with?

Sandra Dodd: 1:12:28

That was me being considerate to my kids' feelings and making it easier for them. And when they experienced that for a number of years it became very easy for them to be courteous to other people. They got good at planning little outings or whatever and they would go. Okay, let's all go to the movies. So-and-so doesn't really love this movie the best, so let's let her pick where we have a snack. They got really good at that. I glad I was impressed with them and I was relieved that something seemed to have worked. A friend of mine used to always say it's genetics and I said it's unschooling. You know, they're just like you and keith, so I don't know for sure, I can't prove it, but I see the benefit of unschooling in a lot of them.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:13:11

Well, aren't you? I mean, I I'm saying you, you and keith are unschooled as well. I mean, we unschool, we de-school and we become something else when we live this life. And it's a family dynamic, maybe, yes, it's. It's not self-regulation that you had these conversations with your children about that. You had these conversations with your children about showing up for the community when you did the gatherings. It's having a core value, having an idea, a principle. We want to to create community around this lifestyle because there's a need for that. We want to to give and, and we do it this way. And and how can we make this way that we're doing it work for everyone involved? And I'm sure that if they had hated it with a passion, you would have found another way to do it. You wouldn't have kept going to the park, obviously.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:14:09

So it's also about the maybe that's for another episode, but about the equality that, even though we are the parents and, in that way, in many ways, the responsible adults, our opinion is not more important than the children's opinion.

Sandra Dodd: 1:14:30

When it did start to wane, when the group wasn't as needed and as solid and the kids were kind of tired of it, we did phase it out. But it was several factors and it worked out okay.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:14:47

Did we get any closer to where we want to put this word self-regulation in our understanding of what unschooling is?

Sandra Dodd: 1:15:00

I think I should keep telling people not to use it. Pick some different words.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:15:09

It is tied up. For me, I see the risk being if you have an idea of self-regulation, you probably have an idea of an outcome to a freedom that you're pretending to make. If it's free, there's no specific outcome. So what's that self-regulation really about? And maybe what we're looking for is what Sue was talking about how do we learn to get to know ourselves and find out what really makes us happy, and how do we teach our children to find out how they navigate, how they stay happy and healthy and engaged and enthusiastic and passionate? That's the alternative. That's not one little fancy word.

Sandra Dodd: 1:16:07

This is a hard topic, so I hope, if anyone has this as their very first time they've heard any of these, that they'll come back, because this one's not as easy as some, I think.

Sue Elvis: 1:16:17

I find it hard to prep it up now, I was just going to say that when I heard the topic and that we were talking a little bit about it before we started recording, I thought I'm going to learn a lot from this today, because it's not one of those topics that. What is unschooling? How do you do? It's very, in a lot of ways, something that you need to have some experience about and the language to describe it, to actually talk about it that I've discovered today that what I'm using, how I'm using some of these words, is very different to where the way Sandra's using them, but when we're talking with other people, how are they using the words? Uh, I think that they're using the words in Sandra's way more than my way, which is something to be very aware of.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:17:18

I think, at the very least, there is a risk, and that's why words are so important. There is a risk when you use the word self-regulation, that you are attached to an outcome, that you want that regulation to regulate in a specific way, and that there is a need for regulation, even a specific way, and that there is a need for regulation even, um, and the self-regulation is taking over from parental regulation, which is what you just took out of the equations of why putting a substitute it also sets up like there was a right answer and a wrong answer and you picked the wrong one.

Sandra Dodd: 1:17:50

You, you sinned. Regulation is right on the edge of, and control is right on the edge of sin, and I think those things are just way too negative to even consider when we're trying to set up a sweet, peaceful, funny, colorful learning situation and experiment they're at risk, at any moment, of violating or sinning or ruining or destroying it won't work or sinning, or ruining, or destroying it won't work.

Sandra Dodd: 1:18:21

There's the risk of wanting something your mom doesn't want you to want. Yeah, even that. Even though the words sound sweet, it's mom and want. It's still that fear of fail. I failed, I failed to guess right, and it's nice when parents can scoot away from that. Scoot may not be the word. I was in england and I said scoot over, and everybody just looked at me. I just wanted to sit on the couch and there were too many people on the couch and I said scoot over. And they just looked at me and and I said how do you? They said oh, budge up, budge up, I didn't know.

Sandra Dodd: 1:18:54

Budget sorry english people all the time how do you get on the couch in australia, budge up or scoot over both?

