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When Mothering Is Not Enough

Should our kids be our whole world? Should we dedicate all our time and effort to raising the most precious people in our lives? Or is it okay to combine motherhood with our own interests? Could there be advantages in using our gifts and pursuing the things that bring us joy not only for us but also for our kids?…
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Reaching the Finish Line: Achieving Our Dreams

If we’re willing to learn new skills, persevere through any problems, put in a lot of effort, and ignore our fears, we can achieve our dreams and inspire our kids to do amazing things of their own. So, what’s your dream?…
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Encouraging Kids to Say Thank You

How do we encourage our younger children to say thank you? Do they need only our good example to copy? Is learning good manners enough? Our kids could just repeat the polite words. But is it better if their response comes from their hearts? Do our kids need to be the receivers of thanks to understand how to thank others?…
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Does Christian Unschooling Interest You?

I’ve written three unschooling books: I focused on the educational side of unschooling in Curious Unschoolers. I extended the unschooling story in Radical Unschool Love by sharing parenting thoughts and stories. And I offered practical suggestions for turning all those interesting unschooling ideas into something real in families’ lives in The Unschool Challenge. Three books. A trilogy. Everything I can…
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Choosing an Exceptional Unschool Life and Other Things

Do we sometimes want to use someone else’s plan for our lives? Or are we willing to embrace adventure? Do you journal? Analogue or digital? How do we achieve our goals? I’m sharing podcasts, books, videos and thoughts that I’ve been pondering this week.…
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How to Parent So We’ll Have No Regrets

When I look at family photos from a few years ago, I remember those chaotic and messy days when I was at the centre of my children’s lives. I felt like those days would last forever. Sometimes, that was good: I wanted to stay firmly in the love-filled middle of my delightful mothering life. But there were also days when…
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What if Adding Joy to Your Days Was Simple and Inexpensive?

When I ask my husband, Andy, what he wants to do to celebrate his birthday, he replies, "Let's go on a picnic." It's winter. An icy wind has been blowing for days. It's not ideal picnic weather, but does that matter? No. We'll be brave and gritty. We'll face the adverse weather together. We'll be adventurous. "What picnic food would…
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The Art of Conversation and Lifelong Learning

Everyone has a story to share. Everyone is interesting. Unschoolers and hosts of the Self Directed podcast, Jesper and Cecilie Conrad, roam the world seeing spectacular sights, but the real heart of their travels is the people they meet. As Cecilie says, "People are the adventure." I once read that to be interesting, we need to be interested in others.…
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Is Trying to Impress Others a Waste of Time?

Strolling between the gum trees on a winter’s morning with Nora and Quinn, my fingers painful with the cold, I meet Matilda. I smile and stop. So do my dogs. They thrust their grinning heads into the undergrowth, happy to sniff up all the smells of the bush while I exchange a few words with my next-door neighbour. We talk…
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Stories of Awful Hair Styles and Inspector Morse

I’ve been watching Inspector Morse, an old TV series, starring John Thaw. My dad was a great Morse fan. I contributed to his Morse DVD collection, buying him a new series for some of his birthdays. I knew my dad enjoyed this crime series but never wondered what exactly it was that attracted him to it. It didn’t occur to…
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