How It’s Okay if We’re Not Perfect Parents
Do I want to be as good a mother as Sue Elvis? Or do I want Sue Elvis to be my mother? Perhaps a bit of both. Another phenomenal book that I’ll read again and again. Sue’s books remind me…
A New Unschooling Year Begins
Andy returns to work tomorrow. He’s a primary school teacher. “This is Dad’s last day of holiday,” I say to the girls. They are quiet for a moment, and then it suddenly dawns on them. “You mean the new school…
Unschoolers Taking Over the World
A sign at our local nursery recommends purchasing native plants like wattles, bottlebrushes, waratahs, and hakeas for our gardens because we live so close to the Australian bush. Everyone in our village seems to have ignored this advice. Each front…
When Rules for Teenagers Aren’t Necessary
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…
An Adventure Hiding in Every Moment
Every Wednesday afternoon I drive into town to deliver Imogen to her place of work. She spends two hours, house cleaning. And I wait. For two hours. Filling in hours? I’ve done a lot of that over the years. Waiting…
Maths and Other Wild and Yummy Stories
We’ve just had a very wild week. A week ago, we thought we’d arrived at summer. But by Tuesday we’d been thrown back to winter. The temperature plummeted, the rain fell and the wind howled. On Wednesday morning we woke up to find part of our backyard fence lying splat on the ground. Resurrecting the fence, before Nora our dog escaped, was the first challenge of the day. We’d planned to go out to our usual weekly homeschool meeting, but…
Beginnings and Endings and a Simple Christmas
We’ve had a lot of beginnings recently. Last week, the new school term began, and Andy, my school teacher husband, went back to work. On that same day, my daughter Charlotte celebrated her birthday. She began the 18th year of her life. And the girls have begun a new project which they’re hoping will earn them a little pocket money. Some beginnings are closely followed by an ending. On 9th November 1999, our son Thomas’ life (after birth) began. A…
Approaching Classic Novels the Other Way Around
“What are you reading?” I ask my ten year old daughter, Gemma-Rose. She looks up from her Kindle and says, “Bleak House.” I remember reading this Charles Dickens book a couple of years ago. It took me a long time to finish it. I had to return to the beginning a couple of times and start over again, because I kept putting the book down. By the time I came back to it, I’d forgotten what I’d previously read. “Are…
Unschooling Children, a School Teacher Father, and Tea
“What does your husband think about you unschooling your children?” I have been asked this question quite a few times. I guess people are interested in the answer because my husband Andy is a school teacher, as well as an unschooling father. “Would you like to chat with me about unschooling, being a school teacher and your involvement in our children’s lives?” I asked Andy. “Our conversation could be this week’s podcast.” Andy was agreeable. I decided to ask our…
Unschooling Experts, Criticism, and Radical Chore Rosters
Last week, I wrote a blog post called Are You a Proper Unschooler? I scheduled it to publish while we were away on holiday in Canberra. By the time we arrived home, the post had been online for about 12 hours and it hadn’t had many page views at all. I thought, “Oh well, not many people are interested in the topic of unschooling experts.” The next day I changed my mind. A steady stream of people arrived to read…
Bare Foot Unschooling and Comfortable Shoes
Many years ago I fell in love with a pair of soft golden-brown leather moccasins. They were decorated with tassels, threaded with tiny glass beads. Those shoes were absolutely beautiful and as soon as I saw them in the shop, I wanted them. There was only one tiny problem: They were half a size too small. I soon convinced myself the shoes would stretch once I started wearing them. I was sure I could put up with slightly cramped toes…
Unschool Writing, Essays, and a Few Panicky Moments!
My daughter Imogen has a passion for writing. “When did you start writing?” I ask. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing.” My second daughter was writing stories long before she knew how to form letters into words. It was no surprise to me when she announced she wanted to study writing at a tertiary level. 19-year-old Imogen is now in her third and final year of a Professional Writing and Publishing degree at university. So how did she get there?…
Are You a Proper Unschooler?
I used to worry about labelling our family as unschoolers. What if someone came along and said, “You’re not proper unschoolers”? Some people don’t like labels. Labels can certainly divide us. Someone could say,”You’re not unschoolers but we are.” That might make us feel excluded, even angry, if we think we belong. Sometimes it can seem safer to keep our label to ourselves. Let people guess and just ‘do our own thing’. But labels can be useful. They do help…
Parents, Teenagers and Opinions
Why do some parents want to impose their opinions on their children? Do they do this because they care? Perhaps they want their teenagers…
The ‘Risky’ Business of Trusting Children
Trusting children to make their own choices sounds risky enough when it applies only to education, but what if you extend this trust to…
Stories About Connection from Radical Unschool Love
In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing a few stories that can be found in my book, Radical Unschool Love: A Teenager’s Thoughts Learning Right…
The Math Myth: How Do Unschooled Kids Learn Math?
There are many unschool maths questions. Here are just a few of them: Can kids really learn maths without formal instruction? What does unschooling maths look like? Can we strew unschool maths? Is it possible for registered homeschoolers to unschool maths? How can we provide evidence kids are learning maths when we don’t have formal records like workbooks and test…
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…
Unschooling Isn’t Freedom Gone Wild: Why Choices Matter More Than Ideals
My husband Andy returned to work today after two weeks at home. Holiday time is over. We’ve now moved into term time. A whole term of possibility days stretches before me. I’m free to do whatever I like with my time while Andy is at school. My eyes light up with delight. But then I remember there are many…
When We Can’t Decide What’s the Best Way to Bring Up and Educate Our Kids
Do you ever swap between the various methods of homeschooling looking for the perfect way to bring up and educate your kids? I used to do that. I’d try one thing after another, confusing myself and my kids, while never finding what I was searching for. As I said in my book Curious Unschoolers: … I pondered lots of questions:…
Speed Angel Joy
I am sitting by the lake watching four girls scooting along the path. They are the Speed Angel Sisters and they are fast! Every now and then the girls veer off onto the grass and come to a sudden halt: a pedestrian is approaching. Now the speedway is clear again, and strong legs start pushing, wheels are revolving, hair…