A few weeks ago, I went to see some friends perform in a musical. Four of them, ranging in age from 8 to 14, were giving their all as Mrs. Darling, Captain Hook, and ensemble members in “Peter Pan.” As I sat in the theater waiting for the curtain to rise, I thought about how… Read More The inter-generational beauty of homeschooling
Even though semantic bleaching, the evolution of a word’s meaning over time, is a natural process in language, it can sometimes create confusion, annoyance, and even protest (think of the ongoing media lament over the word “literally”). In homeschooling circles, the current buzz is all about the word “unschooling.” Weeks ago I wrote about it… Read More The semantic bleaching of ‘unschooling’
Recently I heard a national radio show host trying to wrap her head around homeschooling during an hour-long program on the topic. Many of her questions were of the “what if” variety. You know the type of questions I’m talking about. What if the kid doesn’t learn to read, what if the kid plays video… Read More Homeschooling: what if people stopped asking what if?
Last week I saw an online discussion thread asking parents to share experiences of their kids learning to read without being taught. I thought about my two oldest children, who spent some time in school before being homeschooled. I had stories about their early reading, but none for my children who never went to school.… Read More Learning to read without being taught
What is unschooling? That question has been debated among homeschoolers for years, but what’s happened recently is something I never would have predicted. The word “unschooling,” originally coined by John Holt in the 1970s, has come to be applied to free schools and alternative schools, or, if you will, unschooling schools. That’s reflected in an… Read More Conscious homeschooling
Being a parent is a tough job. So many decisions to make right from the get go. Where to have the baby. How to have the baby. How to feed the baby. Where to put the baby to sleep. Before you know it, it’s how to toilet train, how to handle screen time, how to… Read More Putting our trust in kids, and in ourselves
Less than two weeks after NPR’s How to Raise a Human series addressed the issue of chores, they focused on the same Maya children to talk about paying attention, and once again they contradicted many of the messages of their piece with the headline: A Lost Secret: How to Get Kids To Pay Attention. First… Read More The misguided goal of trying to get kids to pay attention
I loved this NPR article on kids lending a helping hand around the house. I also hated it. The title, for example: How to Get Your Kids to Do Chores (Without Resenting It). I understand about click bait, but still, there’s so much implied in that title that I dislike, including trickery and veiled coercion,… Read More Don’t try to get your kids to do chores, just let them
As I continue to revisit my old issues of Growing Without Schooling, I share another piece I wrote for Issue #123, on the theme of When Kids Resist Writing. As I re-read these precious old magazines, I remember again why they meant so much. The piece below was written when my son was 10, about… Read More Writing for the joy of it
I was delighted when I saw a recent New York Times article touting ‘Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention.’ Reading aloud was a huge part of our lives as our kids were growing up, and it still is. My husband and I read to each other every night, and we… Read More Reading for the joy of it
A Potluck Life 