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Some Strange and Interesting Bookish Questions

If you could have only half of a book, would you prefer the first half or the second one? My daughter Imogen and I discuss this question after I tell her a friend gave me too much money for a copy of one of my Angels novels: “She gave me

As the Unschooling Season Changes

Unschooling

Parents, sadly fed up with having their kids at home, are beginning to say, “When does school begin again?” My once-glorious hydrangeas are turning brown, and my agapanthus flowers are resembling dirty cotton mop heads. Soon, the carol bird will fly away north. Time is moving on. This morning, I

Need Some Unschooling Encouragement and Ideas to Ponder?

Books, Podcasts, Unschooling

I chatted with Cecilie Conrad and Sandra Dodd this morning via Zoom. We were recording episode 6 of the second season of Da Ladies Fixing the World podcast. I’ve known Sandra for many years, much longer than she’s known me. A long time ago, I googled unschooling and discovered Sandra

Unschooling: A Slow but Productive Way of Life

Me, Unschooling

My beautician and I have thought-provoking conversations. Yesterday, while Bonnie was taming and tinting my ageing eyebrows, making them look fierce, we chatted about time. We started with photography and how phones have simplified the process of capturing images. After buying an iPhone 15 Pro Max—I saved up for it

Unschool: Be Brave, Adventurous and Just a Bit Daring

Unschooling

It’s mid-summer, and our days are sticky-hot and stormy. I feel like descending our bush-covered mountain and heading for the coast. “Perhaps we could find a dog-friendly holiday house at the beach,” I tell my husband Andy. I imagine standing in the ocean, waves rolling over my feet, with the

Strewing to Share Passions and Keep Our Bonds Strong

Unschooling

Driving past a cafe in town, I spied a blue racing car. “I need a photo of the car to send to Callum!” I cried. So Andy turned the car around and headed back to the cafe. As we parked the car, my husband said, “Do you want to jump

Do You Need to Follow an Older Unschooler? (Part 2)

Ageing, Blog/podcast/write, Me, Podcasts, Unschooling

I choose the photos I share online with care, looking for ones with good, flattering light. I also need my photo smile to be just right. Sometimes, my smile looks a bit goofy because of my overbite. I reject these images, wanting to hide my imperfection, though it’s not my

Do You Need to Follow an Older Unschooler? (Part 1)

Ageing, Blog/podcast/write, Books, Me

Our fluid intelligence – our ability to focus and problem solve – will inevitably decline as we age. Listening to Arthur C. Brooks say this during a YouTube interview, I instantly protested, “No!” What if I keep my brain active by playing lots of video games? I could practise my

How Unschoolers Own the World

Unschooling

What comes to mind when someone mentions nature studies, famous artists, or living books? Charlotte Mason? What about classical novels, The Great Books or Latin? Classical education? Do you think about unit studies when you hear someone is exploring a topic in many different ways? And what about notebooking? Perhaps

A Genuine Invitation for Christian Unschoolers

Christian Unschooling, Unschooling

Sometimes, invitations aren’t genuine invitations. They might sound like proper invitations. We say the right words, “Would you like to…?” but expect a particular response that doesn’t include the right to decline. Then, some invitations are issued without a personal touch. We wonder, “Does it matter if I accept? Will

How to Help Our Kids With Their Career Choices

Unschooling

How do we help our kids with their career choices? Should we push them to get a university degree to increase their opportunities? What if our kids don’t like that idea? What if their opinions and ours differ? To read this post, enter the password below. Password: If you’d like

An Irresistible Invitation to an Unschooling Voyage of Discovery

Podcasts, Unschooling

Isn’t it wonderful to receive an invitation? Someone has chosen us! There are all kinds of invitations, from coffee dates to weddings. I love hearing, “Mum, would you like to meet up for lunch with me?” Sometimes, we eagerly accept an invitation: “Lunch sounds good! Thank you for asking me!”

Unschoolers Taking Over the World

Unschooling

A sign at our local nursery recommends purchasing native plants like wattles, bottlebrushes, waratahs, and hakeas for our gardens because we live so close to the Australian bush. Everyone in our village seems to have ignored this advice. Each front garden on our road has many exotic agapanthus plants. In

Irreplaceable Unschool Dogs and Kids

Parenting, Unschooling

People often have favourite breeds of dogs, don’t they? Maybe they love greyhounds like a couple living in a nearby town who dress their trio of thin dogs in bright-striped pyjamas to keep them warm on below-zero days. Or they might be dachshund people like a woman I recently heard

How to Write a Million Unschool Love Stories

Christian Unschooling, Parenting, Unschooling

I used to think the defining word of unschooling was freedom. Freedom attracted me. I wanted to be free to do whatever I liked. I wanted to get up each day and do anything or nothing at all. But I soon realised there’s a problem with freedom. If we always

Reflecting Badly On Our Family

Parenting

Andy and I take Nora and Quinn to the vet for their annual checkups. We wonder if our dogs are the correct weight for their size. Are their coats clean and shiny? Do they look happy and well cared for? The vet says our pets are magnificent. We swell with

What Snakes Can Teach Us About Unschooling

Unschooling

Strolling through the bush on a spring afternoon, sunscreen on my bare arms, a dog on a leash, I round a bend in a track and almost trip over a writhing venomous brown snake. With my heart beating fast, I jump, tighten my hold on Quinn’s leash and then run.

