Suzie Andres Chats about Unschooling

Last week, Suzie Andres emailed: “Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow…  I’ll be on Judy Dudich’s blog/talk radio show to speak about unschooling…”  So I tuned in, eager to hear what Suzie had to say. I was also…

Busy Days and Catch-Up Days

Do you ever have weeks where you find yourself racing through your days trying to keep up? We’re having one of those weeks right at the moment. Usually, we get up early each day. We work our way through our…

How I Gave Up and Started Unschooling

A guest post by Venisa McAllister We started with high hopes. When my oldest daughter Sarah was old enough for kindergarten I enrolled her in a program called k-12. They would give us a computer, fun learning materials, and help…

Boy Stories

Usually I speak and write about my four youngest daughters. But not today.  For this week’s podcast, I share some boy stories. I received a comment saying: “I want to hear about when your boys were younger.” So that’s what…

Latest

Pushing Ourselves Instead of Our Kids

Often, we push our kids to try new things, don’t we? We want them to be adventurous. We say, “If you give it a go, you might discover you like it. You might be good at it.’ But what about ourselves? Are we willing to try new things? Or do we make excuses to avoid pushing ourselves outside our comfort zones? I wanted to give podcasting a go. So, I made an episode and uploaded it to the Internet. I…

Chatting with My Unschooled Author Daughter

It’s been a while, but I’m back with a new podcast episode! My author daughter Imogen is back too. In episode 205 of my Stories of an Unschooling Family podcast, we’re chatting about: Writing and how Imogen is promoting and selling her YA novels Collaboration and how we achieve more when we work together The ups and downs of social media We also share some of our latest news and tell a couple of stories, including the one about my…

Challenging Ourselves to Put Away Our Phones

Did you hear the story of the photographer who visited the Grand Canyon and took millions of photos of the awe-inspiring sights, and then later realised that he hadn’t seen a thing despite having his eye glued to his viewfinder the whole time? He retraced his steps, his camera dangling idly by his side, and looked at everything properly. I wonder: do we fail to see the bigger picture when we view the world via our cameras and phones? Perhaps…

Taking Risks, Looking Strange

… And we shouldn’t be afraid of taking risks: doing something different and trying new things. People might look at us strangely, but then again, they might not. They might think what we’re doing is great. It’s strange how many of us tend to stick to the same way of doing things, isn’t it? We want to blend in, stay under the radar and not stick out. Unschooling can be a bit that way. When my kids were growing up,…

How to Respond to ‘Unlovable’ Kids and Cats

Poppy died, and I cried despite not liking the cat. Poppy was a grumpy animal. She was messy and unkempt, preferring not to groom herself. An unpleasant odour followed her wherever she went. We bathed the cat, clipped her long fur, and sprinkled deodoriser all over her body, trying to make her an acceptable family member. She protested. Poppy died, and we no longer have to deal with a messy, unkempt animal. I should have cheered, but I cried. I…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

How Unschooling Doesn’t Guarantee a Fairytale Life

Yesterday evening, like all Sunday evenings, my kids who live locally came to dinner. Six of us gathered around our dining room table, savouring a meal cooked by my husband while enjoying the usual end-of-the-week lively catch-up conversation. There was a time when we dreamed that all our children would buy houses on the same street as our family home.…

Christian unschooling

Christian Unschooling: Disciplining With Unconditional Love

If our children misbehave, what do we do? Make them sit on the time-out chair? Punish them? Perhaps we should withdraw our love. Be cold and distant. Make things unpleasant for our kids because they need to know how upset we are, don’t they? We want them to feel bad because then, maybe, they’ll remember to act in the right…

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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