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Anna Brown joins me again this week! This month in the Living Joyfully Network, our theme is ‘Finding Our Guides.’ As I wrote about in The Unschooling Journey, our children can serve as our most valuable guides, helping us move through our fears towards joy and connection. Anna and I talk about how handing our children the weight of our worries and fears impacts them and erodes trust, how connecting with our children helps us navigate our fears, and how being part of a community of like-minded parents inspires us and enriches our unschooling lives. It was such a fun conversation and a great reminder of the value of being truly present in the moment with our families. Discussion areas What makes children such good guides?Connecting with our children helps us move through our unschooling-related worries and fears.Connecting with our children as guides also helps us build trust: our trust in our kids, their trust in us, and our trust in unschooling as a lifestyle.The opposite of trust is worry. The value of finding community. Links to things mentioned in the episode Check out the Living Joyfully Network my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide John Holt’s book, Escape from Childhood Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Pam shares her essay, Unschooling Passions. Unschooling is about learning through living. As unschooling parents, we want to open up the world for our children to explore. But what if your child is passionately interested in just one thing? Doesn’t that close off his access to the world and limit his learning? I have two children who have discovered passionate interests. Instead of spending my time trying to convince them to try new things, I decided to explore their interests with them. I was amazed at how much of the world came to life when they were free, and encouraged, to immerse themselves in their deep, passionate interests. Things mentioned in the episode video game connections map Harry Potter connections map Transcript Here’s the essay Image credit { Photo by Khara Woods on Unsplash }

Julia Triman joins me to share her family’s unschooling journey. As a mom of two young children, Julia reflects on how her understanding of parenting and learning has changed through observation and being present with them. We talk about the incredible depth of her children’s play and how powerful it is that they can choose what they spend their time doing. Julia also shares about her ongoing process of deschooling and what led her to start posting photos of her children’s snack plates on Instagram! It was such a fun conversation! Questions for Julia Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? With younger kids, I’d love to hear more about how you’re seeing learning unfolding. Coming to unschooling, it can be a big paradigm shift to see and value all the learning that’s happening when we’ve grown up seeing it through the lens of curriculum and needing to be taught. What have you found to be one of the more challenging aspects of deschooling? Can you share a bit about your journey through it? You finished your PhD a year or so ago. I’d love to hear about that journey and how it wove together with your unschooling lives. You post on Instagram as @snackplatemama. Can you share the story behind that? What’s something fun you guys have done recently that you don’t think you’d have done before finding unschooling? Things mentioned in the episode The Living Joyfully Network Kids, Carrots, and Candy by Jane R. Hirschmann and Lela Zaphiropoulos Julia is on Instagram as @SnackPlateMama Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Susan Walker, who lives in the Patagonia region of Argentina, joins me this week to talk about her family’s unschooling journey and the major paradigm shifts she made along the way. We talk about her discoveries about being highly sensitive and introverted, how diving into unschooling resulted in so much personal growth, and how her understanding of radical unschooling and radical self-love connected to help create the joyful family life and strong relationships she has now. Susan has thought deeply about these paradigm shifts and her perspective is inspiring! Questions for Susan Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? When we connected about our call, you shared that there were four big paradigm shifts that were instrumental for you on your unschooling journey. I’d love to dive into them! Let’s start with learning. What big paradigm shift around learning happened as you explored unschooling? Another big paradigm shift you experienced was around the idea that it’s OK to be who you are. Can you share what that shift looked like for you? A third paradigm shift you mentioned centered on the idea that everything changes. People change, circumstances change. How did that shift unfold and how has it helped? The last big paradigm shift you mentioned was to seeing radical love as the foundation of your unschooling lives. I’d love to hear how that shift came about and the difference it has made. What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now? Things mentioned in the episode Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron Quiet by Susan Cain The Unschooling Journey by Pam Laricchia The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor The Living Joyfully Network The Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit Sue Patterson’s website Akilah S. Richard’s website Susan’s daughter, Jimena I. Novaro’s writing website Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Anna Brown joins me again this week! This month in the Living Joyfully Network our theme is Nurturing Our Children’s Learning. We are getting back to the basics of unschooling by observing how children learn through following their interests. Exploring learning through the lenses of curiosity and creativity, we talk about what to do when doubts creep in about whether we’re doing enough, when our children want to quit an activity they started, and when it seems like our child is “doing nothing.” I love diving into this rich topic, which is so relevant