Sue Elvis: 1:19:08

I find that we were very much a mixture of british culture and American culture. We get input from so much that we understand both ways of describing things, but I guess we have our own language as well, which I was watching a very interesting video the other day about how our Australian slang is disappearing because we're adapting either British or American, because that's what we hear all the time and that we're losing our own way of saying things. Just for example, we always call chickens chooks. But then if I say to somebody oh look, I saw a chook down the road the other day and they said what's chook? And I say chicken.

Sandra Dodd: 1:19:52

And so it's easier to say chicken. I know that term now.

Sue Elvis: 1:19:59

That's probably not the best example, but there are other ones that, instead of trying to having a common language like I've noticed a lot of Australians who've moved to America and then they're on YouTube they've adopted the local language because it's easier and I think. But we wouldn't say it like that.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:20:15

Right. Well, I am speaking not my native language right now, and I find it highly practical that. I mean we are deciding on a shared international language, and for you guys it's easy because it's your native tongue, and for the rest of us it's just learning one language, and so I I'm all, for I do a lot of work, uh, to preserve our own language. We spend a lot of time living with people who don't speak Danish, and so some of my children sometimes needs a little bit of help staying completely fluent in danish, and and so I see the value of protecting your own language, but I do very much also see the the value of having a shared one.

Sue Elvis: 1:21:09

To me, it's just two different languages, it's not adjusting one, and, as we found out today, the simplest of words, like limits and self-regulation, are really quite complex. That even though they're simple and we all use them, but looking at discussing them in detail, we can see that they are very complex in the way we actually use them we can see that they are very complex in the way we actually use them and sometimes triggering or they bring up things inside people so they're attached to emotion somehow.

Sue Elvis: 1:21:47

And even that word rule. We came around to the fact that you both make a rule, you might make a rule, and so I make a rule, sometimes for myself as well. Like I won't play video games after dinner because I know that the game will be going through my mind when I get into bed and I can't sleep. So that's my rule. So there's no sort of it's a little bit. You can't say never make a rule or never impose a limit. It's understanding the experience and why we're doing things and what's important on the surface of it. You can't just say no rules whatsoever.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:22:30

I think about Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, a quote we use a lot in our family because we are all not rule breakers but rule challengers by nature. If there's a rule we stop to think about, why is that rule there? Is it really? Is it necessary? But he says or maybe another character in the movie, I can't remember, says that the rules are not rules as such, they're more like guidelines. And I like that quote because that's how we use rules in our life.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:23:10

We make rules because they're easier to work with than having to make decisions. For example, we brush our teeth twice a day. That's a rule. Not a rule but a habit. Maybe that's a bad example. We do the dishes before we go to bed. That's a rule. But it's only a rule because there's a principle underlying it and it's actually just a guideline, because if it doesn't make sense to do the dishes, obviously we don't do it. And I think that's the way. If I could put a should into this podcast, that's the way rules should work in an unschooling context more like guidelines.

Sue Elvis: 1:23:56

But also we're free to break them. I'm free to break my rule of never playing games after dinner, and then I have to live with the consequences of a sleepless night. I'm free to make a lot of noise while my husband is in bed, but then I've got to live with the fact that he's tired in the next day and I'm feeling bad about it. Uh, and so I guess maybe that's a thing as well that most people's uh worlds. If you have a rule, you get a punishment if you break it. But we're free to break them.

Sandra Dodd: 1:24:32

It's just that we want to.

Sue Elvis: 1:24:34

You could say change, change yeah, well, change, change what, change the rule for that?

Sandra Dodd: 1:24:40

night or yeah, ignore the rule, one day ignore the rule break it.

Sue Elvis: 1:24:45

Breaking is harsh yeah, I was uh thinking about rules, and one thing that struck me one day is rules were made to be broken, so why do we make them?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:25:00

Well, because it's simpler.

Sue Elvis: 1:25:01

It's just setting yourself up to break them. People make break rules all the time. But yeah, I like that word there, sandra change them or ignore them rather than break them. That's not so negative. Well, if it's a guideline you get color out.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:25:18

If it's just a guideline, then you're not even anything can't even break it, can't even change it. Yeah, yeah I think we need to wrap up, ladies. Well, thank you I had fun I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. So did I. I think I need to sit down and write a little thing to get it right, let's topic be something easy and not so deep and philosophical okay, you put one in the chat.

Sandra Dodd: 1:25:50

I challenge you to find an easy topic oh, challenge accepted, I'll think about it, I'll try, okay well?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:25:58

thank you for this conversation.

Sue Elvis: 1:25:59

It's been fun thank you cecilia, thank you sandra bye, sue.