Questioning the Wisdom of Unconditional Love

Do you ever have doubts about your parenting? Do you ever wonder if your ideas are wrong? The other day, I wrote something about unconditional love, and later, rereading my words, I began to doubt what I’d said. While sharing…

Handwriting Matters or Maybe it Doesn’t

Some of my children have beautiful handwriting and some don’t.  “What are you going to do when you go to university? Your tutor won’t spend time trying to decipher your essays. If he can’t read them, you’ll fail.”  My eldest…

Helping a Child Discover Her Talents

If a child has a talent won’t it just appear without any encouragement? If you’re meant to be an artist, it will be very evident. The same with being a writer or a musician or even a fireman. Surely, a…

Are There Times When You Should Never Give Up Unschooling?

Are there times when you should never give up unschooling? Are there circumstances that could cloud your judgement and lead to poor decisions? Life might not be going well, and you could blame unschooling. You decide everything will be better…

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Favourite Sewing Books for Children: Gemma-Rose Sews a Mermaid

A book lands in our mailbox: Fleecie Dolls by Fiona Goble.  The girls turn the pages: “Oh! I want to make this one! And that one… and this one too!”  At last, a decision is made: “I’m going to make Tilly, the mermaid.”  So we go shopping and come home with…  a colourful pile of soft fleece, sparkling purple sequins and, a ball of orange and green, uneven knobbly yarn. I hunt out…  a scrap of felt, reels of sewing threads,…

Aiming for Love, Not Perfection

 I had a vision…  By the age of 18 all my children were going to be perfectly brought up and perfectly educated. I wanted them to fly off into the world without a problem. I was going to sit back and sigh with satisfaction and happiness. Pat myself on the back: A job well done.  In order to make my goal come true, I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect way of homeschooling, and stressing out over…

Nothing is More Important than Love

 “What would you rather do, play that computer game or come and give me a hug?” I ask my daughters.  Without a moment’s hesitation, Gemma-Rose says, “Hug you of course!”  “Do you even need to ask?” says Sophie.  I am humbled. What did I do to deserve such love?  I love my children so much it hurts.  “I love you so much,” I say.  My girls smile. “We know that!”  Maybe my children weren’t always aware of just how much…

When a Child Has Only One Interest.

“It’s all very well, letting children follow their own interests, but my daughter only wants to do one thing. She’s not interested in science or maths or writing… All she wants to do is cook and how’s that going to satisfy the educational authorities?” a hypothetical mother asks.  What would I do if one of my girls only wanted to cook, and wouldn’t consider learning anything else? I might try an idea I picked up at the very first homeschool…

Making Children Learn What They Don’t Want to Know

We can’t force knowledge into children if they aren’t interested, though it might appear we can. For, of course, children learn things they don’t want to learn all the time. Anyone who’s been to school is very aware of this. Bribes, punishments and even shame are used to ensure children learn things they’re not interested in. But is this kind of learning valuable? Or will children forget knowledge gained this way? Is it better to give ownership of learning to…

Falling in Love the Jane Austen Way

My older girls are busy introducing their younger sisters to the delights of Jane Austen. “You must watch Persuasion,” insists Imogen. “I’ll explain all the difficult bits,” she adds, as she notices the uncertain look on nine year old Gemma-Rose’s face. So we settle down on the sofa, the DVD is inserted into the machine and soon we are immersed in a past world of gentle romance. An hour and a half later, everyone sighs with satisfaction, even Gemma-Rose, who didn’t need any…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

Teenagers are People Too

At Mass on Sunday, during the Prayers of the Faithful, we were asked to pray for sullen teenagers. When we returned home, Imogen was…

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…

Unschooling: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother!…

Christian unschooling

How to Write a Million Unschool Love Stories

I used to think the defining word of unschooling was freedom. Freedom attracted me. I wanted to be free to do whatever I liked. I wanted to get up each day and do anything or nothing at all. But I soon realised there’s a problem with freedom. If we always do whatever we like, won’t we become self-centred? Thinking only…

Is It Okay if Parents Want to Influence Their Unschooling Kids?

Is it okay if we try to influence our unschooling kids? What if we’d like them to acquire particular values? Can we expose them to our beliefs? Or should we stand back and try to keep quiet about the things we base our lives on and let our kids work out everything for themselves? Let’s say we decide it’s…
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