Exploring Unschooling

**EU399: On the Journey with Jenna Hollis** Jan 29, 2026

We’re back with another *On the Journey* episode! We had a wonderful conversation with Living Joyfully Network member Jenna Hollis. Jenna is a mom of four living in Australia. Her sons are 17, 16, 14, and 9, and she shared some of her unschooling journey with us.

Before having children, Jenna was a teacher. Her first son, Jye, pretty much fit the mold of what she was expecting parenting to be like, but it was Jenna’s second son, Haize, who really brought unschooling to the family. When school just wasn’t working out for him, Jenna discovered unschooling and it really spoke to her heart. So much fun and learning have blossomed from that point!

We talked about navigating big transitions as a family, leaning on the support of other unschooling parents in the Living Joyfully Network, especially when fears bubble up, and some of the a-ha moments that Jenna has had along her journey so far. It was a really beautiful discussion and we hope you find it helpful!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid discussions about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello everyone, I’m Anna Brown from Living Joyfully and I’m joined today by my co-hosts Erika Ellis and Pam Laricchia, as well as our special guest today, Jenna Hollis. Hello to you all. And before we dive in, I want to mention that the Living Joyfully Network is celebrating six years in February.

It has been and continues to be the most amazing space with intentional families from all over the world sharing their journeys. And recently we’ve been hearing some from new members that they were kind of sitting on the fence and not sure about joining, but now they’re loving it and they wish they had joined sooner. So to help people hop off that fence, we are now offering a free trial month.

That way you can see for yourself what a warm inviting space it is, filled with resources and connections. You can learn more about that opportunity in the show notes, or you can also go to livingjoyfully.ca and the link will be on the homepage.

I am very excited about Jenna joining us today. She has been a longtime member on the Living Joyfully Network, and it has been such a treat sharing in her journey and getting to know her family. Her generous spirit, deep reflections, and ability to articulate her personal journey has sparked so many aha moments for all of us. And I think it’s going to be really fun to share her beauty and insights with our podcast audience. So welcome, Jenna.

And to get us started, I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about you and your family, what everybody’s into right now. And we’d love to just hear a bit about your story of coming to Unschooling.

JENNA: Yeah, no problem. First of all, I’m excited to be here. This has been such a big resource in my life. And I just don’t think I would be where I am today without it. It’s just that real life line that keeps me true to this journey, that has not been easy by any means. But what makes it easier is it’s our journey.

And anyway, I’ll jump into talking about my family. I’m married to Leon. He’s my childhood sweetheart, I’ve been with Leon since I was 15. And yeah, we’ve really grown together. You think you get married and you’ve got it all worked out. And it’s like, no, this journey is always under construction. That is for sure.

So, we’ve got four boys. We’ve got Jye, who will be 18 in April. Haize, who is 16. Blair, 14. And our youngest, Leeton, who will be 10 in a couple of weeks. And that makes up our beautiful, loud, dynamic family. And we are all very different. You kind of think you’ve got it worked out before you even have kids, or I know I definitely did.

I was a teacher before I became a parent. So I had this idea that I just knew exactly what I was walking into. And then we have one child and Jye was that child that kind of fit that idea of what it meant to raise children.

And I’ll talk a little bit about Jye. He, at the moment, he’s right into his football, like absolutely loves his footy. He’s actually living down in Sydney, predominantly with my husband, because we made a big move three and a half hours from where we raised our family over the past sort of 15 years.

And so, he’s down in Sydney, and he’s really getting right into his football. He had an amazing year last year, found an awesome team that was really aligned, the same attitude, they just wanted to just get better and better. And so that’s where a lot of his focus is going this year.

And he’s also doing his electrical trade. He decided to follow in his dad’s footsteps and give that a real go. And he’s really loving that.

And so he’ll be actually going into his third year of his apprenticeship halfway through this year, which is just like, what, how did that happen? How did we get here? But he’s there, he’s really stepping into his own, and living down in Sydney away from us. It wasn’t an easy decision. But it’s been the best decision, because he’s just he has his mates down here, he’s got a girlfriend down here. And he just loves being down here. And at the same time, when he comes up and stays with us, he really enjoys that time too. He gets right into his fishing. So that’s another one of his interests.

And then moving on to Haize, who is our 16-year-old, and he’s the one who actually brought us to the unschooling pathway. When I had Haize, he was a child that shook up all of my ideas of what it meant to raise children. You know, because he’s just his own, his own little spirit, who literally cannot live outside of what is right for him.

I feel like Jye is very peripherally aware, very much aware of what pleases other people. And he doesn’t sacrifice himself for that. But he very much is in tune with, okay, how is this person wanting me to do X, what ticks off other people’s boxes, whilst also staying true to himself. And then Haize came along, and he’s just this, he’s just so in tune with who he is and what he wants, you know, the decisions he wants to make at any given moment.

And so we did start in the school system. The school system fit Jye really well. He’s a real people person, loves being around lots of different people, and just fit that system quite well.

But then as Haize was getting older, I was like, I don’t know about how this is going to work. He just runs his own show. Anyway, we gave it a real good go.

And it wasn’t until we got to year two, and he had such an amazing teacher. He had some great friends. But he just wasn’t happy. You could just see that light dimming in him. And I just knew that I had to look for an alternative option. And so we went down the route of a Steiner school as well.

And that was okay to begin with. But then I discovered unschooling, and it just spoke so deeply to my own heart that I just could not, not follow it. And that’s where I really came to understand Haize as a person who like, when something speaks so deeply to you, you can’t not do it.

It’s a bit like once you know something, you can’t unknow it. And it’s like, once you start to tap into making decisions from that place, living in alignment with who you are, you can’t not do it. Anyway, he was the one that brought us here.

As a kid, he was always outside, always playing with bugs, always catching spiders, you know, and he still loves all those things. He loved fishing. But as he’s gotten older, he’s gone through this real cocooning phase. And he’s gotten right into his gaming. And I’ve been sitting back and really watching and aiming to understand that as opposed to judging it, accepting that this was a big part of his life. And it was a really challenging thing for me to do. You know, he’s this kid that was so outdoorsy and so into everything. And then all of a sudden, it changes. And I think we get so many messages about gaming that that doesn’t help.

But once I stripped all of that away, and took the time to actually understand what it was that he was drawn to, it makes total sense. He is that immersive learner, he learns through his whole body, doing whatever it is. And so I was watching him play all these different games, and then seeing how that marries up with the things that he does out in the real world as well.

So, it’s just another way of exploring those interests. Like he loves target shooting, and he loves roleplay. I watch how all of my kids interact with each other. And they just love roleplaying and getting really into the story. My kids have never been the sit there and read a book kind of kid, as much as the teacher in me would have loved that.

They just were not those kinds of kids. But then when you watch your kids in a natural environment, you really come to understand who they are. And you see the threads throughout their whole life.

So that’s Haize, he’s definitely the one that brought us here. And I’m so grateful that he did that and that I was able to undo a lot of my already predetermined thinking. All of which has led me to this place where I have learned a lot about myself.

And so I’ll move on to Blair. Blair is my 14-year-old. And I am so in awe of the changes that this child has made. He too went to school to begin with, and he was a kid, well even as a baby, he was that real kind of anxious kid who was always watching where I was. He never left my side. You know, I’m going to the shopping centre and always lose things. Turn around. And then I’ve got Blair, who’s always by my side, always clinging to me, just didn’t have that confidence about him. And then he went to school as well, because that’s what we were doing back at that time. And I think he spent every day of kindergarten clinging to the fence, crying. When I think about it, that’s probably the biggest regret that I have is that I persevered through that for the whole year of kindergarten.

But now looking at him, giving him that environment where he was just free to be himself. He was able to really develop that ground of confidence. Like, you watch him in conversations with people, and he just has this, this confidence in who he is.

There’s none of this, you know, self promoting, like, it’s really hard to describe, but when you watch your kid’s journey, and you see how much they just grow into who they are, it’s really cool to just go, far out, I don’t need to do anything other than provide that environment that really allows them to grow into more of who they are.

So Blair has gotten back into his basketball. He’s always been my more gaming kid. He’s always been right into his technology, which, in the beginning, I couldn’t really understand, because Leon and I are not tech people whatsoever. But Blair would always have an iPad in his hand, was always into gaming more than anyone else. But as he has grown older, that’s become less and less in his life, and he’s more into his acting, loves to do stage performances, which is something Haize loves to do as well.

We’ve joined this stage production company up where we live now, and the boys have really gravitated towards that. It’s just a really nurturing environment that has allowed them to just step into that confidence. It was probably shaken a little bit with the move, like it was such a big move, which I’ll talk about a little bit later on.

But finding that nurturing environment that allows them to just, again, be who they already are is just so, so pivotal.
Both boys this weekend are actually doing some paintball training. They both really enjoy their paintball training sessions and games and things. And Blair’s actually interested in going back to school this year, so that’s something that we’re in the process of exploring as well. And yeah, I’m excited to see how that journey unfolds for him, however long that goes for.

And then that brings us to Leeton, my youngest, who I would say has been the luckiest to get sort of the more evolved parent in myself, that’s for sure. You really see that in the conversations that you have with Leeton. He’s just, oh, you cannot not see your own BS behavior, that’s for sure. He really reflects back at you, like he questions you.

He’s like, okay, but mum, you said this, why are you doing this? And it’s just really cool to see this child who is so young, but just has all of these critical thinking that apparently, kids don’t supposedly develop until whatever age it is that the experts decide. And so what I’ve seen with him, because we’ve been on this pathway for pretty much most of his life, is that he’s an active thinker in his own life.

He’s had the opportunities to have a say as opposed to being spoken to. He too is very much interested in going back to school this year and has just started to take an interest in reading, which has been a really interesting journey for me to be on with Leeton, letting go of that whole idea of kids need to learn this skill at the age that most kids in school are expected to learn it. And just allowing him the space to come to it in his own time has been really cool to watch.

He gets excited about picking up a book now to further develop that skill. And I’m like, how many kids actually even get that opportunity to have that excitement for these things? So that’s something that he’s definitely into at the moment.

He’s also loving his basketball. I find that he tends to sort of pick up the things that his older brothers are interested in, which is really cool, right? Because then it brings a shared interest where they’re spending this quality time together over those shared interests. He’s also loved gaming.

That’s becoming a little bit less and less. You can sort of see Leeton going through this stage at the moment where he’s trying to work out where he wants to go next. He’s getting a little bit bored with the gaming aspect of things.

But he absolutely loves it when the boys step into this role playing and they get their Nerf guns and just muck around. And it’s so cool to see that a 16 and a 14 year old are still doing that sort of role play. I have seen kids let go of that because it’s just, I just feel like we make them grow up way too quick. And so it’s just really cool to see them in that, in that natural environment and just being free to be who they already are.

And then that brings me to myself and Leon, because we also have interests. I think sometimes we forget, hang on a minute, adults also have interests and it’s been really cool. We bought a 50 acre property up on the mid north coast and my husband has always spoken about farm life and has always spoken about how he’s wanted a farm.

Not quite 12 months ago, we ended up purchasing a 50-acre farm, which actually came on the back end of my 14 year old Blair’s interests. He wanted to get into acting. And so that took us further up to the coast and we’d have to stay overnight when they needed to be in this particular location for consecutive days.

And so we’d go stay at a farm-stay and then we ended up finding this area that we really loved. It’s interesting to see how each of our interests are then coming to blend together to become the life that we’re living now. And so going back to my husband, that’s something that’s been a huge interest of his. Seeing him up on his new playground, it’s just, I don’t know, you can tell when someone becomes just light again. And that’s what it’s like when Leon is on the farm and is problem solving, like, where is the water naturally running? How are we going to organize the paddocks? Because we’re going to get cattle and, so it’s really cool to kind of go, yeah, we are all human beings. We all have interests. We’re not just here to work, to generate an income for our family that then dictates our whole life.

Well, that’s what it was for Leon, for sure. It just became all consuming that we kind of forget that we’re more than just that. And so we’ve started to make these decisions that are changing the priorities and that’s what’s led to the big move. I’ll speak more about that a little bit later.

And then finally myself, obviously an interest is definitely unschooling. When I came across the unschooling podcast, I couldn’t wait until the next episode came out. And I was constantly checking when the next episode was going to come in and now I’m part of the Network and have been for a few years. So it’s a matter of just waiting for the next week. And I wonder what the next weekly focus call is going to be. And I just love it. It really keeps me constantly evolving and moving through those things that could potentially hold me back.

So, that’s definitely an interest of mine. I also have an interest in interior decorating. We’ve renovated our house down here in Sydney that we’ve got on the market to sell. I loved that process.

We’re going to be doing some Airbnb stays. So I get to zhuzh up the different places that we’ve bought. And I just love that whole thing of working out which pieces will work really well in this room and what kind of feeling it’s going to give to the people who stay here.

So, that’s definitely an interest of mine. And also starting to tap into the potential of writing my own book, which I feel like it has been percolating over the last sort of 10 years and just capturing all of those beautiful golden nuggets, a lot of it comes from being part of the network. But I’m going to stop talking because there’s a lot of people to cover.

PAM: I do just love that. I loved your point about how things weave together and it’s not something you can predict and it’s not something you can set up. But when you’re open and you’re supporting each person as the individual they are and just helping them explore, it is so fascinating just to see where things weave together.

Because it is surprising, I guess maybe just surprising to me, but so many things that feel independent are quite rooted in just being human. And so often there are overlaps that you see and it really just helps bring me back to the like, we’re all humans moving through this world. So yes, that’s the nice thing about that question and about the details because that’s where we have space to see the bigger picture than just, I support this kid and I support that kid, but we’re a family.

That comes together when we support the individuals as well. You are individuals in this family. And when we all do the things that we love, and we’re doing them side by side and connected with one another, they just come together in such fascinating ways.

JENNA: Absolutely. And as someone who is has lived that world of, feeling like I needed to be the one that transformed these children into these upstanding citizens, so to speak, to moving to this place of actually taking a step back, and understanding who they are, and finding those elements, if you will, that allows them to just be more of who they are. What a way easier pathway to parent from. Oh my goodness, when I think about all the things that I used to try to control, no wonder I was so exhausted all the time.

It’s such a load that we carry as, as mums and as dads, and just feeling like we are responsible for how these people turn out. And it’s just realizing that all they need is just a little bit of love and support. And they find their own way.

And I could not plan this out if I tried. And in fact, the more of a plan that I have for other people, the more I come to the same point where I realize that, oh, that wasn’t for me to plan for. Because that’s not my life. Plan for your own life for sure. But hold those plans really loosely.

Because these other people are people and they’ve got different ideas on how they move through the world, and what the next step is that they want to take in their life. And by holding that really loosely, you become a lot more flexible and more open to taking in information that you otherwise wouldn’t know.

ERIKA: I just loved that. And it was so fun to hear, Jenna, because I feel like I didn’t know that part of your story about your move to unschooling. So that was fun to hear. And I especially loved accepting each person as their unique individual person, and how much easier it makes parenting when we’re not trying to fit them into these particular boxes.

I loved all of that. Your family has made some big transitions in the past couple of years, which you’ve been alluding to. And so my question is, how has this way of life impacted your choices, and helped you navigate all the ups and downs of those transitions?

JENNA: Yeah, well, like I said, at the beginning of the call, I definitely don’t think we would be where we are today if I hadn’t been on this pathway, that’s for sure. It’s not even hard saying it’s a pathway because it’s not a predetermined pathway.

I feel like a lot of the time we’re seeing all these pathways, this is the pathway to get you here. And really, it’s just this unfolding of your own pathway. And so what being immersed in this kind of way of living has done for me is really opened up my thinking. Where you start to see all of the possibilities, where I would have otherwise seen that there was either this way, or there’s that way.

But there’s so much in between. If we just step outside of the ‘have tos’, I think that’s a big part of transforming, forming those ‘have tos’ into really discovering what the ‘want tos’ are. And I think we also have these ideas. I know you spoke about this in the last podcast, these paradigms, the spectrum of things, of right and wrong and realizing there’s so much in the middle.

And that’s where the juice is. I think sometimes we think that, okay, well, how do we get all of our ‘want tos’ met? Well, if you’re going to get your ‘want to’, then I’m not going to get my ‘want to’. And it’s like, no, it’s realizing that when you come together, and you also open up the conversations for your kids to be part of that, whether it’s them actually talking, or whether it’s them showing you through their actions, what’s important to them. By really taking in all of those pieces, we get to this place where you end up really allowing everyone to live according to their ‘want tos’. So, that was a big thing, shifting from the ‘have tos’ to the ‘want tos’.

Also, with that came the flexible thinking, you know, actually being able to, have a plan, like we had a plan of selling a house, and all moving together up the coast where we bought our three bedroom unit, that was kind of our transitional move. We knew that there needed to be a transitional move that would allow us to start to recreate this new way of living, but also get to know where we wanted to buy that bigger parcel of land where we were going to create our own little farm from. And so, yeah, the plan was that we would sell our home, but our home didn’t sell.

And we’d already bought our unit, and interest rates started to climb. And so we got to this point where we were like, we need to do something, we cannot sustain this. And so this is where we turned to, and it just came to me one weekend, I was like, what if we rent out our house, with the option of the people renting to buy, that was like, okay, this might work, because I don’t know what it’s like over in the US, but in Australia, the market, the housing market, really became very unstable.

And so this is where we moved to this whole idea of, okay, well, let’s rent out our house, we’ll make the move up to the unit. And we’ll just see how that goes. And so without going into too much detail, when I’m talking about flexible thinking, it’s about knowing where you’re heading.

But taking just that small step, and then being able to take in the new information that comes from that small step, to then take the next small step. And that might mean that what you thought was going to unfold may change. And so by having that flexible thinking, you’re able to move with the tides, whether that might be someone’s needs changing as well in the family, because, they might. Just just be open to all of the info, the new information that comes in with taking a new step.

Because if we would have waited for all of our ducks to be all in a line before we took action, we would never take action. It’s just about taking those small steps now, based on what you feel is the right move and then being open to the next lot of information coming in to decide the next step and the next step. So, definitely the flexible thinking has come from being on this unschooling pathway and all of the learning that I have gained from being open in my thinking to adjust those beliefs and those associated behaviors that are driven by those beliefs that may have served me in the past but were not serving me in the here and now. And so being able to look at those and work out, okay, does that stand true with where I am now?

Being able to change that thinking that then creates a whole new bunch of behaviors. So that’s definitely something that this pathway or this way of living has helped. And also being able to even hear your own heart, just hear what your own heart is telling you.

I feel like the life that I used to live was so busy, just busy doing, busy being busy, just constantly doing, doing, doing, doing, doing that you don’t take the time to stop and actually think, is this the kind of life that I want to be living? I remember with the kids being at school, I felt like I was marching soldiers off every day and was like ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Like, oh my goodness, is this really what I signed up for?

Is this really how I want to be a mum? Where I am controlling these other human beings down this particular pathway that I personally see time and time again?

I look at a lot of adults who are just living life because they have to, not because they’ve had the time to really work out if this is what they want. And on top of that, then having the courage to follow through. Because it’s one thing to know what you want, but having the courage to actually step into, to step outside of the familiar zone and do something different, it takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of support that you may not necessarily have already in the environment that you’re in.

Our loved ones and our friends, we all mean well, but if we don’t have the skills of even pure listening, a lot of the time you’ll go to a loved one with a problem that you’re having, and then there’s this whole idea that you’re going to them because you want them to solve your problem. And unless you take the time to really reflect on, well, when you’re sharing something with someone, what do you want in that space? And all you’re wanting is to be heard so that you can find your own solutions.

But a lot of the time, a lot of us haven’t had that model to us first and foremost, or haven’t developed the skills to just be able to sit there and listen and ask the right questions for people to get to their own answers. So I hope that answers the question.

ANNA: Yeah, I think it’s really cool because people can think, oh, unschooling or whatever, it’s very focused on kids and education. But I think that what you said really spoke to how it opens up this whole new world of, hey, how do we feel? What serves us?

Let’s look at this, let’s pivot, let’s figure these different things out. And I think that’s something that’s hard to explain to people until you’re in it, that it just opens up everything. So yeah, I really loved that.

JENNA: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like in today’s world, particularly, I know in my world, they talk about kids of today finding it so hard because of social media. And I’m like, yeah, it’s so challenging for adults, too. Because we have all of this information telling us that this is the right way, that’s the right way.

And so we’re constantly bombarded with information. But the only information that really matters is the information that sits within you, no one has lived your experience. And so it’s so important to be able to get back to that space where you’re taking what you’re hearing with a grain of salt, but coming back to what feels true to you and what you’re seeing in your own family, as opposed to taking the information that we’re presented with. Whether it be about gaming, right.

And then we start to fit our situation to that information. And then all of a sudden, we’re coming in and we’re switching the game off and telling our kids to get outside or whatever it is. So, it’s being able to take that information with a grain of salt, but really coming back to the information that matters most. And that’s the information that sits within inside of us. And yeah, and then having the courage to act on that information. It’s not easy by any means, but it’s definitely worth the journey.

PAM: Yeah, I feel that you had mentioned earlier too, that listening piece. When we’re moving through things, because you were talking about big transitions, and to be able to listen to others is quite a skill because so often, especially during big times like that, we kind of know the general direction that we want to go, so to be able to give that space for listening, I think is just so valuable because we learn so much.

And then we’re able to, like you said, take that next little baby step. Even if we don’t know exactly how we’re going to get to that destination that we have in mind, that direction we want to go, taking that little baby step is just so much more helpful, just because like we’ve listened, we’ve understood what other people’s perspectives are. And then coming together to just choose that next little baby step so that we can learn more. We learn more each time. So I think that’s super interesting.

