Unschooling Isn’t Freedom Gone Wild: Why Choices Matter More Than Ideals
Unschooling, Attachment, and the Art of Letting Go: Building Trust Instead of Rules
Why We Should Freely Choose to Do Difficult and Unpleasant Things
Is It Okay if Parents Want to Influence Their Unschooling Kids?
Why Parents Should Help with the Family Chores
Intuition and Independence: Unschooling Tips and Practical Advice
Unconditional Love: the Glue that Sticks Us Together
I miss my Mother's Day breakfast. My husband, Andy, and some of our adult kids enjoy coffee and pastries after the early Sunday Mass without me. I’m at home, a blanket drawn up to my chin with razor blades scratching my throat and a drum beating in my head: I’m unwell.
Mother's Days, like birthdays, can be full of expectations. We don’t expect to be sick. We want all our kids to remember us. Will they visit? Will they phone? Will they say, "I love you, Mum"?
Live a Radical Life of Unconditional Love
Challenging Ourselves to Put Away Our Phones
When Children Move Out of an Unschool Home
Some parenting ‘experts’ advise us to push our kids out of the family home as soon as possible. They tell us to make our kids stand on their own two feet. But my husband and I have ignored this advice. We’re happy for our kids to remain with us as long as they need to be here. Some of them moved out of home when they were 18 or 19. Some stayed longer. Now, we only have one child left.
How to Respond to ‘Unlovable’ Kids and Cats
Parenting: Doing Our Inadequate Best
Do you ever look back - a few years, months or even days - at your younger self and wish you could have done better? Perhaps you remember dragon parent days when you failed to be gentle. Could you have said things you now regret? I know I do.Sometimes, I want to go back and put things right. But even if it were possible to retrace my steps, perhaps it’s unnecessary to begin again.
Unschooling: Doing What Is Right
Tough or Unconditional Love? Parent or Friend?
Should we be firm with our kids, demanding they obey us, even if this causes conflict and unhappiness? Perhaps it’s our duty to remember who’s the parent and who’s the child and not be tempted to act as friends to our children. Is the tough love parenting method the most effective way to ensure our kids become responsible and good people?Or should we love our kids unconditionally and connect closely with them? Does love and strong bonds result in secure and confident kids who want to do what is right without coercion? Can we be friends with our children as well as their parents?
Preventing Childhood Trauma with Unconditional Love
Childhood trauma can follow us into adulthood, affecting what we do, how we feel about ourselves and how we relate to others. We can trace many of our adult problems back to something that happened as we were growing up. If we understand this, we’ll protect our kids, the best we can, from anything that might affect them adversely. But what about the trauma that's disguised as ‘good’ parenting techniques? Can we unintentionally harm our kids by doing what we think is right?
Could Unschooling Be Exactly What Teens Need to Do?
When unschooling children reach the teenage years, is it time for them to stop following their interests and do some serious structured work instead? If they continue to unschool, will they fail to gain enough knowledge to get into university? Do they need to learn how to write essays, complete assignments, meet deadlines and deal with exams? Do parents need to tighten the rules for teens? Perhaps they should restrict their teenagers’ freedom to keep them safe because their worlds are getting bigger and there are a lot of dangers out there. Or is leaving unschooling behind the wrong thing to do? Could unschooling be exactly what teens need to do, (even if they haven’t unschooled before)?
Unschoolers, Chores and Rosters
Unschool: Hair Dye Criticism
Sometimes I’m surprised by the critical comments that fall from lips. Why do people think they have the right to say things that might hurt our kids? Do they believe their opinions are important and we need to hear them? Or are they just thoughtless and don’t realise the effect of their words?