Why This Unschool Mother Doesn’t Care
He who doesn’t care has more power. I heard those words somewhere, scribbled them into my journal, and then pondered them. Are they true? Should we care? Or are there some things we shouldn’t waste our time caring about? One thing I do care about is my son Callum and…
The Unschool Fangirl Returns
I’ve been a guest on other people’s podcasts, but I haven’t made a new episode on my own Stories of an Unschooling Family podcast for many months. But that has changed. Yesterday, I plugged my mic into my MacBook and started talking. (Unfortunately, I forgot to check my GarageBand settings,…
Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Curiosity, Flexibility, and Trust
I’m a Lady Fixing the World! Cecilie Conrad kindly invited me to join her and Sandra Dodd for Season 2 of her podcast Da Ladies Fixing the World. We recorded our first unschooling conversation together in November 2024 before life got extra-busy with Christmas, and it has just gone live!…
Examining An Unschooling Life
I drop a peppermint teabag into my favourite glass mug, add boiling water, and carry it to the living room. Opening the blinds so I can see the sun as soon as it rises, I settle on the sofa with the cat, who keeps trying to sit on my head.…
How to Beat Time Who Jolts Us Forward Without Permission
Time moves us forward without our permission. If we don’t want to look back with regret, we should stop worrying about the future and focus on the present moment, extracting joy from each unschool day before it disappears.…
Who Would We Be Without Unschooling?
Unschooling changes parents as well as kids. We learn, face life’s challenges with courage, soak up the joys, do things we never expected. We grow and become different people from those we were when we first set out on our homeschooling adventures. Who would we be without unschooling?…
Some Strange and Interesting Bookish Questions
If you could have only half of a book, would you prefer the first half or the second one? My daughter Imogen and I discuss this question after I tell her a friend gave me too much money for a copy of one of my Angels novels: “She gave me…
As the Unschooling Season Changes
Parents, sadly fed up with having their kids at home, are beginning to say, “When does school begin again?” My once-glorious hydrangeas are turning brown, and my agapanthus flowers are resembling dirty cotton mop heads. Soon, the carol bird will fly away north. Time is moving on. This morning, I…
Need Some Unschooling Encouragement and Ideas to Ponder?
I chatted with Cecilie Conrad and Sandra Dodd this morning via Zoom. We were recording episode 6 of the second season of Da Ladies Fixing the World podcast. I’ve known Sandra for many years, much longer than she’s known me. A long time ago, I googled unschooling and discovered Sandra…
Teenagers, Friends, School and Unschooling: An Interview
A couple of years ago, I interviewed my daughter Sophie. In the video, Self-Directed Learning: An Unschooling Interview, we talked about teenagers, friends, school and unschooling: What does it mean to be a self-directed learner? Does Sophie know everything her school friends know? If she…
Parenting Teenagers: Why I Don’t Make Rules
Every now and then, I stumble across a blog post containing a long list of rules for keeping teenagers safe from the dangers of the world. Teenagers may not be happy to abide by some of these rules, but does that matter? Parents might say:…
Attachment Parenting and Unschooling
My first child was a perfect baby. She ate and played and smiled, and then when she was tired, she put herself to sleep.…
Sharing the Ice Cream and Rejecting Tough Love
There’s a woman on YouTube who sips wine from a large glass while digging into a family-sized bucket of ice cream. She has some…
When in Doubt, Just Love
Last Wednesday, I pushed our living room sofa out of position, exposing a stretch of plain duck-egg blue wall. I placed a chair and…
When Worry Gets in the Way of Love
Sometimes life can feel very overwhelming. Parenting is not always easy. There are so many concerns and worries. It starts very early: Do I…
Confident to Be Me
8Love and acceptance are so very important. They give our kids the confidence to go out into the world and be themselves. This post…
Christian Unschooling: Should Parents Demand Obedience from Their Children?
Not so long ago, I was reading a spiritual book that mentioned monks and their life of poverty, chastity and obedience. And this got…
When We Fail
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.…
Challenging Ourselves to Put Away Our Phones
Did you hear the story of the photographer who visited the Grand Canyon and took millions of photos of the awe-inspiring sights, and then…
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 [...]
The other day, after my husband had washed the dinner dishes, I returned to the kitchen and discovered everything was clean and tidy except for the sink. A pile of [...]
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 [...]
Giving My Unschoolers a Maths Test
I had this brilliant idea. Well, I thought it was a pretty good idea until this morning. It was all to do with maths.…
My Unschoolers’ End-of-the-Year Reports
My husband Andy is a primary school teacher, and twice a year he has to write school reports for all his children. For a…
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…