Books, Music, Burnout and a Mystery!
This podcast is a few days late or a couple of days early, depending on how you look at it. It’s also not the same podcast I originally recorded. This week I reveal what happened to the first one and…
Encouraging Each Other
Sue Elvis is a mother of 8 with stacks of stories to tell. She generously shares her Stories of an Unschooling Family on her blog, YouTube channel, podcast, Instagram and most recently in her books, Curious Unschoolers and Radical Unschool…
Turning My Teenager’s Unschool Learning into Homeschool Records
How do we turn our unschoolers’ learning into homeschool records notes? What do we write? What educational language can we use? If we haven’t got any written assignments or worksheets, what do we add to our notebooks to show what…
Parenting: Doing Our Inadequate Best
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Protecting Children from Outside Influences
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Spreading the Radical Unschooling Message
Not so long ago, I made a podcast called Why You Should Consider Radical Unschooling. I wanted to encourage everyone to let unschooling spill over into all aspects of life, and not just the educational part. I wanted to say, “Unschooling is very good indeed, but radical unschooling is even better. Take the next step. Don’t be scared.” Don’t be scared? Yes allowing kids to make their own decisions about all areas of their lives might sound frightening. What if they…
What if Unschooling is Wrong?
Today, I’m sharing an incomplete thought. Some thoughts are like that. They sit at the edge of our minds, refusing to enter completely. We could dismiss them, but they might hold something of value. If only we could grasp them properly and put them into the right words. Do you ever wonder: “What if unschooling is wrong?” We could be quite happy, and then one day, out of the blue, doubt descends. Our trust begins to waver. We think: “What…
How Do We Encourage Our Kids to Be Independent Learners?
I’m still podcasting while I’m writing this unschooling book series. Here’s this week’s episode! This week, I’m sharing and discussing the story Independent Learners, Toast and Heavy Washing Baskets. Show Notes Leonie’s blog: Living Without School podcast music: Twombly by Podington Bear, (CC BY-NC 3.0)…
Today I Saw Thomas
it’s our son Thomas’ birthday. This morning, the girls and I visited the cemetery. When we arrived, we saw people preparing for a burial. A grave was open. There were chairs arranged in the shade ready for the bereaved who hadn’t yet arrived. Thomas is buried at the back of the cemetery in the children’s section. As we got closer, we could see two bunches of flowers in the bowl that sits on top of his grave. Someone placed them there…
Critics, Unschooling, and Independent Learners
A New Podcast Series Do you listen to my podcasts? I’ll still be making new episodes while I’m working on my book. These episodes will be shorter than my usual ones. Each one will be based on a blog post from my archive. Today, I published the first episode in this new series: Critics, Unschooling, and Independent Learners. If you’d like to listen to it, you can find episode 111 here on my blog, on iTunes (or should that be…
It Begins with a Question
Gemma-Rose and I gaze upon the flowers. They’re pretty, bright, colourful, showy. A gorgeous backdrop for a photo. We raise our cameras. Cameras down. We look around. There’s a Chinese gentleman. He’s standing in a garden bed erecting a parasol. We ask a question: Why? The man smiles. His eyes sparkle. Words tumble from his mouth: I’m sheltering the peonies – the imperial flower of China – from the warm Australian sun. There’s more. We lean closer and listen. The man…
Perfect
I raise my camera to my eye and frame my daughter Sophie within the viewfinder. She grins before raising her own camera. I almost protest and say, “Hey, I look terrible! Don’t take any photos of me!” But I don’t. A mother and a daughter out on a picnic, enjoying each other’s company. Joy rises up within me. It chases away any thoughts of my appearance. I don’t care what I look like. I just want Sophie to capture this…
Why it’s Dangerous to Insist Our Kids Have the Same Opinions as Us
Why do many teenagers act differently in front of their parents and their friends? Do they adopt the cool behaviour of their friends, which might involve doing and saying things parents don’t agree with because they don’t have the confidence to be themselves? Maybe most teenagers don’t even know who they are. Could parents prevent their children from discovering who they are by insisting they have the same opinions as them? Is it dangerous to do this? I was discussing…
Nothing is More Important than Love
“What would you rather do, play that computer game or come and give me a hug?” I ask my daughters. Without a moment’s hesitation,…
How to Live Radically
Radical unschooling children don’t necessarily brush their teeth, or shower and if they want to exist on an exclusive diet of coca cola and…
Sharing Our Values and Beliefs With Our Unschooled Children
We all have our beliefs. Even if we don’t have a religious faith, we still believe in something. We all have values which shape…
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.…
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…
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…
Is It Okay if Parents Want to Influence Their Unschooling Kids?
Is it okay if we try to influence our unschooling kids? What if we’d like them to acquire particular values? Can we expose them to our beliefs? Or should we stand back and try to keep quiet about the things we base our lives on and let our kids work out everything for themselves? Let’s say we decide it’s…
About Me, About Being Different
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