You have just been so gracious in sharing your perspective on these things. And I love when you come with aha moments so often in the network as you move through this. But now you were talking about big transitions, and how you like to move through those. I’m curious if you would talk a bit more about how you process through times when older fears bubble up.

You kind of alluded to what I expected to be as a parent, etc. But so often as we come up, we think things are going well, and then something changes, or we notice that, or we hear a voice of what society’s telling us. I find for myself, anyway, that those can spark older fears that I’ve been carrying.

And I didn’t know about it until we’re facing this, this moment. I hadn’t really thought about that before. And then there’s all this stuff bubbling up. So, it’s another whole process to move through that. I was wondering if you would share a little bit of your process.

JENNA: Yeah, absolutely. Well, when I think about the Network, this is where it becomes so invaluable. We all have a nervous system. It’s designed to keep us safe. So, for you to create something different, it requires you to step outside of that, we call it the comfort zone, which I don’t think is a very good term for it, because it’s not comfortable. It’s not comfortable, but it’s familiar, right?

And so the moment you try to step outside of that, you get these alarm bells. And as you’re going on the journey, and you’re putting those alarm bells at bay, because you’re starting to take those small steps, and you start to realize that you didn’t die from taking that one small step, your nervous system starts to relax into it. But then you might be having a conversation with a friend who is talking about how they do things, or this expert over here is saying, children need to have x amount of time outside or whatever it is.

And then all of a sudden, that comes in. And then you’re questioning your decisions, your old fears start to bubble. And so by being part of the Network, I’m able to bring those fears.

And we were able to really go deep into them, and start to see it from different perspectives, because it’s realizing that’s all transformation is, it’s being able to shift the perspective that’s creating the fear to seeing it from a different perspective, where you get those aha moments. And then before you know it, you’re still coming up against those messages, but you’re so grounded in your own decisions. Because you see the other perspective, you see that there’s nothing to be afraid of here.

There’s nothing, that it’s all part of the journey. And I actually see it now as an invitation, whenever those things pop up, it’s an invitation just to look at things a little bit more deeply. And so when I get those feelings, which naturally, I’ve had lots of them, continuously stepping out of my familiar zone, and doing things, I guess, a little against the grain from the world that I’ve been brought up in.

And so being able to bring those fears to the Network, and sometimes I’ll find if I’m in the thick of it, I don’t necessarily want to be out, I don’t want to talk about it. But just being able to listen to other people’s shares, it brings on that feeling like, me too, like, I’m not alone in this. Oh, yes.

And then you beautiful ladies with all of your wisdom, and how you do it is just so nurturing, you’re always validating whatever it is that we’re bringing. And then you’re offering your own experiences or experiences that you’ve had with other people who you’ve worked with, to help us get to this place where all of a sudden you sink back into your own reasons for doing things. So, you might have been swept away with someone else’s agenda or whatever the message is. But then you’re brought back into your own reasons for making the choices that you are.

And it just brings you a sense of calm. So, whenever I have a fear coming up, and strangely enough, I’ll have those sorts of things pop up. If I’m going to catch up with people from even my family, I sometimes worry that I’m being judged. And so my brain gets into, okay, well, if someone asked me why Leeton isn’t reading yet, what am I going to say? And so I get myself worked up because I’m thinking I’m getting judged because I have done this horrible thing, where I haven’t forced my child to learn something at a time when someone else wants him to learn it. And so like, how am I going to hold that conversation without trembling.

So I get myself so worked up. It’s funny how our thoughts can kind of spiral. And so what I would typically do before I’m going to a big event, or where I feel like my confidence is shaking a little, I’ll just listen to a podcast, or I’ll jump on and listen to one of the weekly focus calls from the network. And all of a sudden, I just found my grounding again.

And so what that does when I’m interacting with other people, I don’t even get those conversations coming up. Because really, the people that are in our life that may be living differently, they’ve only got concerns, because they’re looking to us. And if we’re not looking like we’re sure of what we’re doing, naturally, they want to help.

And so their form of help is pulling you back to the familiar zone, like come back over to this side, where we all live, and we all grind, and we all live our life by a bunch of have tos, as opposed to want tos. When I’m grounded, I find that then those conversations don’t come out, I’m not questioning myself. So, in answering your question, Pam, when those fears bubble up, it’s just having that space to be able to come and explore those in a really non-judgmental space.

But also to have them validated, which is a skill that I’m still working on. I’m still not that fantastic at it. It’s not that I’m not fantastic at it, it’s something that I’ve really had to work at. And I just think that when people validate you and just appreciate your experience of things, instead of coming in and sharing their experience, and feeling like they have to try and solve your problem, the weight gets lifted off your shoulders and you can find your grounding again. You can become centered, where you’re hearing what next step is right for you.

So yeah, that’s definitely how I deal with those times. I mean, it’d be nice to think that they don’t pop up, but they pop up, but that’s where the juice is, that’s where all the learning is. When things become shaky, and you start to become aware of those things that are ready for you to transform and to liberate you to the next level of being able to move forward in your life.

ERIKA: I love that last bit, because that was just what I was thinking. It still happens to everyone too. Fears coming up again is such a part of life. And so, I love how you described the feeling of just being validated, grounding back into yourself. It just makes such a huge difference.

It makes such a huge difference, even just to hear your fears out loud in front of someone else. There’s something about that processing and putting it into words. Because sometimes it feels so big inside of our brains as we’re ruminating and going over and over these fears. But as soon as we start to try to express them out loud, I think that’s step one of the process of releasing them. And yeah, I love how the Network is that for me, as well, like grounding back into myself.

PAM: I have to point out about validation, because it is a skill. And it is always work. But for me, it eventually gets to a point where, if that’s how somebody’s feeling and seeing a situation, that’s reality. That’s the way it is. So, it’s not like you’re validating something that’s made up or something that’s wild. This other person, this wonderful person in front of you, is feeling that and is seeing things that way.

So, to be able to meet someone there, I feel like on both sides, it’s just so helpful as a person doing the validating. It’s so helpful to me because that’s the learning. That’s where I’m expanding. It’s like, oh, wow, I couldn’t have even imagined seeing that moment or seeing this thing in this way. That is so interesting to me. Thank you so much for sharing.

And not to get off on a tangent, but one of the challenging things I think for people is thinking that, if I validate that, especially if they’re having a hard time, it’s like I’m saying that that is also how I’m seeing it. There’s such a difference.

And I think it doesn’t feel as validating if you’re meeting them exactly where they are, like, oh yeah, I see that too. That’s exactly how I see it. Because so often, it’s their unique experience, which is a culmination of who they are in this moment and the context of things going on for them and whatever situation you’re discussing. They’re a unique human being, so they’re going to see it in their unique way. So, to be able to meet them there is just super helpful, but helpful on both ends, I think.

JENNA: Absolutely. And what I found has helped me, because somewhere along the lines, I decided it was my responsibility for everything and everyone.

Somewhere I decided that I’m responsible for how other people process the world and I need to do something about it. And so what I found with validation, it helped me to detach myself from whatever was going on. So detaching from my husband having a response to something, the more I’m able to validate his experience, the less I felt like I was taking it on.

Because it’s just acknowledging that his experience is his experience. It has actually got nothing to do with me. Like, no offense, Jen, this ain’t to do with you.

Just focus on what’s happening here. And this is something that I get tripped on. I mean, I got tripped up on it last night, even.

And it’s just like, ah, validation, that’s right. And if you just use it, then everyone softens in the situation where then we feel open to be able to go deeper into whatever the issue is and find those magical solutions that allows us all to move forward. So yeah, validation is definitely key.

ANNA: I mean, you know I love validation. So huge. And I think what you both are really touching on is validation isn’t making it about us, right? It’s not getting defensive or making it about our experience. It really is just hearing, reflecting, giving space to that person to be really heard around what’s happening for them. I loved that piece.

Well, we are just so happy to have you here and just really appreciate you sharing these little bits of your journey. Thank you so, so much. And I hope everybody enjoyed the conversation and maybe had their own little a-ha moment or something that’s like, “wait a minute,” for their own journey, because they’re all so, so unique.

And if you enjoy these kinds of conversations, I really do think you’d love the Living Joyfully Network, because this is the kind of stuff we talk about and dig into all the time. It’s such an amazing group of people. So we invite you to check it out and see if it fits with our free month offer that I mentioned earlier. And you can find the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfully.ca. and the link is on the homepage.

Thank you for listening. And thank all of you for being here. It was really, really a fun time, so thank you so much.

JENNA: Thank you for having me.

PAM: Thank you so much, Jenna. See you soon!

ERIKA: Thank you, Jenna!

ANNA: Bye!

JENNA: Yes. Bye!

**EU398: Foundations: Polarizing Paradigms** Jan 15, 2026

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, *Polarizing Paradigms*.

While it’s common to see things through the lens of right and wrong or good and bad and to look for someone or something to blame, these polarizing paradigms are damaging to relationships. Real relationships and real life are more nuanced. They exist in the gray area.

We hope today’s episode sparks some fun insights for you!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

Want the full collection of Living Joyfully Foundations podcast episodes as an audiobook (and the transcripts edited into an ebook)? Find them here in the Shop!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

EPISODE QUESTIONS

How does it feel when someone puts their ideas of right or wrong on you?

Do you notice an area where polarizing paradigms are impacting an important relationship? How would it feel to let it go and lean in to understand?

How do you feel when someone blames you for something and you don’t see it the same way?

Have you seen judgment impact a relationship with someone you love?

How would it feel to let go of black and white thinking and dig into the gray with the people in your life?

TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Thanks for tuning in to explore relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.

So, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about moving beyond polarizing paradigms. Right/wrong, good/bad, blame/fault. These are all paradigms and it’s pretty interesting when you start exploring if they are serving us or hindering us in our relationships with others.

So, I love teasing apart the ideas of right and wrong, because on the surface, it seems like a simple and very useful concept. And I think it can be when it’s applied to our own personal journey. What feels right to me? What doesn’t feel right? How do I want to act in the world? Who is the person I want to be in the world?

It’s when we start to try to impose our ideas of right or wrong or act as if there’s one definition, one definitive definition, that it really just stops learning. Standing staunchly in what could feel like a very justifiable position stops learning. Instead, we can ask, why does someone have a certain belief or act in a certain way? Why do some people agree with it and others don’t? How can we move beyond that thought to start looking at the people involved?

And even more importantly, looking at the needs behind the behavior. What’s driving the behavior? What’s driving the action? And as we lean into that, we learn more about the person and perhaps gain new insights into the whole situation, insights we wouldn’t have seen had we stayed stuck in our position of there’s one right way.

And so, when we just look at behavior and judge it as right and wrong, we’re losing this chance to connect with the person in front of us, be that person, our child, a friend, our partner. We’re losing our chance to understand their motivation and the need behind it. And it’s in that place of refraining from judgment that we can choose connection and understanding. If the behavior is impacting us, I guarantee you the fastest way to stop it while still remaining connected is to address that underlying need. Because once the need is addressed, the offending behavior no longer serves a purpose and it just falls away.

PAM: Yes. Judging another person’s behavior is so often disconnecting, and that’s precisely because it’s a surface level perspective. Digging in to find the underlying need they are trying to address with that behavior hits so many more connecting notes between us.

We learn more about them. They feel more seen and heard. The challenging behavior fades. And there’s much less need for any relationship repair at the end of it all.

And another situation where the idea of right and wrong can cause upset in relationships is in how someone else chooses to do something. So, beyond behavior, is there really a right way to pack the dishwasher?

ANNA: Maybe!

PAM: Or to fold clothes or to play with a toy? Surely there are ways that are right for us. We absolutely have our preferences, but we can take that too far when we expect others to do things the same way that we do. It’s like when we expand “right for us” to mean “right period.”

Of course, sometimes those other ways just kind of grate on us, like utensils the wrong way up in the dishwasher. I have found it helpful in those moments to remind myself that the way they are doing it probably feels just as right to them as my way feels to me. That is always such a good reminder. I still use it all the time, just as a way to process.

And I also sometimes ask myself, well, if I believe that my way really is the best way, am I willing then to be the one who does the task? Or might I instead choose to be just grateful that someone else has done it? Either of those choices is more connecting in a relationship than trying to control another person’s actions. The relationship is my lens. It’s my priority. I’m also going to bring those considerations into my self-talk, into what I’m thinking about the situation or the rub that’s happening.

ANNA: And then it boils down to choices, too. Am I going to choose this dishwasher being loaded this way versus this relationship? Am I going to put that above? And so, I think it’s just really interesting to play with those ideas and really walk yourself through it, versus when we get stuck in that, “No, this is the way,” we have this shrapnel that has injured lots of people around us from that.

But it’s kind of the same, too, with the ideas of good and bad. So, again, that boils down to a judgment, often a snap judgment, of how something or someone fits into our ideas of how things should be. But we’re talking about humans here. As we’ve discussed before, humans are complex. They are different. And they absolutely resist fitting neatly into boxes.

So, if we go back to behavior and we label it as good or bad, we again lose sight of the need that they’re trying to meet. And we do it a lot with children. “You’re a good boy if you’re doing this thing I want you to do, and a bad boy if not.” So, you’re a good boy if you’re sitting still and being quiet and a bad boy if you’re fidgeting and making noise. But what if your whole body is telling you to move? What if you’ve been sitting for hours and you just can’t do it anymore?

If instead we look at the need, we don’t have to judge the person. We can help them figure out how to meet the need or to see if the environment is not the best place for them right now. And what that does is develop a person who doesn’t see themselves as good or bad based on outside opinions, but a person who can listen to their body, state their needs, and find solutions that work in the environments that they’re in.

PAM: Yeah. And for me, this, this whole area, it was a realization that people really are different, as we talked about in episode three, and I love that it keeps coming up in most episodes. That realization helped me ease up on judging other people through my personal lens of good and bad. I could see the choices that felt good to me didn’t necessarily feel good to others. And if I wanted to understand their perspective, I needed to learn more about what was going on.

And when I have relationships as my priority, I really do want to understand them better. These are my loved ones. These are the people I choose to have in my life. I really do want to understand them better. And I want to help them process through whatever is feeling off for them, finding solutions that feel good to them.

Again, in the context of those deeper connected relationships, the framework of good and bad is surface level and limiting. The real world is so much richer and messier all at the same time.

ANNA: So, much richer, so much messier. And like you said, that’s where the learning is, though. Sticking to cut-and-dry, one-right-way answers just shuts down learning and connection.

Another thing we do is we tend to judge situations as good or bad. And so, I’m just going to pop in a quick paraphrase of the Taoist farmer story who says that maybe might be a more useful idea? And so, to paraphrase, the farmer’s son lets out their one horse. The village says, “What bad luck!” “Maybe,” says the farmer. The horse returns with the herd of other horses. “What good luck!” they say. “Maybe,” says the farmer. The son breaks his leg working with one of the new horses. “What bad luck,” they say again. “Maybe,” says the farmer. The army comes to the neighborhood to conscript the young men. His son isn’t taken because of the broken leg.

So, life is filled with events. If we spend our time judging each one as it comes along, we take ourselves out of the moment. We don’t know how things will unfold, so let’s just face what’s in front of us without judgment. That keeps fear out of the equation. It keeps us squarely in the moment, and that is the only thing that we have control over anyway.

PAM: I love that point. When we’re judging all the things that are happening around us, that thinking takes us into our heads and it takes us out of the moment. And the other piece is, we lose our sense of flow, not literally flow moment to moment per se. But as the story tells us, flow over time. Things in the world are connected. That is another thing that culturally, we stumble around. We’re very much, “Here’s the thing in front of me today, going to do it efficiently, productively, it’s done, good, bad, however,” and then just move on to the next thing.

But there is a thread that connects so many moments over time and it’s so interesting just to keep that lens. It helps us realize we don’t need to judge all the things, because maybe it might be helpful along the way.

ANNA: And for me, that thread is really a trust in the unfolding, that I may not see it all now, but there’s a thread and it’s unfolding and I don’t want to be judging each thing as good or bad, because I feel like it derails. And I just want to trust in that unfolding.

I think it’s important to realize that when we’re judging other people or their actions, we’re missing this opportunity for deeper understanding. And what usually ends up being a pretty thinly-veiled ploy for control, often, when we’re judging. I think it’s important to look at that for a minute, because when we’re judging someone’s action, what is our goal? What do we want to happen? Do we think it will help our relationship? Do we think it’ll change what they’re doing? Maybe. But how will that feel?

And so, then to flip it around, how does it feel when someone’s judging us? Does it make us feel closer to that person? Does it make us want to change our behavior? Most likely, it makes us want to pull away or double down, even if it might not serve us. Judgment really has no place in our relationships. In its place, though, we can use inquiry. We can have this genuine openness and desire to understand, because like you said, these are our most important relationships. I want to understand them. I want to know what makes them tick. I want them to feel good about how we’re moving forward.

That keeps us connected as we learn more about each other. And it also allows a place where our concerns or ideas can be met with curiosity and not defensiveness on both sides, because that’s the environment that we’re cultivating.

PAM: Yes. Because judgment really is all about us, right?

ANNA: Oh yeah.

PAM: It is about how we’re seeing, what we want to happen. But a connected and loving relationship is about both people. I also love and often use the thought experiment of flipping things around to see how I would feel if I was on the receiving end of things, because it doesn’t feel good to be judged. And I notice that my defensiveness rises, leaving me with little space to consider changing things up and learning something new. “No, I’m going to defend this. I’m going to hold on maybe even longer than I would normally if I wasn’t feeling judged.”

I am much more apt to be open and curious when someone approaches me with information without that side dish of judgment. As you mentioned, that just feels so much less controlling. It feels like we’re on the same team. We’re going to try and figure this out. You just brought me some new information. And you gave me this space to like hear it, bring it in, and see if it makes sense to me. It’s not controlling anymore.

ANNA: Right. Exactly. Now you’re open, you’re curious, you’re learning, you’re both learning, and how different is that? You can learn from each other. I think when we’re feeling judged, it really puts up a wall to what they’re saying. What they’re saying might be helpful, but not when it’s delivered with that side dish of judgment. We’re not even going to hear it.

And so, again, these are our most important people. We want to stay connected. So, yeah, just so important to keep in mind.

Okay. So, the blame/fault matrix is another paradigm that is so common in our culture. It’s really easy and at times comforting to lay that blame on someone else. If you didn’t do this, think like that, act like this, X wouldn’t have happened. The problem is, when we focus on blame, we never look at our role and we never dig deeper into the whole situation. We’re never getting to that underlying need on either of our parts.

And blaming is just a surefire way to create a rupture in a relationship. No one wants the finger pointed at them. It makes us feel that this love that we have is conditional. If you don’t way behave the way I think is good or right, I’m going to blame you for things that have happened. I’m going to withdraw my love potentially. And again, it’s just that judgment and blame. It just creates craters in relationships. I believe ruptures can be healed and that a repair is super important, but we don’t need to just keep creating them. Let’s just try not to keep creating them!

PAM: Absolutely. That is an important part of a relationship, the repair, because things aren’t always going to go smoothly, but we don’t need to keep setting ourselves up for these challenges. It’s just so fascinating to think about how urgently people look around to find someone to blame when something goes awry.

We all want to. “It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. No, no, no.” And how often once we find someone to blame, that’s the end of it. We want to move on. It’s not really surprising then when it keeps happening over and over, because we’re not really learning anything that we can bring forward with us for the next time.

Instead, when we approach the situation with the energy that we’re all on the same team, we can empathize with our partner or our child or friend about the upset. Because chances are, they aren’t particularly happy about it either. We can listen to them, support them as they process things, and brainstorm with them about different things they might try next time. So, just think about how you’d like others to help and support you when something you do goes sideways. And just try that. How would it feel for me if someone did this? Well, let me try doing that for someone else when things go sideways with something they’ve done or said.

ANNA: Oh my gosh. We all just want to be held in those times when things go sideways. We just want to be understood at least, or have somebody not pointing the finger at us, because we know what we’ve done half the time. You know what I mean? We don’t need that outside judgment. We really just need somebody that’s like, “Hey, where do you want to go from here? What can we do next? How can we fix this? What can we do?”

And so, it’s just such a different energy to bring and I think especially because we’re talking about our most important relationships, it’s just worth that work to find that kindness and compassion. So, yeah, so important.

So, for me, all the things that we’ve talked about today and lots more out there, fall into the idea of black and white thinking and life and for sure relationships are lived in the gray and I really feel like so much suffering and so many relationship issues boil down to this black and white, right and wrong thinking. There’s not one right way to do or be. There just isn’t.

We make the choices we make in each moment based upon all kinds of factors, including very changeable things like how much sleep have I had, or food. Understanding the context of the moments, the needs of the individuals involved, and cultivating that open and curious mindset allows us to learn and to grow. We can develop deeper relationships, because they’re based on the understanding that we’re doing the best we can in each moment, and that our behaviors are trying to meet a need.

So, when judgment is set aside, we can look at all the factors that make up the context and keep connection at the forefront. We can talk about our needs and the impact something is having on us with an eye to understanding one another and to work together to find solutions that feel good to us both. So, I decided to look up antonyms of “polarizing” when we were naming this episode and their unification, connection, and attachment. And I thought, oh yeah, that really sums it up, why I choose to let go of paradigms that don’t serve me in my relationships, why I choose to remain open and curious. Because being connected in meaningful ways to the important people in my life is my highest priority.

