A Successful Evernote Homeschool Registration Visit

 If you listened to last week’s podcast you’ll know I recently had to apply for another period of homeschool registration for my girls. You’ll also know I promised to report back when the visit was over.  Yesterday Sophie asked, “What…

A Birthday Chat

Every time I celebrate a birthday, going up a number, I ponder ageing anew. How do I feel about getting older? Am I reluctant to admit my age? Or am I grateful to be who I am at the age…

Fearing Our Kids Will Fail

When I was about eleven or twelve, I swam in a school carnival. I didn’t want to. You see, I wasn’t a strong swimmer. I was rather alarmed when I found out that I’d been entered for a freestyle race.…

Wanting to Learn How to Spell

Gemma-Rose isn’t a defiant child so when she said to me, “You can’t make me learn anything I don’t want to learn,” I stopped and listened. We were talking about spelling. Did Gemma-Rose want me to enrol her in an…

Latest

Unschooling is Just as Much About the Parent as the Child

We can’t make anyone become the person we’d like them to be. We can’t say, “If you only did this or that… you’d be a better spouse (or partner).” We can’t change people. But we can change ourselves. We can try and become the person we’d like those closest to us to be. We can treat others the way we want to be treated. Be a good example. And who knows? Our spouses may reciprocate. They might start treating us…

Parents, Teenagers and Opinions

Why do some parents want to impose their opinions on their children? Do they do this because they care? Perhaps they want their teenagers to benefit from their experience. Prevent them from going down wrong pathways and making mistakes, ones they might have made when they were younger. Maybe it feels safer to force their teenagers to adopt the ideas they think are right rather than let them develop their opinions for themselves. Sometimes it can look like teenagers have…

Playing for Ian

If you listened to episode 125 of my podcast, Connecting Unschooling and Ageing, you might have heard this story. I wrote it in 2012 and originally published it on one of my other blogs. I think it’s a story worth repeating because it’s about an extraordinary person, someone we’ll never forget. Ian freely shared his talents with my kids and affected their lives in a big way. Perhaps you know someone similar? My son Callum’s singing teacher suggests he audition…

Hitting the Pause Button and The Colin Show

In this week’s podcast, episode 128, Cricket is my unschooling guest podcaster. The Colin Show Cricket tells us about her family She shares their journey from school-at-home homeschooling to unschooling Cricket recorded her guest podcast with her son Colin’s help. Please visit Colin’s Youtube Channel, The Colin Show, and subscribe! Hitting the Pause Button I share some of the responses from my Stories of an Unschooling Family survey I respond to some constructive criticism I talk about some changes I could make…

Unschool Reading: A Slow Learner

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was helping my daughter Gemma-Rose learn to read. She’d choose a book and we’d sit side-by-side on the sofa and we’d enjoy the story together. Actually, I don’t know if ‘enjoy’ is the right word. Reading was a very slow process. We hardly ever got to the end of a book. I’d think, “Will Gemma-Rose ever read fluently?” which was a very silly question because I’d already experienced six other learner readers.…

Thankful and Facing Facts

I’m very pleased to announce that Venisa McAllister is my guest podcaster for this week’s episode: Thankful and Facing Facts. Thankful Venisa is talking about: Her own educational and childhood experiences How her family moved from homeschooling to unschooling Her children and how they have their individual learning styles The reasons she is thankful that her family is unschooling Facing Facts I’m talking about: How perfectionists like me don’t always face facts What I discovered when I was brave enough to…

My Number One Unschooling Fan

I’m my kids’ number one fan. I cheer my children on from the sidelines, encouraging them to develop their talents and become the people they are meant to be. I tell them I’m proud of them. I share in the joy of their achievements. Now some people might not approve of all this cheering. Maybe they worry that with all this positive attention, a child might start to think she’s someone special, someone better than everyone else.  However, my daughter…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Reassessing

It’s the first day of the official school holidays so my husband Andy is home from school for two weeks. He’s looking forward to…

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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…

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…

Christian unschooling

A Genuine Invitation for Christian Unschoolers

Sometimes, invitations aren’t genuine invitations. They might sound like proper invitations. We say the right words, “Would you like to…?” but expect a particular response that doesn’t include the right to decline. Then, some invitations are issued without a personal touch. We wonder, “Does it matter if I accept? Will anyone notice if I’m there or not?” This happened to…
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