When a Child Has Only One Interest.

“It’s all very well, letting children follow their own interests, but my daughter only wants to do one thing. She’s not interested in science or maths or writing… All she wants to do is cook and how’s that going to…

What do Children Need for a Happy Childhood?

Sometimes my children’s words warm my heart. “Don’t you just love being us?” asked my daughter Imogen, turning to me with a huge smile. I was surprised. Why did she suddenly feel like a big ball of happiness*? It wasn’t…

Adult Peer Pressure, Clothes, Rules, and Compassion

Have you even made decisions based on other people’s opinions rather than the needs of your own family? I have. I almost ruined my relationship with my eldest daughter by doing this. I chose to listen to my friends rather…

How Sharing Interests Strengthens Family Bonds

The other evening, I scrolled through my Youtube feed looking for something to watch. I clicked a link, a video loaded, and I heard these words: “Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I went to the weir,…

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…
1 … 13 14 15 16 17 … 109

My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

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…

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…

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…

Christian unschooling

When We Can’t Decide What’s the Best Way to Bring Up and Educate Our Kids

Do you ever swap between the various methods of homeschooling looking for the perfect way to bring up and educate your kids? I used to do that. I’d try one thing after another, confusing myself and my kids, while never finding what I was searching for. As I said in my book Curious Unschoolers: … I pondered lots of questions:…
Go toTop