PAM: Yes. I think when we see polarizing ideas, things that divide people into two opposing groups, like right and wrong or good and bad, that is a great clue to dig deeper. Things are rarely that simple, especially when it comes to relationships with the people we love. As you said, Anna, life is lived between those two poles, in the gray. And while sometimes that can definitely feel more nebulous, it is also, as we’ve mentioned, so much richer and it’s more connected with the real human beings that we’re choosing to be in relationship with. Celebrate the gray.

ANNA: Absolutely. Okay, so let’s talk about a few questions for pondering this week.

So, how does it feel when someone puts their ideas of right or wrong on you? I think it’s just always good to flip this around. So, just how does it feel? Because we’ve all had it happen. So, how does that feel?

Do you notice an area where polarizing paradigms are impacting an important relationship? How would it feel to let it go and lean in to understand? And I think there’s lots of times now where we have these polarizing beliefs that happen. What would it feel like to let go of the rightness of your position and just lean in to try to understand where that person’s coming from?

PAM: I want to bring back, how you mentioned open and curious, and I love how that helps us here. Letting go of feeling right isn’t about replacing it with, “I’m wrong.”

ANNA: Right. Or changing your mind at all.

PAM: Exactly. It’s more expansive. It’s bigger. It’s about being open and curious to see how else other people are seeing things or feeling about things.

ANNA: We just learn more. Again, it may not change our opinion, but maybe it gives us more information about the situation. Or maybe it’s the “through their eyes” that we’ve talked about, too. We see why they got there, because their life is different than ours. Their experiences are different.

So, letting go of that strong-held “right” just opens up. Again, it doesn’t mean it’s going to change your opinion necessarily, but I think it will give you a lot more information about the people around you. So, number three. How do you feel when someone blames you for something and you don’t see it the same way. So, that can just give you some good clues about how blaming at any time never feels good, no matter what. If the person thinks that they’re very right, that blaming just doesn’t feel good.

And number four, have you seen judgment impact a relationship with someone you love? And so, I think that’s really good to dig in. And I would say if you have children, really look at that, too, because I think we do tend to lean into judging children about how they’re spending their time or what they’re doing and how that is impacting the relationship. But you’ll also see it with your partners and friends and extended family. So, where’s judgment coming into play? See where it’s coming at you, see where you’re putting it out there, and think about what it would feel like if you could let that go.

PAM: I think that will be a huge one, too. Because even if we’re not sharing our judgements. Maybe we take that first step, okay. I didn’t say it. At that point, we could start to notice that we may still have an energy about it. We may still be bringing that piece. And most people can sense that, children can sense that.

ANNA: For sure.

PAM: People can sense when we are bringing a judging energy. And our questions, they feel less open and curious and more pointed when we’re asking questions.

ANNA: Right. And we’re less willing to even talk about it. I think we’re less willing to even share our perspectives with people when we feel that judgment coming at us. So, think about that in reverse with people. Why are they telling me this? Because, well, if they’re sensing judgment, that may be stopping that conversation right there.

PAM: Because you don’t want to be giving them evidence is what it feels like.

ANNA: Exactly. Right. Because you know they’re sitting there waiting for like, what can I judge you about the situation? So, yeah, that’s not the energy we want with these people that we love. That’s not at all. And it’s absolutely something we can change, even if it’s something we’ve done historically, we can absolutely change it.

And part of it would be this. So, number five, how would it feel to let go of black and white thinking and really dig into the gray with the people in your life, to trust that they’re doing things for reasons that make sense to them and learning more about them, letting go of these really strong polarizing paradigms?

So, I think it will be interesting to steep in that for a little bit and see where it’s impacting your relationships and how that could possibly be different.

PAM: I think that can be just such a fundamental mindset shift and it’s internal. It’s something that we can completely just play with ourselves for the first while.

ANNA: We don’t have to make any declarations. We could just play around with it. How does it feel and, “Okay, yeah. I do like the way it feels to just be more open and to not be judging everyone around me.” And I remember someone in my life before telling me that she found her judgements of everyone else was because she was so harshly judging herself. And so, once she could get to that place of not harshly judging herself, she had no need or desire to judge the people around her. And so, that’s another piece to kind of turn around and look at as well.

So, we hope that everyone is enjoying their holiday season and hopefully some of the ideas we’ve been discussing will even make those big family gatherings a bit more enjoyable. Thank you so much for listening, and we will be back in two weeks. Take care. Bye!

PAM: Bye!

**EU397: Celebrating Interests** Jan 01, 2026

On this episode of Exploring Unschooling, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about the immense value of celebrating interests. As humans, what we are interested in really makes us who we are as individuals. When we celebrate and show interest in the things that our children and partners love, our relationships deepen. Our loved ones feel seen and understood when we take the time to learn more about their interests and share in their joys. We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey and in your relationships!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

Spinning a Web episode 323 – Pam’s talk about how learning can look in unschooling

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hello everyone, I am Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully and today I’m joined by my co-hosts Anna Brown and Erika Ellis. Hello to you both!

So, in this episode, we are going to be talking about the value of intentionally celebrating our child’s interests, because there can definitely be more to that than meets the eye. But before we dive in, I would like to take a moment to invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network.

There is just so much value in walking alongside others on our journey, particularly on more unconventional journeys like unschooling, because we don’t see a lot of it happening in our everyday life. Because while everyone’s journey is unique, many of us face similar obstacles and challenges and that is where the power of community shines in feeling seen and heard. In the network you will learn from the experiences of other parents who are on similar journeys.

You can draw inspiration from their a-ha moments. You can gain insight from the unique and creative ways that they navigate both their own and their family’s needs every day. It’s just so fun. I know my kids are all adults. I still love going in there and seeing what people are doing because it’s the energy, it’s the creativity, it just opens things up for me every time I visit. So, to learn more and join us just follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfullyshop.com and click on community in the top menu. We look forward to welcoming you. And Anna, would you like to get us started on celebrating interests?

ANNA: I would, thank you so much. I love thinking about the ways to celebrate the people in our lives, especially our children. I have a favorite quote from our friend Anne Ohman. Years ago, we made it into a bumper sticker. And so, I’m going to read that to you.

*“Today I will connect with my children, bring joy into their lives, nurture and encourage what they love to do, and celebrate them for being exactly who they are.”*

And celebrating our kids and what they’re interested in is such a great place to start because we really can feel misunderstood and even judged if someone makes light of or disregards something that we love and we can feel so seen and supported when they show interest in it and in us.

Because a big part of who we are is made up of the things that we love and the things that we do. When someone criticizes something we love, it feels like they’re criticizing us. The thought process is kind of, I love this thing, they’re saying I shouldn’t or I shouldn’t be doing it, is there something wrong with me? And it starts to sow that seed of doubt and it disconnects us from our inner voice.

When the people in our lives celebrate our interests, it makes a difference in cultivating our inner voice and learning to trust ourselves. It’s also just a great way to learn about our kids or our partners. As we lean into learning more about their interests, we see what draws them into it. So instead of thinking well they just love video games, what kind of games? What is it about the games? Is it the art, the music, the story, the action, the excitement of it? Learning the lingo and what’s going on helps us celebrate and have that deeper conversation with them. And really that goes for all kinds of interests.

I have this young friend who’s into hobby horses. So yes, this is an actual thing. There is a World Hobby Horsing Championship. It’s in Europe. The hobby horses are these elaborate handmade, that in itself is art, beautiful kind of horse heads on a stick. The events involve people riding these hobby horses over jumps and obstacles. It gets so athletic. It’s like, who knew this? I did not.

But I love learning about it and seeing the joy that it brings to her and really this whole community of people across the world that are into this thing that I didn’t even know existed. It’s fun, right? The art of it’s beautiful. The athleticism is beautiful. The joy from the kids is beautiful.

But sometimes if someone has an interest that maybe is a little bit harder for me to understand, I look at them. Because they’re important to me, right? This is a person that I care about. And so I get excited about their excitement. I can join that fun energy of someone doing something that they love. That excitement is contagious if we just open ourselves to it, even just a tiny bit.

Because I truly want people in my life to feel loved and celebrated. And it’s such an easy gift to give. And I have just found it deepens those connections in such a beautiful, beautiful way.

ERIKA: Oh, I love that so much. I feel like people’s interests are so important. It’s so core to who they are as people. And so, if we can see that and say, I see what you love and I appreciate that you love it. It feels so good. It feels like being seen. It feels like being understood. And I love that part that you talked about with the lingo.

Because that has been so huge for my relationships with my kids to be able to speak the same language that they speak about the things that they love. So, it’s things like learning about the characters, learning about the stories, being interested when they’re sharing about the things that they love so much. And I see that when I am able to remember the little details about the things that they’ve told me in the past, how much that helps them feel connected to me and like I’m with them, that I support them. And so, I just really do put a huge value in learning about their interests and celebrating their interests.

And I remember, I think it was a recent network call that we had where one parent shared that they had played Minecraft along with their kids, which was kind of challenging because it’s hard to dive into Minecraft as a new Minecraft player. And especially if your kids are quite advanced and you’re just kind of trying to figure it out.

A lot of these interests might not make a lot of sense to our brains. Maybe they’re things that I would never choose to spend time on if it were up to me. But what it showed was that taking that little bit of time to be like, okay, I’m in here, show me what to do.

You know, really giving it a try was just such a connecting moment for them. And so I just love that. Even if it feels a little bit out of our comfort zones, even if we don’t quite understand it, I think there’s just so much value in making that time to try to learn that little bit more and show interest.

PAM: Yeah. And I think for me, when I think back to when the kids first came home from school, I had that mindset of not so much judging the interests, but varying the value that I placed on them, right? Video games were at the lower end of something that yeah, you like that thing. That’s great. You enjoy it. But, I couldn’t lean into celebrating it as much as something that looked more, whatever, you know, I can’t even come up with a word for now, like it was more culturally valued.

So because, we’ve talked about before, the values and the things that were the way we are placing things in our life, in our context, are those from outer voices or from inner voices? So that was a really helpful step, just taking the time to recognize where I might be judging things. And when I first came home, I was still looking through the lens of subjects, like is Minecraft math?

Then I can tick off the math box when they’re playing Minecraft or, you know, that kind of stuff. So it was really beautiful to be encouraged, not only to celebrate their interests, but as you were saying, not judging them at all, like this is something interesting to you. Therefore it’s interesting, just full stop there.

I don’t need to justify it before I can celebrate it. I can just go right to celebrating it, right? And absolutely you just learned so much about who they are as a person, what they’re loving, what they’re loving about it.

Because in so many things, there are different aspects of it. And maybe one side’s challenging, maybe one side’s not so fun, but the stuff that they are getting out of it makes it worth coming back to it again and again. So it’s just so interesting and so fun after a few months, a few years to look back and see how their interests have kind of morphed and changed.

And you can start to see the thread that kind of goes foundationally. Oh, there’s also that aspect that shows up in this interest that just may seem totally random looking back if we’re just looking at what the literal interest is. But when we have those conversations, we learn that language, we know the bits and pieces that are exciting them.

We can really see what is foundationally them, because we can see that bit attracting them to all sorts of different interests.

ANNA: Yes, it’s so fun. And I think that’s a really good point. Because if we’re just looking at the interest kind of at surface value, we are missing that it’s building blocks to other things, right?

And so, again, it may be that the art or the music that’s attracting them to this particular video game, and maybe that morphs into actually doing some physical art or some digital art or into making music or to understanding different things about it. But we can really stuff that down if we’re judging it, if it’s coming with this judgmental lens, because the judgment’s so surface level, right? It’s really up here.

It’s not getting excited and understanding what’s lighting them up about it. We really only see those things in looking back a very long time, really. So there’s a trust piece, which I get can be hard because, well, it’s a trust piece.

But I just think about how many adults I work with, adults I know in my family, I’m thinking of my brother and in more extended family that really had these strong, passionate interests that didn’t fit the mold of what people thought they should do. And so they pivoted from that and did the more conventional thing that they were supposed to do. And it’s decades later, where they’re thinking, I hate this.

Why am I doing this? Why do I have this job? And it seems dramatic that it’s coming from this, but it is, had someone seen them and seen how art was such an important part of their life, and had really gotten excited and maybe brought more of that in, what a different path that would have looked like.

So I do feel like if we can shut off that part of our brain that’s judging or thinking, how does it look to the outside and just get curious. I mean, here we go again. I feel like we always talk about the same thing, but just create space, just get curious.

I think you’ll see all these interests, how they weave together and how it’s all a part of growth. And my friend Pat always says, you can take any interest and really see the whole world from it. I think you even have an article, don’t you, Pam?

Everything can come from one thing. And that really opens us up, I think, as parents to recognize it. So we’ll link that too in the show notes, because I think it’s a really valuable paradigm shift. It can be this really specific interest of hobby horsing that leads to, geography and horses and sewing and this and that and art and all the things from this one, what would seem a very niche interest.

ERIKA: Yeah, I love that. Once you have that belief of, okay, we can learn anything through any interest that they have, then it makes it so that everything’s valid. And I’m not going to be afraid to support any interest.

And so I’m just imagining how cool would it be if all parents could just be encouraging their kids in the thing that right now the kid is the most interested in? How powerful that could be? Because there’s a reason why that particular interest is speaking to them so strongly right now.

There’s a reason why they keep bringing it up and keep wanting to do it. It’s doing something for them. It’s working with their brains and their personalities.

And it’s kind of reminding me of when we talk about being true to ourselves. And so if you get that chance to really listen to what you are interested in as a person, individual, unique person with your personality, you learn so much more about yourself. And then everything that happens from that point is more aligned with who you are.

And so if we give our children that chance, they can really dive deep into this thing that they love the most. Okay, now they’re meeting other people who are interested in the thing they love the most. They’re making connections that work better for them.

They’re able to learn better because when you’re learning something you love. Learning happens more easily and naturally than if we’re trying to pull ourselves away to something that people think we should be doing. And so I think if we can really just sink into all interests lead down a path that can be valuable for that individual person, then we can stop judging our kids and just lean into supporting them to go down that path.

PAM: Yeah, I love that so much. It’s beautiful. And I think that’s the next step that I want to make sure to repeat, that you both talked about it.

But just to be really intentional that celebrating interest isn’t just about going okay, I’m so glad. It can be so much more. It can be in the conversations, or if they’re not much of a chatter. It’s in just observing when they’re watching that favorite show doing that favorite activity, which parts of it, light them up more like when you really see them light up what’s going on in that moment? They’re still communicating to you, even if they can’t sit down and nail off for you that this is my favorite part. Maybe you have those conversations, but it’s okay if you don’t.

But finding those pieces that light them up and then getting creative, where might that also exist in other places? Maybe it’s really close. Maybe it’s something that might be quite different from that, but might give that same sense of that same energy, or that same piece.

And it can just be so fascinating if we share that without expectation or judgment, to see if that connects, do they even want to try it? How does that unfold? If they don’t like it, yes, or no, or maybe, we’re learning every moment, right?

And they are learning too, because they’re like, Oh, do I? No, I don’t want to do that. They took a moment to consider that.

So helping them explore their interest in interesting ways can be so helpful. That is the learning that is so fun to just see in action. Because yes, even when they’re super frustrated, they will come back to it if it’s meaningful, right?

If it’s something that’s really speaking to them. And just to see them putting those pieces together and they’re exploring the window. Yes, passions are a window to the world, and that is how they’re putting together their web of learning, the context around this thing that is really interesting to them, right? So like, if it’s a particular game, you can get more of exactly the same kind of game, but you can also get a game that also has this aspect of it and try that out.

And being there with them and just like, It’s so fun!

ANNA: It’s just so much fun. It is and I love that piece of, are there ways we can find that bring this interest in? I mean, from little things like finding a plushie of a game that maybe is not easy to find and we have to figure out how to ship from Japan, a plushie from a game that they love. Or, oh, it’s this aspect that they really enjoy, the video game symphony stuff, that was really fun, because it’s something that they enjoyed, this music piece, and it was music they knew and that they had enjoyed. So, those are things that they may not know exist in those moments.

And again, having no attachment to it, but just saying, “Hey, I saw this, and it kind of reminded me of this thing you love.” And they may say yes or no, we don’t have to have attachment to that. But it’s fun to just think of, how can we boost somebody up along their journey? How can we add things to it that make it fun?

And something you said, Erika, that I wanted to pull out to is, that piece of when we’re doing something that we’re really interested in, that’s really important to us, we will actually push harder to learn something that’s maybe trickier, or that we’re struggling with a little bit more, but it’ll have a very different flavor than if somebody is forcing us to do something that isn’t clicking with us, right? Because then it just feels arbitrary. “Why am I having to do this? It makes no sense.”

But if it’s like, Oh, I really want to understand how to put these pieces together to make this thing that’s so important to me that I want to take to this comic con or this place or this thing, so different.

And so I think watch for that, because sometimes we’ll hear feedback from parents, but they get so frustrated. And I’m like, right, they’re working through those pieces. How cool is it for them to figure out how to handle the frustration of that and practice that and try to move through it and see all those opportunities. We always want the kids to stick with things, but we don’t want them to stick with it if it’s something we’re not judging as okay to stick with. And so, letting go of all that and just celebrating and looking at your child or partner, anybody in front of you.

Everybody really feels great when they’re seen and heard around these things that they love. So yeah, I hope people can feel the energy of it because I think it just really, it’s fun.

ERIKA: It’s so fun. And okay, so this part is less fun, but it came to mind, which is let’s not take over their interests. Because that can happen, especially if we get very excited about celebrating their interests. We may think we know the part that they like the best, and we get really excited to push them down that path, because it’s so great and fun.

But then maybe that’s not what they actually want to do. Or maybe we’re pushing them faster than they would have gone on their own. And so, I think there’s nuance to this, supporting their interests. And I have definitely swung too far to that side sometimes with my excitement. And so like, it’s all about being attuned to what they’re showing us. And so, I want to meet their energy. I don’t want to drive them forward with what I think about their interests.

And then I was also thinking about, you know, just financially supporting their interests. Sometimes that could come up as a bit of a rub, if it’s something that we’re not seeing as valuable. And so, again, I think it would just be about realizing there’s value in this for them, and making the decision to support an interest, even if it doesn’t quite make sense to us, can really pay off in the long run. And so, seeing it more as like investing in them and their own development along their path, rather than, oh, I’m just, you know, such a fan of whatever horror video games and so I really want to buy all of them, which I don’t really want to. But separating my own taste and my own opinions about things from the things that they’re really loving.

PAM: Yeah, that is a big part of it. And I find that when we are diving into that, that’s such an important piece to separate out, our feelings from it, and not jumping ahead, so when we’re really excited about it, and we jump in and energetically take over, because we’re excited. Not only are we happy that they’re interested in something, we literally share this interest, and this was our path, and we want to help them go through that. But that’s what I love about the metaphor of the web of learning. We’re trying to get them to jump. We’re trying to put our web on top of their web, or life, a better word.

And so, on their journey, that might be four or five points out, where for us, that maybe was just one or two, or in our excitement, maybe three, because we just want them to know where we’re going. “Isn’t that awesome?” And yeah, that we can often stifle the interest, because we’re not letting them make their connections the way it makes the most sense to them.

So, we can be stepping on their learning. And maybe that can be a lens at first that helps most to bring your energy to it, because in celebrating their interest, you’re celebrating their learning. And so, then, yes, on the opposite side, knowing that we can also stop their learning, when we start putting it through a filter of what we kind of agree with, don’t agree with, or like, oh, this is gonna cost a little bit, or will take up more time, which I don’t feel comfortable with.

And then I’ll just rationalize it or justify it rather than leaning in getting open and curious, bringing my context piece, maybe I don’t have a lot of time right now, or money, or whatever it is. But instead of putting the kibosh on it, or saying not right now, we can lean in, because maybe even just talking about it, and celebrating the idea of it can help keep the energy moving forward on it and they’ll also be picking up the context of everything. It’s a window to the world, just navigating through something that we want to do. We learn so much doing that as well, don’t we?

ANNA: Yeah, oh my goodness. But yeah, making it about us, that’s a really important one, because I get excited. But it doesn’t need to be about me. If I want to pursue it, I can do that separately. It really is, like you said, kind of matching their energy, really letting them take the lead. Because like you said, Pam, they’re putting pieces together in a way that makes sense for their brain, not necessarily a way that makes sense for my brain.

And so, I can be excited about watching that process. That’s how I could tone that down a little bit. It’s like, oh, I’m curious to see where they’ll go with this, or what that will be. And that would allow me to have my excitement, but not start lawnmowing their way through so that they’re like, wait a minute, what’s happening here?

And oh gosh, there was one other thought that you were saying. So, this is a little bit on the darker side too, but watching for maybe we’re not criticizing an interest, but are we celebrating in line with what we want them to do, right? And so, just watching for that. I think that is important because, oh, this interest, this we could get behind because everybody’s going to love the pictures from this or the idea of what this is. This is conventional or accepted.

Watching for, are we really celebrating all those moments? Are we looking to them and what is actually bubbling up for them and being excited, whether it looks like a photo op or not? And I think that can just be an important thing to kind of check in ourselves because it’s nice when they have a hobby that then the grandparents will like. And I want to make sure they’re feeling seen about all the pieces that are interesting them.

PAM: Well, thank you so much to everyone for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our conversation about celebrating interests. And maybe you have some ideas, a little spark of getting a little curious about what your kids are into and just the fun of just creatively trying to come up with what else might be interesting for them.

