What is it Like to Be an Unschooling Parent?

Ten Minutes on Thursday I have to admit I failed: Five Minutes on Friday has turned into Ten Minutes on Thursday. I just couldn’t say all I wanted about this week’s topic, in only 5 minutes. Well, maybe I could…

Some Bits and Pieces…

The other day I was looking at a letter Gemma-Rose had written to a friend. It was long and detailed and her spelling was almost perfect. “When did you learn to spell so well?” I asked. Gemma-Rose shrugged her shoulders.…

Is Our Unschooling Life Rich Enough?

Some unschooling families seem to live very adventurous lives that make ours look rather ordinary. And I wonder: Is our life rich enough for our children? Are they getting all the opportunities they need to learn so that they grow…

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…

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Building Strong Relationships With Our Kids

Last week, we went on an adventure. Sophie, Gemma-Rose, Andy and I travelled to a small country town in the north of our state to visit our son Callum. We spent a few days bumping along dirt roads in Callum’s truck seeing all the local sights. We saw herds of cows, grubby sheep, an unusually huge black wallaby as well as kangaroos, wedge-tailed eagles, a couple of open cut coal mines, extraordinarily long coal trains which looked like brown snakes…

Another Way of Looking at Our Kids’ Learning

While I was eating my lunch today, I thought about all the things my daughter Gemma-Rose did this morning. I mentally translated all her learning experiences into schooly language. I knew I could write lots of impressive notes that would convince an education authority that Gemma-Rose is learning everything that they think is essential for a good education. And then I thought about how Gemma-Rose’s learning experiences aren’t just about history and English and creative arts. She is learning far…

Becoming Brave and Gritty

This morning, I posted the following words on Instagram: Hello! It’s Monday morning here in Australia. I am thinking about the day ahead. Should I start it with a run? The only problem is the temperature. It’s below freezing. Should I be brave and gritty and head out for a run even though I know I’m going to feel cold and uncomfortable?  At the time of writing, I was sitting in my toasty warm bed drinking a cup of tea.…

Reject What Doesn’t Feel Right and Just Love

If it doesn’t feel right, we shouldn’t do it. For example: I used to battle with my kids as I tried to get them to do what I thought was important. Yes, they protested, but I had to persist. I had to teach my children the right lessons. Life is tough. We have to do things we don’t want to do, don’t we? So I pushed my kids to do their ‘schoolwork’ and other things that I thought were good…

More Unschool Writing Ideas and Resources

Back in February, my author daughter Imogen joined me on my podcast to talk about unschooling and writing. In episode 148, Our Writing Unrules for Unschoolers, we explored the question: Can unschoolers gain the writing skills they need without any formal instruction? We shared our own stories, experiences, and thoughts as well as our writing unrules. (You can also find these in my unschooling book Curious Unschoolers.) Imogen and I are passionate writers just like the other members of our…

How Light Can Turn into Deep and Serious

I love Sunday mornings. We usually go to 7.30 am Mass and then when we get home, we have a leisurely breakfast in the family room. While we’re eating toast and Nutella and porridge and syrup, we talk. “What’s the latest royal news, Dad?” someone always asks. Andy grabs his phone and does some googling, and then he entertains us with the latest royal gossip. The goings-on in the royal family is our fun topic. “It looks like Meghan Markle…

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, even though we would like to think everyone agrees with our ideas and likes our work, that’s just not true. It’s impossible to please everyone in this world. A week or so ago, I finished listening to the audio version of Trent Dalton’s, Boy Swallows Universe. Maybe my family was glad when I came to the…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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…

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…

Christian unschooling

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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