Small Steps Towards Unschooling: A Challenge
For the past year and a half or so, I’ve been writing unschooling challenges for our Stories of an Unschooling Family community. Each challenge is designed to stimulate thought and discussion about a particular aspect of unschooling. Hopefully, the challenges help turn unschooling principles into something real in people’s lives. This week, I posted A Small Steps Unschooling Challenge in the community,…
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 the old and sick, and how he has to guard against doing things in a routine way, trying to complete…
One Day Life Changed
A few days ago, my sister suggested we swap a daily photo via email, so I’ve been looking around to see what I can capture with my camera. I used to take lots of photos of my kids. They’d be there somewhere in the picture. A beautiful scene and a person: that was my favourite kind of photography. But these…
Solo Adventures
This morning, Gemma-Rose and I left home earlier than usual because we wanted to drive the scenic route to town instead of going the direct way. After my youngest daughter slid into the driver’s seat of her nifty blue car, we realised there was ice on the windscreen. A few squirts of water and swipes of the wipers, and we…
Acts of Love
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Unschooling Jane Austen
Every time we walk past the cinema, on our way to our favourite cafe, we glance at the posters advertising the movies that are currently screening. And I always say, “We haven’t been to the cinema for a long time. The last movie I saw was Emma.” Some time in February 2020, while big sisters Imogen, Charlotte and Sophie were…
It’s Not for Me
What if we share our work with the world and then someone comes along and criticises it? Some people might write bad reviews that make our hearts sink. We could wonder what we’ve done wrong. Why doesn’t everyone like what we’ve created? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone loved our work? What if we received only 5-star reviews and lots…
The Problem with High Expectations and Control
Expecting a lot of our kids sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? If we have high expectations, perhaps our children will strive to achieve more. And if we keep raising the goal posts, won’t they end up doing amazing things? They could have fabulous secure futures that include high paying jobs. If we push our kids, they might become doctors or lawyers…
Criticism, Reviews, and Paying It Forward
Sometimes I’m not very sensible: I try to do too much. I want to blog and vlog and podcast and write books and host a community and occasionally sign in to Instagram. But I really don’t have time to do all that. So I wonder what I should give up. Before I can make up my mind, I fall…
Thoughts Flitting Through My Mind
Travelling home, after spending a few days with my son Callum and daughter Sophie, lots of thoughts flit through my mind: We fear we might fail, but perhaps failure isn’t always as bad as it sounds. We might not be the people others have told us we are. Should we rewrite those old stories? I like who I am. Even…
Unschooling Experts, Criticism, and Radical Chore Rosters
Last week, I wrote a blog post called Are You a Proper Unschooler? I scheduled it to publish while we were away on holiday in Canberra. By the time we arrived home, the post had been online for about 12 hours and it hadn’t had…
Growing Kids Who Like to Help
Not so long ago, I posted a photo and caption about kids and chores, and a friend stopped by and left this comment: My kids are only 5 and 2 at the moment but I’m trying to figure out how to help them grow from…
Giving Up My Perfect Start-of-the-Year Plans
On the other side of the world from us, homeschoolers are ‘going back to school’. Catalogues have been browsed, curricula, resources and books have…
How to Get Children to Do Their ‘School Work’
I often hear parents chatting together about how they can’t get their kids to do their school work. What do they do? Keep pushing…
How Children Learn According to Sophie
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When We Reach Crisis Point
The other day, I heard some words to this effect: Only when the pain that it takes to remain the same outweighs the pain…
How to Unschool During the Baby Seasons of Life: The Magic Answer
Maybe most people think of me as an older unschooler blogger because, at the moment, I'm surrounded by unschooling teens and young adults. I'm…
Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning
The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let…
Teenagers, Rules and Rebellion
“My daughter will be 13 soon,” says a mother. She groans: “There’s trouble ahead!” The other mothers nod in sympathy. Yes, life is about…
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…
What to Do When Unschooling Kids Reach the Teenage Years
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Memories of an Inexperienced Mother
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How Curious Unschooled Kids Learn
The big question is this: will I be awake at 1 am tomorrow (AEST)? Will I join the first live session of my Homeschooling…