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! Have you seen her home? It’s spotless. How does Sue do it?”

I imagined my children growing up into well-rounded and educated adults whom everyone would like and admire. They’d find excellent jobs and wonderful spouses. I’d have a heap of gorgeous grandchildren, and my children would bring their children up in the same way I’d raised them. They’d walk in my footsteps, using me as a role model. I raced ahead and wrote eulogies in my head. One day, in the far-distant future, my grief-stricken children would say, “My mother was exceptional. She made us who we are. How will we live without her?”

Of course, for my perfect life to become a reality, I had to control my kids. They couldn’t stray outside the script that I’d written for them. I soon discovered this was hard work. It was more than a full-time job monitoring everyone’s behaviour, making sure my children were dressed as I desired, said what I thought was appropriate, and didn’t create a mess so our house remained spotless.

Sometimes I could feel chaos threatening me. I knew if I took my eyes off my goal for just a second, life would crash around me.

I’d thought a perfect life would result in happiness. But my attempts to achieve perfection made life unbearable.

Eventually, I realised we can’t control others, including our kids. And though I’d have liked a pristine home, keeping it that way was unrealistic. I relaxed and let each family member be who they were instead of trying to mould them into who I’d decided they should be.

Finally, I was doing everything right. I’d given up control. Everyone was thriving. Life was happy. Nothing could go wrong. But it did.

One day, something unexpected came along, and though I was used to going with the flow, allowing my kids to be themselves and not getting upset when life didn’t follow my plan, this paralysed me. I didn’t know how to deal with it. It was too big.

One day, at a 20-week ultrasound, I was told our sixth child had a diaphragmatic hernia. The doctors predicted he wouldn’t develop enough lung tissue for independent breathing and would die after birth.

I told this story in S3E2 of The Ladies Fixing the World podcast. I shared how my grief affected our unschooling life.

In this episode, Cecilie, Sandra, and I shared many stories of coping with the unexpected, from dealing with power outages to surviving cancer.

Life is unpredictable, isn’t it? However much we want to, we can’t control it. But we often ignore this fact, closing our eyes to it, not wanting to believe it’s true. Perhaps we think we can beat life and stay in control, if only we try hard enough. We’ll succeed where others have failed. But we won’t. Eventually, something unexpected will happen. And that event might be big. Is that a frightening thought? It might be if we aren’t used to going with the flow.

These days, I know it doesn’t matter what happens. With God’s help and each other, we experienced the worst and survived. We also discovered that good can come from bad things. Suffering teaches us vital lessons we can’t learn in any other way.

So, we don’t need to control life. We’ll be okay whatever comes along. There’s freedom in knowing that.

The Video Version

The Podcast Version

Also available on all other podcast platforms – find the links here.

Shownotes

Life rarely goes as planned—and in unschooling families, that’s part of the point. In this conversation, Sandra Dodd, Cecilie Conrad, and Sue Elvis explore how unschooling equips families to meet change and crisis without losing their center.

They talk about illness, loss, and emotional recovery, about broken routines, power outages, and the quiet skills that grow when life doesn’t follow the script. From Sue’s experience with grief and bushfires to Cecilie’s cancer story and Sandra’s stories of family adaptation, the conversation shows how trust, connection, and flexibility create real resilience.

Unschooling isn’t a strategy for avoiding the hard parts of life—it’s a way of living that allows families to meet them together.

🔗 Sandra, Sue and Cecilie’s websites

https://sandradodd.com
https://storiesofanunschoolingfamily.com
https://cecilieconrad.com
🗓️ Recorded June 26, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

Photos

Taken at Thomas’ grave, November 2024