A Real Maths Learning Moment

Sometimes real life maths turns up when I least expect it. Maths learning moments suddenly appear. And if I take advantage of these moments, some wonderful real maths learning can happen… Yesterday the girls and I were watching art history…

A Balanced and Productive Unschool Life

It’s good to read stories about unschoolers, isn’t it? What do they think? What do they do? What kind of people are they? Stories about real unschoolers bring unschooling alive. But there is something better than reading stories. And that’s…

A Big Chat About Unschooling Teenagers

Some time ago, I asked: Is anyone interested in discussing the teenage unschooling years? I’m thinking of recording a podcast on this topic with my daughters Imogen and Sophie. . My girls both have a day off work tomorrow so…

Latest

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 trust our kids will learn all they need to know when they need to know it because we’re worried about…

Does Love Keep You Awake While Others Sleep?

Lying in bed, trying to conquer insomnia, I noticed bright intermittent flashes of light illuminating the night sky. I slid from under the quilt, padded to the living room, and peered out the window, trying to locate the source of the light. White, blue, and green electric balls of light, accompanied by loud bangs, were exploding from the power line strung high on the other side of our road. Showers of red embers were falling to the ground. My imagination…

Ordinary Frida Kahlo Eyebrow Days

Quinn barked, alerting me to the policeman striding along the path towards our house. After securing the dog, I opened the front door, my heart racing, my hands shaking, thinking, “The police only make house calls when they’ve bad news to share.” “Have you seen any strangers lurking recently?” the officer asked. “Your neighbour reported some broken windows.” My heart rate slowed as I realised the man was talking about windows and stones and not car accidents and deaths. I…

Parenting: Doing Our Inadequate Best

Do you ever look back - a few years, months or even days - at your younger self and wish you could have done better? Perhaps you remember dragon parent days when you failed to be gentle. Could you have said things you now regret? I know I do. Sometimes, I want to go back and put things right. But even if it were possible to retrace my steps, perhaps it’s unnecessary to begin again.…

Words Matter

Yesterday, I sang happy birthday to a friend in a video message despite thinking I have a terrible voice. “I’ll sing the low version,” I announced before plucking up my courage, taking a deep breath, and attempting the first note. My low voice is the one I use when I’m messing around with my family, pretending to be a bass like my husband and not a soprano like my daughter, Imogen. We all giggle when I reach into my boots…

The Unanticipated Problem with Sharing My Kids’ Lives Publicly

When my kids were younger, I constantly had my camera in my hand, watching out for photo opportunities. I wanted visual evidence of all our learning experiences for our homeschool records book. I also wanted lots of photos to go with my blog stories. We had a rule in our home: we had to check if it was okay to use photos of each other before sharing them online. We all could refuse permission for the publication of images of…

Reluctant to Persuade or Engage

I create a Friends Club, write and publish an exclusive members-only story, and then display a preview of it – an excerpt and an image – on my blog. I look at the red-tufted, painted cow staring back at me from my homepage’s sidebar and grin. Surely, the cow will attract people’s eyes? It will definitely persuade my readers to visit my Buy Me a Coffee page and sign up for my fabulous membership posts. Before I know it, money…

I Need Your Help. Do You Need Mine?

I decide to abandon my unschooling blog, leaving it online to look after itself while I move on. But then I discover I can’t actually do that. Blogs need attention, whether we’re writing on them or not. If I don’t keep a close eye on my website, making sure everything is updated regularly, and paying for the latest versions of plugins, things start to go wrong. Something goes wrong. Despite my best efforts to protect my blog, it’s infected with…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Is Unschooling for Everyone?

A note before you listen to this week’s episode: Episode 107 is only a conversation starter. I’m sure my thoughts are incomplete. Sometimes…

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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…

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

Reading Out Loud and a Generous Christmas

Do you like listening to stories being read out loud? I have to admit that this isn’t my favourite activity. My mind tends to wander and I miss half the words. But my kids are different from me. They love reading aloud time. Even though most of my children are grown up, they still like to gather whenever anyone opens…

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 quite right. It didn’t flow.” And with a sigh, I added, “I’ll have to record it again.” Well, today, I…
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