About Me, About My Blog
Welcome!
I’m Sue Elvis.
I’m an Australian blogger, author, podcaster and Youtuber. I live with my family in a village south of Sydney in the state of New South Wales. Our home is surrounded by the beautiful Australian bush. I think it’s the best place in the world!
I’m married to Andy who is a primary school teacher. We have 8 children: Felicity, Duncan, Callum, Imogen, Charlotte, Thomas, Sophie and Gemma-Rose. Felicity was born in 1987 and Gemma-Rose joined our family in 2004.
Thomas died as a baby in 1999. Despite no longer being with us, Thomas is still part of the family so he occasionally makes an appearance on my blog.
Update: Gemma-Rose turned 18 at the beginning of 2022, so all my children are now adults!
I may no longer have any young children, but my blog is overflowing with stories about my kids’ younger days. I sometimes write new posts too about the days gone by.
If you’d like to know more about my family you could read my family posts. These stories show how much my children have changed over the years. (I created this blog in 2011.) Their interests and dreams have changed too.
I’ve written a few posts about me, but here are a few quick facts:
I’ve written three unschooling books, Curious Unschoolers, Radical Unschool Loveand The Unschool Challenge.
I’ve also written three children’s novels, The Angels of Abbey Creek, The Angels of Gum Tree Road and The Angels of Wallaby Way.
I love running along our local bush tracks with my daughters and Nora and Quinn our dogs.
I enjoy taking photos with my daughter Sophie.
My inside is much younger than my outside.
I suspect I’m a bit vain.
I don’t like parties. (I’m an introvert.)
I do like drinking coffee with Andy, my best friend.
I love writing. At times, I also hate writing.
Our unschooling journey hasn’t been perfect. You’ll realise this if you read my homeschooling story posts. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. But I’ve learnt a lot!
Why do I write this unschooling blog?
I want to tell you about the love and joy we have discovered while living the unschooling way of life. I also want to encourage anyone who’s having a difficult time. Unschooling doesn’t result in a fairytale life. Life is still full of challenges. sometimes we have to keep trusting. The end of the story isn’t over until the last day.
You might already unschool or maybe you’re just investigating. Either way, I hope you will find something of interest here on my blog.
How can I help you?
Do you want to find out what unschooling is all about?
Unschooling can be hard to define in a few words. Interest-led learning? Child-led learning? Life learning? Natural learning? None of these terms tells the complete story. Maybe unschooling is something that needs to be lived to fully understand. And even then, there is still so much more to learn about it. We’ve been unschooling a long time and I’m still surprised by what I’m discovering. (This can be exciting!) But we have to start somewhere, so here are a few of my thoughts:
What I Think Unschooling is All About
Tired and Difficult Days (a podcast in which I talk about the definition of unschooling)
Other unschooling blog posts on this topic
Are you thinking about unschooling, but you’re not quite sure it’s for you?
I hope my stories will encourage you to say, “I want to unschool too! We can do it!” I hope my passion is reflected in my blog, and it inspires you to give unschooling a go.
If You’re Thinking about Unschooling
What’s Stopping You from Unschooling
Thinking Critically about Unschooling
My misconceptions about unschooling posts
My unschooling basics blog posts
Would you like to ponder unschooling ideas without feeling pressured to do things a certain way?
You can do that here. All families are different. But we can still share and learn from each other even if we’re not all the same.
Perhaps you’d like to read about unschooling from the baby stage to the young adult stage?
I’ve written unschooling blog posts about babies and toddlers, adult children, and every age in between. Attachment parenting? Learning to read? Graduating from university? Yes, I’ve written about those topics too.
Would you like to know if unschoolers can get into university?
If they want to, they can. Five of my children have studied at tertiary level.
My unschooling and university posts
Maybe you’d like to hear about difficult unschooling days as well as the good ones?
No one leads a perfect life, especially not us. That’s why I share my mistakes as well as the good stuff. But I try to add a touch of hope to my mistake stories. There has to be a reason for sharing them because I don’t want my blog to be depressing.
My tired day posts
Perhaps you want to hear stories about real unschooling children?
Now that my kids are grown up, it’s a bit harder to share their stories: I want to protect their privacy. I do occasionally – with permission – still share a bit of their news. Fortunately, my children still don’t mind me sharing stories about their younger years. I’m very fortunate that I’m able to give specific examples to illustrate what unschooling can look like. Even though a lot of my stories were written a while ago, practically all of them are evergreen so there are many to read.
Do you enjoy videos and podcasts as well as blog posts?
I have Youtube and podcast channels as well as my unschooling blog. These days, I usually present these by myself. However, I’ve make videos and podcasts with my children which are still available to view or listen to, so you can hear their thoughts and see unschooling from a child’s perspective.
Videos: My Youtube channel
My unschooling interview videos
Podcasts:
on iTunes
Podbean
here on this blog.
Perhaps you’re interested in parenting stories?
Somewhere along the way, unschooling flowed over into our parenting. It now affects everything we do. Would you like to hear about that? Some people might describe unschool parenting as radical unschooling or gentle or peaceful parenting. Maybe it could be also be described as attachment parenting. I like to think of it as living a radical life of unconditional love with my family.
Are you looking for some ideas on how to encourage kids to help with the chores?
Getting Kids to Help with the Chores
Are you looking for resources for strewing?
I love sharing the resources I find. I’m always looking for things that might be of interest to my girls, and I post about them here, speak about them in my podcasts, and then put them on my Pinterest boards too.
I have put together My BIG page of unschooling resources where you’ll find books, blogs and websites, podcasts, and other links which I hope you’ll find useful.
Are you looking for information about homeschool record keeping?
Can we unschool and legally fulfil homeschool registration requirements at the same time? This is a question I have written a lot about. I’m always talking and writing and making videos about how we can use Evernote to record unschooling in an impressive way. I also share my registration experiences.
A Perfect Method for Keeping Unschooling Records
My homeschool registration and records posts
Perhaps you’d like to connect with another Christian unschooling family?
I write my unschooling blog for everyone, both Christian and secular unschoolers. We can all share a lot even if we have different religious beliefs. Occasionally, however, I will write a post that explores unschooling from a Christian point of view. Perhaps you’d like to check out my Christian Unschooling posts.
Do you like to chat?
Do you have any questions? This is a friendly place. I’m quite happy to talk. You can leave a comment.
You’re not unschoolers?
That’s okay. Not all my readers call themselves unschoolers. But unschooling is about learning from life, and we all do that, so I hope you will find something of interest on my blog.
Would you like to help spread the word about unschooling?
If you find my posts helpful, I hope you’ll consider hitting the social media share buttons. And if you feel able to write an Apple review for my podcasts or sone Amazon reviews for my books, that would be wonderful!
And if you’d like to help me and my family…
Perhaps you could take a look at my books, Curious Unschoolers, Radical Unschool Love and The Unschool Challenge.
They’re available on Amazon as Kindle and print books. If you like them, please spread the word!
You could watch my daughter Imogen’s music videos on her Youtube channel. And perhaps you could check out her fantasy novels The Crystal Tree and The Shattering Song.
Your help would be very much appreciated!
Would you like to know how to keep up with my unschooling blog and everything else I do?
You could subscribe to this blog.
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my Youtube channel.
