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…

Trying Not to Complain

Hour after hour, day after day,  heavy rain dropped upon us. At first, we delighted in this extraordinary event. We searched for our long lost umbrellas. We remembered how to drive in the wet conditions. We took pleasure in the…

Speed Angel Joy

I am sitting by the lake watching four girls scooting along the path. They are the Speed Angel Sisters and they are fast! Every now and then the girls veer off onto the grass and come to a sudden…

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?…

Heavy Metal Music and Keeping Kids Safe

Often we make decisions based on the opinions and expectations of others. Without considering whether something is good for us or not, whether it suits our family or fulfils our needs and those of our children, we toss away anything…

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Stories of Awful Hair Styles and Inspector Morse

I’ve been watching Inspector Morse, an old TV series, starring John Thaw. My dad was a great Morse fan. I contributed to his Morse DVD collection, buying him a new series for some of his birthdays. I knew my dad enjoyed this crime series but never wondered what exactly it was that attracted him to it. It didn’t occur to me to find out. I failed to say, “Hey, Dad, what is it about Morse that you like?” Months after…

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 worked on my blog, rereading the posts, I slowly moved forward in time. When I created this blog, my youngest…

Intuition and Independence: Unschooling Tips and Practical Advice

What do we do if a child refuses to brush her teeth? What if our kids choose not to wash their hair or shower their bodies? Personal hygiene is important, isn’t it? Without self care, our kids might develop cavities. They could end up not being accepted by other people. Should we insist our children bring their own dirty cups back to the kitchen? If we don’t, will they fail to learn responsibility and consideration? Will they become self-centred and…

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?…

A Birthday Chat

Every time I celebrate a birthday, going up a number, I ponder ageing anew. How do I feel about getting older? Am I reluctant to admit my age? Or am I grateful to be who I am at the age I’ve reached? I once saw a sign saying, Experienced cars for sale. Of course, this is a novel way of selling secondhand vehicles. Secondhand conjures up images of something that’s not as good as it used to be. The value…

Live a Radical Life of Unconditional Love

Cecilie and Jesper Conrad invited me to be part of their Self Directed podcast, so I met them online, via Zoom, and I had a fabulous time recording episode 65 with them. After the interview, one of my daughters said, “How did it go, Mum?” and I replied, “I must have done okay because the Conrads have invited me to record a second episode with them!” That second conversation, episode 66 –  I’ve got back-to-back episodes on the Self Directed…

Encouraging My Daughters and Other Women by Embracing My Age

I was 58 on Christmas Day, 2019. If you do some real-life maths, you’ll soon work out how old I am today. There have been times when I haven’t wanted to admit my age and wished to appear younger than I am. Why? Did I fear no one would like me if they heard I was older than they were? Perhaps I thought I had to be young to be accepted and valued. But, bit by bit, I’ve come to…

An Unschool Conversation with Jesper and Cecilie Conrad on the Self Directed Podcast

Remember how I was talking about pushing ourselves to do things outside our comfort zones? Well, I almost said no the first time someone invited me to discuss unschooling on their podcast because I didn’t want to put myself in an unfamiliar and possibly uncomfortable situation. I was confident talking about unschooling when recording my own podcasts: I was in control. I could stop, delete, and start again if the words didn’t flow. But what would happen if I had…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling Is Carried by Conversations

Dinner tables, car rides, bedtime chats, and café corners are the real places where unschooling lives and grows. Conversations—often unscheduled, informal, and unplanned—can become the central structure of a learning life. Gathering at the Dinner Table In our house, we never met for breakfast or lunch. Those were meals where people ate what, where and when they liked. But we…

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: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother!…

Christian unschooling

Pondering Trust

I never wanted to be in a position where I had to trust God. I preferred to rely on my own resources. I wanted to be totally in control of my own life. That seemed easier to do because trusting is so very difficult. Or so it can seem. Then one day, at a time when I was feeling rather…

Igniting a Child’s Love of Learning

Do you wake up each morning with a delicious feeling of anticipation? Do you swing your legs out of bed quickly, anxious to get dressed and move onto the business of the day? Another day of learning with your children stretches ahead… Do you feel excited? Once upon a time, I used to drag myself out of bed and…
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