It’s Not a Periscope 3: A Bush Walk
A sunny almost-winter afternoon. I’m taking Nora the dog for a walk. We’re heading down to the bush at the end of our road. Would you like to come too? I have to warn you: I’m a fast walker. And…
What to Do When Unschool Kids Have No Interest in Topics They’re Required to Learn
‘… if we’re curious people, the whole world is a source of fascinating things to investigate. But this doesn’t mean we will all enjoy learning about something the same way. Sometimes we need to find the right angle. Can we…
Pushing Ourselves Instead of Our Kids
Often, we push our kids to try new things, don’t we? We want them to be adventurous. We say, “If you give it a go, you might discover you like it. You might be good at it.’ But what about…
Busy Days and Catch-Up Days
Do you ever have weeks where you find yourself racing through your days trying to keep up? We’re having one of those weeks right at the moment. Usually, we get up early each day. We work our way through our…
Glimpsing the World through a Child’s Eyes
“Do you want to watch a movie? We’re having a boys’ movie night.” A movie night? That sounds like a relaxing way to spend an evening. Someone grabs the popcorn, someone else inserts the DVD into the player and then…
The End of the Story
Those thrilling words: no events today. An empty Saturday stretches ahead. What will I do? What would I like to do? What should I do? Sometimes the two don’t match. We need to choose one over the other. That’s where I am today. I need to finish building my new website. Only a few people know that I have big plans for this blog. Most readers probably think I’ve been neglecting it, sliding away, nothing more to say, no more…
Could Ebooks Save My Unschool Blog?
The other day, I logged into my blog hosting account to find out when my next payment is due and how much it will be. When I saw the bill due later this year, I gulped and said to my husband, “Do we want to spend so much money on a site that’s often slow or offline because of a problem? Do we have that much money? Perhaps it’s time to delete my blog.” Andy reminded me that my blog…
My List of Brilliant Unschooling Blogs
Remember when blogging was the thing to do? We all created blogs instead of social media accounts. We shared our lives, writing our stories, filling our sidebars with photos of our kids, sometimes naming them, frequently hiding their identities under pseudonyms like Princess and Tiger. We followed each other’s blogs. When a new name and face appeared in our followers widget, we grinned. Someone new wanted to read our posts! We rushed to read each other’s offerings before leaving lively…
How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions and Sceptics
My mother-in-law visited us for the birth of our son, Thomas. After he died and we’d buried him in his tiny white casket, Andy’s mother asked me if we wanted more children. As I replied, “Oh, yes!”, my mother-in-law’s face dropped into a disapproving frown. “She thinks we already have enough kids,” I thought as my defence hackles rose. But that wasn’t it. I’d misunderstood. In S3E3 of The Ladies Fixing the World podcast, How Unschoolers Can Deal with Questions…
How Kids Need Something Better Than Perfect Lives
If it were possible, would you give your kids a perfect life? Or do they need something better? Sitting on my faded blue chair in our back garden, clad in my pjs, at 7 o’clock this morning, savouring the relatively cool air that has now disappeared, I thought about how we put so much effort into trying to give our kids a perfect life. We want to bring them up in beautiful, calm, peaceful homes filled with every possible resource.…
When Our Unschooling Days Turn Grey
Life has felt grey for a while. The fog of tiredness hangs over me, trapping me in my own isolated world. Occasionally, after a reasonable sleep, the grey recedes, revealing bright delights and joys, and I think about how blessed I am to be living my life. My spirits lift. I rejoin the bigger world, thinking about how I can contribute to it. But on the whole, the fog swirls around, and I feel stuck. And sometimes desperate. It’s hard…
Unschooling: Making the Right Choices
Years ago, when life was overwhelming, and I was looking for yet another way to homeschool my kids, I was tempted to unschool. I thought if we were unschoolers, we could do whatever we liked, and if we didn’t want to do anything, that would be okay. Because unschooling is about freedom, isn’t it? We are free to choose what we do, so we can choose to do nothing at all. I discovered that unschooling doesn’t work that way. Yes,…
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…
Is It Ever Too Late to Start Unschooling?
Is it ever too late to start unschooling? I’ve been asked this question a lot and my answer is always “No!” Even if a…
How to Respond to ‘Unlovable’ Kids and Cats
Poppy died, and I cried despite not liking the cat. Poppy was a grumpy animal. She was messy and unkempt, preferring not to groom…
How Our Unschooled Kids Need a Deep Kind of Example
Sometimes I’m asked: ‘How do I get my kids to get up early? How do I get them to exercise? And I’d like to…
Is It Working? Wrestling with Doubt in Unschooling
A grey day arrives that completely blots out the memory of all the preceding good days. We feel overwhelmed, tired, worried and lost. We wonder why we ever decided to unschool. A puddle of doubt about unschooling forms around us. What do we do? Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing unschooling doubts and sharing our experiences in episode 10 of…
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 and Connections: How Learning Is All About Creating a Web of Understanding
When I finished my university degree, I threw all my botany and biochemistry lecture notes and books into the garbage bin with relief. And I said, “No one will ever make me learn anything ever again!” I have a science degree, which was presented to me while I was wearing a fancy gown with a mortar board on my head.…
Christian Unschooling and Other Things
I made a new podcast episode! Yes, after an absence of a few weeks, I’m back. So where did I go? Nowhere in particular. I was just at home enjoying lots of slow summer days. Maybe I was feeling lazy. But yesterday, that changed. I suddenly felt like getting back to work. And so I thought I’d record a catch-up…
About Me, About Being Different
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…