no matter where you are on your unschooling journey! Discussion areas With unschooling, we replace curriculum with curiosity. Exploring the world by following their interests and passions creates a personally tailored web of learning connections and knowledge.As we navigate the shift from curriculum-based to interest-led learning, it can be challenging to shift to this new and very different way of supporting our kids’ learning. Sometimes we find ourselves asking, “Am I doing enough?”Another challenge that can bubble up as our children follow their curiosity is around the idea of quitting activities. Curiosity and creativity weave together so naturally in support of our children’s learning. An important paradigm shift is moving away from the idea of right and wrong.Another aspect of creativity is having the space and time to just be. It may look like they’re “doing nothing,” but it’s how seemingly disparate bits of information and understanding have a chance to connect in new and creative ways. Links to things mentioned in the episode Check out the Living Joyfully Network Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity? WIRED Magazine’s interview with Steve Jobs Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Joss Goulden, who lives in Western Australia and is mom to two kids, joins me to talk about her family’s unschooling journey. We talk about how she was inspired by her son’s brief time in kindergarten to make the choice to try unschooling, what her deschooling process looked like, and how she sees learning happening naturally as her children pursue what interests them. Joss shares how unschooling has created strong family relationships and how trust plays such a big role in their lives: both learning to trust herself and to trust her children to make their own choices and follow the path that is right for them. Questions for Joss Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? When people first hear about unschooling, they often find it hard to imagine how learning happens without teaching and a curriculum. But it really does! How have you seen learning naturally unfold with your children? Another thing that trips people up is the idea of children choosing what they do. They worry kids won’t do hard things if they don’t “have to.” That’s just not what unschooling parents see in action. Intrinsic motivation is so powerful, isn’t it? What has been one of the more challenging aspects of deschooling for you? Can you share a bit about your journey through it? What has surprised you most so far about your unschooling journey? Things mentioned in the episode The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff Aware Parenting with Aletha Solter Educating Your Child at Home by Alan Thomas Joss is on Facebook and Instagram Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Betsey Tufano, an unschooling mother of two living in Barcelona, Spain, joins me this week! Betsey shares many details about her unschooling journey and about the importance of the internal work that she did along the way. We also discuss how her relationship with her partner has changed and deepened through their choice to unschool, the role of technology in their unschooling lives, some of the challenges they’ve faced, and lots more! Questions for Betsey Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? What has been one of the more challenging aspects of your unschooling journey so far? Can you share a bit about how you moved through it? When we were prepping for this call you mentioned that you love how technology weaves through your family’s learning. Technology is a topic that many people find a challenge to navigate. I’d love to hear about your experience! As we move deeper into unschooling, we find our relationships with our children becoming steeped in connection and trust, but it can sometimes be challenging to extend that to our partners. Can you share how unschooling has deepened your relationship with your spouse? What has that journey looked like?  What’s something fun you guys have done recently that you don’t think you’d have done before finding unschooling? Things mentioned in the episode Pam’s book, Free to Learn Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

This week marks the five year anniversary of the Exploring Unschooling podcast! To celebrate, I decided to dig into the podcast’s rich treasure trove of unschooling stories and highlight a handful of the many beautiful nuggets of wisdom that guests have shared over these five years. It’s been such a treat to revisit episodes as I gathered and organized this lovely collection, and I ended up with four distinct sections: ParentingSeeing Learning in ActionMaking Our World Bigger, andThe Question of College I imagine it surprises no one at this point that the flow of these sections aligns pretty closely with our unschooling journey. Because that’s my jam. I’ve really enjoyed spending these five years engaging in conversations with so many wonderful unschooling parents and grown unschoolers. I’m so grateful to them for sharing their stories, their experiences, and their sparkling nuggets of wisdom about unschooling! Audio clips taken from these episodes, in order … EU029: What Learning Looks Like with Meredith Novak EU136: Our Unschooling Journey with Jessica Hughes EU027: Ten Questions with Teresa Graham Brett EU111: Ten Questions with Jan Fortune EU257: Unschooling Instincts with Ali Walker EU002: Ten Questions with Pam Sorooshian EU036: Deschooling with Lauren Seaver EU089: Ten Questions with Jan Hunt EU071: Changes in Parents with Sandra Dodd EU258: Seeing the Magic with Anna Brown EU154: Unschooling Dads and Documentaries with Jeremy Stuart EU241: Exploring Race, Racism, and Diversity in Unschooling with Erika Davis-Pitre EU130: Dismantling Shame with Ronnie Maier EU090: Growing Up Unschooling with Phoebe Wahl EU141: Growing Up Unschooling with Alec Traaseth EU166: Unschooling and the Teen Years with Sue Patterson, Part 2 EU163: Growing Up Unschooling with Adrian Peace-Williams Episode transcript … Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron … I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Anna