An Unschooling Experiment

Do you listen to my podcasts? Normally, I don’t. I make an episode and that’s that. I hope everyone enjoys it, but I don’t really want to go back and listen to my own voice talking about unschooling. But this…

Reclaiming an Unschooling Sense of Adventure

I’ve been thinking about maths… high school maths. The other day I wrote about my unschooling high schooler. I told you how my sixteen year old daughter Charlotte feels like she is drowning in maths. The exercises for each of…

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Giving Our Kids Time to Discover Who They Are

Did you go to school? Were your teenage years crammed full of lessons, homework and preparation for exams? Perhaps, like me, you had very little free time for yourself. And when you did have a few quiet hours, were you encouraged to do something useful with them rather than rest or think or dream or chat? Many parents get concerned about time. It seems to pass too quickly, doesn’t it? Should we try to make every moment count by cramming…

This Time Next Year: Where Will You Be?

Do you ever play the game, ‘this time last year…’? What about ‘this time next year…’? How does it feel looking back? What do you hope for the future? Several days ago, my very thoughtful phone made me a video using some of the many photos in my camera roll. It titled it: This Day 2018. On that day, four years ago, my daughters Imogen and Sophie accompanied me to Canberra where we gave a talk about unschooling to a…

Clock Watching, Short Lessons and Curious Questions

This morning, after a long break, I dusted off my mic, sat down and made a new podcast episode! I enjoyed doing this, but I don’t know if I’m back permanently. Can I afford to keep podcasting? Can I afford to keep blogging? (I recently received some huge hosting bills.) Do I still have enough stories to share? Does anyone still want to listen? I talk about these questions in episode 190. In my latest podcast, I also read one…

Can Video Games Be Safe Places For Our Kids (And Us)?

Do kids who are denied their freedom want to spend a lot of time on their devices? Do they retreat into their games because, unlike the real world, they’re in control of these virtual ones? Do kids use games as a safe refuge from a sometimes difficult real world? Are devices and video games and the reason kids want to spend so much time in front of their screens more complicated than we first imagine? Last year, during our almost-six-month…

Sharing the Ice Cream and Rejecting Tough Love

There’s a woman on YouTube who sips wine from a large glass while digging into a family-sized bucket of ice cream. She has some advice for parents. Her message goes something like this: Parents take back the reins. Forget all this being friends stuff. Show some tough love. It doesn’t matter if our kids protest and say such things as, “I don’t like you!” Hey, parenting isn’t a popularity contest. Take control. The battle is on, and we’re going to…

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 their required school work. They’re protesting and battling with their parents. Life is hard. Despite the difficulties, these parents often…

Extracting Every Drop of Joy from Our Parenting Days

Did you go searching for joy today? Did you look for ways to turn ordinary moments into something special for you and your family? Did you linger in bed with a child snuggled up beside you, savouring the warmth and softness of little-person-skin instead of rushing to get on with your day? Perhaps you talked about your hopes for the day with each child? Did you say, “Is there anything special I can do for you today?” Did you stop…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Do You Need a Happy List?

I’m at a cafe with my pretend friend Amina, who places her mug of coffee on the table between us, sighs and says, “Unschooling…

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…

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…

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:…
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