communication skills

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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 Quinn’s leash and then run. I finish our walk with my eyes glued to the ground, scanning the track for further snake danger. Snakes are…
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Unschool Socialisation: Making Friends, Being Different

It’s Saturday afternoon. I’m at home, settled in front of the heater, thinking about socialisation. Am I’m feeling sociable at the moment? No. I’m quite capable of socialising, but I’m happy sitting here alone with my computer. Actually, I often feel like staying home and not seeing people. And my girls feel the same way. I suppose part of this has to do with the fact we’re introverts. But some of…
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No More Nice, Dead People!

This is a guest post by Carolyn Blessington. Late 2012, about when the world was supposed to end and more than two years before my first child was born, I took a class called REALationship 101 with a guy named Steve1.  My boyfriend and I needed help communicating and working out our differences.  So, we delved into Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication (NVC)2 and developed an awareness of our feelings, needs,…
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Adult Peer Pressure, Clothes, Rules, and Compassion

Have you even made decisions based on other people’s opinions rather than the needs of your own family? I have. I almost ruined my relationship with my eldest daughter by doing this. I chose to listen to my friends rather than to my child. You see, I wanted to be accepted by the group. I bowed to adult peer pressure. Adult peer pressure can affect the way we unschool. Sometimes we…
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Dealing with Our Fears and Other People’s Critical Comments

The other day my daughter Sophie received an email. She read part of it out to me and then said, “What do you think?” “She hasn’t expressed herself very well,” I remarked. “I don’t suppose she meant to sound so abrupt.” “How do I reply?” We discussed a few ideas and I finished with these words: “Whatever we write, perhaps the most important thing is to be kind.” Sophie giggled.…
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Maths, Chores, and Thanking Our Kids

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been living a quiet life. We haven’t done anything exciting. No music video shoots. No picnics by the lake. We haven’t even been running. The reason? We’ve all been unwell. It can be frustrating having to slow down, especially when there are a million things we want to do. But there was one thing I did do while resting on the sofa: I…
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Listening to Kids

The other day I interviewed my 14-year-old daughter, Sophie: I wanted to hear her opinions about perfect families, mistakes and listening to kids. It was only later when I watched the finished video, I realised I’d made a big mistake: I’d done more talking than listening, especially in the first few minutes. Yes, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. How do I know this? Sophie told me…
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Responding to Unschooling and Other Critics

Earlier this week, I got involved in a long and involved conversation on Facebook. I don’t usually do this, but this time, I didn’t have a choice. The discussion began on my timeline. It was rather a heated debate: There was more than one opinion. So I’ve been thinking: How do we respond when someone challenges us with a different opinion? In particular, what if people criticise our decision to…
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