How I Made a ‘Huge’ Mistake and Was Forgiven

Some days are difficult. Unexpected things happen, and mistakes are made. Clouds blow in and blot out the usual sunshine of our days, and we feel miserable. We let those mistakes overwhelm us. We get bogged down in woe, unable…

Latest

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…

Is Unschooling Just Living Life?

Sometimes life gets busy. Too busy. I like empty weeks: five days waiting to be filled with whatever we like. I thought last week was going to be an empty week. But unexpected things happened. We ended up having lots of appointments to attend and errands to do. In the course of last week, I walked to and from our village a number of times as I posted and shopped and visited and attended… And as I walked, I chatted…

Of Spiders and Saints and So-Much-Kindness

A Guest Blog Post by Suzie Andres My family and I are visiting my husband’s family in Florida. Yesterday my husband surprised me by getting up early (this is vacation!) and asking if I’d like to go with him to Mass (it was a weekday morning; the feast of St. Sixtus the Second and of St. Cajetan, as it turned out). As we got into his parent’s car, we noticed something on the driver’s side mirror, just a few inches…

Encouraging Kids to Write (and the Youngest Child in the Family)

When my son Duncan was about six or seven years old, his head was bursting with stories he wanted to tell. Every morning he would sit in front of an old manual typewriter and hammer on the keys and his tale would appear on the paper. While he worked, his face was lit up with a huge smile. His whole body vibrated with sheer delight. “Would you like to see my story, Mum?” Duncan would ask when the final word…

Popularity, Learning to Read and Shakespeare

Is there such a thing as a typical unschooling day? What about a typical unschooling week? Do my children spend equal time on all the key learning areas? The answer is no! We tend to get immersed in a few things at a time. This isn’t so good for my record-keeping, but it’s a very enjoyable and effective way of learning. Recently I’ve had a lot of English and Creative Arts learning experiences to record in my records notebook, but…

Can We Say We’re Unschoolers if We Require Maths?

Some people will tell you if you unschool everything except maths, you’re not really an unschooler. For how can we say to our kids, “I trust you will learn everything you need to know… but not maths”? We either trust or we don’t. Nothing else makes much sense. So yes, I do understand that point of view. But before I upset anyone with my opinions, I want to say I also understand how difficult it is to let go of…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning

The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let go of control, and now I’m waiting for my child to learn how to regulate his time playing video games (for example),” do we have expectations about what that regulation should look like? Do we want…

Christian unschooling

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…

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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