Guiding Our Kids by Radically Unschooling

Is radical unschooling all about stepping back and letting our children make their own choices without any influence from us? They might make choices we feel happy about. Or they could choose to do things we feel are detrimental to…

Pushing Ourselves Instead of Our Kids

Often, we push our kids to try new things, don’t we? We want them to be adventurous. We say, “If you give it a go, you might discover you like it. You might be good at it.’ But what about…

Stolen Paintings and Real Life Maths

Last week was a hunting week… My daughters and I watched as the FBI tried to hunt down a number of stolen masterpieces. And then I went on a hunt for some real life maths experiences. (Where’s all that maths…

Unschool Love Stories

About a month ago, I wrote the following story for my unschooling community: This morning, I didn’t want to go for a run. It was cold, I was tired, and I had no one to run with. Running seemed too…

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Liking, Tweeting, Pinning, Aching…

Years ago, when I first started blogging, I wanted to be popular. I looked at all the big bloggers with envious eyes, and dreamed of a day when I’d have just as many followers as they did. After a while my dream changed which is just as well because those followers didn’t materalise. Why do we want lots of followers? So we’re popular? Do we all have a need to be liked? Because it’s a sign we’re successful? All our…

Time to Unschool (Part 2)

Perhaps you’re thinking about unschooling. You could be wondering: Should we give it a go? Is unschooling right for our family? Yes? No? Maybe something is attracting you to unschooling? Do you imagine children following their own interests, being passionate about what they’re doing, getting a good education? Or is it something else? Could it be love? I hope so. When most people define unschooling, the word love isn’t usually mentioned unless we’re talking about ‘the love of learning’. And…

How Registered Homeschoolers Can Unschool

If our children are obliged to learn what’s in the school syllabus in order to have their homeschool registration applications approved, surely they can’t unschool? How can they follow their interests and still fulfil the registration requirements? My children are registered homeschoolers. They are also unschoolers. I manage to keep the education authorities happy (in a state where the regulations are rather strict) without compromising my unschoolers’ way of life. How do I do it? I chat about this topic…

Strengthening Family Bonds

My wonderful super computer won’t boot up. I turned it off the other evening and now it refuses to operate. It’s rather difficult to blog and podcast without a computer. Actually, it’s impossible. That’s why I didn’t have a new podcast episode to post yesterday. But today I found a way around my computer problem and I do have something to publish. This afternoon, I recorded this week’s episode with my little Zoom H1 recorder. Then my daughter Sophie…

Chores and Our Typical Unschooling Day

The other morning, after we’d done the morning chores and said prayers together, I asked my girls what they wanted to do. “Can we go to the post office?” asked Gemma-Rose. “I want to post my letters.” My eleven-year-old daughter has been writing a lot of letters recently. They’ve all been written in cursive handwriting, Gemma-Rose’s latest interest. There was a time when I doubted she’d ever learn to do ‘running writing.’ Several years ago, I tried to teach her,…

Perhaps I Shouldn’t Have Told You about Our Typical Unschooling Day

In my last podcast, I spoke about our typical unschooling day. Every day we get up early, do our chores as a team, and then say prayers together before getting on with the work of the day. We eat regular meals, sitting around the same table at the same time. At the end of the day, none of us is reluctant to slip into bed and go to sleep. Many nights my two youngest girls are ready to turn out…

A Bit of Murder in Our Typical Unschooling Day

“Miss Scarlett did it in the conservatory with the dagger,” Gemma-Rose announces to her older sisters. Miss Scarlett, the conservatory and the dagger: Those words belong to my childhood. Many years ago, I loved playing Cluedo with my own sisters. I hoped I’d be the first person to discover the identity of the murderer. Could I work out how the murder was committed and where? It’s a lot of fun trying to solve a murder. At least it is when the…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Can Christians Unschool?

Can Christians unschool? We’re Christian unschoolers. Maybe you’re Christian unschoolers too? There are lots of us living this way of life. But are we…

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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.…

Christian unschooling

Dragon Mothers and Parenting Mistakes

In a previous post, I wrote: Oh my, you should see my file of ‘failed’ podcasts. Yesterday, I added another one to the pile. “How did your podcast go, Mum?” my daughter Imogen asked me, and I replied, “It wasn’t quite right. It didn’t flow.” And with a sigh, I added, “I’ll have to record it again.” Well, today, I…

Can Unschooling Be a Christian Thing to Do?

When a child has been controlled all her life, she just might grow into the kind of adult who says, “Nobody is ever going to make me do what they want ever again. From now on I’m going to do what I want.” She might close herself off, stand well back, not let anyone get too close. Because you never…
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