The Problem With Being a Younger Sister

Younger sisters want to do everything older sisters can do.  The other Sunday at Mass Imogen was the psalm cantor. I glanced at Gemma-Rose while her older sister was up at the lectern singing, and noticed she had a big…

Unschooling Books and Bedtimes

Knock! Knock! My husband Andy looked at me and I looked at him. We both looked at the clock. Who could that be at our front door, at 8 o’clock on a weekday evening? Andy heaved himself out of his…

How Light Can Turn into Deep and Serious

I love Sunday mornings. We usually go to 7.30 am Mass and then when we get home, we have a leisurely breakfast in the family room. While we’re eating toast and Nutella and porridge and syrup, we talk. “What’s the…

Does Christian Unschooling Interest You?

I’ve written three unschooling books: I focused on the educational side of unschooling in Curious Unschoolers. I extended the unschooling story in Radical Unschool Love by sharing parenting thoughts and stories. And I offered practical suggestions for turning all those…

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Fan Mail and Lots of Unschooling Thoughts

This morning I felt very discouraged. Perhaps it was the result of being overtired. I don’t know. It’s strange how grey the world looks when we’re tired. Earlier today, nothing excited me. I didn’t want to blog or podcast. Sharing unschooling didn’t seem important. All I wanted to do was close my computer and forget everything. “Are you going to record a podcast today, Mum?” “I’ve got nothing to say,” I replied. “I’ve said it all before. I’m just repeating…

Our Typical Unschooling Mornings

This post follows on from Why Some Kids Are Willing to Help With the Chores. I’ve been thinking about how our life does look rather conventional. What makes our life… different from any structured homeschoolers’ life? Is it any different? How do we tell if someone is unschooling or not? We don’t stay up really late at night, we don’t drift through our days doing exactly what we want at all times, we get up very early in the morning,…

Why Some Kids Are Willing to Help with the Chores

I said that I have to be a good example if I want my children to help me get the house organised each morning… I have to jump out of bed and go out there and dive into the chores. I have to be willing to help so that my children are willing to help me. Sometimes when I go to the kitchen and see the dishes (waiting to be washed), I don’t want to do them. I think: Somebody…

Our Unschooling Morning Routine

Just before Christmas, Karen asked me if I could write about our typical unschooling days.  I spoke about this topic in a podcast a few months ago, so I thought I’d share some of what I said in a short series of posts. Today, I’m starting with our morning routine. Routine? That doesn’t sound very unschooly, does it? We all get up early in the morning. If it’s one of the warmer months of the year, we might go for…

Who’s on Your Team?

The other day I went for a walk with my daughter Imogen. As we were heading along a bush track, I noticed she was fumbling with her iPod. “Are you listening to something?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “I just had an idea about a blog post, and I’m making a note of it before I forget.” I understand about note making. I scribble down ideas all the time. If I didn’t, I’d soon forget them. And then some ‘brilliant’…

Evernote Homeschool Records: How Many Notebooks Do We Need?

How many Evernote notebooks do we need for recording our unschooling? Here are three options:  1. We could create only one notebook for the whole year eg: 2015 We can easily sort our notes if we tag them with the term and the week eg: term 1 week 1 If we want to see all the notes for week 1 of term 1, 2015, we search the 2015 notebook for the tags week 1 and term 1. 2. We could create…

Encouraging Kids’ Ideas

The other day, I was telling you about my plans to transcribe parts of my podcasts. I want to make them into blog posts. I found some software called Transcribe to help me, and this afternoon, I tried it out. I transcribed a segment from podcast episode 52, Getting Older, Unschooling, and Moving On. It’s about encouraging children’s ideas (and not being afraid to try out our own ideas). I’ve used this segment before. If you’ve watched my short video,…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother!…

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

Radical Unschool Love, Praise and Joy

Do you ever praise your kids? Do you tell them you’re proud of them? Some people say we shouldn’t praise our kids. Maybe that’s because our children might end up doing things only because they want to gain our approval. And is there a risk a child might think she is better than everyone else if we praise her too…
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