Maths, Chores, and Thanking Our Kids

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been living a quiet life. We haven’t done anything exciting. No music video shoots. No picnics by the lake. We haven’t even been running. The reason? We’ve all been unwell. It can be…

Playing for Ian

If you listened to episode 125 of my podcast, Connecting Unschooling and Ageing, you might have heard this story. I wrote it in 2012 and originally published it on one of my other blogs. I think it’s a story worth…

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Where I’m At With My Unschool Blog

I’ve created a monster, a huge blog that needs a lot of maintenance. It’s sucking up my money and time and giving me headaches. Frequently, this blog falls apart or runs so slowly that readers give up waiting for new pages to appear. I understand how visitors might get frustrated. Some days, even I don’t want to go anywhere near my blog. I’m tempted to hit the delete button to eliminate all the problems I don’t want to fix. I’ve…

Unschool Cool: Why Being Different Is Our Superpower

When I was eleven, a girl at school asked, “What’s your favourite song?” Looking back, I realise her question was a trap. Of course, I fell straight into it. “Delilah,” I replied, plucking a random song out of my memory. “Delilah?” “Yes. Tom Jones.” The girl smirked and shouted over her shoulder to her friends, “Sue likes Delilah!” As I listened to the girls’ laughter, I realised that Tom Jones wasn’t cool. His music belonged to our parents’ time. I…

Why Unschoolers Are the Real Cool Kids

I was once a cool kid. And then I wasn’t. When I was nine, I was clever and lively, one of the kids who got noticed. Best of all, I was part of a girl band that performed on the concrete ‘stage’ behind the toilet block in the school playground each lunchtime. I couldn’t sing very well, but somehow I was accepted. And many girls in my class envied me. Not everyone could belong to our band. Then something…

Unschooling Isn’t Freedom Gone Wild: Why Choices Matter More Than Ideals

My husband Andy returned to work today after two weeks at home. Holiday time is over. We’ve now moved into term time. A whole term of possibility days stretches before me. I’m free to do whatever I like with my time while Andy is at school. My eyes light up with delight. But then I remember there are many things I must do that I may not want to do. I have housework, dinner making and dog walking to…

Unschooling, Attachment, and the Art of Letting Go: Building Trust Instead of Rules

We don’t make rules in our family, so how do my children know what is right and what is wrong, if they aren’t guided by clearly stated limits?  Do I believe my own quiet example of appropriate behaviour is all that is needed in order to influence my children? Perhaps I stand back, hands-off, and let my children behave as they choose? I decide to ponder a few ideas with my children, in an attempt to find the answers to…

The Saturday Unschool Examen

Every Saturday, while my husband, youngest daughter and dogs are still in bed, I sit on the living room sofa, journal on my knee, scrawny cat by my side, and by the light of a lamp in the pre-dawn dark, do my Saturday examen. I reflect on the week just passed, remembering the highlights, the low points, the successes and failures, and the little delights. I feel grateful, thankful, blessed, forgiving, and contrite. I think of the week ahead.…

Unschool Crime Connections

Did Erin Patterson murder three people with her beef Wellington? Did she use toxic death cap mushrooms in her deadly dinner? Many people worldwide have been waiting for answers to these questions. Some media dubbed Patterson’s trial as The Mushroom Murders as if there was no question she was guilty, and maybe most people assumed she was. The evidence seemed strong for the prosecution. When questioned, Erin Patterson said she wanted to cook something special for her unfortunate guests. So,…

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. They’d move one by one, just a few houses away, so that we could gather at each other’s tables and…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Learning to Read and Trusting Unschooling

It is absolutely essential that we are curious people who are excited about the possibilities in life. The atmosphere in our homes gets picked up by our kids so they think it’s normal to learn, to be curious, to follow thoughts and ideas and try things out… I was battling with my kids for a while. They kept saying, ‘Why…

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…

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

Speed Angel Joy

I am sitting by the lake watching four girls scooting along the path. They are the Speed Angel Sisters and they are fast! Every now and then the girls veer off onto the grass and come to a sudden halt: a pedestrian is approaching. Now the speedway is clear again, and strong legs start pushing, wheels are revolving, hair…

Pondering Trust

I never wanted to be in a position where I had to trust God. I preferred to rely on my own resources. I wanted to be totally in control of my own life. That seemed easier to do because trusting is so very difficult. Or so it can seem. Then one day, at a time when I was feeling rather…
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