The Best Time and Place for Things to Go Wrong

On Sunday morning, Sophie and I headed into town for Mass. Earlier, I’d said, “Let’s take our cameras with us. After Mass, we can do some street photography, and we could have coffee in that cafe down the far end…

An Elvis Family Tradition

On Easter Sunday I say, “It’s time to sing By Your Kingly Power O Risen Lord!” Gemma-Rose finds the hymn books, I set up my camera on the tripod, and everyone lines up. They know the routine. We’ve been singing…

Do You Need to Follow an Older Unschooler? (Part 2)

I choose the photos I share online with care, looking for ones with good, flattering light. I also need my photo smile to be just right. Sometimes, my smile looks a bit goofy because of my overbite. I reject these…

Why I Am My Children’s Number One Fan

“You have such good children!” says a woman as we come out of the church. My children smile. They glow with happiness. And then I spoil it all by saying rather hurriedly, “They’re not always this good, you know!” I…

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

Losing Time

I’ve been reading a book called A Time to Die by Nicholas Diat, who visited eight monasteries to talk to the monks about the…

The Ladies Fixing the World

How Unschooling Doesn’t Guarantee a Fairytale Life

Yesterday evening, like all Sunday evenings, my kids who live locally came to dinner. Six of us gathered around our dining room table, savouring a meal cooked by my husband while enjoying the usual end-of-the-week lively catch-up conversation. There was a time when we dreamed that all our children would buy houses on the same street as our family home.…

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 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…

Christian unschooling

Shall We Talk About Christian Unschooling?

I often get to the point where I feel I haven’t got anything more to say about unschooling. I wonder: is it time to move on? At the beginning of last year, I reached such a point. However, instead of thinking about moving away from unschooling, I proposed the idea of exploring unschooling from a different angle. Should we discuss…

Speed Angel Joy

I am sitting by the lake watching four girls scooting along the path. They are the Speed Angel Sisters and they are fast! Every now and then the girls veer off onto the grass and come to a sudden halt: a pedestrian is approaching. Now the speedway is clear again, and strong legs start pushing, wheels are revolving, hair…
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