And we also hope you consider joining us in the Living Joyfully Network to dive into these kinds of ideas and conversations with other kind and thoughtful unschooling parents. It will add a depth and richness to your journey that I really do feel you’ll deeply appreciate. And we are excited to welcome you to learn more and join us. Just follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfullyshop.com and click on the community tab in the menu. We also invite you to check out our Substack When School Isn’t Working. It’s also a great resource to share with friends who are feeling stuck and might just be open to considering these ideas. We wish everyone a lovely day. Thanks so much, you guys!

**EU085 Flashback: Deschooling with Lucy AitkenRead** Dec 18, 2025

In this episode, we’re sharing a conversation that Pam had with Lucy AitkenRead in 2017. At the time, Lucy unschools her two children and blogs at Lulastic and the Hippyshake. Pam and Lucy talked about her family’s move to unschooling, the hardest parts of her journey, the most surprising bits, as well her husband’s journey to unschooling.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

QUESTIONS FOR LUCY

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?

How did you discover unschooling?

What has your family’s move to unschooling looked like?

Can you share a bit about your husband’s journey? Was unschooling new to him? If so, how did you help him learn more about it?

What’s been the hardest part of your unschooling journey so far?

What has surprised you most about your journey so far?

You recently started a group and website called Parent Allies. I’d love to know the inspiration behind it and a bit about your plans!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

John Holt’s book, How Children Learn

Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s book, Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children

Lucy’s blog, Lulastic and the Hippyshake and her YouTube channel.

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hi everyone, I’m Pam Laricchia from livingjoyfully.ca, and today I’m here with Lucy AitkenRead. Hi Lucy!

LUCY: Hi Pam! How you going?

PAM: I’m going very well. Just to let everyone know, Lucy is an unschooling mom of two kids, and I have been following her adventures online for quite a while now, including her family’s experiences living in a yurt in New Zealand, and now their travels back to the UK. So, I’m really looking forward to diving into her unschooling and deschooling experiences at this point on her journey.

To get us started Lucy, can you share with us a bit about you and your family?

LUCY: Yes, of course. So, I’m Lucy and I’m married to Tim. And he is a Kiwi, but we spent most of our early marriage in London, where I’m from. And that’s where we had both of our daughters: Ramona who is now six, and Juno who is four. We lived really happily, living quite a normal life I suppose, in London, until a couple years ago when we decided to sort of up sticks and move to a forest in New Zealand, where we now live in a yurt.

PAM: That is so awesome Lucy. And I’m sure you’re going to share some amusing stories from that time as we go through this.

Can share with us how you actually discovered unschooling? How’d you come across it?

LUCY: Well yeah, it’s quite interesting for me, because I guess, deep in my heart, I’m a bit of a socialist, and I always really held onto the idea of school as being a really important common good, and that my children would definitely go to school. We would support that school. Because education is something that every child deserves, and people who are able to input into their local schools, it’s a really great thing that we should support. Basically, I had a really strong belief around that.

And then I had my children, and my first child Ramona really took me on a huge learning curve, I guess. She’s a child who is just incredibly spirited, and I believe that her spirited nature caused me to ask a lot of questions about how I wanted to raise my children.

When our second child Juno was born, we sold everything in our London home and we sold our London home, and we packed our bags into a VW camper van and we went traveling around Europe. And someone had given me John Holt’s *How Children Learn*, you know, which is always a slippery slope when you pick up a John Holt book, I think.

So, I was kind of reading this probably a little skeptically, but also knowing that I was already raising Ramona in quite a radically different way to how I thought I would. I guess my mind was already beginning to open about some of these ideas about raising children respectfully, for sure.

But then we went to a forest kindergarten in the Black Forest, in Germany, as part of our big trip around Europe, which we were doing. We’d set aside six months to do that. And then we got to this forest kindergarten, and I was reading *How Children Learn*, and I think it just was like a potent combination for my mind.

I was reading John Holt, and seeing all of these children around me, basically just unschooling in the great outdoors. There are teachers there, and they’re well trained teachers, but they see themselves much more as facilitators for a child’s own learning. And yeah, it was just so incredible to see it in real life in action, exactly what John Holt is talking about. I guess that was the moment when I knew that we would be unschoolers, and that all these ideas I held about school weren’t actually necessarily going to be the reality for my family.

And so, then we ended up back in New Zealand with our kids, and even though Ramona was only three at that stage, and Juno was a tiny baby, we rocked up in New Zealand and immediately attended an unschooling camp. And there were 150 people there, and we just kind of arrived and we felt like we’d found our people. This is a community that we wanted to stay within and raise our children within. So, I guess that’s the story.

PAM: How did you hear about the camp? Was it just random?

LUCY: I googled it, yeah. I actually googled “unschooling NZ,” and instead of any websites coming up or any groups or resources, there was just an event detailing where to turn up and how much to pay. And we were like, “Okay, let’s do it.” Google had spoken. (laughter)

PAM: And that is such a nice introduction—actually in person. I know when I first came across unschooling, it was all online. There wasn’t like local gatherings that I knew of. All those connections came so fast and made so much sense, at the point that I was there. But definitely seeing it in action would be a nice introduction, right?

LUCY: Yeah, it was really, really cool. And there were definitely a few moments where we were like, “Oh! That’s interesting!” It wasn’t at all like, “Oh we do everything exactly this way.” It wasn’t at all like that.

But it was the community that really inspired us, I guess. We really just felt at home within the way that adults were interacting with the children, because that was something we really felt certain about at that stage. We really knew that we wanted to be parents that interacted with our children in a really respectful kind of democratic way, I suppose. And that is what we saw there.

And that was probably the magic for us, that made us go, “Ah! Yeah, this is something we’re going to really dive into.” And now we actually go to between four and five unschooling camps a year. They’re a really important part of our family’s unschooling framework, I guess. And all of that. Just a whole massive group of people just being in their element for a few days and every season. We make it happen come hell or high water.

PAM: That’s awesome. And you mentioned there too that already before you even came across John Holt etc., that your parenting was less mainstream, right? So, you were kind of already primed for that. You noticed the difference in the relationships even just at camp, even if some of the details still weren’t … ready for you.

Because it really is a journey, isn’t it? I remember at first I would read about unschooling and I’d think, “Well, you know, it’s super cool. So much of it makes sense. You know, this little bit … I don’t think we’ll do that. I don’t think we’ll be doing that.” But as the months went by and I learned more and more and I understood why they were doing that, it really was a journey. Because it’s like, “Oh, of course I’m going to do that!” Right? (laughs)

LUCY: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I see it a lot. Like with my writing, I’ll be writing about some sort of specific and then people will really kind of grab hold of that specific and be like, “I can’t see how that can possibly work, da da da da da.” And it’s like, well I guess it really does only work when you look at the whole picture. It’s sort of like people really want the detail, but, I mean, the devil is in it. The devil in the detail.

It’s not really so much about the very specific practical details as much as the big picture of the life you’re trying to lead, which is one where you’re not making decisions based on fear, but you’re making decisions based on connection. And having that overall philosophy is what makes then the details make sense.

PAM: So true.

LUCY: I don’t know if I made sense. (laughs)

PAM: It did! Absolutely. Because, if you look for the details too quickly, I think there’s a tendency to kind of interpret them like the rules of unschooling, right?

LUCY: Yeah.

PAM: “Tell me exactly what you do each day and I will do that.” But it might not work in your family. Because it’s all about how the individuals relate to each other, and how the individuals like to pursue their interests and everything. So, what my day looks like isn’t going to look like anyone else’s, right?

LUCY: Yeah, that’s exactly right.

So, let’s talk a little more about your family’s move to unschooling. You went to the camp, and it made sense, it connected, you guys loved that. Did your days just kind of keep on going, or how did that work?

LUCY: Yeah, yes, basically nothing changed, I guess. We just kept on just living our life. And that’s the thing that, you know, because we’ve never been to school, we just keep living our life, and nothing has really changed much at all. So, the life that we were living with our children age one and three is now pretty similar to age six and four, really.

I guess they’re way more vocal in what they want to do. But we still just go about living our lives, all of us ticking away, following our little hopes and dreams each day. Yeah, there’s not been any momentous shift I don’t think, since that camp. It’s just been living each day as it comes to us.

PAM: So you just kind of kept on keeping on. That’s awesome.

LUCY: Kept on keeping on. Yeah.

PAM: Yeah. Have your kids mentioned school at all?

LUCY: Ramona does sort of every now and then mention school. And it’s nearly always when there’s been a bit of time in our life where we’ve been quite farm-bound, for whatever reason. She’s an incredibly social kid, and I think sometimes when we drive past a playground she’ll see the hundreds of kids kind of just running around there, and she’ll think, “Oh, I’d do really well in that situation.”

So, we tend to work really hard at getting her enough of that social interaction. And when that’s going really well, she doesn’t mention school, or she knows that she’s getting all her social needs met. And every now and then when she does pop out with this sort of question about school, I can almost always look around us and see that we maybe dropped going to something, or we’ve been a little bit caught up with all our farm chores and haven’t quite managed to meet up with as many people as we usually do, or that sort of thing.

And one of her best friends started going to school for a couple of weeks, and she was quite intrigued by school at that point, which was really interesting for us. It was somebody that we live on the farm with, and they’re an unschooling family, but their boy wanted to give it a go. And so, they did, and that was really interesting, because I guess we had to ask ourselves the question, would Ramona go to school if she wanted it?

And we sort of did a bit of soul searching about that, around that time. And then he decided it wasn’t actually all that. You know, he liked having a lunch box and he liked having play dates after school, and his mum realized that both of those things could be done outside of a school context. And he didn’t like being told what to do, when, and where. And he really quickly just went back to being at home on the farm. And then that moment just kind of disappeared. But it still was an interesting one, to figure out whether, in your unschooling family, you would be willing to support a child going to school.

PAM: Yeah, when it first gets mentioned, it can knock you off a bit, just because you feel like, “Well, what am I not doing? What’s wrong? Am I failing? Am I not doing it right?” So, it takes that soul searching—that work to get past that reaction—and realize, this isn’t personal.

But, like you said, it’s a great clue to start looking around, you know, and you see that that question—it might be just the solution that they see to a need that’s missing. Right? Like you said. Maybe it’s a need for some more social interaction, and they’re not going to come to you: “Mom, I need more social interaction.” But she may see in her mind that playground full of kids at school and think, “School is a good solution.” And then come at it that way.

So, I think the first thing is to look around, like you do, and see if there’s any clues to what need they’re trying to fill with that. Because then from there, you can say, “Well maybe the need is, literally, to check out school.” Maybe. But it might not be. There might be a million other ways to meet whatever it is that they want. It’s a hard time, but it’s so interesting, and when you can get past that initial fear, it’s a big release to do that soul-searching, figure that out, because you’re in a stronger place, aren’t you?

LUCY: Yeah, definitely. And I think it might—who is it—it might be Peter Gray. Let me have a little bit of a think about that. But someone speaks about this idea that if a child really wants to go to school and they don’t get to go to school, they might forever feel like school was a club that they weren’t allowed in. And that is probably something to worry about more than your child actually going to school and you being merely kind of phlegmatic about it.

I kind of came to two conclusions, I suppose, with this whole soul-searching period. And that was: I really felt like six is too young to make a decision to put yourself into a situation that so drastically impacts your family’s circumstances, and your own well-being. And I do think that school really does impact a child’s well-being. And I guess I decided that I wanted to try and protect Ramona from that, for as long as I could, until she made it really clear that it is school that she’s after. I would try to meet her needs as much as I could, and then, if it still is school, I would support her to do that, but I would do it in a way that supported her as a person, without making all of the school’s toxicness something that impacts her. So, I’d be very nonchalant, shall we say, about testing and exams and homework. You know, all of that stuff I’d just hold really lightly, but support her in going to school, if it really was the need that she had to do that.

PAM: Yeah, and I think that’s such an important point, because you’re so right about the atmosphere, the environment, and the effect that it can have on a child. And to realize that it can be such a different experience for a child if we choose not to bring all that home, right? If we don’t buy into, “I need to be on top of them at home to study,” and to use the grades as a judgement of them, and everything. Rather than, just, it’s a place they go for a few hours, and did they have fun? And supporting them if they’re like, “Mom, I have a test this week. I’d like to study. Can you help me study?” or something. Of course, you’re going to help them—

LUCY: Totally.

PAM: Yeah! Because I can see, if we’re still feeling resentful about their choice—like it was a choice against us—how we could so easily, “Well, you chose school, you have to finish your homework.” You know, to make it as bad as it can be, in hopes that they’ll leave. But that’s just going to hurt!

LUCY: Yeah, and I guess that’s why I really like to take the school out of unschooling, you know. And I suppose it’s why I talk more about this other concept, which we might address later on—because for me, it’s not about education or even learning actually, but it’s more about the relationship that you have with your child. So, if there’s any one thing that you’re totally hung up on, it’s a good sign that it’s moved away from being about the important partnership you have with your child and it’s become an unhealthy fixation or something, do you know what I mean?

PAM: Yeah, yeah. We talk on our Q&A episodes so much about whenever there’s an issue, go back to the relationship. Does this feel connecting, or disconnecting? And choose the actions that feel connecting. Because no matter the environment, you’re right, it really does all boil down to relationships. And you know what, during my deschooling—though that keeps going—but that realization.

Because, at first, my kids left school, and it’s like, “Okay, so I’m replacing the learning that they’re not getting at school.” But, the realization after a few months that it’s not really about the learning. Because the learning’s going to naturally happen if I keep the relationships strong and connected; everything’s going to flow from there. So, I love that point.

I was wondering if you might share a little bit about your husband’s journey. Was unschooling a new kind of idea for him, and how did you guys work together along the way?

LUCY: Okay so, unsurprisingly my husband is a teacher by trade, and I say unsurprisingly because I know a huge number of teachers in the unschooling world.

PAM: So many. (laughs)

LUCY: Yeah, it’s like as if their experience in the classroom, you know, actually is the thing that opens their eyes and says there has to be a better way to treat our children and for our children to learn in a really joyful way.

So, Tim is a teacher by trade, and he did that for quite a few years, but these days he focuses more on a bit of youth work. Which, for him, is what it was all about. It was being able to help young people find their way in the world by having really healthy connections and relationships with them.

So, yeah, teacher by trade, and he really gets the learning stuff, for sure. Like we check in, not formally, but just by nature of the whole thing, once or twice a month about little interesting learning points that have happened with Ramona and Juno. And I guess that his teacher training makes him do that perhaps more than me. So, he’ll point out something that Ramona’s done, which is such a classic learning point, but that she’s come to it completely by herself using an everyday situation. Yeah, so he’s completely on board with the learning side of it, and I guess both of us are still on this learning journey about living democratically and consensually with our children.

We’re both trying really hard to read as much as we can and talk together as much as we can. And I guess the challenge is constantly how in a family of four you can all feel as though your needs can be met, and that it can be win-win for everyone.

PAM: Yeah, I think the parenting side of the journey, that we’re always learning because they’re always getting older.

LUCY: Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right.

PAM: There’s always something new.

LUCY: Yeah, I do like to think though that every bit of learning you’ve done paves the way for the next bit of learning. And, right now, with the kind of really incredibly amazing and opinionated and determined six-year-old, I’m thinking about how much this is paving the way for those incredibly opinionated and determined teenage years. (laughs)

We’re going to be just like so radically on board with everything they want to do by the time they’re teenagers, because we’ll have developed this sort of trust and acceptance. So, I’m quite excited about the future really, or maybe that’s just incredibly hopeful.

PAM: Well, I’ll just share my experience a little bit. The groundwork that you’re laying now and those first couple of years of really doing all this work to figure out the ways we all communicate our needs—it’s even about figuring out our needs, because we’re not used to that. Even as adults, to be able to just reasonably say, “I’m tired.” Or, to really bring ourselves to the moment without being manipulative about it.

LUCY: Yeah.

PAM: Yeah, to just bring all our stuff lightly, like you were talking about before, and finding ways to work through them and find those kind of win-win-win opportunities for us to move forward.

And I must say, by the time my kids got to their early teens and through their teen years, it was never argumentative. It was never issues that way at all. Mostly it was me stretching my comfort zones. (laughs)

Because they knew themselves so well, and the trust that we had together. Like, I knew they weren’t making choices or wanting to do things that they didn’t think they were capable of doing. There’s the way to put it. They were choosing things for reasons of their own, that made sense, and that they felt ready to do. So, when I was ready to stretch my comfort zones and help them accomplish those things, we were never at odds. It was all finding ways for myself to support them in ways that I was also comfortable enough with.

When my daughter was 13 and wanted to go into clubs for shows, for me to be comfortable I just said, “Sure, I’ll go with you.” You know? So, we did that. But yeah, it never felt like butting heads, let’s put it that way. So, I think you’re right. That was a long way to say you’re right, you’re building an amazing foundation. (laughs)

LUCY: (laughs) No, I always absolutely love hearing from people who have older children and who have been through those teenage years, because we talk about those teenage years as if it’s some kind of impending horror show I suppose.

And, I mean, I suppose mine was a little bit of a horror show for my parents, but I had an incredibly different upbringing. But I really believe it doesn’t have to be that way. I really believe that this partnership that we’re developing with our kids now is something that lasts your whole life long, and one of the things as well I think that unschooling has done for me—it’s made me trust everyone a lot more.

My children have asked that of me, but it’s something that I can extend now to everyone. I’ve become much, much, much less controlling about all these different situations. Like I can remember in the early years of our marriage, I would be texting everyone trying to get them in the right place at the right time, and kind of guessing what people’s needs were, and trying to kind of preempt how we could get them met. And I would just never do that now. I just sort of sit back and see how I could support someone to get their needs met, or, perhaps I can’t, and just need to trust that they’re making good decisions for themselves. And that’s something that you know extends from my children to my in-laws to my neighbor. It kind of is a really cool stance for all relationships, I think.

PAM: I just love that Lucy. And what’s really funny is I’m writing a book about the unschooling journey, and this is what I’ve been writing about this week!

LUCY: Oh, cool.

PAM: Yeah, that point where you realize it’s about being human, and it applies to everyone. And you lose that need to try and control other people “for their own good because you know the best way things will work out so smoothly.”

Because, after you do it a few times, isn’t it just amazing all the places that the ways things end up working out, like even better than we could have imagined at first, right? And tried to control it to A, but B was so much more awesome!

LUCY: I know! Like seriously, I talk about this a huge amount. Like the ridiculousness of taking a step back and just being like, “Look, I’m not going to get involved in this, I’m just going to see what happens.” And then the thing that happens is so much more better than anything you could have planned for. Yeah, it’s actually, it feels serendipitous. But maybe it’s because it’s the way the world is meant to work. You’re not meant to be hung up on everybody else’s choices. (laughter)

It sounds so obvious when we’re talking about it, but it’s really not obvious. And I think I had quite a few anguished years because I felt that I had an important role to play in lots of other people’s lives.

PAM: Oh no, I totally can remember just the uptightness back then, of trying to make sure everything worked out. That there needed to be Plan XYZ, and we need to follow it, and if we didn’t I was getting myself so frustrated and worked up. But anyway, anyway. (laughs) I guess we don’t need to talk about that forever. But it’s such a huge part …

LUCY: We probably can.

PAM: Yeah, exactly. I mean we could share a million stories I’m sure. But …

I was wondering what you have found to be the most challenging or the hardest part of your unschooling journey so far?

LUCY: (pauses)

PAM: Or was that it? (laughs)

LUCY: Oh, well, that’s been like a definite shift.

The hardest challenge? Probably it’s not the hardest thing but the challenging thing has been: I guess unschooling has taken me on a journey to sort of ask questions about all sorts of different things and to really try and dismantle institutionalized thinking. And it’s a journey that I’m really appreciative of, but it’s been a journey that has definitely shaken the ground beneath my feet a little bit.

I was raised in a church, and I was raised in the Salvation Army, which is a really beautiful social justice loving movement of people, but it’s also quite regimented, or ordered, at least. And it’s been interesting for me to sort of look at institutions that I’ve been raised in, that have always provided a sort of structure to my life, and just try and hold on to the really good and beautiful parts of those things while really asking questions about the healthiness of other parts of it. And I guess what it comes down to is this sort of imperialist history of the human race, which is quite a big deal. Maybe we shouldn’t really go there. (laughter)

But when you look historically, the last hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, we’ve been living in an incredibly controlled hierarchical society, that is really, really unhealthy. And I guess that was an unexpected challenge for me, was to become a bit of an anarchist. I mean, not quite an anarchist, but to just want to dismantle some of those structures in society that I don’t think are very healthy. And move away from those that have had a really important role in my life. So yeah, that’s probably been the biggest challenge, I think.

PAM: I think that’s a great one, because when we start, we don’t realize how far reaching it’s going to be, do we?

LUCY: No.

PAM: No, it’s amazing once you start realizing that choice is important. Not only for learning, but then for living. And when you start to see, you start to knock up against all these places where, like you said, the systems where we don’t have choice. And you start questioning every single one, don’t you, by the end of it?

LUCY: Yeah and I think I just say to myself, “Lucy, you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water.” (laughs)

PAM: Yup.

LUCY: So, you know, with the church, I guess where I’m at now is holding on to really healthy spirituality, which is really beautiful and really important, I think, whatever your spirituality is, for your well-being. And community and all that sort of thing. So, holding on to that. And then kind of letting the rest of it blow away. So yes, I say that a lot. “Don’t throw away the baby out with the bath water, Luce.”

PAM: That is such a great point, that was something that helped me. Because feeling uncomfortable with something didn’t automatically mean to reject it. Which I think lines up with your “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water” phrasing. And to be able to hold my discomfort alongside my positive feelings about choice and whatever, so that I could dig deeper.

