Love or Fear? What Guides Our Lives?

There are so many things we could fear. We might be too afraid to send our kids to school if we listen to the loud voices telling us how bad traditional education is. We might choose homeschooling because of that…

My Unschoolers’ End-of-the-Year Reports

My husband Andy is a primary school teacher, and twice a year he has to write school reports for all his children. For a couple of weeks, we see nothing of him except his back, as he sits in front…

The Dead Body and Other Stories

At the moment, it’s the school holidays here in Australia. My school teacher husband, Andy, is home from work for a couple of weeks. Life around here changes a bit when Andy’s at home. We tend to do different things…

Asking for Help

A few weeks ago, I was feeling rather stressed out so I took a break from podcasting. It’s been good not having to produce a new episode each week. Podcasting is hard work! I must now be feeling more rested because…

Responding to Unschooling and Other Critics

Earlier this week, I got involved in a long and involved conversation on Facebook. I don’t usually do this, but this time, I didn’t have a choice. The discussion began on my timeline. It was rather a heated debate: There…

Latest

Why I’m Wearing Stiff Undies

My friend Charlotte said she used to enjoy the lighthearted family stories that I wrote in my earlier blogging days. That got me thinking. Perhaps I can repost an old story or two from a blog that’s no longer online. So, here’s a story from January 2014 when the weather was scorching, my husband Andy was home for the school holidays, and most of our kids still lived at home. It’s not a very ladylike tale. I mention things that…

Could Ebooks Save My Unschool Blog?

The other day, I logged into my blog hosting account to find out when my next payment is due and how much it will be. When I saw the bill due later this year, I gulped and said to my husband, “Do we want to spend so much money on a site that’s often slow or offline because of a problem? Do we have that much money? Perhaps it’s time to delete my blog.” Andy reminded me that my blog…

My List of Brilliant Unschooling Blogs

Remember when blogging was the thing to do? We all created blogs instead of social media accounts. We shared our lives, writing our stories, filling our sidebars with photos of our kids, sometimes naming them, frequently hiding their identities under pseudonyms like Princess and Tiger. We followed each other’s blogs. When a new name and face appeared in our followers widget, we grinned. Someone new wanted to read our posts! We rushed to read each other’s offerings before leaving lively…

How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions and Sceptics

My mother-in-law visited us for the birth of our son, Thomas. After he died and we’d buried him in his tiny white casket, Andy’s mother asked me if we wanted more children. As I replied, “Oh, yes!”, my mother-in-law’s face dropped into a disapproving frown. “She thinks we already have enough kids,” I thought as my defence hackles rose. But that wasn’t it. I’d misunderstood. In S3E3 of The Ladies Fixing the World podcast, How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions…

How Kids Need Something Better Than Perfect Lives

If it were possible, would you give your kids a perfect life? Or do they need something better? Sitting on my faded blue chair in our back garden, clad in my pjs, at 7 o’clock this morning, savouring the relatively cool air that has now disappeared, I thought about how we put so much effort into trying to give our kids a perfect life. We want to bring them up in beautiful, calm, peaceful homes filled with every possible resource.…

When Our Unschooling Days Turn Grey

Life has felt grey for a while. The fog of tiredness hangs over me, trapping me in my own isolated world. Occasionally, after a reasonable sleep, the grey recedes, revealing bright delights and joys, and I think about how blessed I am to be living my life. My spirits lift. I rejoin the bigger world, thinking about how I can contribute to it. But on the whole, the fog swirls around, and I feel stuck. And sometimes desperate. It’s hard…

Unschooling: Making the Right Choices

Years ago, when life was overwhelming, and I was looking for yet another way to homeschool my kids, I was tempted to unschool. I thought if we were unschoolers, we could do whatever we liked, and if we didn’t want to do anything, that would be okay. Because unschooling is about freedom, isn’t it? We are free to choose what we do, so we can choose to do nothing at all. I discovered that unschooling doesn’t work that way. Yes,…

Unschooling: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother! Have you seen her home? It’s spotless. How does Sue do it?” I imagined my children growing up into well-rounded…
1 2 3 … 109

My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning

The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let go of control, and now I’m waiting for my child to learn how to regulate his time playing video games (for example),” do we have expectations about what that regulation should look like? Do we want…

Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Curiosity, Flexibility, and Trust

I’m a Lady Fixing the World! Cecilie Conrad kindly invited me to join her and Sandra Dodd for Season 2 of her podcastThe Ladies Fixing the World. We recorded our first unschooling conversation together in November 2024 before life got extra-busy with Christmas, and it has just gone live! The audio version. Here’s the audio version: You can also listen…

Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go of Control

“I kind of love my title for this podcast. It’s very ambitious. Let’s fix it all!” And so begins another Ladies Fixing the World conversation in which Cecilie Conrad, Sandra Dodd and I dive deep into unschooling, sharing our thoughts and experiences. In S2E4, we discuss Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go.   Want to know more…

Christian unschooling

The Discomfort of Letting Go and Allowing Our Kids (and Ourselves) to Grow

We organise life so we’re not challenged too much. We don’t want to stray outside our comfort zone because that could be painful. We say no instead of yes to our kids, not wanting them to go to parties at night, ride their bikes on the road, run through the bush alone, or learn to drive. We don’t want thoughts…

Unschooling and Trust

I have been struggling with this post for a while now, and wondering why I’m having so much trouble finding the right words. And I have decided it’s the language. I want to write a story from a personal point of view like I normally do. And I can’t. We had such a gradual transition to unschooling, I didn’t really…
Go toTop