The Writing Game: No Shortage of Writing Ideas

My daughter Gemma- Rose and I are having some mother-daughter time. We sit at one of the wobbly white tables in the shopping mall and sip our drinks. I have a coffee. She has a chocolate milkshake. “What have you…

Busy Days and Catch-Up Days

Do you ever have weeks where you find yourself racing through your days trying to keep up? We’re having one of those weeks right at the moment. Usually, we get up early each day. We work our way through our…

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.…

An Answer to the Chores Problem

We’d all like our children to be considerate, hard working and happy to help others. We’d especially like them to be willing to help out with the chores. Maybe we also hope they’ll be generous, to go beyond what they…

Latest

Being Honest: Talking about Mistakes and Perfection

Some things are absolutely perfect, like our recent holiday to Jenolan Caves. As I look at the photos, I smile. I know I’ll enjoy the memories of that wonderful time again and again. But some things are far from perfect. Some memories make me wince. I’d rather not think about certain times in the past. I don’t want to remember I was once called the Dragon Mother. Oh yes, once upon a time I could breathe fire and send everyone…

(More) Apologies

I once wrote a blog post called Apologies. Loads of people stopped by to read it. Perhaps they wondered, “What did Sue do? Did she make a huge mistake? What is she apologising for?” Actually, that post didn’t deserve all the attention it received. The only mistake I’d made was to publish the wrong post on the wrong day, during the annual A – Z blogging challenge. I got into a bit of a muddle and published my X post…

My Head is Overflowing with Ideas, Music and Lots of Questions!

“Come and look at my new video!” I shout and my children come running. I always get so excited when I create something new. I have to share with someone… immediately. It’s just as well my children are willing to look at my latest video or listen to my just-finished podcast. They’re great. They say all the right things. They’re very encouraging. I guess that’s what family is all about. Yesterday, I got excited about a new music discovery. “Come…

Resolutions, Reading, Writing, and Coarse Language

I have a lot of questions… What happens when we remain open to new experiences? Do I have any good tips for anyone who has resolved to get fit? What has running got to do with encouraging children to write? Are there advantages to reading many books, on the same subject, by different authors? Can I recommend some interesting novels to read? What do I mean by the words ‘multi-directional learning’? Why am I feeling very excited about writing? Can…

Under the Spell of the Australian Bush: Books, a Movie, a Walk

My daughter Sophie gave me a beautiful pair of silver and pearl dangly earrings. I’ve worn them every day since Christmas. I was wearing them, together with a long skirt, (and a spray of perfume), when we headed off into the bush, a few days ago, for a walk. “Let’s buy ice creams and then stroll around the lake,” I suggested. No need to change into shorts and tough bush trail shoes. No need to remove dangly earrings. Not for…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

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…

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: 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

The Discomfort of Letting Go and Allowing Our Kids (and Ourselves) to Grow

We organise life so we’re not challenged too much. We don’t want to stray outside our comfort zone because that could be painful. We say no instead of yes to our kids, not wanting them to go to parties at night, ride their bikes on the road, run through the bush alone, or learn to drive. We don’t want thoughts…

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 interesting unschooling ideas into something real in families’ lives in The Unschool Challenge. Three books. A trilogy. Everything I can…
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