There Has Never Been a Better Time to Start Unschooling

Have you ever thought about unschooling but have hesitated? Maybe you haven’t quite been able to do it. What if things don’t go well? What if your kids get ‘behind’ while you’re experimenting? Will you regret your decision to give…

Unschooling: Kippers and Other Conversations

We’re watching Masterchef. In tonight’s episode, there’s an identification challenge. Laid out on a table is an array of small, large, speckled, dark, pink, long, flat, thin, goggled-eyed, scaly fish. The contestants stand in a line waiting for their turn…

Some Thoughts on Unschooling and Experts

I’m browsing the Internet, hopping from one unschooling site to another. And I notice that some authors sound more expert than others. They write with authority. They use language such as, “You should do this or that or the other.”…

Real Maths Running

At the bottom of our road, only 100 metres away from home, is a park surrounded by bushland. And winding through the bush are fire trails and tracks where the girls and I run. A few times a week, we…

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My Homeschool Records Book

Tomorrow is the first day of the final term of the school year. Andy is busy preparing lessons for his school class (he is a primary school teacher). And I am not busy preparing lessons. I have hardly thought about the new term.  I don’t really need to. Andy will get up early and head off to school, and we’ll slip back into our normal term time routine. It always happens that way. The only preparation I should do is find my…

An Education at the Museum

I have read stories about teenagers who’ve dropped out of school and into the world, in order to obtain a real education. They spent their days, not at home behind a desk, but out and about, visiting places of interest such as museums and galleries… seeing the world.  And I’ve always thought, “What a wonderful way to get an education!”  But we don’t have any museums and art galleries close to where we live. An education at the museum isn’t…

Another Unschooling Holiday

Last night I said to the girls, “Tomorrow is the last day of the school term.” Sophie and Gemma-Rose groaned. Years ago, we used to count down the days to the holidays. We’d limp through the last week of term desperate for a break. Sometimes I’d call a halt early. “That’s enough,” I’d declare. Everyone would cheer. No more school work for several weeks. But these days things are different. We enjoy our days together very much. We don’t yearn…

Remembering to Trust

Our family is problem solving. The oven is broken so we can’t cook scones, muffins, cakes, and biscuits: all those treats we really enjoy. We talked over the problem while we ate lunch. “We do have a microwave…” I started to say. And then someone mentioned the donut maker, the toaster and the sandwich toaster. We wondered what treats we could cook using these bits of equipment. “We’ll do some research this afternoon,” Imogen decided, “and then Charlotte and I…

A Main Course of Reading Out Loud

This morning we took a trip into town. While Imogen and Charlotte had piano lessons, the younger girls and I made the most of our waiting time, and did some grocery shopping. It was gone 11 am before we arrived back home. We carted all the shopping bags into the house and unpacked them, before putting on the kettle. A few minutes later, I sank with relief onto the sofa with my cup of coffee.  “Do you want to hear…

So How Do You Feel On a Monday Morning?

When I was a child, I’d awake on a Monday morning with a pain in my stomach. I was always reluctant to get out of bed and face the week. Five days of school stretched out ahead, and the weekend seemed so far away. I lived for Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the week was to be endured. My children know nothing about that ‘Monday morning feeling’. Every day is good as far as they are concerned. We wake…

Some Maths to Share on One of Those Tired Mornings

Last Friday morning, I had to take Imogen to an appointment. When I returned home, Sophie and Gemma-Rose were waiting for me, hoping I’d spend some time with them. But what I really wanted to do, after driving to and from town, was sit quietly with a cup of coffee. I looked at the girls’ hopeful faces and then I remembered something.  “If you make me a cup of coffee, I’ll have a look for a game we can play…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning

The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let go of control, and now I’m waiting for my child to learn how to regulate his time playing video games (for example),” do we have expectations about what that regulation should look like? Do we want…

Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go of Control

“I kind of love my title for this podcast. It’s very ambitious. Let’s fix it all!” And so begins another Ladies Fixing the World conversation in which Cecilie Conrad, Sandra Dodd and I dive deep into unschooling, sharing our thoughts and experiences. In S2E4, we discuss Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go.   Want to know more…

The Math Myth: How Do Unschooled Kids Learn Math?

There are many unschool maths questions. Here are just a few of them: Can kids really learn maths without formal instruction? What does unschooling maths look like? Can we strew unschool maths? Is it possible for registered homeschoolers to unschool maths? How can we provide evidence kids are learning maths when we don’t have formal records like workbooks and test…

Christian unschooling

The ‘Risky’ Business of Trusting Children

Trusting children to make their own choices sounds risky enough when it applies only to education, but what if you extend this trust to other areas of life? Will children decide they don’t want to go to Mass or eat healthy food? Perhaps they will want to watch inappropriate movies or play computer games all day. Some parents decide they…

Is It Okay if Parents Want to Influence Their Unschooling Kids?

Is it okay if we try to influence our unschooling kids? What if we’d like them to acquire particular values? Can we expose them to our beliefs? Or should we stand back and try to keep quiet about the things we base our lives on and let our kids work out everything for themselves? Let’s say we decide it’s…
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