Dreams, Talents, Working and Unworking

In a few months’ time, my daughter Imogen will finish her university degree. She’s started thinking about what she would like to do next. “I have three lofty dreams,” she says. One of them involves a piano, a microphone and…

Building Strong Relationships With Our Kids

Last week, we went on an adventure. Sophie, Gemma-Rose, Andy and I travelled to a small country town in the north of our state to visit our son Callum. We spent a few days bumping along dirt roads in Callum’s…

Why I Am My Children’s Number One Fan

“You have such good children!” says a woman as we come out of the church. My children smile. They glow with happiness. And then I spoil it all by saying rather hurriedly, “They’re not always this good, you know!” I…

Home Almost Alone and Pondering What to Do

Here in Australia, the new school year has just begun, and for the first time in nearly 30 years, our family doesn’t have any registered homeschoolers. I don’t need to create a new homeschool records notebook labelled 2021, Term 1.…

Latest

Choosing an Exceptional Unschool Life and Other Things

Do we sometimes want to use someone else’s plan for our lives? Or are we willing to embrace adventure? Do you journal? Analogue or digital? How do we achieve our goals? I’m sharing podcasts, books, videos and thoughts that I’ve been pondering this week.…

Is It Wrong to Love Without Limits?

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 to be?…

How to Parent So We’ll Have No Regrets

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 my delightful mothering life. But there were also days when I was overwhelmed and tired and felt like I was failing. How would my children survive my parenting? I occasionally…

The Problem of Introverted Kids and Blogging Mothers

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.…

Would You Like the Key to the Secret Unschooling Garden?

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, I understand. Radical unschooling does look stupid from the outside. But from the inside? It makes sense. Radical unschooling isn’t about letting kids do whatever they like without any input…

What if Adding Joy to Your Days Was Simple and Inexpensive?

When I ask my husband, Andy, what he wants to do to celebrate his birthday, he replies, "Let's go on a picnic." It's winter. An icy wind has been blowing for days. It's not ideal picnic weather, but does that matter? No. We'll be brave and gritty. We'll face the adverse weather together. We'll be adventurous. "What picnic food would you like to eat?" I ask. “Let's fill a thermos flask with tomato soup and have rolls with cheese."…

The Art of Conversation and Lifelong Learning

Everyone has a story to share. Everyone is interesting. Unschoolers and hosts of the Self Directed podcast, Jesper and Cecilie Conrad, roam the world seeing spectacular sights, but the real heart of their travels is the people they meet. As Cecilie says, "People are the adventure." I once read that to be interesting, we need to be interested in others. And that's what makes the Conrads' podcast so good. Jesper and Cecilie are interested hosts who want to know more…

Is Trying to Impress Others a Waste of Time?

Strolling between the gum trees on a winter’s morning with Nora and Quinn, my fingers painful with the cold, I meet Matilda. I smile and stop. So do my dogs. They thrust their grinning heads into the undergrowth, happy to sniff up all the smells of the bush while I exchange a few words with my next-door neighbour. We talk about the extra-cold weather and how she’s thinking of moving somewhere warmer. But if Matilda goes north, will she miss…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Unschooling: Doing What Is Right

Unschooling is the right thing to do. That’s a bold claim that you might challenge if your ideas about what’s right are different from…

Tired and Difficult Days

Today I’m tired. “Have you got anything you really need to do?” asks my daughter Imogen. “I haven’t yet recorded my podcast,” I reply.…

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: How Do We Know They’re Learning?

There are loads of unschooling questions we could ask about learning: How do we know unschooling kids are learning? Should they be learning particular things? Is there knowledge that all kids need? Are our unschooled kids learning enough? Can they get behind? Should we just trust our kids are learning? But what if we have doubts? Or what if we…

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…

Christian unschooling

Kids, Needs, and Church

Should unschooled kids be forced to go to church? I wonder if this is the wrong question to ask when our kids protest about coming with us. Would it be better to ask, Why doesn’t my child want to go to church? In this week’s podcast, I talk about this question as well as : The importance of trying to see…

When We Don’t Know What to Do

I’ve just updated my blog. I started at the first post I ever wrote and then worked my way through 14 years of stories, reading each one before deciding whether to keep it or revert it to draft. I then checked the formatting of the retained posts, rearranging paragraphs, eliminating dead links, and changing or improving the images. As I…
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