Everything is Educational, Even Disney Princesses

I’ve been thinking… Are some things more educational than others? And what makes something educational anyway? Can Disney Princesses be educational? Or are some things only fun things? The other evening I discovered my teenage daughters, Imogen and Charlotte, in the…

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…

A Triple Celebration

I thought my daughter Charlotte and I had two good reasons to celebrate.  Reason Number One:  Charlotte ended an intense year of piano work with an exam. (The results haven’t been published yet, but she thinks she did okay!)  Reason…

How to Get Children to Do Their ‘School Work’

I often hear parents chatting together about how they can’t get their kids to do their school work. What do they do? Keep pushing their kids because that’s what parents are expected to do? Is this part of their duty?…

Handwriting Matters or Maybe it Doesn’t

Some of my children have beautiful handwriting and some don’t.  “What are you going to do when you go to university? Your tutor won’t spend time trying to decipher your essays. If he can’t read them, you’ll fail.”  My eldest…

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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…

Some Not-Your-Average Maths Websites for Unschool Strewing

Do you strew maths resources for your kids? I used to. I offered books, games, links to websites, and videos because I was legally required to offer maths learning opportunities to my children, and they protested when I presented them with traditional workbooks. They even rejected attractive online interactive maths programs. So, I hunted for other ways to introduce my girls to all the math concepts the education department expected them to learn. I had another reason for strewing maths…

An Unschool Challenge: Name Conversations

It seems to me that names can lead to many interesting conversations and much learning. While we’re sharing our name stories, we connect with the members of our family, present and past. We might learn more about each other, different places, historical events, books and a lot more. Sometimes choosing a name for a child can be delightful. Other times, finding the perfect name feels like an impossible task. We had trouble deciding what to call our fifth child. Here’s…

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 is feasting on my blood. I try flicking the leech off, but I know this won’t work: it’s firmly attached to my skin. What should I do? I remember a piece of advice given to me by a nature-loving friend:…

Unschooling and Connections: How Learning Is All About Creating a Web of Understanding

When I finished my university degree, I threw all my botany and biochemistry lecture notes and books into the garbage bin with relief. And I said, “No one will ever make me learn anything ever again!” I have a science degree, which was presented to me while I was wearing a fancy gown with a mortar board on my head. I have a piece of paper that tells the world I did the coursework, passed the exams, and was awarded…

Unschooling Maths – What Does Learning Math/s Naturally Look Like?

Many parents say, “We unschool except for maths.” I understand why some people are reluctant to let go of maths because, years ago, we were in the same situation. For some reason, it seemed hard to let my kids learn maths naturally from being exposed to it in their lives. But one day, my youngest two children began saying, “I hate maths!” like their older siblings had. As I couldn’t bear the thought of pushing two more children to do…

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 self-regulation to match what we think is best? Do we need our kids’ choices to resemble ours? If they don’t,…

What if Our Unschooled Kids Complain or Reject Everything We Hold Dear?

I took my blog offline to fix a few technical problems, but at the back of my mind was a question: Have I had enough of blogging? Maybe I should keep my blog hidden permanently from public view. Perhaps it’s time to become an ex-unschooling blogger. Contemplating retirement as a blogger is nothing new. I’ve done this a few times over the past 14 years or so. But this time, something was different. Previously, I wanted to abandon my blog…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

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,…

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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…

Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Curiosity, Flexibility, and Trust

I’m a Lady Fixing the World! Cecilie Conrad kindly invited me to join her and Sandra Dodd for Season 2 of her podcastThe Ladies Fixing the World. We recorded our first unschooling conversation together in November 2024 before life got extra-busy with Christmas, and it has just gone live! The audio version. Here’s the audio version: You can also listen…

Christian unschooling

Letting Go of Control

On Saturday evening, Jessie, Quinn’s sister, died. My son Callum’s Shar Pei/Great Dane puppy was bitten by a 2-metre-long brown snake. Her death wasn’t in The Plan. She should have lived for years. Instead, the Jessie stories have suddenly come to an end. There’ll be no more comparisons: “Is Jessie much bigger than Quinn? Send us a photo!” No more…

Is It Wrong to Love Without Limits?

We’re often told that kids won’t learn right from wrong if we love them without limit. But what if the world has things back to front? What if it’s unconditional love that bathes us in the gentle light of self-awareness and spurs us to become the people we were created to be?…
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