An Adventure Hiding in Every Moment

Every Wednesday afternoon I drive into town to deliver Imogen to her place of work. She spends two hours, house cleaning.  And I wait. For two hours. Filling in hours? I’ve done a lot of that over the years. Waiting…

Teenagers, Rules and Rebellion

“My daughter will be 13 soon,” says a mother. She groans: “There’s trouble ahead!” The other mothers nod in sympathy. Yes, life is about to get very difficult. It always does when there’s a teenager in the family. But are…

Warming My Homeschooling Heart

A couple of weeks ago, our family attended a party, one of those wonderful affairs with all aged children and adults milling around, chatting and eating, laughing and playing. At one point in the evening, Charlotte found herself next to…

Unschool Bushfire Maths

I open my phone to google ‘smoky or smokey’ to find out the correct spelling of this word. (I’ve been using it a lot lately.) And I find a warning waiting for me to read. (It arrived in the night…

What We Need to Film Imogen’s Music Videos

The evening before a music video shoot day, I say to my girls, “Have we got everything ready? Are the camera cards empty? Have we charged the batteries?” We find all our equipment and pile it by the front…

Latest

Why This Unschool Mother Doesn’t Care

He who doesn’t care has more power. I heard those words somewhere, scribbled them into my journal, and then pondered them. Are they true? Should we care? Or are there some things we shouldn’t waste our time caring about? One thing I do care about is my son Callum and his passion for cars. Recently, I’ve become very interested in classic cars, not just because talking about them connects me to Callum, but because they are fascinating. The other day,…

The Unschool Fangirl Returns

I’ve been a guest on other people’s podcasts, but I haven’t made a new episode on my own Stories of an Unschooling Family podcast for many months. But that has changed. Yesterday, I plugged my mic into my MacBook and started talking. (Unfortunately, I forgot to check my GarageBand settings, but I think the audio quality is still okay.) What did I talk about in episode 207? Will I make more episodes? What does the title mean? This week, I’m…

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 via your favourite podcast app. The Video Version If prefer watching, you can see us on YouTube: The…

Examining An Unschooling Life

I drop a peppermint teabag into my favourite glass mug, add boiling water, and carry it to the living room. Opening the blinds so I can see the sun as soon as it rises, I settle on the sofa with the cat, who keeps trying to sit on my head. I grab my journal and chew the end of my pen while I think of the past week. While my family sleeps, I review my week in the pre-dawn Saturday…

Who Would We Be Without Unschooling?

Unschooling changes parents as well as kids. We learn, face life’s challenges with courage, soak up the joys, do things we never expected. We grow and become different people from those we were when we first set out on our homeschooling adventures. Who would we be without unschooling?…

Some Strange and Interesting Bookish Questions

If you could have only half of a book, would you prefer the first half or the second one? My daughter Imogen and I discuss this question after I tell her a friend gave me too much money for a copy of one of my Angels novels: “She gave me enough money to buy three and a half books.” Imogen and I imagine putting three books into a pile and adding half a book. Which half would my friend want:…
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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: 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…

How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions and Sceptics

My mother-in-law visited us for the birth of our son, Thomas. After he died and we’d buried him in his tiny white casket, Andy’s mother asked me if we wanted more children. As I replied, “Oh, yes!”, my mother-in-law’s face dropped into a disapproving frown. “She thinks we already have enough kids,” I thought as my defence hackles rose. But…

Christian unschooling

Should We Encourage Our Kids to Follow Their Dreams?

What did you want to be when you were a child? I wanted to be a writer. I had a cardboard box inside my wardrobe where I stored my scribbled stories about princesses, dragons and faraway kingdoms. At night, in bed, before dropping off to sleep, I’d think up stories about large happy families who were a lot like the…

Respecting Kids and Christmas Presents

Does having a simple Christmas sound good? It does to me. This year, like last year and the one before, I wanted to announce that I’m not buying a lot of Christmas presents. I thought about saying that I’m not buying any at all. I didn’t want to think and think until the perfect gift ideas came to mind. I…
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