What Kind of Home Do Kids Need?

The other day, while walking our dogs through the bush close to home, I met a neighbour who warned me to watch out for snakes. He’d almost stepped on one and had sighted others that had slithered away. Years ago,…

What Do I Think of School?

A friend asked me what I think of school. I decided to write my answer as a blog post. It’s no secret that, as a child, I hated school. It seemed like a waste of time. I had to learn…

Live Life to the Full, Have No Regrets

Today we are going on an adventure.  The girls giggle. “We’re going on a ‘school excursion’!” they say. We imagine a long straggly crocodile of paired off and name-tagged children, walking hand-in-hand. Where are they off to? The museum? The…

Dragon Mothers and Parenting Mistakes

In a previous post, I wrote: Oh my, you should see my file of ‘failed’ podcasts. Yesterday, I added another one to the pile. “How did your podcast go, Mum?” my daughter Imogen asked me, and I replied, “It wasn’t…

Latest

A Little Unobtrusive Help with Reading

Many years ago, I taught my first child Felicity to read so quickly and easily, I was sure I was a brilliant homeschooling mother. What was everyone else doing wrong? Teaching a child to read? Easy!  Or so I thought.  Then Duncan came along and the word ‘frustrated’ became part of my everyday vocabulary. He could remember the sounds of letters, but running them together to form words was a slow and laborious process. I suddenly realised I hadn’t taught…

Handwriting Matters or Maybe it Doesn’t

Some of my children have beautiful handwriting and some don’t.  “What are you going to do when you go to university? Your tutor won’t spend time trying to decipher your essays. If he can’t read them, you’ll fail.”  My eldest children went to university. “Handwritten assignments aren’t accepted, Mum. See, I didn’t need good handwriting after all!”  So I was wrong. Times have changed. Good typing skills are now more valuable than beautiful handwriting. Even I don’t handwrite much these…

Learning about Punctuation the Lewis Carroll Way

I never used to bother with the finer points of punctuation because I wasn’t sure how to use such devices as colons and semi-colons. For a long time, I didn’t even know their proper names. To me, they were two dots, or a dot and a comma. And I’m supposed to be an educated woman. But one day, help arrived in an unexpected way.  I started reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland out loud to my children, and I became very excited.…

Listening

Gemma-Rose’s turn to read. My turn to listen. When I was an eleven-year-old student, our teacher got out her tape recorder and played us a current affairs radio program. It was a hot summer’s afternoon, late in the day, and I felt sleepy. I didn’t even try to concentrate on the program.  I spent the half hour I should have been listening, daydreaming instead. Apparently, almost all my fellow students did the same thing. And the teacher must have suspected that our minds were not on world news…

Why I’m Not a Good Homeschooling Teacher

Everyone thinks I homeschool my fourteen-year-old daughter, Charlotte. I don’t. She homeschools herself. I try to help her: “Charlotte, I have a new book we’re just about to start reading. What you like to join us?” “No thanks, Mum. I have something else planned.” “Charlotte we’re going to watch this DVD. Do you want to watch too?” “Not right now, thank you Mum. I’m in the middle of something else.” So Sophie, Gemma-Rose and I settle on the sofa together…

Education Doesn’t Have a Use-by-Date

Yesterday Imogen was peering over Charlotte’s shoulder, looking at all the interesting things she is learning.  “You are giving yourself a much better education than the one I gave myself,” Imogen complained. “Look at all those wonderful books you’re reading. I haven’t read any of them.”  “Well, it’s not too late,” replied Charlotte. “Your education isn’t over even though you’re doing uni work rather than homeschooling. You could read these books too.”  Then she added, “Education doesn’t have a use-by-date,…

Doodling

My girls love to doodle. I do too! I used to think doodles were those scribbles people draw while they are talking on the phone. They are, but they’re also a whole lot more. Doodles are easy to draw, require little artistic skill but are so satisfying to work on. Anyone can doodle. Anyone can produce drawings that satisfy. I also like how they encourage creativity. Doodling is a bit like writing. You set off not knowing where you will…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Is It Working? Wrestling with Doubt in Unschooling

A grey day arrives that completely blots out the memory of all the preceding good days. We feel overwhelmed, tired, worried and lost. We wonder why we ever decided to unschool. A puddle of doubt about unschooling forms around us. What do we do? Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing unschooling doubts and sharing our experiences in episode 10 of…

Unschooling Isn’t Freedom Gone Wild: Why Choices Matter More Than Ideals

My husband Andy returned to work today after two weeks at home. Holiday time is over. We’ve now moved into term time. A whole term of possibility days stretches before me. I’m free to do whatever I like with my time while Andy is at school. My eyes light up with delight. But then I remember there are many…

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…

Christian unschooling

Love or Fear? What Guides Our Lives?

There are so many things we could fear. We might be too afraid to send our kids to school if we listen to the loud voices telling us how bad traditional education is. We might choose homeschooling because of that fear. If we decide to homeschool, we’re still not safe. Fears could follow us. We might be too afraid to…

Christian Unschooling: the Foremost Task of a Parent

A few days ago, in my Stories of an Unschooling Family community, I posted these thoughts: A parent does her best to give her child a good education but should concentrating on academic success be her main focus? Perhaps a parent’s most important task is to teach a child about love. Intelligence and academic achievements are highly regarded by the…
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