How to Help Our Kids With Their Career Choices
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An Irresistible Invitation to an Unschooling Voyage of Discovery
Isn’t it wonderful to receive an invitation? Someone has chosen us! There are all kinds of invitations, from coffee dates to weddings. I love hearing, “Mum, would you like to meet up for lunch with me?” Sometimes, we eagerly accept an invitation: “Lunch sounds good!…
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 garden on our road has…
Irreplaceable Unschool Dogs and Kids
People often have favourite breeds of dogs, don’t they? Maybe they love greyhounds like a couple living in a nearby town who dress their trio of thin dogs in bright-striped pyjamas to keep them warm on below-zero days. Or they might be dachshund people like…
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…
Reflecting Badly On Our Family
Andy and I take Nora and Quinn to the vet for their annual checkups. We wonder if our dogs are the correct weight for their size. Are their coats clean and shiny? Do they look happy and well cared for? The vet says our pets…
What Snakes Can Teach Us About Unschooling
Strolling through the bush on a spring afternoon, sunscreen on my bare arms, a dog on a leash, I round a bend in a track and almost trip over a writhing venomous brown snake. With my heart beating fast, I jump, tighten my hold on…
When Our Kids Are Wired Differently
Amina lowers her voice. “I don’t like to admit this, but one day I said, ‘Harry, can’t you do as I want for once? Can’t you be nice to me just for one day?’ Harry looked confused. Be nice to me? I don’t think he…
Christian Unschooling: Should We Encourage Our Kids to Seek Security?
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Today is Thomas’ birthday. Andy and I drove to town this morning to choose a scented candle and a card to display with his photo. We also bought flowers for [...]
As I exit the car, the tree attacks me. It grips and twists my hair with its sticky fingertips. It pokes me sharply in my ribs. “Could you have parked [...]
In my post, The Spark, I told you I was updating my first children’s novel, The Angels of Abbey Creek. I was revising the words and, with AI’s help, generating [...]
We give our daughters our Aldi pod coffee machine when they leave home. “We’ll treat ourselves to a new one,” we say, not realising there isn’t a single Aldi coffee [...]
Doing Nothing?
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What if…?
What if instead of doing what you usually do, you did some of those things your children have been wanting to do for ages. All that fun stuff that usually has to wait until all the serious stuff has been completed. The stuff there’s never…
Disentangling Myself from the Internet
I’m lying in bed. Thoughts are running laps inside my head. Of course, I can’t sleep. I wonder if I should get up and write down what I’m thinking. Write the blog post that wants to be written. But I…
Why I Don’t Restrict My Children’s Time on the Computer
“How long have you been on your computer, Mum?” asks my daughter Imogen. “You’ll be getting rectangular eyes if you’re not careful.” “Not long,” I say hurriedly. “Oh, all right. I admit…
Real Maths Running
At the bottom of our road, only 100 metres away from home, is a park surrounded by bushland. And winding through the bush are…
Becoming Real Life Maths Detectives
“We use maths all the time,” I say to my daughter Gemma-Rose (10). “Maths is everywhere.” Everywhere? She doesn’t look convinced. “You use maths…
Bite-Sized Pieces of Unschool Maths
So many people love the idea of unschooling and are even tempted to give it a go, but often there is one huge stumbling…
Parent and Friend: Unschool Bits and Pieces
Parent and Friend A lot of people say our kids need us to be their parent and not their friend. “There’ll be plenty of…
Real Life Family Unschool Maths
A few years ago, when my daughter Sophie was 10, she started to say, “I’m no good at maths. I hate it!” At the…
A Very Resource Full Week: Rescued Paintings, Graphs, and Expensive Cats
At the beginning of the week, I said, “What shall we do today, Gemma-Rose?” My youngest daughter replied, “How about some maths?” Maths? I…
Choosing Not to Worry About What Other People Might Think
When you’re looking for photos of yourself to post on your blog or Facebook page, do you ever reject any? And if you do,…
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…