Like, when you can hold them both together, that’s when you can start to tease out the pieces that are helpful, like you were saying, alongside the pieces that aren’t working for me anymore. Because automatic resistance or knee-jerk “noes” aren’t much more useful than blindly following things either, right? Because you don’t understand yourself better through that process. We talk about that with our kids, right? Try not to automatically say no. Maybe you can say yes, but also, “Say yes more with your kids,” doesn’t mean always say yes. Because there’s no thought or consideration in that either, right?

LUCY: Yeah, but we so want black and white answers, don’t we?

PAM: I know, we do!

LUCY: (laughs)

PAM: Those rules are so easy, right? (laughs)

LUCY: Yeah, we just want it there in black and white. We just want to be able to go, like, “This is how it goes, this is the rule, this is what I need to do in this situation.” Yeah, but it’s just not really how we are, and it’s not really how the world should be. We need to kind of learn to operate in those gray areas, and to be flexible and fluid and resilient, and not need that sort of sturdy ground under our feet, but to feel really comfortable just floating in the chaotic unknown gray substance. (laughs)

PAM: Yeah, and like you said before, going back to the relationship, right? When you don’t know—yes, no, I have no rule to follow. Okay, let’s look and see foundationally how that is going to impact that relationship. Because, when it comes down to it, school years, childhood, those are just a flash of a lifetime right? And these are relationships that we’re going to have for our whole lifetime. They will always be our child. We’ll always be their parents, no matter the age, right? So that relationship is a lifetime thing. So, it’s so useful to keep that as your guide.

LUCY: Yeah.

So, I am curious—what has surprised you most about your journey so far?

LUCY: Okay. The most surprising thing has probably been how unsurprising it has been, in the sense that it’s just been a life lived, I guess. And I think like maybe a few years ago when we were at the start of this unschooling journey, I think I imagined that with a six-year-old and four-year-old we would be rammed with projects and activities and it would be like a non-stop kind of educational life that we were all living together. And actually, I think that’s been the surprise, that it’s not. It’s just—we just wake up, and we do our thing.

And we have really fun days. We have those epic days of non-stop projects and making and learning, but we also have a huge number of just little bits and bobs in the day, da da da. And I think that’s the thing that is surprising for others when they sort of see our lives in action. (laughs)

We just have a really slow, really simple life that we’re just trying to live with as much time and space and patience and freedom every day. And I just think that the key to that is to not really be doing loads and loads and loads and loads of stuff. So that’s probably been the most surprising thing about it, is how unsurprising it’s been.

PAM: I love the way you describe that, because that was a huge revelation for me too. The concept of time. Time and space. When I write about unschooling, I use that phrase so bloody often. (laughs) Time and space. Because we are so used to go, go, go, go. I had no clue how much actual time and space we need; that we would take if given the opportunity.

LUCY: Yeah.

PAM: Right? To process, that down time, which we used to think of as “lazy,” or not doing anything productive, et cetera. How valuable and important that time is. I had no clue. (laughs)

LUCY: **Yeah, and, you know, it might feel like it takes an hour for everybody to put their shoes on, so you can go out to the woods—I’m speaking from experience from this morning.**

And that hour is really important because if you feel like you’ve got an hour for everybody to find their shoes and put them on, you’ve got space then for the trauma that happens when you can’t find socks with the right seams in the right place. You’ve got time to validate that person’s feelings and hug them until they’re ready to move on from that moment. You don’t have to snap at people to get them to hurry up, and you don’t have to forget things because you’ve all rushed out the door too quickly. You can definitely have all the snacks you need, you can definitely have the right socks with the right seams, and you can definitely all have the space you need to be patient with each other.

And increasingly I see—perhaps it’s in contrast because we’re here in England at the moment, and I’m quite busy with lots of different work things, and we’ve got hundreds of people it feels like to catch up with while we’re here, like friends and family. And so, at the moment, we are kind of a little bit like go, go, go, and it’s in such stark contrast to our life in the yurt, which is just basically no, no, no. (laughs)

Just like slow, slow, slow I should say, actually. It’s just really, really slow. And here I find myself having a quickening of the breath and a kind of, “(gasp) We don’t have time for me to validate all of these emotions!” And I realized how much of my parenting comes down to basically not really doing very much, but just being really present with your children and having the time to let them feel everything they need to feel, and connect with them in all those down times.

PAM: Yeah, that patience to be with them, right? Like you were saying, validate. Because that patience keeps your connection with them, and they see, through your patience, that you see them.

LUCY: Yeah.

PAM: Right? Because if we’re trying to rush them through things, they really don’t feel seen. Like I’m just putting myself in those spots. When I feel rushed through things, you have to kind of close off part of yourself, don’t you? Because you don’t have the time to feel whatever it is that’s coming up. Yeah, that’s brilliant.

You recently started a group and a website called Parent Allies, and I have joined. I am really looking forward to that. And I would love to know the inspiration behind it, and a bit about your plans for it?

LUCY: Cool. So yeah, ParentAllies.org is the website, but there’s also a Facebook page and a Facebook group. And the group is probably the bit that I’m most excited about, because there’s a real community rising up around this idea. And the idea is taken from social justice movements, where in every rights movement so far there’s been a group of people who are in the sort of dominant group but have chosen to stand next to the marginalized group and advocate for them and support them and be people who will just show solidarity and do whatever they can to allow this group to have their rights met.

You’ve seen it in the Civil Rights movement, and in all sorts of movements over history. I’ve come to believe that children are one of the last marginalized groups in society; groups where it’s really socially accepted to basically marginalize them. You have conversations on Facebook where people are just like, “Yeah I don’t like kids.” And they’re almost proud or cool to sort of say it. And I really believe that there’s quite a systemic marginalization of children too, just in things like not having steps in public toilets so they can reach the taps or reach the toilet without having to climb over this grim thing. So those are a couple of little examples.

And the idea is that parents are invited to be allies to their children, to advocate for their needs and to show solidarity with them, and see their role as one where they’re partnering with their child to make sure their rights are fully honored and upheld.

On the website we are putting out lots of resources for people who are in different situations to share how they are allies to their children. And this is where it’s really exciting for me, because it’s moving right out of the education sphere. And I guess the root of the concept of parent allies, for me, came because I’ve been writing about unschooling for five years or so, and every time I write about unschooling in terms of respecting children, I have a lot of teachers and mums and dads of children who are at school say, “Well, how can I do this at home?” or “I feel like I do this, but my children do go to school.”

And so, by talking about parents as allies, we’re moving out of learning. We’re moving into the whole of life, whether you’re at school or not at school. Whoever you are in the world, you can be an ally to your child. So, the website is meant to be a resource for people who are choosing to be that.

And the Facebook group is a really, really supportive group where people can come in and they can ask for advice. You have to ask for advice—we don’t just give it willy-nilly, because I guess I’ve identified that that is a bit of a problem in our world. We’re so quick to give advice, rather than simply hearing someone’s story, or hearing someone’s problem.

So, there’s a tag where you can just say #solidarityplease, and that’s where you can come and you can talk about something that’s been bothering you or something you’re finding really hard, without getting any advice. You just get people saying, “Love to you” or “You’re doing really well” or, just showing solidarity. And then you can also ask for advice. And you can also get a high-five. You can go into the group and you can be like, “High five! I did really well with my kid today because this has been a bit of a struggle and I realized that in my role as an ally I need to help her and get this need met.” And then, you know, they’ll give details, and then everybody will say, “High five! High five!” (laughs)

And it’s sort of like, I guess it meets needs. It meets those needs of the parents to be heard, and in a way that is also respectful to their children. And it is a way to receive advice if you’re struggling with how to be an ally.

I think so often we have—I don’t really know what it is—maybe it’s a thing to do with human nature, but so often parents will think that they’ve got a problem that can only be solved with a punitive or disrespectful measure. They think, “Oh my kid doesn’t like brushing their teeth,” for example, “So the only thing I can do is hold them down and clean their teeth.” They sort of put up their own barriers and they say, “There’s no other answer. I’m mostly a respectful parent but, in this situation, I have to coerce my child.”

And the idea of the group is that we kind of crowd-source solutions. So very often people go in there and they’re like, “My child doesn’t want to clean their teeth.” And then we can say, “Oh I’ve been there and this worked for me, and this worked for me.” Because something I’ve found with parenting and problems is that answers one, two, and three don’t work, but four and five and six and seven and eight and nine might work. And I really think that in our role as an ally to our child, we can find the patience to look for four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. Because it’s so important to us to remain connected and remain in partnership, and to respect their rights, that we’re willing to dig deep for those creative solutions. (sigh) That’s a little bit.

PAM: Yeah, that’s beautiful. And I love the idea of expanding it to all parents, and even the “come get a high-five” deal. Because it’s still an unconventional way to parent, right? If they tried to share that with like a more conventional friend or whatever, they would get the side-eye, like “What the heck did you—just tell them to brush their darn teeth!” (laughs)

LUCY: Yeah, “My child’s got a really creative urge to paint on the walls, so today I dedicated a whole part of the wall so my child could literally just paint the wall. Can I get a high-five?” You can imagine having that conversation with a conventional parent, and them just being like, “You let your child paint on the wall?!?” Whereas in the group, everybody is like, “Rock on! You’re amazing that you could come up with a solution for that urge!”

PAM: Yeah, that works for everyone. Because, as we were talking before, when we were talking about school, there are ways. If that’s a necessary part of your life, there are ways to still respect and nurture and care for your relationship with your child. Just because school is part of the picture doesn’t mean all your relationship has to be about control.

LUCY: Exactly. And I used to find myself writing to unschoolers, and unschoolers at heart, and what I mean by that is people who loved all of this rights, respecting, freedom-loving stuff, but did, for whatever reason, have to send their children to school. and I guess that is really why I tried really hard to come up with a term to describe all of the people that are wanting to live this way with their children, whether their kids are at school or not.

Because certainly we need parents and teachers within the education system—which I believe is incredibly coercive and oppressive—we need people in there standing up for children and saying, “You know what, it is a child’s right to go to the toilet when they need to go to the toilet.” You know, we need allies within the education system.

My kids are having fun, by the way. (laughs) I’m sure you can probably hear them, and it sounds horrible and terrifying, but they’re all gleeful sounds. (laughs)

PAM: (laughs) No, that’s lovely. Oh, and, I was going to mention, Emma and I, we do a book chat every couple of months, and we’re reading the *Childism* book.

LUCY: Oh, cool.

PAM: I forget her name—I’ll put it in the show notes [Elisabeth Young-Bruehl]. And I’ll have links to your Facebook group and your website, and all that stuff as well. I think that’s awesome. People are going to have a lot of fun checking that out.

LUCY: Oh, cool.

PAM: And I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. It was a lot of fun to finally get to chat with you Lucy.

LUCY: Yeah, totally. I feel kind of like, you know, we’re basically friends now, rather than people who know a little bit about each other from the internet. (laughs)

PAM: Yeah, exactly! Yeah, I was very much looking forward to chatting with you.

LUCY: Yeah, it’s been really lovely to be on here. Thank you so much for having me.

PAM: Yay! And before we go, where is the best place for people to connect with you online?

LUCY: I would probably say YouTube. People find me really personable on YouTube for some reason. It’s kind of a new channel, and I’ve been writing for seven years but only doing YouTube for a couple of years. But I think people find videos really helpful in a way that perhaps writing isn’t so. So, I’m on YouTube with my channel Lulastic and the Hippyshake. And I update that really regularly, like every single week, whereas other parts of the internet I’m slightly more like I pop in and pop out.

PAM: Awesome. I will definitely have the link to your channel there as well.

LUCY: Cool.

PAM: Thank you very much and have a great day. Have fun with the kids!

**EU396: Foundations: There’s Plenty of Time** Dec 04, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, *There’s Plenty of Time*.

It’s amazing how so many things that come up in our days can feel like emergencies, like they need to be solved as soon as possible. Taking a moment to consider whether the situation at hand is a true emergency can help us release so much of the time pressure that we’re feeling. Reminding ourselves that we have plenty of time gives us more space to explore the root of the issue. And with that space, we can imagine the possibilities with a curious, creative mindset.

We hope you enjoy today’s episode and that it helps you in your relationships and on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

Want the full collection of Living Joyfully Foundations podcast episodes as an audiobook (and the transcripts edited into an ebook)? Find them here in the Shop!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

EPISODE QUESTIONS

When you imagine the idea that there’s plenty of time in the context of a disagreement with a friend, partner, or child, how does it feel? Expansive? Overwhelming? Just plain wrong? Why?

Do you recall a time when an issue bubbled up again and again because you didn’t take the time up front to more fully understand it?

Where in your life do you feel time pressure? What if you could release that? How would that feel?

Can you think of a time when feeling time pressure interfered with coming up with a creative solution to a challenge?

TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We are thrilled you’re here and interested in exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.

And in today’s episode, we are going to talk about the idea that there is plenty of time. Now, it has been such a helpful tool for me over the years when navigating challenges with the people I love, and I believe I first heard about it from you, Anna!

It’s amazing how so many things that come up in our days can feel like emergencies, like they need to be solved as soon as possible. I think taking a moment to consider whether the situation at hand is a true emergency can help us release so much of the time pressure that we’re feeling. Reminding ourselves that we have plenty of time gives us more space to explore the root of the issue, rather than throwing Band-aid after Band-aid at it just to quickly solve it. “I gotta get this, I gotta move through it.” It’s so fascinating just to consider having plenty of time.

ANNA: Yes. Oh my goodness. So, it has been one of my main mantras for a very long time. Our society likes to operate with this extreme sense of urgency about everything and I get caught up in that really easily. I feel like time pressure is just a huge trigger for me that kind of sets me on this path of not thinking and just being really stressed out.

And the thing is, I like to get things done. I like to check boxes. I like moving on to the next thing, and that can have its place. I can be super productive. But what I found was that carrying that sense of urgency around all the time did not help with my relationships at all. It takes time to navigate things in a relationship, and if you stop and take a breath, you can ask, is this really urgent? Is it an emergency? Does this need to be solved right this second? And often, you’ll find the answer is, no. It does not need to be solved right this second. I can calm down.

PAM: Right? And I find that even when we recognize that it’s not an emergency, I feel that time pressure can trigger our need to perform, if that makes sense. As I was thinking, it’s like, okay, yes, this is not emergency, but then boom, I still want to perform well. I want to solve it quickly and efficiently. I want to get an “A” in problem-solving, to be productive, because those are strong cultural messages we hear so often. But are they actually helpful goals in and of themselves, particularly when other people are involved?

Another question that I found very useful to ask myself is, are we looking for future approval or validation about how we handle the situation? That’s that performance piece, maybe from a person that we anticipate telling about the situation in the future. Are we looking at that more than we’re looking with care and compassion to the other person in front of us who’s involved?

And yes, being someone who jumped straight to problem solving for many years and still works on it, another consequence I found was that solving a problem quickly was often shorthand for implementing my solution, which relationship-wise, often meant pushing through the other person’s consent. And maybe not even obviously pushing through it, but more so by not even slowing down to ask them for their thoughts and ideas. Instead, just presenting my solution with an energy of, “Of course this makes sense and you’ll agree. Let’s do it.”

But I came to see that that approach definitely took a toll on my relationships, on my connections with the people in my life. Their trust in me dwindled because they felt less seen and heard by me over time, because I wasn’t asking them what they thought. I wasn’t asking them for their ideas. I was just saying, “Oh yeah, look, this happened. We can do this instead. Let’s go.” Just pulling them along with my energy.

ANNA: Exactly. And as you’ll hear us say so many times, everyone wants to feel seen and heard. So, anything that’s short circuiting that is going to be an issue. And that’s the thing. When we are holding speed and efficiency and production ahead of people and connection, it’s going to take a toll. Period. And again, I like to be efficient and get things done. So, this isn’t about just stopping all the things, but for me, it’s about being aware of the energy I’m bringing into a situation.

And if another person is involved, am I taking the time to really hear them and understand them, especially if we’re talking about our most important relationships? It’s key to avoiding conflicts and misunderstandings to give ourselves time to really hear one another. And I’m one who likes to fix and solve and to be fair, I have some very good ideas, Pam.

PAM: You do. You do.

ANNA: But no one wants to be dragged along, even for my really good idea. And so, remembering what we’ve talked about in the past on the podcast, how different everyone is. We see and process the world differently. So, my really good idea might be a really good idea for me and not for the person I’m in relationship with. But if I push through their consent with this intense sense of urgency, it ends up just leaving us feeling so disconnected.

PAM: Yes. And when I’m feeling time pressure, particularly self-imposed time pressure, I’ve found that I am much more apt to take that conventional straight-line path from A to B to solve the problem, because it feels like a race against the clock to me. But when I can realize that that’s happening and remind myself that there’s plenty of time, I feel more expansive and free to be curious. I feel I have the space to more creatively navigate a challenge, because you know what? And that’s fine, too. If it was just me, I could take my straight-line, A to B and do it and move on, but as I chat with the other person or the people that are involved, I can give them that space and just slowly map out what’s going on. There are signposts of everyone’s needs.

Maybe there’s lines of trees representing the constraints that we’re discovering. Maybe environmental constraints, maybe time constraints, maybe capacity constraints. Maybe there’s hills for aspects that feel a little bit harder. And flower gardens or some beautiful art in spots that we’d like to pass by if it works. And from there, once we kind of start to fill in that map, we can more fruitfully begin exploring paths through the space of the challenge that hit most of the need sign posts, navigate around many of the hills, and maybe even take some time to stop and soak in the view of a sunflower field in bloom.

I know, maybe that sounds a bit sappy. But in my experience, our lives are so much richer when we give ourselves the time and space to be open and curious about the situation, to chat and ponder a bit more to get creative.

ANNA: Yes. I love that image. Honestly, I can feel my body slowing down just thinking about it. And so, I think finding what helps you stay present in the moment and slow yourself down. Even to notice the sense of urgency and slow it down. So, what kind of imagery, what kind of breathing, what kind of things in the moment help bring you down? And again, that mantra of, “There’s plenty of time,” this vision of a map of all the possibilities we have, like whatever that is.

And I think another aspect of peeling back the layers related to this is to look at where is the sense of urgency coming from? What is its purpose? Who is it serving? And asking those questions really helped me kind of deconstruct this a little bit, because the truth of it is, when we’re rushing from task to task, there’s very little time to question anything.

And I think sometimes we think that sense of urgency is coming from within us, but I don’t think it is. I think we’ve been trained to rush, to value efficiency and productivity above all else. And I think humans naturally want to connect, and the two just don’t really work well together.

So, the question for me becomes, do I want to sacrifice or harm my relationships so that I can be a better producer for society? And I would argue that people in strong connected relationships actually bring more to the world and end up producing the most amazing things. And so, how this looks in practice for me is, when I find myself feeling frustrated or trying to rush someone along to my chosen outcomes, I just stop and I take that breath and I say, “There’s plenty of time.” And I feel it. The energy instantly changes.

And if I’m still struggling, I will ask myself, “Where is the sense of urgency coming from? Is it even real? And is it helping? Because even if we feel there is some real time constraint, there is some real thing that’s driving it, is it helping me make the choices in the moment? Is it helping the two of us get through this situation? Because if it’s not, we still need to set it aside, even if it’s a real thing, because we’re not getting anywhere.

And, as I mentioned, so often this applies to our relationships with both kids and adults. Rushing a child out the door frustrated or pushing a partner to get something done on a timeline without regard to their experience of it, it just doesn’t feel good to anyone. So, reminding myself there’s plenty of time just grounds me back in that moment.

Because the truth of it is, if we’re five minutes late, if we miss the thing altogether, if the project doesn’t get done, the world does not end. Most likely, a year later, it’ll be hard to even remember what the issues were. But if we continually push past the people in our life, if we push them along this arbitrary timeline, it will absolutely impact the relationship, and that’s something I want to avoid.

Again, back to priorities from episode one, I want to keep my relationships as the priority. And if what’s being handed to me by society is in conflict with that, then I want to question it and ultimately set it aside.

PAM: Yes, exactly. With relationships as my priority, I want to use that lens as I navigate my days. And it’s fascinating to discover how often cultivating connected relationships is at odds with the societal messages that we hear or even just infer from how people are moving through and navigating their days all around us.

ANNA: So true!

PAM: The immense value given to having power and influence over others, the call to create strong boundaries to protect ourselves from others, the importance of being productive members of society at the expense of others, it is just so interesting to think about how relationships, while talked about so often as being an important part of our lives, in reality, are often expected to take a backseat.

So, with that, here are some questions you might want to ponder as you explore the idea that there’s plenty of time.

Our first one is, when you imagine the idea that there’s plenty of time in the context of a disagreement with a friend, partner, or child, how does it feel? Just bring that idea, that lens of plenty of time in. Does it feel expansive? Does it feel overwhelming? Does it feel just plain wrong? “No, I don’t have time.” “Why?” is a great question to ask yourself at that point. What is it that’s making me feel like I don’t have time in this situation?

The next question is, do you recall a time when an issue bubbled up again and again because you didn’t take the time up front to more fully understand it? I find things can bubble up and we can solve them. We can put that Band-aid on them. But if we don’t take the time to get to the root of things and really find out what the underlying need is, or play around with the process through which we move through things that come up regularly in our lives, we can just see it happening again and again.

ANNA: I think that one can help people that have the efficiency piece, because really it is more efficient to take the time and deal with it and to actually figure out how we want to move through it, versus the plugging the holes or the Band-aids that we end up having to revisit and revisit and revisit the same challenges.

