How Do Kids Learn to Be Generous?

On Monday, my daughter Imogen and I were the filling in a truck sandwich as we drove from our quiet village, along the busy motorway, through the heavy rain, to the city shops. I wanted to buy some white sneakers,…

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…

Waiting

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Irreplaceable Unschool Dogs and Kids

People often have favourite breeds of dogs, don’t they? Maybe they love greyhounds like a couple living in a nearby town who dress their trio of thin dogs in bright-striped pyjamas to keep them warm on below-zero days. Or they…

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More Unschooling Math/s – What Does Learning Mathematics Naturally Look Like

When my kids were younger, I’d search for maths associated with their passions. I’d Google ‘maths and Jane Austen’ or ‘maths and art history’ or ‘maths and Shakespeare’. I discovered loads of unschool maths and interesting facts that I made into notes to include in our homeschool records book. I shared this story and other unschool maths ones in the Virtual Kitchen Table podcast episode 38.…

Why Parents Should Help with the Family Chores

When I was at school, my friend Beatrix never had to do any chores. She didn’t have to wash dishes, clean bathrooms, or sweep floors. I wonder if she had to clean her bedroom. Beatrix’s mother said that once she was grown up and had a home of her own, she’d have to do all the chores. She wouldn’t have a choice. For now, she needn’t do any.  I don’t think many parents take this approach to chores. Most say…

Does Respecting Older People Begin with Respecting Kids?

Whenever someone says I look young for my age, I grin. I accept the compliment. But recently, I’ve wondered: what’s wrong with looking my real age? Do I need to appear younger than I am? There’s an older woman who sits in the front pew at Mass. One day, when the service was over, I couldn’t help but overhear someone bending over her and asking in a sing-song voice, “How old are you, dear?” And I thought: when did…

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 do we have to do this, Mum?” And I replied, “Because I said so.” And I thought, “It’s your turn…

Do Unschooled Kids (and Parents) Need Time Away From Their Devices?

If we conclude that good mental, physical, and spiritual health requires silence, nature, real people, and exercise, what does this mean for our unschooling kids? Should we limit their screen time? Should we force them off their devices and make them exercise and spend time with us? Perhaps we should announce we’re having a screen-free day, and everyone must spend time hiking through the bush. Or won’t that work? When we research a question, we often know the answer…

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 of danger to torment our minds. We don’t want to worry. But are we truly comfortable when we try to…

Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go of Control

“I kind of love my title for this podcast. It’s very ambitious. Let’s fix it all!” And so begins another Ladies Fixing the World conversation in which Cecilie Conrad, Sandra Dodd and I dive deep into unschooling, sharing our thoughts and experiences. In S2E4, we discuss Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go.   Want to know more about this episode? Show Notes Traditional education is built on judgment—constantly measuring children’s progress against rigid standards. Unschooling offers a…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Resources for Unschoolers

Strolling towards the shopping centre, I spy an older man with three hand-reared brightly coloured parrots. A few wide-eyed kids are gathered around him, and as I watch, he transfers a parrot to one of their shoulders, where it bounces lightly upon its feet, nuzzling a little ear. The child grins, hardly daring to move. The children have questions which…

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…

The Math Myth: How Do Unschooled Kids Learn Math?

There are many unschool maths questions. Here are just a few of them: Can kids really learn maths without formal instruction? What does unschooling maths look like? Can we strew unschool maths? Is it possible for registered homeschoolers to unschool maths? How can we provide evidence kids are learning maths when we don’t have formal records like workbooks and test…

Christian unschooling

The Problem With Being Too Nice

Are you too nice? I am. I want to help everyone. Support and encouragement are my middle names. Send me an email and I’ll spend hours answering it. Write me a comment and I’ll always reply. Ask for some mentoring and I’ll do my best even though you tell me you can’t pay. I write a book. And another. Then…

Unschooling and Trust

I have been struggling with this post for a while now, and wondering why I’m having so much trouble finding the right words. And I have decided it’s the language. I want to write a story from a personal point of view like I normally do. And I can’t. We had such a gradual transition to unschooling, I didn’t really…
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