When Worry Gets in the Way of Love

Sometimes life can feel very overwhelming. Parenting is not always easy. There are so many concerns and worries.  It starts very early:  Do I have enough milk for my baby? When will my child sleep through the night? Will she…

Younger Unschoolers: Our Learning Adventure Rules

If we’re willing to seize the moment, we can have some fabulous spur-of-the-moment learning adventures. We could find ourselves unexpectedly sitting on a beach watching breaching whales. But can we also have planned adventures with our unschooling kids? Oh yes!…

Podcasting, Blogging, Books and Lice!

I’ve been learning new things. You could say I’ve been unschooling! Yesterday, I worked out how to make a podcast. It wasn’t that difficult. I downloaded Audacity, pressed the ‘record’ button and then started chatting. When I’d finished speaking, I…

Latest

How an Unschooler Learns to Write

My daughter Imogen loves writing. It’s part of who she is. “When did you start writing?” I ask. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing.” My fourth child was writing stories long before she knew how to form letters into words. “Do you remember how Charlotte and I would sit side by side at the kitchen table and draw our stories?” says Imogen. “We’d chat about what was happening in the story and then draw it. Then we’d chat…

Adding Joy: Unschool Bits and Pieces

Adding Joy to an Unschooling Day Not so long ago, a mother told me she only arranges special outings for ice cream or coffee or lunch with her kids as a reward. They can earn special time with her by working hard at their school work. I feel sad that the special moments of life seem to be rationed out. (And learning is done for rewards and not out of love.) Maybe some people think that I’m spoiling my kids…

Accidental Unschoolers

This is the second part of our homeschooling story. It follows on from my post Undercover Homeschoolers. When our first child Felicity was about 6 years old and we’d been homeschooling for maybe a year, I met Anna. She lived in a wooden oasis of a house on the top of a hill that led down to the creek and the bush. The house was a warren of fascinating rooms filled with unusual treasures, a real storybook home. And in…

Undercover Homeschoolers

Have you heard our unschooling story? Just in case you haven’t, I’m reposting a couple of updated posts that tell the story of how we began our homeschooling adventure as unschoolers but then got distracted by other ideas before returning to unschooling.If you’d like to listen to the original versions you can hear them in podcast episode 93: Our Homeschooling Story. When I was a child I loved playing school. Fortunately, I had two younger sisters, and because I was…

Saying Yes: Unschool Bits and Pieces

Saying Yes When Gemma- Rose asked if we could get a puppy, we could have thought of many reasons to say no. But we didn’t. A year ago, a tiny Shar Pei/ Great Dane puppy joined our family and we called her Quinn. Quinn (who has grown enormously) has brought us enormous joy. All the extra work and expense are nothing compared to the love and fun this dog has brought us. . You might be wondering if you should…

A Teenager Talks About Unschool Maths

My daughter Sophie hasn’t done any formal maths since she was about 9 or 10 years old. But she does know a lot about this subject. She’s been learning maths in a different way. Several years ago, I said to Sophie, “I’m thinking about making a podcast about unschool maths. Do you have anything to say about this topic?” “Oh yes!” she replied. “You’re talking to the girl who hated maths and then turned around and now absolutely loves it.…

Growing Kids Who Like to Help

Not so long ago, I posted a photo and caption about kids and chores, and a friend stopped by and left this comment: My kids are only 5 and 2 at the moment but I’m trying to figure out how to help them grow from toddlers who always want to help Mom into older kids who (amazingly) still want to help Mom. And I answered: I’ve been thinking about this as well! Yes, little kids love helping us. Maybe as…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Is It Working? Wrestling with Doubt in Unschooling

A grey day arrives that completely blots out the memory of all the preceding good days. We feel overwhelmed, tired, worried and lost. We wonder why we ever decided to unschool. A puddle of doubt about unschooling forms around us. What do we do? Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing unschooling doubts and sharing our experiences in episode 10 of…

Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning

The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let go of control, and now I’m waiting for my child to learn how to regulate his time playing video games (for example),” do we have expectations about what that regulation should look like? Do we want…

Christian unschooling

When We Don’t Know What to Do

I’ve just updated my blog. I started at the first post I ever wrote and then worked my way through 14 years of stories, reading each one before deciding whether to keep it or revert it to draft. I then checked the formatting of the retained posts, rearranging paragraphs, eliminating dead links, and changing or improving the images. As I…
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