unschooling - Page 9

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When You’re Tempted to Leave Unschooling and Try Something Else

Every evening of our recent holiday, Imogen and I swished through the warm waves as we walked along the beach, waiting for the sun to set. One evening, I noticed a group of birds on the sand. At first glance it looked like a gathering of seagulls, but there were two imposters in the lineup. The word imposter makes me think of all the times I’ve felt like an unschooling…
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Could a Lack of Freedom Damage Our Kids’ Mental Health?

On the first morning of my recent holiday with my daughter Imogen, I got up early, grabbed my camera and headed to the beach. I sat alone on the sand, waiting for the sun to rise and thought about freedom. The last couple of years have been hard, haven’t they? In 2020, here in Australia, we endured a lockdown of several months. Last year, I was confined to home for…
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Parents Or Friends? Or Can We Be Both?

A few weeks ago, my gorgeous adult daughter, Imogen, said, “Mum, we need a break. How about we go to the beach together for a few days?” Oh my, that was a fabulous suggestion. We’ve both had a hard time this last year or so. A holiday away from the cares of everyday life sounded perfect. Actually, it sounded like a lifesaver. So we packed our swimming gear, hoping the…
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An Adult Learning Unschooling Challenge

I have an adult learning unschooling challenge for you! It’s part of a series of challenges that I’ve written that, hopefully, will help turn unschooling principles and ideas into something real in your lives.  Years ago, I used to think education was for kids. I’d been to school and completed my education. Now it was my children’s turn to work (and their turn to suffer.) It was me against them.…
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Judging and Other People’s Opinions

Why do we judge each other? Why do we worry so much about other people’s opinions of us? And what would everyone think of me if they knew what I did? In this vlog, I tell a story about a duck murderer, and another one about death and a bar of chocolate, as I ponder the above questions. Something Extra I also wrote the death and chocolate story as…
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How to Be Brave

The other day, I was thinking about bravery. What is being brave all about? Are we brave when we do something that might make people stare, such as having our hair cut startling short? Or is there more to bravery than that? After pondering a few thoughts for a while, I headed to my front doorstep with my phone camera and made a vlog on this topic. Along the way,…
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Meander the Unschooling Way

There are two routes to our local town. The first one is the efficient way. Once we’ve left the road that leads out of our village, we drive along the highway, through multiple sets of traffic lights before we arrive in town. The other route is the meandering one, the one that winds its way through bush and paddocks, round bends, and up hills and down. If I’m not in…
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Unschooling: Good Education

When I open the front door, a man with a winning smile immediately launches into a slick presentation. Do I have children? Yes, I have two. Would I like them to receive a good education? Yes. Do I want to give them the best start in life? Of course. It’s my lucky day. The young man tells me he has just what I need: a set of encyclopaedias. He thrusts…
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Will We Have Done Enough?

Are our kids ‘doing enough’? Maybe we often ask ourselves that question. But what do we mean by ‘doing enough’? Do we worry that our children aren’t doing enough Maths, English, science? Or is there something far more important they need to know? My daughter Gemma-Rose was about 15 when I wrote this story about a day in our family’s unschooling life. I’ve been thinking about time, love, learning and…
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How to Unschool Maths and Still Fulfil Homeschool Registration Requirements

Can Registered Homeschoolers Unschool Maths? Perhaps you’d like to let your kids unschool maths, but you’re worried. Will you have enough maths notes in your records book if you let them drop the formal maths program they’re using? Can you satisfy the maths requirement for homeschool registration without traditional style workbook maths exercises? For us, the answer to these questions was yes. My youngest girls approached maths in an unschooling way,…
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An End of the Year Unschooling Challenge

At the end of 2020, which was a very tough year, I wrote the following unschooling challenge. 2021 turned out to be a difficult year too. I think we could substitute 2021 for 2020 and do the challenge again! This week, we’re going to think about 2021 and write our end-of-the-year reviews. Maybe we don’t want to do this. It’s been a tough year, hasn’t it? We might just want…
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