PAM: Exactly. Exactly. It is so interesting to think about that, that we think we’re being efficient, we think we’re being productive, but so often, maybe it bubbles up over and over, but maybe it has relationship implications that I have to spend time with later. So, you can start to discover that it’s really a choice of, where do I want to put my energy in the process? In the space up front or into the, going through it again and again.

Okay. Okay. Question three. Where in your life do you feel time pressure? What if you could release that, how would that feel? I think that could be a big one, too. And if you release that, how would that feel? And where is it coming from? Is it something that I am putting on myself? Because so often, it’s something that we’re doing.

ANNA: So often, it’s something we’re putting on ourselves that again, we kind of think is coming from somewhere else, maybe our job, or maybe school, or maybe something else.

But really when we look at it, it’s our interpretation of that that’s putting this super intense sense of urgency and time pressure on it.

PAM: Yes, yes. And sometimes we’re just feeling that we have to bring somebody else’s framework or approach and be the voice of them, whether that be society or a boss or a teacher, and that I have to be them now, because they’re not here to say it, but is that how I really feel?

All good stuff. Okay. Our last question. Can you think of a time when feeling time pressure interfered with coming up with a creative solution to a challenge? And this is one I just would love people to think about, because what I discovered over time is that even when it is just me, it can be so useful to take the space not to just go with A to B, the first thing that comes to mind.

I have found there are so often more creative ways that that feel even better, that may be even more fun. There are so many possibilities. So, when I just let myself play with these things, take that time pressure off myself of something that I need to do, like the bathroom thing. It’s like, just do the damn bathrooms and get it done. I can tell myself that story, but it’s so much easier or so much more fun when I can just give myself some space to play with it.

ANNA: Yeah. And I think the time allows us to bring in the context that we talk about so much, because if we’re just going point A to point B, we’re really missing a lot of context around us. And then that can inform us, because again, maybe it helps us make a decision that saves us some work down the road or that keeps a relationship intact that we might be running over. And so, taking that time for ourselves to take in that context, to me, just makes it easier, more fun, and a lot of times, even more efficient.

PAM: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and we will see you next time. Bye!

**EU395: Navigating All the Needs** Nov 20, 2025

In this episode of Exploring Unschooling, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about navigating all the needs in our unschooling families. Navigating all the needs can be one of the biggest puzzles of parenthood. In many cases, we’re going from only being responsible for ourselves, to then being in partnership with someone else, to then adding children one by one. And as the children are growing, they each have their own ideas and their own personalities and their own needs. And so, the number of needs that exist in our family at any given time is just increasing as we have more children.

In our conversation, we talk about some common challenges that come up, how to approach problem solving with curiosity, and ways to have conversations with our family that move us from trying to control and direct to collaboration.

We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey and in your relationships!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello! I’m Anna Brown from Living Joyfully and I’m joined by my co-hosts Pam Laricchia and Erika Ellis.

PAM AND ERIKA: Hello! Hi!

ANNA: Happy to have you both here. Before we get started, I wanted to encourage you to check out the Living Joyfully Shop where you can find Pam’s books, coaching options, and information about the Living Joyfully Network. Also, check out our Substack, When School Isn’t Working, at whenschoolisntworking.substack.com.

It’s a great resource to share with friends who are feeling stuck and when you’re hearing those stories about kids being upset or crying or things not working and people just feeling at their wit’s end. It’s just a good place for that and we would love to have you join us there.

Today on the podcast, we’re talking about navigating all the needs. This is a big topic and I’m excited to have the chance to dig into it today. Erika, would you like to get us started?

ERIKA: I would! I love this topic, too, and it’s been a monthly theme on the Living Joyfully Network which was really fun. So basically, I see navigating all the needs as one of the biggest puzzles of parenthood. In many cases, we’re going from only being responsible for ourselves, to then being in partnership with someone else, to then adding children one by one. And as the children are growing, they each have their own ideas and their own personalities and their own needs. And so, the number of needs that exist in our family at any given time is just increasing as we have more children.

I only have two children, but it can still present so many interesting challenges, because as we’re always saying, people are different, and that includes our kids who we may have even assumed would be like us, but then they turn out to have quite different needs than we do. So I wanted to give a couple of common examples of just where the idea of navigating all the needs might come up and then I’m excited to see what nuances we dive into in our conversation.

One that seems to come up a lot is when some of us may like to go out of the house to do activities and others don’t as much or as often and so what can we do then?

And another is with sleep. People have different needs for how long they sleep, what time they sleep, the conditions for sleep, and this can be a real puzzle in families.

And finally another example that comes to mind was during that time of early childhood when we have babies and toddlers and how to fit in the care needs of the adults when the children just have so many seemingly constant care needs. Just the basics like eating, showering, rest, and movement. Sometimes it can just feel overwhelming to try to figure out these kind of challenging moments.

And what I like about the kind of deep processing and thinking that we do here on the podcast and in the Network and really just on my unschooling journey overall is that kind of processing invites me to slow down, get curious, and really assume that there are ways to figure it all out. Everything can’t always happen at the same time, but there will be solutions that we can find that will address all the needs the best that we can.

And so, I think coming in with that kind of mindset really helps when it starts to feel like there’s just too many competing needs. So, those are my initial thoughts.

PAM: Good ones. I love your examples. Those are pretty common ones that we hear about and see in the Network all the time.

And, for me, and when I’m thinking back to the transition to unschooling, the idea of meeting all the needs, at first it could just feel overwhelming. It’s like, how on earth? Someone needs to kind of judge which needs we’re going to meet and which ones we can’t meet and here’s the most effective slash efficient way to meet those needs.

And we really feel like we’re doing our best for the people that we love. And it can feel very disappointing, disconcerting when people don’t appreciate all the work we did to think all that through and figure this out. That was a lot of work right there. That’s really when my mantra for myself of being open and curious came in. And it was encouraging to hear from other unschoolers who were further on the journey than I. It is possible it can be done. And so, I’ll try it and see. It was making that shift to being open and curious.

Open to it doesn’t mean me not thinking it through at all. I can have ideas that consider everyone who’s involved and also the bigger picture context that I see that others might not see, etc. But as we were talking about in the last episode people can’t read our minds. If I just show up with a plan that’s the most effective and efficient, then how are you going to get buy in? When people don’t know what’s going on. And when the kids are younger, then maybe that’s your partner. Anybody else who’s involved.

The communication holds the clues, even if they’re not verbal from our kids. The resistance, the crying, all those pieces are communication to tell us when something that we’re trying to do is or isn’t working and helping. So being open and curious was so helpful just to be open to seeing and hearing other people’s perspectives and what their needs are.

And sometimes it’s helping them sort out what the actual need is. “I want to do this.” Why? What’s going to be really fun about that? And we can join them in that excitement rather than trying to shut things down right away. If we want to navigate all the needs we need to be open to hearing about them and to actually find or try to find the root of it.

Because maybe I want to go here, I want to go to the park. And if you can get more into the details of it, then it can be a lot easier to find that common ground where we can meet that need.

Like you were saying, Erika, maybe it’s not right now, maybe it’s okay if we do it in the evening when someone else is home to stay with someone who doesn’t want to go. Just being so curious about, what does that really mean to you? What would feel good about doing that thing? So that we can meet that need.

Getting to the need rather than the action that someone’s proposing that would meet the need. There’s a distinction, a level, a depth to it. So once we can start getting to the needs themselves and then get curious. Oh, what if we did this? What if we did that? And just being totally open to the yes, no, maybe, like what if we did that? That was one of the things I managed to keep going forward with because, oh my gosh, kids really are capable.

They really are capable of understanding that piece, what they would love the most about this. And being able to share that kind of information and to be able to hear from us even if it is disappointing. We can’t make that work right now. We don’t have the car or whatever, whatever. We’ll need to save up a bit of money. Whatever the thing is but it can really be a conversation. And that’s why we love using the word navigate. Right? Because it’s not, let’s figure out the answer.

It’s not *the* answer. You may eventually come to a path and you’ll take the next step on the path and it might tweak what you know along the way before you ever get to the end of whatever the moment is. But yeah, for me, it was so much about the shift to being open and curious with our kids and having those conversations.

ANNA: Okay, so many things have bubbled up. I think a big piece was what you said, Erika, was the slowing it down. Because I can be about efficiency. But efficiency is usually me jumping to an outcome. So, that was another big piece, bringing open and curious. Letting go of whatever outcome.

Because you know my brain when I hear a problem. So somebody’s telling me they want to do this, they want to do that. I am trying to solve the puzzle because I like to do that. But I’m often locking in on a particular solution and it’s not flexible at that point. And so that was a big piece of me just letting go. I don’t know how this is going to play out. We have a lot of competing needs but I’m going to slow down. We’re going to dig in a little bit like you were saying Pam. Get to what’s underneath of it.

Okay what’s at the playground? Oh you’re actually just wanting to fly this kite or do this particular thing. We can do that right out here in the street in front of us or in the backyard. Okay, you’re not wanting to go because you want to still play your game on your device. Okay, we can bring that with us or we can set up something.

Once we have those conversations, things open up. Two other things that bubbled up, one was creativity. I think when we slow down and have that open and curious mindset, that’s where the creativity comes in and kids are so creative. Because I would sometimes get stuck on maybe what seems fair or something that would be in my mind about it and their solutions I’m thinking hmm, does that really work? But they were both happy with it. So it was okay. Why am I inserting anything into this?

But when we’re all creatively listening to what the roadblocks are for each person, we get a chance for everybody to be creative. Yeah, I’m okay to wait till tomorrow. Can we then add this thing to it if we do it tomorrow? Yes, we can do that and then this time we can get this. So, that creative problem solving, collaborative energy I really loved.

And I think another big big piece was the mindset shift to trust. For me, I had to have this deep abiding trust that we could solve it, that we could figure out a way that we could all feel comfortable. And again, it might take a little bit of time. It might not be right in that moment, but that trust is so important.

What I found in our family was me having that trust suddenly fostered that trust in everybody. Even when we bumped up against something that felt like there’s no solution, if I was feeling a little low and wondering if we were going to get there, they would say, we’re going to figure it out! And so I loved that it was just the energy of we’ll just keep at it. We’ll figure it out. We may have to step away for a minute and come back depending on what it is but there is room to trust that we can find solutions that feel good to everyone.

And so, that’s the problem-solving piece of when you have those competing needs but I think you touched on too, Erika, that just sometimes it’s young kids and how do we take care of ourselves and all of those pieces and that’s a little bit different but I think the slowing it down, creative energy, trusting that there’s plenty of time and that we can find it, calms me enough to then see the moments where I can take care of myself or the moments where we can create a little bit more space around something. Anytime I’m getting worked up and tight or too far ahead of myself it actually just compounds whatever is happening in the moment that’s feeling stressful.

ERIKA: Yeah, if we get too caught up in seeing the finish line, we can picture how it would work, we have the vision of that. And if we get stuck there, then we can’t see all the other possibilities that really could get us to the same place. With the little kids situation, I think a lot of parents really try to just do it all themselves and not ask for help, because that’s the vision. And they should be able to do it. And so, just little things like, there are lots of ways that we can solve this problem. There are ways that we haven’t thought of yet.

Getting creative, getting unconventional, what works for someone maybe it doesn’t even work so well for someone else. What we see working for someone else may not be the solution for our family. It just depends on the different individuals in our family.

And I think when we really value every family member’s contributions to these conversations, it’s just so amazing. It’s such a great experience for kids. It’s a great experience for parents to be able to all be working together as a team. It’s something that we might not have experienced ourselves as kids and so I think that’s why it has a learning curve and takes some time to understand, how do we even do this? I’m so used to the parents just saying what’s going to happen and then that’s what happens and that’s the answer. But we all know that sort of parenting has some downsides to it.

If we’re trying to do something different, getting everyone involved in the conversation, making sure that everyone knows, I hear your needs, too, and those are also important. It’s as important to me as getting my needs met and we can figure out a way that all of these things can happen. That’s a really valuable problem-solving skill and important conversational skills to have that they can take with them in their adult lives.

PAM: Yes. Two things that bubbled up for me. One both of you were speaking about is I remember when the kids were younger and I was trying to navigate my own needs in this very hands-on care season. What I found was when I was trying to make those plans for the shower or whatever, I would try to plan it. It would be like, okay at 3:00 they have their nap and I’m gonna take my shower. But then they don’t fall asleep at 3:00 and my shower plans are shot for another day. That shift from trying to plan ahead and making life fit those plans versus, I’m just gonna pay attention to when I can have ten minutes to jump in the shower.

It may not look like we’re expecting. Maybe somebody drops in and they can hold the baby for ten minutes while I go jump in the shower. I don’t have to entertain them. They would love to have some quiet time with the baby. Then it’s the creativity you were talking about. These are the things that I would like to do and I’m going to watch out for moments, so adding those into the flow weaving them into what’s actually happening, versus trying to create what happens to match some future plan I have in my head. So, that was the first thing that bubbled up.

The other piece is something I bring up when these conversations come up, when we’re chatting with our kids. It doesn’t have to be everybody involved talking together to come up with the plan. Maybe it’s me going and talking with one child and trying to speak with them about what their needs are and why this doesn’t feel good because having an audience maybe just doesn’t feel good to them or getting comments from others trying to work it out. Giving people the space to think about their needs to talk about their needs to feel validated to be validated about their needs and then with a deeper understanding that you can go talk to the next child and bring up why that doesn’t feel good because of this or that. “Maybe we could try this.”

There’s a depth of understanding as they’re learning a little bit about each other as well through me alongside trying to figure it out. So there were times when I was doing that circle for a while until we figured out, oh yeah that’ll work, that’ll work, that’ll work. Okay off we go! So, that was one piece.

And then the other piece was for ones who aren’t as much into the conversation, they’re still communicating even as young kids. “I don’t want to talk about it,” that’s still communication, right? That’s letting you know something, maybe just getting some sort of short word, maybe a shrug, maybe a nah and just circling back. And also knowing okay that is not the child in this season that I go and give long five-minute paragraphs explaining all the context and everything that’s going on. Maybe it’s like three seconds. Does thinking about doing this sound good and we’re done. I get feedback and then I can go off and think if it did or did not sound good. It’s just understanding the people who we are talking with and engaging with and communicating with that it might not always be all about the words.

ANNA: That’s so important. Not everybody is that deep conversationalist who is able to even articulate their needs, but I love what you did with that separate space because I think that helps them have the space to think about it. Because especially if they’re siblings, I don’t want to do that while they’re trying to think about what their need is. It’s hard, but giving them that quiet space where they can say, okay, this part I don’t mind, this part I do. I love that piece.

And then there was something that you said, Erika, that I wanted to highlight again. I think you stated it is like sometimes looking for the unconventional solution and what that brought to mind for me was sometimes in these situations we’re taking that outside lens of how other people see this or how are other people doing it and I think that can really derail us.

Even if we take it within an unschooling environment and take something like sleep. Some families have this around-the-clock thing going and it’s working very well because it’s working for their child and that makes sense and that could be a solution.

Or maybe in your particular family you are thinking, that wouldn’t work because of your partner’s schedule or because of this thing or because of my own whatever. You don’t have to do it that way. I think what I wanted to pull out from when you said that was just really circle the wagons and look at the people that are involved in your family, because whatever solution you come up with that you all feel good about, it doesn’t matter what it looks like to the outside world. It really doesn’t. No one cares. They don’t. They’re wrapped up in their own thing so just really finding the creative solutions that feel good to you.

You might get a side eye from an in-law or something else if you decide to do around-the-clock or something different, but if you know it’s working for you and your kids, that’s all that matters. So, sometimes watch that outside noise, because I think that’s one thing that gets in the way of us finding the creative solutions.

ERIKA: Yeah I had made a little note that says “make sure you’re not just responding to what they will think about our solutions.”

I know we talk about this a lot, but it’s not like you find the one answer and then that’s going to work forever either. As needs come up, as we see what’s rubbing, as problems come up, conflicts, whatever it feels like in your family, then we do it again. So we get practice figuring it out. I’ll catch my husband saying something like, “But you like doing the XYZ.” It’s frustrating when they change their minds about how things used to work and now they want something different. But I think that happens to all of us. We all are growing and changing and so what works to meet our needs during one season, it’s not gonna work for another season.

That was another thing I wanted to bring up, seasons. Just to keep grounding back into even when this feels like too many needs at once eventually it’s going to change.

ANNA: Yeah yeah and just really quickly, I think what you just said could actually be helpful for the outside voices too. To just say, “for now”. This is what’s working for us for now so maybe that calms them if they’re thinking wow that’s looking really unconventional or strange but instead, it’s like oh they found something that’s feeling good for now. Sorry, go ahead!

PAM: That’s fine, that’s great and because what I was taking away from that, I love the seasons thought and I think it can help in both ways. When things are going well, it’s not getting attached, like your husband saying, “But this is the way it’s been.” “You like this thing,” or, “You don’t like this thing.” And not taking it in as a failure if we’ve solved this. This is the way that works for us now and if something breaks in that like stops working, starts rubbing, if we take that on us as a failure, then our energy can feel judgmental to the person who has changed. “Why did you change? Why don’t you like this anymore?” I like all those pieces.

So, thinking of it as seasons can help with that and then also when things aren’t going well. When you’re in a season when things are rubbing, when you’re still trying to figure out how this might work where everyone’s needs are getting met. Whether it’s trying to figure out sleeping arrangements or whatever, whatever, it can feel like you’ll be stuck there forever and like you’ll never find a solution, etc.

So, again reminding ourselves that this is a season and like you were saying earlier, I know we’ll figure this out at some point. Not putting agendas and timetables and targets on it can just be so helpful to keep that open and curious energy as you’re navigating.

ANNA: Well, thank you everyone for joining us. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I know we’re not solving how to navigate all the needs but hopefully some ideas about slowing down, being creative can help. Because for me, that shift of energy can make such a big difference. I appreciate all the things that came up during this call and hopefully it will spark some ideas for meeting the needs of your families.

We would love, love, love for you to join us at the Living Joyfully Network. It is such a beautiful supportive community and we love diving into these topics. It feels great to move through some of these situations with other people because we’re all so different.

We’re coming from different countries, different phases of life, different ages of children but the ideas and that intention is there and it really makes such a difference for the conversations. I find them just so rich and really, really enjoy it.

If you would like to learn more and join us you can follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfullyshop.com and click on the Community tab in the menu thanks for listening and joining us today.

**EU394: Weaving Together Neurodivergence and Unschooling with Melissa Crockett-Joyoue** Nov 06, 2025

In this episode, we were so grateful to be joined by Melissa Crockett-Joyoue of the Unschooling Summit and Weave ND. Melissa shared her dramatic journey to unschooling, her experience as a neurodivergent parent of neurodivergent kids, and how amazing unschooling has been for all of them. We also talked about increasing our capacity through intentional self care practices and being an entrepreneur while unschooling.

It was a very rich conversation that we hope you enjoy!

QUESTIONS FOR MELISSA

Can you tell us a little bit about you and your family and what everyone’s interested in right now? And then we would also love to hear a bit about your story of coming to unschooling.
Before the call, you mentioned how valuable unschooling as a lifestyle can be for ND kids. How have you seen that in action?

I know you talk about the importance of building capacity for ourselves. Can you share some of your ideas around that?

You’ve mentioned your online community, Weave, and there’s The Unschooling Summit event you co-host with Esther Jones. We’d love to hear more about those and a bit of your experience weaving unschooling together with being an entrepreneur.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

Weave Community: weave-community.mn.co

Weave IG: www.instagram.com/weave_nd

Melissa Unschooling – IG: www.instagram.com/mama.weaves

The Unschooling Summit: www.theunschoolingsummit.org

The Unschooling Summit on IG: www.instagram.com/theunschoolingsummit

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

TRANSCRIPT

ERIKA: Hello everyone, I am Erika Ellis from Living Joyfully and I’m joined by my co-hosts, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia, as well as our special guest today, Melissa Crockett-Joyoue. Hello to you all.

MELISSA: Kia ora.

ERIKA: But before we begin our conversation with Melissa, I wanted to invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network, which has really been life changing for me in so many ways. On the Network, we have amazing discussions about so many topics since our community has such a wide variety of experiences. Everyone in the Network is really learning and growing and being intentional with their families.

It’s unlike any other online community I’ve found. Being part of the Network offers powerful support, especially during moments when questions and fears come up, or if you’re new to unschooling and just need a place where people understand the journey. If you’d like to learn more about the Living Joyfully Network and check it out for yourself, you can visit livingjoyfullyshop.com and click on the community tab. We’ll also leave a link in the show notes. We would love to meet you there.

We are so excited to have Melissa joining us today on the podcast. She is the co-founder of the Unschooling Summit, and the founder of WeaveND, an online membership community supporting neurodivergent unschooling families with a focus on building capacity and connection for the parents. She lives in New Zealand and is mama to two unschooling kids. I met Melissa recently when I participated in her Sunday Session with Esther Jones, which is part of the Unschooling Summit. I’m excited to learn more about her in our conversation today.

And so to get us started, Melissa, can you tell us a little bit about you and your family and what everyone’s interested in right now? And we’d also love to hear a bit about your story of coming to unschooling.

MELISSA: Okay. Well, I’ll check back in an hour with you. So, kia ora koutou. So I’m Melissa and you know that we’ve done that part. I live in Aotearoa, New Zealand. I live in a small coastal rural fishing village, which is approximately an hour north of Auckland. I grew up in the very far north.

