Does Christian Unschooling Interest You?

I’ve written three unschooling books: I focused on the educational side of unschooling in Curious Unschoolers. I extended the unschooling story in Radical Unschool Love by sharing parenting thoughts and stories. And I offered practical suggestions for turning all those…

Beginnings and Endings and a Simple Christmas

We’ve had a lot of beginnings recently. Last week, the new school term began, and Andy, my school teacher husband, went back to work.  On that same day, my daughter Charlotte celebrated her birthday. She began the 18th year of…

Losing Time

I’ve been reading a book called A Time to Die by Nicholas Diat, who visited eight monasteries to talk to the monks about the experience of death. Here’s something that caught my attention: One monk described how he cares for…

Pi and Tea, and Our Dog’s Tea Bag Collection

Our puppy Nora has a tea bag collection. She keeps it under the conifer tree at the bottom of our garden. Every day she pushes her long doggy nose between the wooden slats of the compost bin, in search of…

Latest

Crime Novels and Priestly Detective Rules

While browsing the books in the library, looking for a new author to read, a man thrust a novel towards me, saying, “You should try Baldacci. I love his books!” A few weeks later, our libraries closed, declared unsafe spaces by those who thought they knew best. We were isolated from our source of unread books. Fortunately, Big W was declared an essential shop and remained open, so I started browsing the book section of that department store, coming home…

Unschooling: Doing What Is Right

Unschooling is the right thing to do. That’s a bold claim that you might challenge if your ideas about what’s right are different from mine. What if my right is your wrong? Is that the end of the conversation? Or could we agree that we must all decide what’s right for our families, and then live by those principles? Knowing what is right helps us when we’re tempted to doubt our parenting or the way we’re educating our kids. When…

Wanted: Passionate Unschoolers

Wanted: Parents who are passionate about sharing unschooling with the world. Do you like writing and speaking? Are you willing to tell some family stories? Do you enjoy pondering new ideas? Are you continually learning and growing? Is unconditional love important to you? Do you enjoy my blog and podcast? Are we kindred spirits? Would you like to work together? For the past year or more, I’ve been wondering if I need to move in a new direction. Now that…

Preventing Childhood Trauma with Unconditional Love

Childhood trauma can follow us into adulthood, affecting what we do, how we feel about ourselves and how we relate to others. We can trace many of our adult problems back to something that happened as we were growing up. If we understand this, we’ll protect our kids, the best we can, from anything that might affect them adversely. But what about the trauma that's disguised as ‘good’ parenting techniques? Can we unintentionally harm our kids by doing what we…

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? Do they need to learn how to write essays, complete assignments, meet deadlines and deal with exams? Do parents need to tighten the rules for teens? Perhaps they should restrict their teenagers’ freedom to keep them safe because their worlds…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

When in Doubt, Just Love

Last Wednesday, I pushed our living room sofa out of position, exposing a stretch of plain duck-egg blue wall. I placed a chair and…

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…

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

Sharing the Catholic Faith With Our Kids

Maybe you’re thinking about unschooling. Letting children follow their own interests, and trusting they will learn all they need to know sounds great. But stop! Wait! What about religion? This is important. You think: “Can I just stand back and hope my children will want to learn about their faith? Doesn’t that sound a bit risky? What if they don’t…

Radical Unschool Love, Praise and Joy

Do you ever praise your kids? Do you tell them you’re proud of them? Some people say we shouldn’t praise our kids. Maybe that’s because our children might end up doing things only because they want to gain our approval. And is there a risk a child might think she is better than everyone else if we praise her too…
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