My Unschooling Teenagers' Typical Days
On a typical day, my daughter Sophie (16) gets out of bed soon after 5 am. By 6.10 am, she’s heading out the door with sister Imogen who drives her to work. A few minutes later, Gemma-Rose (14) and I also leave the house. We’re on our way to the bush tracks at the end of our road for our morning run.
This is how my unschooling teenagers’ typical days begin.
A typical day doesn’t stay typical for very long. As my girls grow and develop and learn, what they do each day changes. But at any one moment in time, I can say, This is what my teenagers are doing right now. These are their current typical unschooling days.
At the moment, Sophie’s days are dominated by her part-time job. Long empty days, waiting to be filled with whatever she likes, are a thing of the past. I feel rather sad about this. However, Sophie accepts this new situation. Actually, she has chosen it. You see, she has plans. She hopes the skills she’s learning, and the money she earns from her job will allow her to continue following her passions. In her free time, Sophie works on those passions: She takes photos, cooks, reads, writes, goes to the gym and makes vlogs.
Gemma-Rose’s typical days are totally different from Sophie’s. On a typical stay-at-home day, after our morning run, she will help me with the chores, and then we spend some time together. “What shall we do today?” we ask each other. “Shall we watch another episode of Back in Time for Dinner? How about reading another chapter of Great Expectations? I found some articles about The Secrets of Your Food. Do you want to read them? I’ve put some links to some things that sound interesting in this term’s Evernote notebook. Would you like to take a look? Or do you have plans of your own?”
While I’m busy with my work and interests, Gemma-Rose will practise the piano, continue her drawing course, work on her novel, read her library books, walk the dogs, cook the dinner, listen to music, watch movies, and play or make her own computer games. We don’t stay home every day. Sometimes we go out on adventures or go shopping or catch up with the errands.
I’m talking about my unschooling teenager’s typical days in this week’s podcast, episode 122.
I discuss the following questions:
Is there such a thing as a typical unschooling day?
Can we have too many resources? Do our kids sometimes get overwhelmed by too many possibilities?
Are documentaries and lifestyle TV series a good source of learning adventures?
What TV series have Gemma-Rose and I been enjoying recently?
Why did I initially reject this episode?
Show Notes
Podcast
Episode 110: An Interview with a Teenage Radical Unschooler
Videos
Back in Time for Dinner
Further Back in Time for Dinner
Back in Time for the Weekend
The Secrets of Your Food
The Big Family Cooking Showdown
Website
Open Learn: Free learning from the Open University
Podcast music
Twombly by Podington Bear, (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Do you remember how we were talking about the trouble with being a perfectionist? How my draft files are full of rejected blog posts and podcasts? Well, this week, I’m trying not to worry about perfection. This podcast is actually a failed episode. Yes, I rejected it because I couldn’t decide whether it was interesting enough. Now that I have told you that, you’ll either not listen to episode 122 because it might not be very good or perhaps you will listen to see what’s wrong with it. Anyway, despite its imperfections, I do hope you get something out of this week’s podcast.
If you enjoy my podcast, please consider sharing the link so we can spread the word about unschooling. And if you’d like to stop by and share your typical unschooling days or just say hello, please do!