Brown joins me again this week! This month in the Living Joyfully Network our theme is Seeing the Magic. As we move into the re-invigorating energy of new year, we are turning our attention to connecting with our children and finding the joy in our everyday lives with them. Anna and I talk about ways to connect with our kids, what finding joy looks like in practice, and how joy relates to our self-care practices. Our conversations in the Network have been beautiful this month, as members share the magic they’re noticing in their lives and support each other through the more challenging moments. Discussion areas Focusing on our connections with our kids helps us see the magic in our days.Instead of inviting our kids to join us, we can go to them.Let’s talk about joy.Connection, joy, and self-care weave together so beautifully as part of the magic of our days.Join us starting in the new year as we walk through the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit online workshop alongside participants. Links to things mentioned in the episode Check out the Living Joyfully Network Learn more about the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit online workshop Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

This week, I’m joined by Ali Walker, an unschooling mom and primatologist living in New Zealand. I have gotten to know Ali on the Living Joyfully Network, where she has shared some incredible insights about parenting and unschooling through her lens as a primate researcher focusing on the mother/infant bond. Ali details some of the realizations she has made during her own journey as a mother, including the need to be present and available for Very Important Sitting, the importance of interdependence and connection, and how self care fits into her unschooling life. Her perspective is fascinating! Questions for Ali Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? You worked as a primatologist before having kids. I’d love to hear some of the ways that experience has influenced your experiences with your children. A few months ago in the Network you shared a really valuable idea, which you described as ‘Very Important Sitting.’ Can you share what that is? With two young kids, some days can feel long and exhausting. I’d love to hear your thoughts around self-care and what that looks like for you right now. What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days? Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Marta Venturini joins me this week! Marta lives with her husband and daughter in Portugal. We dive deep into her unschooling journey, which began when her daughter was an infant, and discuss her deschooling process and how it continued to evolve as she grew as a parent. Marta also shares how much she values the online unschooling community and the wealth of resources she was able to learn from along the way. Questions for Marta Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? Deschooling is a wonderful window to exploring ourselves and the person and parent we want to be. It quickly expands beyond “replacing school” and becomes a story of personal growth, doesn’t it? What has been one of the more challenging aspects of deschooling for you? Can you share a bit about your journey through it? And then it goes even deeper. The unschooling journey, if you embrace it, becomes an exploration of being human. We see it unfolding so beautifully in our children, through their interests and passions and on their own timetable. Our urge to judge others slowly fades as we come to see them more clearly as being on their own journey. Has that been your experience? What has struck you about how unschooling grows from a style of learning to the story of being human? What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now? Things mentioned in the episode The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff Alex’s house tour – part 1, part 2 You can find Marta on Facebook and Instagram Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Holly Clark joins me this week, mom to two always unschooled children living on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Holly shared so many amazing snippets of their lives which all tied into the idea of choice—the choices we make as parents, the choices our children make, and our choice to support their choices! We also talked about fear about technology, when children want to quit an activity, and much more! Questions for Holly Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? When we were arranging our call, I asked if there was an unschooling topic you were particularly passionate about and you answered: choices. I love that! It’s a seemingly simple answer, but so incredibly far-reaching. Everything really is a choice, isn’t it?  When it comes to unschooling, one important aspect is choosing to actively support our kids as they explore their interests and learn about the world. That’s not so hard to do when we feel like their interests have “value.” But eventually they choose something we’re not so comfortable with and that’s when our real work starts. Can you share what that process has looked like for you? Another aspect of choice that comes into play is around parenting. We are surrounded by so much conventional parenting advice that it can be hard to wade through it all to discover the person and parent we want to be for our kids. Sometimes it feels scary to embrace that choice, but it’s also so freeing, isn’t it? What has surprised you most so far about your unschooling journey? Things mentioned in the episode Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life by Rue Kream Joyce’s Unschooling Toolbox Holly is on Instagram as @holly_blossoming Holly’s Facebook page, One family, Unschooling Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Daniela Bramwell joins me this week, an unschooling mom living in Ecuador. Daniela’s journey is fascinating! As a child, she was a student at an alternative free school, but, as an adult, found herself wondering if there was a better way to approach learning. She dove deep into learning about educational