I’m part M?ori on my mother’s side, and a big mix on my dad’s side, and grew up really intensely connected to that part of me growing up in a small, predominantly M?ori area in the far north. And my wife and I, she is from St Lucia in the Caribbean. And we have two children.

So we have T?mana, who is 10. And we have Hinem?rie and she is seven and a half. Hinem?rie did three part days at preschool with me in attendance and was a big fat no. And that was her journey in mainstream schooling. And T?mana did a year at our really lovely little country school with a role of 60 kids max. It was probably about 55 when he was there, a school that I had been on the board of governance of for three years before I even got pregnant, because we moved to a small town and I wanted to make connections and help out. And I thought, I’m going to make the school really awesome so when my kids get there it will be great. That didn’t turn out quite how I anticipated.

So, that’s where we live. And we live on a big, big property that my parents own. So it’s native forest. They live there as well in a different dwelling within shouting distance. And my uncle lives there as well. And my brother and his wife and two kids live just a five minute drive away.

So, it’s a beautiful intergenerational kind of living with all the ups and downs of that when you are striking out on a different path. My parents are supportive, really supportive of the unschooling stuff, more challenged by understanding the neurodivergent stuff, because they’re neurodivergent too, they don’t know it yet. They’re working it out. So, we have a different parenting style that they are trying to be supportive of. And we’re all kind of learning how that works.

Our journey to unschooling was a mixture of, longer than I wish it had been in hindsight now, and kind of quite quick to jump straight into unschooling in other ways. So as I said, I was quite invested in the whole local school and so on. I was also doing fundraisers for them. I was working on M?ori strategy with them and so on.

So, when T?mana was smaller, he had really intense food allergies. And so we didn’t do a lot of socializing with him. We lived quite an unschooling kind of lifestyle anyway. He didn’t go to any kind of childcare. He was only ever looked after by my mum occasionally.

It was a very kind of attachment-style parenting. And I ran a M?ori language play group with my sister-in-law. And so he socialized there. But apart from that, play dates were really hard because of his food allergies. And he liked other kids, but there was always something. He really liked adults. For his fourth birthday party, his list was all grown-ups and elderly people he wanted to come to his party. And so it was always a little bit challenging. And he really liked babies. Those were his key interest areas with other kids.

We put him into preschool when he was three and he wouldn’t go inside. And we just thought, oh he’s just such an outdoor boy and he just wanted to move rocks and climb trees and ride bikes. But every time he went inside, he’d get really upset, particularly if it was raining.

Now I’m looking back and seeing all these flags for sensory overload and stuff that we just didn’t know or understand at the time. And we thought that it was his food allergies making him really cautious around other kids. So, he did a little bit of preschool, like two mornings a week. But I had a new baby and I might get him there at 10 and he might have to finish at 12. So he did about two hours twice a week max.

When my daughter was eight months old, I actually had three SCAD heart attacks, Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissections, which were near fatal and pretty extreme. And I spent five weeks in hospital. And it is a key part of our story because it was very traumatic for the children.

So T?mana was there for two of the times, including one which was cardiac arrest. And it meant that he had really severe separation anxiety. And the nature of him anyway, he was very, very attached. But this was really intense. And so I spent five weeks in hospital and had to have open heart surgery. And he kept going to preschool during that time. But it was really difficult for him.

So, it was probably a year later that it was time for him to start school in New Zealand, we start at five. And pretty much everyone just goes at five. You legally don’t have to be there until you’re six. But I knew that he was going to need a long transition into school. I felt that. And the preschool and school were right next door. So, we had this plan in progress. And then COVID happened.

So we locked down at home. And that suited him really well. And also, after I recovered in that period of time, my wife got really sick, but that came after. So, we put him into school. And it went abysmally, basically, from the get go. And after a few months, he started halfway through the year. He started in June. And so the other kids had kind of settled in at the beginning of the year. He only had 10 kids in his class, but it was just too much. And I’m trying to think how I can make this shorter.

So basically, school was really difficult. He, from the very first day, it was screaming violent meltdowns from him. And I couldn’t lift him because of my chest surgery and stuff. And so my mum helped literally drag him into school. And we pushed him in the door. And the teacher closed the door on him. And it was horrific. And I was really fully in PTSD still at that point. So I was having panic attacks and stuff. And so it was, it was intense. It was really hard.

And then they did the classic thing of, you know, 10 minutes later, sending a photo of him playing and being like, he’s fine. But this didn’t stop. And pretty much every day was traumatic for all of us.

And we had meetings with the school and they said that it was because of me. And so we had his grandparents drop him off at school, occasionally my wife if she wasn’t working and so on. And it just didn’t get better. And he would be up trees and my dad, who is a bit rough around the edges. “I’m gonna have to get the chainsaw and cut the tree down.” And it was just really dramatic every morning.

And he went through a small phase of kind of being okay to go. And they were bribing him with Lego he could do in class and stuff. But it just wasn’t supportive of his neurodivergence.

They didn’t understand that. They just blamed it all on his trauma around my heart stuff. And yeah, it just continued to go on.

And everyone was telling us he’ll get used to it. Kids are like this, it’ll be fine. He’s just traumatized, you know, like it’s just that.

And yeah, the plans that they put in place were basically me not being involved. And you know, don’t make it nice for him to be at home, encourage him to be at school, all of those kinds of things. This is with a five-year-old who’s really traumatized.

One of the final days they were restraining him on the ground while I drove off with him, you know, yelling for me. Sorry, I didn’t think I’d get this upset again. I’ve talked about this. It’s all your empathetic faces.

And we had anxiety bands for him that were giving him bilateral stimulation, all this kind of thing. And nothing was helping.

And at that point as well with his learning, I could see some disparities. And I ended up finding out about giftedness and I had him assessed and it turned out he was a highly gifted visual-spatial learner. So then I kind of went down the path of, okay, things will be better if we get them on board with his visual-spatial giftedness.

And we talked about it with him because he knew he was different from the other kids. And so we went in with all these ideas and this 26-page report and the school just wasn’t able to support him in that. And they gave him a teacher’s aid, but it just wasn’t working.

He kept running away from school grounds out onto the main road and stuff. And it was just difficult. And I really wanted to homeschool him. And I knew homeschooling was going to be our future at that point. I’d always kind of seen it because of his food allergies, placements didn’t work out. Then I was like, yeah, I could be a homeschooling mom, but I did really like that local school.

I knew homeschooling was in our picture, but my wife and I thought that I was just having to deal with the trauma that I’d been through. And I was having panic attacks and so on. And we just thought that I didn’t have the mental capacity to homeschool him at that point.

I didn’t know about unschooling. I mean, I’d heard about it. And I thought that was like those really happy, slack parents. I followed one woman on a blog, and she lived in a house bus and the kids were constantly being picked up for not being looked after properly and stuff.

And I was like, yeah, no, that’s wow. And I have nothing against house buses, I think that’s a cool lifestyle. But a particular blog I was reading maybe wasn’t very representative.

So, I thought we were going to have to homeschool him, but I thought that I was going to need to get a whole lot better first. And it just got to the point where he had like four vomiting migraines in two weeks. I thought maybe he had some kind of brain problem going, like some kind of illness or something, some terrible thing.

And it was just stress. And it turned out that he was being really bullied at school. And he was telling us, but we didn’t believe that it was as bad as what he was saying and so on.

And it just came to a crunch when we had a second big COVID lockdown for about, well, it was big for us, it was about four months of complete lockdown. And he absolutely blossomed at home. He completely thrived. He was learning. He was much more interested in learning. He was so much less anxious. And we sat down and had a conversation. At that point, the new protocols had come in that we would have to drop him at the school gate and leave.

Parents just had to drop and go, you weren’t allowed into the school at all. And we just said, that’s not okay. It’s my mental health or his, we decided. And we were like, I can be more robust. I can sacrifice mine for his, we just couldn’t do that to him any longer. And that’s when we decided to homeschool. And I’d been trying to convince my wife for probably six months that we needed to do this.

And we finally had this conversation. I remember I got up off the couch and I walked over to the kitchen bench and I started doing dishes. And then I just had this complete wash over of me, like, how the hell am I going to homeschool him?

Like, oh, I don’t have the capacity and how am I going to teach him maths? You know, and all of those things that just washed over me, just like this whole whoosh. And I went and spoke to her, sent a message to a friend who is an unschooler, who’s a psychologist who lectures at a university. And she unschools her two similarly neurodivergent, at the time we thought, similarly gifted kids. They’re gifted as well. And she said to me, yeah, read this Carol Black essay and you need to unschool.

And so that was it. And I just autistically deep dived into that. And that was it. We were unschoolers from pretty much that day. We didn’t start homeschooling. We just went straight into unschooling.

Wow. Okay. I told you, see me in an hour. Yeah, so it’s a big, big story. But that’s how we got to unschooling.

ANNA: It’s amazing. I think so many parents can identify, just all those feelings and trying to make it work and trying to do what everybody’s saying you need to do. And oh my gosh, it’s just so intense. And then with your health pieces too. So yeah, just feeling all the feels of that experience for sure.

PAM: I was just going to say, so many feels. And I resonated with a few spots that were very similar. Like trying to work with the school, going in with the reports and trying to create this environment in which they’ll thrive and it just not being something that they’re able to do within the constraints that they are living with.

But that moment, I was actually writing about that recently. The moment when you realize all of a sudden, that there really are other options than this, this one thing. You were working so hard with the school and trying to make it at that welcoming and wonderful place. And then the bright side of a lockdown, I guess. But I think it’s kind of the baby steps too.

And I think for me, it was really helpful when we decided to ask the kids if they wanted to stay home, that it wasn’t like, okay, this is our decision that we’re doing forever. We’re going to try it out and see because when you give it that opportunity, oh my gosh. Like your description of how he was shining when he had the opportunity to just be at home and do those things. That is amazing. And that was your insight and moment to be like, okay, I need to make this work somehow.

So it was just fascinating. Thank you for sharing. It’s okay that it was long!

ERIKA: It’s just such a beautiful story. And you can really feel all of the, there’s so many elements to it. And I think for everyone who goes on this journey, there are so many contributing factors. So you’re feeling all the context of what’s going on for you, and then for your partner as well. And then for your child, everyone, all these different people with different needs. And then those relentless outside messages saying, it’s you. Don’t get involved in this, that’s such a pressure on parents.

MELISSA: Yeah, I hear that so much as well, in my community. People that are considering it and they’re like, but everyone says that if I remove my child from the system, where’s all the support going to be? They need an SLT, they need an OT, they need a behavioral person. And it’s like, actually, once you remove them from this environment, so many of those needs drop away.

PAM: Actually that is a wonderful lead into our next question. You mentioned this before the call, but your whole description just brings it to life, how valuable unschooling as a lifestyle can be for neurodivergent kids. So, I was hoping you would dive into that a little bit more.

MELISSA: Okay. Be careful with a little bit more. This is my soapbox.

ANNA: We’re here for it.

MELISSA: Yeah, I’m just so passionate about parents of neurodivergent kids understanding that unschooling is not just a valid, legitimate option, but it may very well be like a life-changing one for their family and for the trajectory of their children’s lives. Because I think that what they are able to gain at home, in a supportive environment, assuming that you can provide them with a supportive environment, is, I can’t put into words, and this is rare for me, how much that can turn around can be. I think about the potential life story of our kids, because my son was at school for one year and there were lockdowns during that time, and there were school holidays, and all of these things, vacations, whatever you guys call it, and he left there, telling us that he was stupid, and that he was worthless.

And he’d got all these messages from there. He hadn’t been told that by anyone, he had internalized all of that stuff. And he had really deeply internalized it. And it’s just because it wasn’t the right environment for him. Even though he had this paperwork telling him he was a gifted learner, he has an extremely asynchronous, really spiky profile.

So, he’s 97th percentile for some things, or 98th, and then 4th percentile for something else. And so all that was amplified at school was those 20 percentiles and the 4 percentiles, and none of the 97th or 98th genius were the things that were focused on. And all we do is celebrate the stuff that they’re good at. Our life’s work is to help them to learn how to regulate and to celebrate all the good things that they bring. And autistic people, which now he’s diagnosed, I’m diagnosed, and our daughter is yet to be diagnosed, have like a really increased risk of very, very poor mental health and a really high suicide rate and so on.

And for me, that is my bottom line is that I want my kids to be mentally well. And if they don’t have mental wellness, to have supports for that, and to be able to learn how to regulate themselves and keep themselves safe. And that is the most essential thing, I think.

And with neurodivergent kids who are in school, even the ones that are doing okay, there’s so much around just the sensory overload and the amount of capacity that they are using in a day just to get to the baseline that other kids start the day at, or spend the day at. The amount of executive function that they, you know, it was said we have no executive function, but actually, we’ve just used it all up, because our brain needs to utilize it just to do all the things that come naturally to other people. So, it’s not that we don’t have any, it’s just that we use it really, really quickly.

And when a person’s central nervous system is in fight or flight all the time, it’s hard for them to thrive in any way, let alone do the bare basics of learning. I think that at school, just simply the sensory overload, even for being in a room of 10 kids. Now I’m not going to put my kid in a room of 10 kids without knowing what we’re going to need to do in advance. We’re going to accommodate in this way. And afterwards, we’re going to have a buffer of one to two days, depending on whether he knew the kids or not, and whether it was extra loud or what they were doing.

I can calculate all of this into my dysregulation maths and be like, okay, this is what we need to place around this so that the rest of our week goes bearably. There’s no control over any of that in school, and just the amount of overstimulation and sensory overload, now that I know that I’m autistic, and I can look at how as an adult I function in certain ways, I can unpick and unpack all of that and just be like, wow, all of these aspects are so, so challenging for our kids. And then they’re there trying to learn? It just seems completely unrealistic, you know. They can’t learn when they’re in complete fight or flight.

I actually had an example with T?mana. They have parent-child interviews, I assume they do that all around the world where you go and you talk about the kids’ learning goals and what they’re doing well at and what they need to work on and so on. And we had one of those when T?mana, it wasn’t long before we finished, and we went in and you’re sitting on the little five-year-old tables with the little seats, and we’re all sitting around with our adult knees up. And there’s the teacher and my wife and I and T?mana, and T?mana was doing well.

But he’s ADHD as well as autistic. And so he was on his knees on the chair, on his elbows, and then his feet, doing all the things that a five-and-a-half-year-old does when they’re sitting in a boring meeting. And I was trying to focus and I was probably trying to people please and over-stressed about trying to convince her that yes, we’re supportive of that, but what about all these other things we want you to be doing? I was trying and feeling like such a pain in the butt parent because I was constantly riding them. And I was starting to get a bit stressed because he just wouldn’t sit still.

And I said, you know, T?mana, we’re just, you know, a few more minutes and then we’ll be ready to go. Like, just try and put your butt on the chair kind of thing. And the teacher looked at him and she said, oh, she said, we never have this. He never does this at school. And my wife and I just looked at each other in disbelief. And we’re like, really? And she’s like, no, no. I mean, you know, sometimes they lie on the floor because they’re allowed to do work lying down and stuff. But he doesn’t do this.

And we left that meeting and for all of the things that got said and discussed and stuff, the thing that my wife and I were just absolutely flabbergasted by was he doesn’t do that at school. Like, I don’t think that kid’s ever sat on a chair unless it’s like an ice cream or something in front of him. He didn’t eat ice cream for sensory issues until he was like six anyway. But, you know, unless it was something that he was hyper focused on.

And we just went, how can he have any creative flow if he is controlling his body so tightly in order to do what he thinks he needs to be doing? How can he excel? And we went, how can he do the bare minimum when you’re putting that much bodily muscle, let alone thought, et cetera, into controlling your whole self? We were just like, there’s just no way.

And that really stuck with me. So, I think that neurodivergent kids who are at home can have environments where they can learn. And that’s probably the key thing. You know, they can regulate. They can learn. They can socialize in ways that suit them. And they can just, they can just blossom because it can be so individualized. Yeah.

ANNA: It’s so interesting. That chair piece really sticks with me, too, because look at how hard he was trying to fit into that environment. And they’re saying he’s not doing this. He’s not doing that. All they’re seeing are the deficits and trying to fix these deficits, but missing the fact that, my gosh, he’s trying with everything that he has, you know, to fit into this environment he’s been put in. And I think all that’s missed. I think that is very, very powerful. =

MELISSA: And there was another day as well where he was more unmasked, shall we say, where we’d had to go to the city for a medical appointment for me, like a checkup, and the teachers didn’t know. And they rang us, the principal rang us and said that he had a substitute teacher, so that was yet another change in his routine. And he was on the table doing a strip show and had got down to his underwear.

And the principal was like, they were used to him running away, but she’s like, I’ve never seen him like this. And we were like, he’s probably quite dysregulated because, well, we didn’t even use the word dysregulated, but we said he’s probably really worried or anxious because we’re doing this. But yeah, these are the things that he was trying to keep down, and that day he couldn’t.

ERIKA: Yeah. My family is neurodivergent as well. And when I think back on just how overstimulating the school environment was for me as a child. The memories that I have of being a young child in school are all the people. I remember what they were all doing, and I was worried because if you do too much, you get in trouble.

There’s so much coming at you being in this room full of children all doing different things. And so to expect someone who’s paying attention to it at all to be able to then somehow tune in to what they’re supposed to be listening to and supposed to be doing. And then if you don’t do that, then you’re getting in trouble. It’s such an intense environment.

And I don’t think that a lot of adults recognize that or remember how it was. But when my son was very young, I was trying to picture him in that type of environment and how aware he was of what all the children were doing. And I was like, it’s just going to be too much for him.

MELISSA: Yeah, yeah. I remember when T?mana was at preschool and then one day he was inside and he was building with blocks. And his teacher said to me, oh, we were having a conversation, like an adult conversation, nothing bad, but they were talking about different countries they’d visited or something.

And they were sitting adjacent to him. But it was a day where there were other multiple children moving and talking and playing and stuff. And she said he was just sitting there doing his blocks and maybe with another kid as well. His cousin was there or something. And then he just started feeding into our conversation. And he’d fully been following it and he knew a whole lot of facts about one of the countries or something.

And she was just like, oh, kids aren’t normally that tuned into an adult conversation. We couldn’t talk about and we can’t talk about anything in our house. And we couldn’t from the time he was a baby, because he would come in and he just knew. He just was super hyper vigilant and aware and all of those things.

The other thing I think that makes it really hard for lots of our neurodivergent kids is T?mana does his learning by asking a lot of questions and info dumping. Those are his communication styles. And there’s no capacity for a teacher to deal with that.

I said to him the other day, he was asking about being at school and whether he might try to go back at some point. And I was like, yeah, one thing I noticed though about you, T?mana, is you like to ask a lot of questions. Do you know that when you’re in school, if there’s like maybe 15, 20, 25 kids in a class, what happens if every kid wants to ask one question at the start of a session? And he’s like, well, that wouldn’t work. And I was like, so how many questions do you reckon you’d get to ask a day? And he’s like, oh, never mind. Our kids learn in different ways and it just doesn’t work at school.

PAM: I do remember a very similar story. I was told by the teacher or the principal. Anyway, I guess my eldest was in class and the principal had come by to look in and could see that he was fiddling with stuff in his desk and playing, et cetera, et cetera.

So the principal called him out and started quizzing him and how he was supposed to be paying attention. And he answered every question about what the teacher was talking about. And yeah, it was probably the principal who told me this story because I talked to the principal a lot.

And he was just flabbergasted that he could know and understand what was going on all around him, even though he looked like he was doing something completely different. So yeah, the environment is just not a place where they can shine. And the other piece that bubbled up while you were talking, Melissa, is so often I think we can worry or wonder, could we even bring our child home to homeschool, unschool, et cetera? The child that we see in that environment and the challenges they’re having, oh, if they come home, I’m just going to have to deal with all those challenges. But no, it is such a different environment.

MELISSA: Yeah, I see that again and again.

PAM: Yeah, completely different child, right?

MELISSA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, we still get meltdowns and we still get dysregulation and stuff. But I think the thing as well that we’ve been talking about in the group a lot lately is there’s this spaciousness. There’s this time. And I did a member feature with one of our people yesterday, and she’s only been unschooling since the Unschooling Summit. So she did that and then she started unschooling.

And she was just talking about how, in her family in particular, so her kids are six and two, and just how long everything’s taking to come to reading or come to dressing themselves or what the different things are. And I said, I think that is the thing with our neurodivergent kids is that everything does can take longer.

I spend a lot of time in my family with my wife saying, it’s okay, it’s just not yet. We can have that experience with our kids later. It’s not the time yet that it would actually be beneficial for them or that they would enjoy it or that it would go the way you think it might or you wish it would.

And we do need to face that with some of our neurodivergent kids that, for some of them, they are disabled in some ways and that things are going to take longer for them to get to certain ways of doing things or being able to regulate themselves or helping you within that space and that time. And we can just kind of lean into the season being longer and that they may not sleep any better than they did when they were babies until they’re 10 and that we have this kind of spaciousness that we can give them time.

We talked the other day, I think maybe it was with one of the Sunday Sessions, I’m not sure, or a Zoom I did recently. We talked about surrender and that surrendering is just such an important part of being a parent and particularly with some of this process. Yeah, that all of those kinds of aspects are really important because things might take longer and we don’t need to rush things.

