Parenting: Doing Our Inadequate Best
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The Problem of Applying Sunscreen to Wet, Sandy Bodies.
My husband Andy is home from school for two weeks. “What shall we do during the holidays?” he asks. “Let’s go to the beach!” The girls’ eyes light up. Callum’s eyes light up. It’s been two years since we last…
The Wobbly Moments of Life
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When Parents Want What Is Best for Themselves, Not Their Unschooling Kids
I stretch out my legs in front of me and immediately realise I’ve brought something back from my recent dog-walking expedition in the wet bush. I leap to my feet and scare Quinn by screaming, “Get off me!” A leech…
My Unschool Unplanning Strewing Notebook
How can we unschool and, at the same time, be registered homeschoolers? What if our kids have to follow the school syllabus in order to fulfil the registration requirements? And what if we have to present a plan of how…
Unschooling Teenagers: What They Think and What They Do
Have you ever wondered what unschooling teenagers are like? What kind of people are they? What do they think? What do they do? Have you ever googled the words ‘unschooling teenager’ to find out more? If you have done a search using those words, you might have ended up here on my blog. Two of my unschooling teenager posts show up high in the search results. An Unschooling Teenager Blog Post The first post is A Day in the Life of…
A Gradual Approach to Unschooling and More
Perhaps you’ve already tried unschooling and it didn’t work out for your family. You might have ended up in a situation you didn’t feel comfortable with. Maybe unschooling didn’t look as you’d imagined? Or maybe you haven’t yet dived in because you’re not sure about certain aspects of unschooling. What if your kids want to spend all their time in front of screens? Yes, other people have told you that kids learn to self-regulate their screen usage. But what if they…
How It’s Easy to Make a Difference
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Polish Language Problems
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Do Unschoolers Need Holidays?
It’s the last day of the official school term. Yes, Term 3 for 2018 is just about over. So what are we doing? Are we jumping up and down with excitement, glad the holidays are almost here? Perhaps we’ve already dived into holiday mode? I might have said, “Thank goodness this term is over. I’ve had enough. It’s time to take a break!” No, we didn’t do any of that. We’re not even thinking about the holidays. We’re too busy.…
A Balanced and Productive Unschool Life
It’s good to read stories about unschoolers, isn’t it? What do they think? What do they do? What kind of people are they? Stories about real unschoolers bring unschooling alive. But there is something better than reading stories. And that’s listening to unschoolers themselves. In this week’s podcast: A Balanced and Productive Unschool Life, I’m chatting with my teenage daughter, Sophie who has lots of her own stories, ideas and opinions to share. We start with these conversation prompts: Something…
When an Unschooler Isn’t Interested in Maths [Podcast]
Every morning, I lace up my running shoes and then grab our dog Nora’s leash before sliding the kitchen door open and stepping out onto the patio. Sometimes I have to pull Nora from her kennel but usually, she is eager for a run and as soon as she sees me, she bounds ahead to the gate. Once the dog is secured to the leash, I open the side gate and we all head out to the front garden and…
When We Fail
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Challenging Ourselves to Put Away Our Phones
Did you hear the story of the photographer who visited the Grand Canyon and took millions of photos of the awe-inspiring sights, and then…
Chores and Kids: What if We Said, “Yes”?
My most popular post ever is Getting Kids to Help With the Chores. After publishing it, readers flocked over to see what I’d written.…
Unschooling: Impressing Other People
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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 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.…
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…
Kids, Needs, and Church
Should unschooled kids be forced to go to church? I wonder if this is the wrong question to ask when our kids protest about coming with us. Would it be better to ask, Why doesn’t my child want to go to church? In this week’s podcast, I talk about this question as well as : The importance of trying to see…
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…