When Our Kids Are Wired Differently

Books, Parenting, Radical Unschool Love, Unschool Books, Unschooling

Amina lowers her voice. “I don’t like to admit this, but one day I said, ‘Harry, can’t you do as I want for once? Can’t you be nice to me just for one day?’ Harry looked confused. Be nice to me? I don’t think he deliberately tried to upset me.

Christian Unschooling: Should We Encourage Our Kids to Seek Security?

Books, Christian Unschooling, Unschooling

Should we encourage our kids to seek security? Is it our parental duty to make sure they receive the education and opportunities they might need to get safe, well-paying jobs when they leave our care? Or is that kind of security not what our children need? Could security be about

When an Unschooler Feels Like Taking a Course

Blog/podcast/write, Me, Unschooling

Do you ever feel like taking a course, reading a textbook, or following someone else’s instructions to learn something? Do you want someone to say, “Follow my plan, and when you get to the end, you’ll know how to bake bread, fix a car, understand classical music, draw a face

When Mothering Is Not Enough

Christian Unschooling, Me, Technology, Unschooling

I got together with a few friends, and while we were sitting around the table sipping tea, our conversation turned towards kids, screens, and the Internet, a popular topic. Someone told us about a doctor who advocated having no technology in the family home because she believed this was the

Reaching the Finish Line: Achieving Our Dreams

Me, Unschooling

I spend months updating my first children’s novel, The Angels of Abbey Creek. I revise the words, check the punctuation and grammar, add a new image to each chapter, and create a fresh eye-catching cover. Eventually, I reach the finish line: I have a file and a cover image to

Encouraging Kids to Say Thank You

Parenting, Unschool Challenges, Younger Unschoolers

The other day, someone asked, “When you had younger children, how did you encourage them to say thank you?” My first response was, “I can’t remember.” It’s strange: we realise our kids learnt the necessary social skills, but looking back, we can’t work out how they did it. Did we

Christian Unschooling: Do Kids Need Silence and Space to Hear God?

Christian Unschooling, Christian Unschooling Challenges, Me, Unschooling

We should share our faith with our kids, but do we also need to give them space to ponder, wonder, and hear God in the silence? Or is that risky? Is faith something we need to impress on our kids, insisting they adopt it without question? Because we don’t want

Does Christian Unschooling Interest You?

Blog/podcast/write, Christian Unschooling, Unschool Books, Unschooling

I’ve written three unschooling books. I focused on the educational side of unschooling in Curious Unschoolers. I extended the unschooling story in Radical Unschool Love by sharing parenting thoughts and stories. And I offered practical suggestions for turning all those interesting unschooling ideas into something real in families’ lives in

Choosing an Exceptional Unschool Life and Other Things

Books, Podcasts, Unschooling, Videos

Sometimes, we wake up in the morning and want to know exactly how we’ll spend the day. We’d like someone to say, “This is what you need to do today,” and lay out a plan for us. Perhaps we’re too tired, distracted or unsure about what we should be doing

Is It Wrong to Love Without Limits?

Christian Unschooling, Parenting

We’re often told that kids won’t learn right from wrong if we love them without limit. But what if the world has things back to front? What if it’s unconditional love that bathes us in the gentle light of self-awareness and spurs us to become the people we were created

How to Parent So We’ll Have No Regrets

Parenting, Unschool Challenges

When I look at family photos from a few years ago, I remember those chaotic and messy days when I was at the centre of my children’s lives. I felt like those days would last forever. Sometimes, that was good: I wanted to stay firmly in the love-filled middle of

The Problem of Introverted Kids and Blogging Mothers

Books, Family, Parenting

Is introversion a problem? What if our kids are introverted? Should we push them to be more outgoing? I’m sharing some thoughts, experiences and stories about our introverted family and the situations we’ve faced. To read this post, enter the password below. Password: If you’d like to make a small

Would You Like the Key to the Secret Unschooling Garden?

Blog/podcast/write

The other day, I stumbled across a ‘hilarious’ radical unschooling collection on someone’s blog, and there was the graphic for my post When Rules for Teenagers Aren’t Necessary. People online were laughing at me. Now, I’m not surprised when others think my ideas and opinions are ridiculous. In a way,

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