Charlotte (17) “My daughter will be 13 soon,” says a mother. She groans: “There’s trouble ahead!” The other mothers nod in sympathy. Yes, life is about to get very difficult. It always
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,
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
Some random thoughts about unschooling and parenting… ometimes I get the feeling most of the world thinks I’m a little strange. Whenever I post a parenting story I wonder if there are
We don’t make rules in our family, so how do my children know what is right and what is wrong, if they aren’t guided by clearly stated limits? Do I believe my
My children said, “Sleep in tomorrow, Mum. You’re overtired. You haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.” So I slept in. When I got up, the kitchen was deserted. Everyone
I’ve been thinking about rules and principles of living… We all know what rules are. Life is full of them. Most families have many rules by which their children must live, such
Should parents expect kids to help with the chores? How do we encourage kids to have a generous attitude and want to be part of the family team, helping with the work?
Trusting children to make their own choices sounds risky enough when it applies only to education, but what if you extend this trust to other areas of life? Will children decide they
Some of my wild unschoolers If you do a Google search on unschooling it won’t take you very long to find someone criticising unschoolers. The most judged unschoolers are those who have adopted a radical
I'm an Australian unschooling author, blogger and podcaster. I've been blogging here since 2011 and have loads of stories about all aspects of unschooling to share with you.