A couple of weeks ago as M (6yrs) was climbing a tree she asked if anyone in the world live in trees.
Drawing from my knowledge of ancient indigenous cultures in the modern world… I gave the obvious answer:
“I dunno!!”
It would have been easy to forget about it since she did not mention it again. But […]

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I admit it. I am still a reforming parenting control freak.
You wouldn’t know it to chat to me. Or by the fact I am into unschooling and trusting my children. But in all honesty it is a constant effort not to “do things for them”, or more often “to tell them or make them do […]

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Why have the unschooling magazines gone?
First Live Free Learn Free went electronic and now seems to be no more. Then more recently Life Learning Magazine got absorbed into its bigger cousing Natural Parenting Magazine.
Meanwhile Connections online magazine seems to be the last one standing but is very infrequent.
So if unschooling is growing what is happening […]

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I really enjoyed writing a post a little while ago about “Finding the Yes”.
However i feel motivated to write a little more clearly about this topic given the steady stream of mainstream (and often alternative) parenting commentators talking about how essential boundaries and “just saying ‘no’” are. From Dr Phil right through to personal […]

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The following quote is from one of my favourite unschool writers, Joyce Fetteroll. Along with Rue Kream’s book, Joyce’s web site has been a key resources for my own unschooling journey.
Joyce wrote this in a discussion on the Unschooling Basics egroup and Ive reproduced it here with her permission:
Teachers face this huge pile of […]

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I know it can be hard sometimes.
In fact over the years I’ve been through periods when I thought that “the Yes” have become extinct. They can be slippery buggers – sometimes so small and great at hiding. Its as though you’ve got to feel them first… believe in them… then maybe, just maybe you might […]

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This is so me sometimes
click on the image below to see the full size pic in a new window…

[note: you can reproduce any of these cartoons so long as you: 1) leave a comment or drop me a line to tell me where; 2) include a live link back to www.theparentingpit.com; and 3) […]

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We are plotting & planning ways to attend the Live & Learn Unschooling Conference in the USA this September (we live in Australia).
I am very motivated to be in an environment where unschooling and the like is the norm, even if it is just for a few days… and also keen to meet many of […]

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Anne & I have recently been reading and implementing coaching techniques for our home business to great effect. We have been using a coaching approach called the GROW model popularised by John Whitmore in his book Coaching for Performance. Although I feel uncomfortable with describing parenting as coaching, I was struck by how this approach […]

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Two interesting articles doing the rounds recently caught my eye. The first was published by the BBC and asks in its headline, “Is five too soon to start school?”.
(btw – thanks to Scott Stantis for the cartoon).
The article compares England’s experience with countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland where school begins at seven years of […]

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