philosophies, including pursuing her PhD in the field. And then, as a mother, she found unschooling. We talked about her varied experiences in education, what she’s figured out along the way, and the joy she’s finding now, living and learning with her family. Questions for Daniela Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? Your journey to finding unschooling is really interesting and I’d love to walk through some of the pieces with you. To start, you went to an alternative Montessori free school growing up. Can you share a bit about your experience? Then you went to university and became very interested in studying education, completing your Masters, teaching courses, and now working on your PhD. What have been your big takeaways so far from that experience? How did all that—your alternative ed experience growing up and your post grad education studies—weave together into you finding and choosing unschooling for your family? What pieces did unschooling bring that you felt were missing? You mentioned to me earlier that your deschooling journey around “screens” was a big one because you grew up with so many negative messages around them. Can you share what that process looked like for you? What’s something fun you guys have done recently that you don’t think you’d have done before finding unschooling? Things mentioned in the episode Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen Bernie De Koven’s work on play No Contest by Alfie Kohn Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn Rachel Rainbolt’s podcast, Sage Family Lucy AitkenRead’s article, 10 Things that are Worse for Your Child than Playing on the iPad Pam Sorooshian’s article, Economics of Restricting TV Watching of Children Holly Johnson’s podcast episode Akilah Richard’s podcast episode Zakiyya Ismail’s podcast episode Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Anna Brown joins me this week to talk about navigating family gatherings, the theme this month on the Living Joyfully Network. With the holiday season ramping up, it’s a great time to explore how we choose to engage in larger family celebrations, but the ideas are definitely be applicable throughout the year, from birthday parties to weddings to family reunions. Anna and I talk about making choices about how our gatherings will look over time, the fun work of preparing for events, and the joyful presence with which we can show up. We also discuss how these extended family gatherings can bring up difficult conversations and strong emotions, and offer some tools and ideas to navigate those. I hope you find our conversation helpful! Discussion areas Attending family gatherings is truly a choice.It’s fun to play with traditions!Ideas to help set the stage for an enjoyable gathering.The value of showing up with a joyful, fun, and grounded presence.What if things go sideways? Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out Exploring Unschooling on Patreon.

Eva Witsel joins me this week, an unschooling mom and homeschooling activist in the Netherlands. Eva’s journey to unschooling is such an interesting one, as is her varied experience supporting the Dutch homeschooling community and affecting legislation there. We talked a lot about technology, following our passionate interests, supporting children as they become teenagers, and lots more! Questions for Eva Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? Your children are young teens now. Do you find that your unschooling days look different now that they’re older? You mentioned that you and your husband are involved in tech. I’d love to hear how different aspects of technology weave their way through your lives! You live in the Netherlands, and you have been involved with government discussions around homeschooling legislation. Can you share a bit about your experience and what unschooling looks like in the Netherlands? What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now? Things mentioned in the episode Documentary about Ancient Greece: The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Eva’s Dutch-language homeschooling blog and math website Pam Sorooshian’s collection of math-related posts on her blog, and her podcast episode where we talk about overcoming math phobia Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Lucia Silva joins me this week to talk about unschooling as a lifestyle and her journey so far! We talked about how her understanding of unschooling has grown over the past few years and how what she’s learned has benefited all of her relationships. We also dove into the idea of expectations and how conversations with our families become so much more fun and interesting when we drop the agenda. Lucia shared some amazing a-ha moments she experienced while having conversations with her children, as well as her realization that every unschooling family’s life will be completely unique! Questions for Lucia Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s initial move to unschooling look like? For many families, the first big milestone on their unschooling journey is choosing to not send their kids to school. It’s an educational choice and the focus is on how their kids are going to learn instead. But so often, it doesn’t stop there. Unschooling grows beyond academics into a lifestyle. Can you share what that process has looked like for you? As we come to more fully understand the foundations of unschooling and get more comfortable with how they weave into our days, there is another paradigm shift that happens. And that’s a shift away from feeling like there are unschooling “rules” we should follow and toward exploring the right choices for our unique family. Which is why unschooling can look so different in different families, can’t it? As we embrace unschooling as a lifestyle ever more deeply and our self-awareness grows, many of us discover how often we go into conversations with our kids with an agenda—a plan in our mind of how we want things to go. Even if we don’t state it out loud, it comes across in our energy. When we can shift away from that to showing up with an open and curious mindset, it makes a world of difference, doesn’t