Tired and Difficult Days

Today I’m tired. “Have you got anything you really need to do?” asks my daughter Imogen. “I haven’t yet recorded my podcast,” I reply. “I should do that today.” “Well, you do that first, and then you must rest. We’ll…

How to Be Brave

The other day, I was thinking about bravery. What is being brave all about? Are we brave when we do something that might make people stare, such as having our hair cut startling short? Or is there more to bravery…

Why We Should Praise Our Kids

Praise is a tricky topic, isn’t it? Do we praise our kids or not? Many unschoolers and parenting experts warn us to stay well away from praise. We shouldn’t manipulate our kids with our words, should we? And will…

Latest

Fighting on the Front Line

A couple of days ago, we had some good news: the status of our bushfire has changed from ‘out of control’ to ‘being controlled’. Isn’t that wonderful? The fire is huge so the fight to put it out is far from over. But the change in status is very encouraging. So far this week, the weather has been mild. I’m sure the RFS (Rural Fire Service) is grateful for the lower temperatures and the lack of strong winds. They’ve been…

Giggling at Shocking Things

On the first day of 2020, I lost my sense of humour. Usually, I’m a positive person, but the current bushfire situation pushed me over the edge. “I’m tired of breathing smoky air,” I complained. “I’m fed up of watching fire updates and wondering if the fire is coming our way. I want life to return to normal.” My husband Andy tried to make me feel better. “It will all be over soon.” But that’s not true. The fire has…

Mother on Duty

At 10:15 am, my youngest daughter Gemma-Rose appears in the living room where I’m keeping track of the bushfire activity near us. (Through the window, I can see the fire trucks and other vehicles arriving and leaving our road.) ”You slept in for a long time,” I say. “You must have been tired.” Gemma-Rose nods. I understand. Living with a bushfire in our village is exhausting. ”I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I say. “While everyone was asleep, I…

When Life Gets a Bit Too Interesting!

Life is certainly interesting at the moment. A little bit too interesting! You might remember how a week or so ago, we prepared our house just in case the out-of-control bushfire that was burning not very far away arrived in our village. Well, the other day, the fire did arrive. Life hasn’t been normal since we received an emergency warning about the fire. It’s become full of bushfires, fire trucks, evacuation centres, water-bombing aircraft, containment lines and bulldozers. There has…

Unschool Bushfire Maths

I open my phone to google ‘smoky or smokey’ to find out the correct spelling of this word. (I’ve been using it a lot lately.) And I find a warning waiting for me to read. (It arrived in the night while I was asleep.) A fire has escalated in your watch zone. I head straight over to the Fires Near Me app to see what’s going on. I discover that there’s no need to panic. The bushfire is no longer…

Unschooling During a Crisis

Are there some things you hate doing? We don’t like gardening. Usually, we let our garden take care of itself. That’s why our hedges grew and grew until they were higher than the roof of our house. We should have pruned them back years ago. We shouldn’t have left it until a crisis forced us to do something about the branches that were overhanging our house. You might know that there’s a huge out-of-control bushfire burning not too far away…

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 underwear!) And then one day, I stopped ironing my clothes. Maybe I got lazy. Or perhaps I was busy. Whatever the reason, I embraced the wrinkles instead of smoothing them away. And you know what? It was okay. No one…

Another Novel: The Unschooling Adventure Continues!

hat do you think? A safe and secure job? Or should we encourage our kids to follow their dreams? Should they give the more adventurous path a go? Could they work part-time while continuing to follow their passions? Recently, I’ve had a lot of visitors to my blog from Facebook. Someone shared my post Choosing Not to Look for a ‘Real’ Job. When I wrote this post, my daughter Imogen had just finished her Bachelor of Arts degree. Instead of…
1 … 34 35 36 37 38 … 109

My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Opening Myself Up to Criticism

I’m It’s inevitable: someone is going to criticise my unschooling books. No one has yet, but someone will. How do I know this? Well,…

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…

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…

How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions and Sceptics

My mother-in-law visited us for the birth of our son, Thomas. After he died and we’d buried him in his tiny white casket, Andy’s mother asked me if we wanted more children. As I replied, “Oh, yes!”, my mother-in-law’s face dropped into a disapproving frown. “She thinks we already have enough kids,” I thought as my defence hackles rose. But…

Christian unschooling

Can Unschooling Be a Christian Thing to Do?

When a child has been controlled all her life, she just might grow into the kind of adult who says, “Nobody is ever going to make me do what they want ever again. From now on I’m going to do what I want.” She might close herself off, stand well back, not let anyone get too close. Because you never…

The Discomfort of Letting Go and Allowing Our Kids (and Ourselves) to Grow

We organise life so we’re not challenged too much. We don’t want to stray outside our comfort zone because that could be painful. We say no instead of yes to our kids, not wanting them to go to parties at night, ride their bikes on the road, run through the bush alone, or learn to drive. We don’t want thoughts…
Go toTop