Wanting to Learn How to Spell

Gemma-Rose isn’t a defiant child so when she said to me, “You can’t make me learn anything I don’t want to learn,” I stopped and listened. We were talking about spelling. Did Gemma-Rose want me to enrol her in an…

Locked Out, Locked In, and Lies

This afternoon, I was poking about on an old blog of mine, reading old stories and remembering when my children were much younger. Locked Out, Locked In, and Lies is one of those stories. I wrote it four years ago…

Watching History as it Happened

  Where were you the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? I am guessing a lot of people reading this weren’t even born then. But I was. I was a young primary school student at the time. Recently the…

Latest

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.…

Do Unschoolers Drift Aimlessly Through Each Day?

Years ago, when I was researching homeschooling methods, I thought unschooling sounded good because we’d be free to do whatever we liked. And if we didn’t want to do anything, that would be okay. There would be no rules, no control, no expectations, no pressure to do anything in particular. But then one day, I wondered whether unschooling is another word for wasting time. Shouldn’t we make the most of each day? Aren’t we obliged to think carefully about how…

Is Unconditional Love at the Heart of Unschooling?

Recently, while travelling to town with two of my daughters, we talked about unschooling and how it’s impossible to say to another family, “Unschool in the same way as us.” Each family is different. Kids have their unique needs based on their personalities, interests and missions in life. And families have different circumstances such as number of children, health, commitments and responsibilities. Even the place where a family lives affects unschooling. We chatted about the disadvantages of our home town.…

What to Do When Unschool Kids Have No Interest in Topics They’re Required to Learn

‘… if we’re curious people, the whole world is a source of fascinating things to investigate. But this doesn’t mean we will all enjoy learning about something the same way. Sometimes we need to find the right angle. Can we find a way into a subject that appeals to us? Can we approach it through the back door?’ -Challenge 50, The Unschool Challenge What if we think something is boring and don’t want to know about it? Is this a…

Unschooling Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason often entices families away from unschooling. Maybe that’s because of three words often associated with this method of homeschooling: beauty, truth and goodness. Aren’t these what our souls yearn for? Aren’t they what we need? Could Charlotte Mason be the right way to live? Or can we find everything our souls crave in the real world of unschooling?…

Why Are We Willing to Endure the Pain of Parenthood?

While walking around our local lake, I met a woman with two chihuahuas. They were the same colour and size. The only difference was that one looked like he’d put on his long fur coat before leaving home, while the other was prepared to brave the cold day without one. I asked how old the dogs were, and the woman said, “Twelve,” and then added, “I don’t know what I’m going to do when they die. They’re my family.” When…

Goodbye, Stories of an Unschooling Family

TThe other day, I found a 5-star review of my book, The Unschool Challenge, on Amazon. It was written by Patrice Fagnant Macarthur from Today’s Catholic Homeschooling website. In The Unschool Challenge, Elvis provides short essays on various topics related to unschooling and then she provides challenges for readers to do. This is a pick and choose sort of book. You don’t need to read it in order. You can select which topics interest you and learn more about them, pursue some…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

An Answer to the Chores Problem

We’d all like our children to be considerate, hard working and happy to help others. We’d especially like them to be willing to help…

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…

Unschooling: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother!…

Christian unschooling

Can Christians Unschool?

Can Christians unschool? We’re Christian unschoolers. Maybe you’re Christian unschoolers too? There are lots of us living this way of life. But are we doing the right thing? Or are we side-stepping our responsibilities when we choose to unschool? Are we choosing the easy, lazy path? I often hear of parents who are struggling with homeschooling. Their kids aren’t doing…
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