it? What has surprised you most so far about your unschooling journey? Things mentioned in the episode Lucia mentioned the Living Joyfully Network and the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Haley Lucia is on Instagram as IciclesandBirthdayClothes Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Donna Anderson joins me this week to talk about her family’s unschooling journey. We dive deep into her family’s interests, some of which are individual and many of which they share as a family. We also explore the idea of an unschooling nest, talk about some of the challenges of deschooling, and how maintaining strong family relationships really makes such a difference when times are hard. Questions for Donna: Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like? What did you find to be one of the more challenging aspects of deschooling? And how did you work through it? An idea that comes up pretty regularly in unschooling circles is building an unschooling nest. It seems simple on the surface, but there are so many aspects to it, aren’t there? You’ve been unschooling for a few years now and life has its ups and downs. What has been your experience with unschooling through big changes and challenges? At this point on your journey, what is your favourite thing about your unschooling lives? Things Mentioned in the Episode Pam’s article, Are You Playing the Role of Mother? You can find Donna on Facebook Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

Anna Brown joins me for another Unschooling in Context episode! This time, we explore unschooling in the context of consent. I think consent lies at the heart of unschooling and I’m excited to share my conversation with Anna about what that means and how it informs the ways our families move through the world. It has also been our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, so we have been steeping in these ideas! Discussion Points First, let’s get everyone situated. Let’s talk about what we mean by consent and why is it so important. There’s a valuable paradigm shift that takes us a step deeper into unschooling and that’s the shift away from talking about something and toward living it. We don’t need to talk about the theory of “consent” or “unschooling” with our kids, instead, we live it. Let’s talk about what it means to push through another person’s consent. Another aspect of consent that I find fascinating and so valuable is the idea of consensual conversations. Let’s start by explaining what we mean by that. Coming to conversations with our kids with even an unspoken agenda can get in the way of consent. I think it’s so valuable to take a moment to check in with ourselves before a starting a conversation with our kids to see if we’re feeling resistant to a “no” answer and peel that back a bit. Everyday unschooling, by which I mean connecting with our kids through engaging with and supporting them in their chosen activities, is a brilliant way to help our kids better understand consent! Let’s dive into that. Things Mentioned in the episode Living Joyfully Network Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.

This week, I’ve put together a compilation episode! This time, it’s a collection of responses to the question, “What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days?” If you’re newer to unschooling, these can be a great reminder of where you’re heading. And if you’re more experienced, they can be a great reminder of why you chose unschooling for your family. Either way, I suspect you’ll find them super inspiring, helping you take a deep breath and release whatever is preoccupying you so you can get back into the moment and connect with your kids. Truly, life is a collection of these small, everyday moments of connection. And that’s where our trust and respect for each other grows. Audio clips taken from these episodes … EU220: Pursuing Our Curiosity with Susan Bhadury EU239: Unschooling Dads with Roop Bhadury EU224: Deschooling with Fiona Munday EU221: Unschooling and Neurodiversity with Tara McGovern Dutcher EU216: Deschooling with Nikki Zavitz EU215: Unschooling Stories with Dola Dasgupta EU206: Deschooling with Kinsey Norris EU202: Unschooling and Connected Relationships with Liza Swale EU193: Unschooling Younger Kids with Martha Delmore EU186: Sparkle and Zest and Unschooling with Teresa Hess EU185: Deschooling with Talia Bartoe Episode transcript … Read the transcript

Kelsi Stembel joins me this week! Kelsi has two teen daughters and is a former teacher turned farmer and entrepreneur. It was a joy to hear about how both her girls have developed and learned at their own pace, honoring their unique styles, and how unschooling has been such an amazing gift for their family. Kelsi’s journey from teaching middle school to becoming a full time farmer and unschooling parent is a beautiful story! Questions for Kelsi Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now? You were a teacher in the public school system. I’d love to hear the story of how you got from there to unschooling! I think a valuable part of the deschooling process is the realization that unschooling isn’t just for the kids. That it’s important for us as parents to be living and breathing examples of lifelong learning. Has that been your experience? Another valuable paradigm shift happens when we come to recognize that school’s focus on “fixing” kids is often more damaging than helpful. Instead of focusing on their challenges, we can embrace their strengths. That shift makes a world of difference, doesn’t it? It can be challenging for an unschooling parent to not get pulled back into the conventional learning mindset of tick boxes and grades when a child chooses an activity or a learning process that looks more “schooly.” But an unschooling child approaches it so differently, don’t they? What has surprised you most about your unschooling journey so far? Things mentioned in the episode Kelsi’s business website Koofie’s Natural Living and Facebook page Find Kelsi on Facebook and Instagram Transcript Read the transcript Consider becoming a patron I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.