A Doctor’s Waiting Room Education
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…
Unschool Christmas Card Maths
“It’s just as well Dad’s a school teacher,” observes my daughter, Imogen, “because if he wasn’t, our Christmas card display would be very small.” Yes, Andy has a nice stack of Christmas cards that he brought home from school. But…
Babies, Toddlers and Unschooling (Part 1)
Gemma-Rose is now seven. She is our youngest child and so it’s been a few years since we’ve had a baby or a toddler in our family. It’s been a long time since we’ve had to work our homeschooling day…
Unschool: Aqua Waves and Awe
Be Curious The aqua waves rise high and then fall, rolling towards the shore as we watch with awe and wonder: why is the ocean so blue? Do you view the world with wonder and awe? Are you a curious…
Do Our Kids Know Themselves Better Than We Know Them?
As parents, we might think we know what’s best for our kids. We’re the adults. We’re older. We have experience. But my daughter Sophie disagrees. She says, “I think sometimes parents forget that a child knows herself better than the…
When Our Help and Strewing Are Rejected
My daughter Charlotte used to be openly enthusiastic about everything. Every evening she’d be eager to tell me about all the things she’d discovered that day. She’d listen to my ideas and ask for resources. Then things changed. During the last year or so of Charlotte’s official homeschooling years, she stopped turning to me for suggestions. If we did get together and mull over ideas for learning, she never followed up on anything. My help was often rejected. “What did…
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…
The Most Powerful Motivator of All
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…
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…
When a Child Can’t Cope
A few months ago, a family story made big news in a city newspaper. One Sunday, a married couple decided to take their small…
When Children Move Out of an Unschool Home
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…
When in Doubt, Just Love
Last Wednesday, I pushed our living room sofa out of position, exposing a stretch of plain duck-egg blue wall. I placed a chair and…
Learning to Read and Trusting Unschooling
It is absolutely essential that we are curious people who are excited about the possibilities in life. The atmosphere in our homes gets picked up by our kids so they think it’s normal to learn, to be curious, to follow thoughts and ideas and try things out… I was battling with my kids for a while. They kept saying, ‘Why…
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.…
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 Parents Demand Obedience from Their Children?
Not so long ago, I was reading a spiritual book that mentioned monks and their life of poverty, chastity and obedience. And this got me thinking about obedience. Monks are obedient to their superiors and the rule of their order. They are imitating Jesus who was obedient to God the Father even until death. Obedience is obviously good so perhaps…
Unschool: Greater Things
She was tempted to aim low, afraid to risk failure, but she knew she shouldn’t settle for ordinary. More was expected. So she gathered her courage, did what she should, and life got exciting. And she changed. How often do we aim low because we’re too afraid to risk disappointment or failure? We want to stay where it’s comfortable and…