Realising What’s Important

Many years ago, I discovered that a friend of mine never irons her clothes. She doesn’t even own an iron. I thought this was rather strange. Surely clothes need ironing? At the time, I ironed nearly everything. (I didn’t iron…

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…

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…

What Do Children Need to Learn?

Here’s another younger unschooler story. My daughter Gemma-Rose was 8 when I wrote this post. Being the youngest child in the family, Gemma-Rose often slipped under my radar as far as teaching her the essential skills of life goes. But…

The Problem With Being a Younger Sister

Younger sisters want to do everything older sisters can do.  The other Sunday at Mass Imogen was the psalm cantor. I glanced at Gemma-Rose while her older sister was up at the lectern singing, and noticed she had a big…

Latest

Who Should Be Responsible for a Child’s Education, the Parent or the Child?

Who should be responsible for a child's education, the parent or the child? Is learning an active activity that needs the learner’s cooperation? Is it impossible to force knowledge into a child without resorting to teaching methods that ultimately destroy their natural love of learning? Is forced learning real learning? Is it better to unschool and let children learn what’s important to them? But if we choose unschooling, will our kids, one day, accuse us of side-stepping our duty and…

What Do Unschoolers Do Each Day?

Is unschooling about staying in bed late, spending lazy days in the forest, and baking cookies?  Or is there more to unschooling than that? What does a typical unschooling day look like? Will it be different in different families? Will it change over time?Whatever it looks like, will it always be packed with deep learning?…

Unschoolers, Chores and Rosters

How do parents encourage kids to help with the chores? Is the example of parents important? Do parents have to be willing to do everything they want their kids to do? Do they need to have a generous and loving attitude? And what about chore rosters? Do they discourage children from freely offering their help? Or does it depend on how they’re used? Can families live by the principles of a radical unschooling life, trusting kids to do what’s right,…

Should We Push Kids to Use Their Talents, Aim High and Impress?

Do you ever wonder if you should push your kids? Make them do hard things even if they complain. Drill them. Give them a rigorous education. I’ve heard of kids who, after receiving that kind of education, are now surgeons and lawyers or have some other kind of high-status career. Wouldn’t it be good to say, “My daughter is a doctor!”? We wouldn’t have to prove we did an excellent job homeschooling our kids. It would be obvious. People would…

Unschool Basics: What is Unschooling?

What is unschooling? Is it a method of homeschooling, or is it more than that? Could it be a way of life? I share my ideas about what unschooling is and add links to other people’s articles on this topic. I also ask AI for its opinion!…

The Stories of Our Lives

In this episode of the Stories of an Unschooling Family podcast, I discuss a range of topics from unschooling and homeschool record-keeping to generating writing ideas and dealing with social media distractions. I also share some resources, including Tiago Forte's book, Building a Second Brain, and Matthew Dicks' Storyworthy. If you're interested in unschooling, homeschooling, or just love listening to podcasts, tune in for some great insights and ideas.…

How Our Unschooling Lives and Kids Don’t Need to be Picture-Perfect

Do you ever feel discouraged when you see social media posts of unschooling families that seem to have everything worked out? Do you wonder why your unschooling life isn’t picture-perfect like theirs? Are you doing something wrong? Why isn’t unschooling working for you? Is it time to do something else before family and friends start to criticise your choices? In this article, I offer reassurance and reasons why you should ignore social media and critics, stop comparing, and continue unschooling.…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

How All Kids Are Amazing

The other day, I read a parenting article in which the author said that parents can love their kids too much. I told my…

The Ladies Fixing the World

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.…

Unschooling: How Do We Know They’re Learning?

There are loads of unschooling questions we could ask about learning: How do we know unschooling kids are learning? Should they be learning particular things? Is there knowledge that all kids need? Are our unschooled kids learning enough? Can they get behind? Should we just trust our kids are learning? But what if we have doubts? Or what if we…

Christian unschooling

Christian Unschooling: Are Desires Important?

Do you have great desires? Are there things you want to do with your life? Maybe you know in a vague kind of way that you need to do something, but you don’t know what you should do. Or perhaps your desires don’t feel important. When I was a child, I had desires, but they came to nothing. Other people…

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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