And I think it was something that I think it was a quote I wrote down from you, Pam, once you guys were doing a talk and you were saying that unschooling learning is internalized and not memorized or something along those lines. And it’s like, yeah, we don’t want our kids to learn stuff by rote because they have to, whether it’s about the need to wash themselves or mathematics or whatever it is. We need them to come to that slowly in this expanding and contraction of their capacity and of their growth and a thing so that it’s really rooted in all aspects of themselves and their learning about themselves and so on. And we have the time for that. It can be hard as parents.

ANNA: We also have neurodiversity here as well. And I think what time allowed what was to see the gifts. I think when you’re in that tightened timeline thinking we have to hit this milestone, we have to do this thing. There’s just only the deficit focus. That’s why it happens that way at school.

But I think unschooling really gives us that chance to see all the gifts. And so those timelines really have no value or meaning, because it’s just we get there when we get there. But oh, my gosh, there’s so much beauty along the way that it doesn’t feel like we’re missing anything. So I really love that.

I’m going to change gears just a tiny bit for this next question, kind of bringing it back to us as parents. I recently had a little aha moment myself about capacity and understanding if I’m operating within my capacity, I’m able to hold things more lightly, and I’m able to be present and not have not take things so personally, not kind of crash and burn when things go awry.

And I mean, it seems really obvious when I say it out loud. But there was just an aha moment for me, because I think I do push beyond my capacity a lot. And I’m like, oh, okay, I need to be aware of this because it’s impacting the way I’m showing up and the way that I want to show up.

And so I know that you talk a lot about the importance of building capacity for ourselves. And so, I would just love to hear more about your experience with that, ideas you have around that, and just what your journey has been around that piece.

MELISSA: Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think especially for me, because it came into it in quite a deficit place, I didn’t have a lot of personal capacity. And now I know that as well as being a kind of PTSD, I was probably in autistic burnout from, I mean, my goodness, just being in a heart ward five weeks is kind of rather stimulating, because people are dying around you and you’re having CPR and stuff. So, I came into this whole season, pretty depleted.

And I really needed to be the one that was building my own capacity. And also, once we were about three or four months in, and things were starting to go quite fine and quite lovely. And we’d kind of done nothing schooling wise.

And then we started to try and do some arts and crafts with our daughter. And so that our son was starting to sniff around that and we were starting to just kind of gently ease into doing things and doing a few more trips out and so on as his capacity grew. And then my wife had a massive medical situation as well, and had to have massive surgery and nearly died as well.

So massive PTSD for the kids, bringing all that up again, and for me, and it was really rough. And so, capacity in our family has been super, super limited. And my wife now lives with an ongoing medical condition. I have to have a lot of capacity. And now I’m also running a business. And so, I’m trying to unschool and I do most of the outings for our family and try to run Weave and the Summit as well.

So, there’s a lot to be said for the pressures that are around you and kind of rising to the occasion, but that can only go on for so long. And so for me, what I did was I tried lots of different modalities to support myself and things like EMDR. And I think that dealing with your past trauma and your past history and so on is a really important thing to do. So I did a whole lot of work for me on this more recent trauma with EMDR and EFT tapping and different things to help my nervous system. And we see a chiropractor and so on. And all of those things are to support our central nervous system. But then I started doing breath work.

And for me, as an autistic ADHD person, meditation was very difficult for me to grasp. But breath work, which really, and it’s not like the Wim Hof style, it’s a polyvagal central nervous system relaxing breath work and it really is just breathing and you might hold like a yoga pose of some kind. But yeah, that has been very, very supportive for me in terms of my capacity. And so, I do lots of online programs where I’m doing breath work with other mostly mums. And that I’ve found has been extremely helpful for my capacity.

And then when I started doing Weave, which is the community that I have, I noticed that so many of us were coming in crisis and that we were discovering that we had neurodivergent kids. Most of us didn’t know that we had neurodivergent kids until they burnt out in school. So the kids were in school refusal. They were coming home because there was no other option. And we were then realizing that we needed to unschool, not just homeschool. And unschooling, you guys all know this, but I think it’s a lot harder than homeschooling. There’s no curriculum.

You can’t just lock them in a curriculum and be like, do that, tick the boxes, red pen out. I don’t know if people use red pens, but you know. And that’s your schoolwork done for the day.

Unschooling is very, very intensive on parents because we actually all really want it to work. And we have all of this weight on ourselves to begin with, especially of like, we are holding this and we are taking this new path and it is on us. And lots of the people that I know don’t have fully supportive, committed partners to the process.

It’s like, okay, if that’s what you want to do, you’re responsible for the reading and the carrying out and the kind of reporting back to me if it’s working or soothing the other partner’s fears.

And you’re going to be holding a whole lot. Often the families that I work with, just like us, are arriving into unschooling in a state of crisis. We’re not starting out in a nice, we’ve made a philosophical decision to unschool and we’ve known that since our children were small and we kind of ease our way into it. We just drop in, trial by fire. It’s all happening at once. And you’ve also got kids that are burnt out and in school refusal and you are at the scraping the barrel levels of your own capacity.

And you’ve got a kid at home who is there 24 hours a day. Lots of our kids don’t sleep. We really, really need to build our capacity. It’s just essential. And also a lot of us are starting to realize in the process of having our kids diagnosed that we are neurodivergent too. And I think if we don’t build our capacity as neurodivergent parents of neurodivergent kids, if that’s your picture, then it’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very, very difficult to survive, let alone thrive, you know?

And so I think that we need to get to a point where we can survive and then we need to be working towards thriving. And what I’ve done is I’ve tried out lots of different modalities because everything’s going to be different for what works for different people and what works for different seasons.

And I think for those of us that are unschooling, you have to have things that you can do in these little pockets of time that you have. And you need to find ways to kind of fill your bucket or your whatever you want to call it, your basket, in these tiny moments. And so for me, it’s things like purposely going and finding glimmers and noticing the moment that I take a sip of hot tea because it might be the only one that’s hot. We kind of talk about having a hot cup of tea is like, ahh! but the reality is maybe only you get the first few sips. Make sure you enjoy them, notice it, feel into that. Bank all of these small moments, so that when you do need to dig deep, because there will be multiple times probably through every day where you need to be holding something external from yourself, that you have some capacity.

So, we use havening. I have a havening practitioner that comes into Weave and we do this, we do, that sounds really silly, we do this. Havening is like a whole movement that’s kind of continuing on from EFT, and it’s very good at bringing the nervous system back into alignment. And as an autistic ADHD person, havening practices are very accessible.

Finding a moment to breathe is often very, very inaccessible. So I find that things for me that are very physical, like feeling my toes as opposed to trying to do something like a 10 minute meditation. If my son is trying to get on the roof and I’m the person responsible for him not getting on the roof during a meltdown, I can do some havening or feel my toes. And I don’t have the time for anything else.

So I think that really focusing on spending some time every day, doing one minute of havening to get that muscle memory in your body so that when you need it, you can grab it. And I find that the more that I put in these small practices, these small accessible practices, the more that I am able to have the capacity to feel like there is a well of all that I’m connected to and the earth and all, everything that I’m trying to hold, because otherwise I’m constantly in my head or beyond it. And I don’t feel in my body a lot. So I have to be very determined that I need to have these practices in my life because it’s very easy to let them go.

And ADHD, I love something and then I forget about it. I need to kind of keep coming back to things.

ERIKA: That’s very relatable. I love the idea of practicing them over and over so that they almost come as second nature when you’re in the more difficult moments.

Yeah. I really love that.

MELISSA: It’s like anchoring.

ERIKA: And I was just thinking in some moments when we’re at low capacity, I’ve noticed a pattern of like, we tend to want to add even more things or notice even more things that are missing.

And so, for me, that’s one of the things I noticed. When I’m having a hard time things in my mind get worse and more intense rather than me trying to drop things. And so, I think that the physical practices would help a lot with just kind of coming back to center, but then also just remembering to let things go that I don’t need to deal with in this moment. Because there’s always plenty to deal with in that present moment.

MELISSA: Yeah. And I think for me and for lots of people, the overwhelm cripples you. And this is a small thing I can do to start to move.

PAM: That was one of the big things that bubbled up for me too, how valuable it can be to make it almost second nature by practicing, giving ourselves a space in those less overwhelming moments so that we have it in our back pocket. Because it’s so easy to freeze and just forget all the tools that we have when we are in a challenging moment, so keeping them top of mind rather than saying, oh things are going well, I don’t need these tools right now. Then we don’t have access to them when we need them.

MELISSA: Yeah, yeah, we do havening once a month and during that time of practice it’s, oh I come out of there feeling like light as a feather. But what I was finding was that when I was feeling my dysregulation rising in a moment with my child when I needed to stay calm because their dysregulation was rising or going off, I wouldn’t remember to do it. And so yeah, so we did a thing in the group where we did one minute of havening every morning for 14 days and we all knew we could access one minute and now it’s second nature. So yeah, anchoring in and finding things that are accessible that actually work for us and for other people it might be like a different move or it might be tapping or something, but yeah, finding some, just some little thing that works for you. And for some people it is breathing and things, but for me it’s not always the easiest thing. It feels very forced to control my breath.

ERIKA: Right, yeah, I love that people are different so you have to find what works for you. So I just wanted to see if you wanted to share anything additional. Your group sounds amazing, Weave ND, and just your experience of creating that group and weaving unschooling together with running your businesses.

MELISSA: Yeah, yeah. Weave came about, when we were in that very stuck season when my wife Doria was very unwell as well and we were unschooling and I jumped into a really fantastic online community for unschoolers and we had these Zooms and they were fantastic, but what I was finding was that it made me feel a little more isolated some of them, because if we were talking about socializing of our kids or events or things, the advice that everyone else was sharing on the experiences was so different from ours because my son was not able to engage in those things. And so I ended up asking if I could run a Zoom for neurodivergent parents just to connect and talk within this other group.

And we had wonderful conversations and we started doing that monthly and for about two hours we’d have these meandering conversations that people could come in and get warmed up and then spill and not record it and so on. And then that group decided that they weren’t going to run as a community anymore and went off and did different things. And so I decided and they encouraged me to take it into Facebook and so I did that and then I ran that for two years from the time that I was doing it within the group to deciding that I needed to have employment and my wife couldn’t work.

And so the group, I was saying I was either going to have to close it down or start charging and so we moved into a paid membership community. And yeah, it’s fantastic and it’s a way that I can be at home with my kids and I run it mostly from home. I’m in a hired motel today for the internet.

I use the local motel to have fast speed internet because I’ve ended up doing things like the unschooling summit and I needed to be able to interview people and stuff that the internet wasn’t going to lag and the children weren’t going to come in with chickens and interrupt if I was interviewing some famous person like Pam Laricchia or whoever it was.

But yeah, it’s been an amazing journey and with that journey I worked out that instead of just coming together and talking about our woes, which was a lot of what we were doing but that was becoming quite heavy, was that the key thing that I needed to focus on was this capacity building, because it was the piece that we were all really struggling with and I think also the kind of compassion part. A lot of us are not very good at being compassionate to ourselves in a very difficult circumstance that we’re living in at points of our journey. It can be really difficult and very isolated and so finding ways for us to like connect and be compassionate and then kind of build this capacity was so important.

And so, part of that was that I spoke to Esther Jones about coming in and doing a mindfulness session for us and that just blossomed into a really amazing relationship which has been really cool and we decided to start working together more last September and then one of us just in one of the first emails we had backwards and forwards because she’d been in my community and been doing like you know mindfulness and so on but one of us said and I can’t remember which one of us it was, was like maybe we should do a summit. That would be cool.

And so I was really passionate about more people hearing about unschooling with the neurodivergent flavor and she’s of course, an amazing unschooling person, figure and so we thought we might do like a one or two day summit and maybe invite sort of five or six speakers, weren’t sure, eight maybe and maybe a thousand people might come if we were lucky and we kind of both went nuts, hard out.

She’s in the UK, I’m in New Zealand so one of us would be waking up full of enthusiasm and vim and vigor and the other person would be suggestible and tired and would agree to anything and so it just was this magic equation of alchemy of,I’ve had this idea overnight and I think we should this and the other one would be like okay look if you’re going to take care of that part it sounds fine with me go for it, invite them or do this or whatever.

So I think it honestly was the fact that one of us would be fresh fueled up and one of us would be working on fumes and so we just kind of kept going but yeah it ended up amazing and it was such a joy for us to work together and to create the Summit. So that’s been pretty special and it has had a really strong neurodivergent flavor. It’s been really supportive for our ND families because so many of them are unschooling but yeah really, really broad, interesting thing to work on. So, that’s been pretty special.

ANNA: And so it will be happening again in the coming year? What are the plans?

MELISSA: Yeah, we’re working on it now so we’re doing early morning or late night Zooms again. It’ll be happening in the last weeks of March. I can’t think of a date right now so yeah of next year, same thing three days all for free online and lots of amazing speakers. I’m sure you guys will get invited to be on panels and speak and so on so yeah we’ve got some different ideas this year, ways of doing things.

So, yeah, we’re really keen to have like the diversity of unschoolers reflected which was one of our key things last year and I really loved that people were brave enough to say yes to these two people that well they certainly didn’t know me, they do now but yeah, it’s been pretty amazing and really lovely for my community as well because I’ve had some wonderful people come in and speak within the community now that I know more people and I don’t need to be so shy to ask people to come in and talk and so on.

PAM: I really enjoy participating in it as well but also your piece of finding stuff that you can do for the most part within your home life. You can do it from home mostly, you can like and the people like in your community, they understand obviously the circumstances of your family life as well, so you can have chickens come in and kids.

MELISSA: Yeah, exactly and like yeah, I think that is something I did want to talk about, it’s encouraging people to be entrepreneurial. I think unschoolers often are very entrepreneurial, it’s a very common kind of thing and partly it’s probably out of desperation because we need to make money and get creative about how we’re going to do it. But there is that real spark of not needing to live by the rules and not needing to do things the same way and not wanting to work for a boss and so on. And I do most of my stuff from the kitchen bench or a chair in my bedroom and the kids come in and out and I do have a caravan in the garden but it’s not any less kid infested.

So, I come here to do the recordings because of the internet quality but you can do these things from the kitchen bench with your kid across from you and needing to get up and make snacks and it all just happens and when you find the thing that you’re passionate about, just like our kids, you can just focus on that and they can see.

My son is so invested, drives him nuts, he doesn’t want me on the laptop and he gets very dysregulated part of the time as well but he’s so proud. And anywhere we go out, he’s like, oh yeah, my mama has an online business and she does this summit and she does that and so he tells everyone, oh we’re unschoolers and my mum is an advocate.

And our kids seeing us do something and seeing us mess it up or fail or have a bad day or send the wrong email or whatever. It’s all such vital learning and that was something I think I got from your podcast as well, Pam, I binged yours, and Esther’s, Stark Raving Dad, I was in that really stuck season where my wife was very unwell and my child was in crisis and was having constant meltdowns and stuff because of like the PTSD and we were getting the autism diagnosis and stuff, I just went, I need to work on me. I need to feel like I’m not stuck so I’m just going to educate myself in every way, shape and form about unschooling and then about neurodivergence and the crossover.

And hearing all of your different interviews with different people and all of the different ways that unschooling has gone but part of it for me because I’ve been an entrepreneur in the past was you talking about, you know, you get to actually indulge in your interests as an unschooler because you kind of have to because you need to model that for your kids and you need to not go crazy and I heard stories over and over of people saying, I just do my thing and my kids are around. And that was really motivational for me. It was like, yeah, I could just do my thing and the kids could be around.

It’s hard, and I’m often working till 11 or later at night. With the Summit, we’re up till 1 many, many times and you just fit it in around and you’re really tired and you have bloodshot eyes and you have bags under your eyes but it is possible. I hear other people say, oh no, you need to dedicate at least one day out a week where you go and you do this and whatever and it’s like sometimes it’s just not the reality and if you’re going to wait for that, you’ll never start these things. You’ve just got to dive in, just like we tell our kids, I suppose, if we sit around waiting until everything’s perfect, we’re never gonna get anywhere.

ANNA: That conventional wisdom, right? If you’re going to do a business, you do x, y, z, do the checkbox, but really there are so many ways. And if we can make it fit for our life, that keeps our enthusiasm going, that makes it work for our families and we’re much more likely to then be successful at it. So, yeah, I think that’s always a great reminder.

MELISSA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s definitely a juggling act and I have to be careful not to burn out because of my autistic hyperfocus but, I love that.

PAM: Yeah.I think that piece that you mentioned is just beautiful. Because then you’re thinking about being an entrepreneur and you go and you start looking and you want to learn and it is so much about, do x, y, z, and make sure you tell everybody that when your door is closed, you don’t interrupt me. All these “tips” for working from home, etc.

But what we learn through unschooling, is that we can question conventions, right? So, we can do things differently and not just for the sake of it, but because it works better. It actually works better for us. It keeps our relationships. It keeps our connections.

Yes, we’re up and down and doing this thing and that thing. And maybe it feels like juggling a few things. But you know what? Even the challenge of juggling a few things, in my experience, for my brain, just works better than trying to spend all my energy to get those two hours alone to focus. Even now, when my kids are adults, it’s just how my brain works. And valuing that over trying to make myself conform.

And then your children seeing you do it, even my adult children seeing me play around and doing this thing and trying this thing, etc. It’s just our lives all weaving together, which just feels so much better than trying to put boundaries and separations between it all.

MELISSA: And my kid’s really invested. He comes in and he checks my phone, because when payments come through, it’s updated to my bank on my app. And so he’s like, monitoring there. And he’s like, now I’ve heard this thing on a podcast, where there’s this thing that you can get, this piece of tech. He comes in and he tries to advise and he’s really invested.

And I love that. He’s thinking about it. He’s won a Lego competition recently, because Lego is his special interest. And he’s phenomenal at it. And it was with a real estate agent. So, now he’s engaged his own real estate agent. And so, he keeps telling people, do you know many 10-year-olds with a real estate agent? He hasn’t earned a dime yet, but he’s like, when I make my millions on these particular business plans, because he’s going to be an entrepreneur, then he’s going to have her looking for a piece of land in advance. And it’s just, I don’t know, I love that he has really big dreams. And because he can see me starting something from scratch and growing a thing, he’s learning all of that stuff. And he’s really invested.

And my daughter as well, but she’s more independent whereas he’s more up in my business. She’s out in the garden and doing her own thing. Yeah.

ERIKA: So I just love all the space. Everyone can be doing the things that work so well for them. And we’re all figuring it out. I feel like that’s something so valuable about the unschooling journey is just like, we are all getting to figure out what works well for us and getting to follow our interests. And it’s just a lot of fun.

So, this has been so much fun, Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. We hope that you all enjoyed our conversation and maybe had an aha moment or picked up some ideas to consider on your own unschooling journey. And if you enjoy these kinds of conversations, I think you would love the Living Joyfully Network.

It’s an amazing group of people having thoughtful conversations about all the things we encounter in our unschooling lives. And you can also check out our new substack at whenschoolisn’tworking.substack.com. And the Network is at livingjoyfullyshop.com on the community tab at the top of the page. So thank you so much for listening. And we will see you next time.

PAM: Thanks so much, Melissa! We’ll have all your links there in the show notes as well. Bye!

**EU393: Foundations: Every Moment is a Choice** Oct 23, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, *Every Moment is a Choice*.

It’s common in our culture to look at our lives in terms of “have-tos,” but staying in that space takes away our agency and our joy. By getting curious about our have-tos, we can figure out what is really important to us and play with ways to make the things we do more enjoyable. And in difficult moments, when it really feels like terrible things are happening to us, we still have the choice of how to respond, what story we tell about our situation, and what energy we bring to it. Realizing how much choice we have can be so empowering!

We hope today’s episode sparks some fun insights for you!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

Want the full collection of Living Joyfully Foundations podcast episodes as an audiobook (and the transcripts edited into an ebook)? Find them here in the Shop!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

EPISODE QUESTIONS

Do you find yourself saying “I have to” a lot? Can you find any patterns around when you see it happening more frequently?

How does it feel to think about having choices in each moment?

What helps you find your center when moving through a challenge?

What choices do you see around the stories you are currently telling about your life?

TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hi, and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast! We’re happy you’re here and interested in exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.

In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about choice. I love talking about and grounding ourselves in choice, because life is filled with choices from the mundane to the epic. And for the most part, it’s an invisible process. We’re making decisions on the fly throughout the day. Other decisions are made with a lot of deliberation and forethought and take a lot of time, but the ability to choose is something that empowers us. The knowledge that, no matter what, we have a choice.

PAM: Right, and that is so surprisingly easy to forget in the moment. I can find myself moving through parts of my day almost by rote, and sometimes that means I’m in the flow of things, feeling good and accomplishing things I want and choose to do. And other times things start to rub.

When I start hearing myself say, “Oh, I have to do this,” that feeling that I don’t have a choice is a good clue that I’m probably feeling a bit overstretched or under-resourced, and it’s a great clue to step back, take a breath, and just take a moment to look around a bit.

It’s so easy to fall into the “I have to” trap, because it is used so much in our culture. The phrase “I have to,” or, “You have to,” has become so commonplace that we’ve mostly stopped questioning it altogether. It just seeps into our everyday language. We say we have to go to the store, we have to brush our teeth, we have to go to bed, and so many more things. And soon, we start to believe that we have to do all the things, that we don’t have a choice, that we are, in fact, prisoners to a long list of have to’s.

And not only that, when we come to feel that we don’t have choices and buy into this whole “have to” ethos, it’s usually not long before we start to feel pulled to impose them on others. “This has to be done and you have to help,” which then can lead to judging others around the things we think they have to do. Like, “Why aren’t they doing this thing I don’t want to do, but have to do?” It is so disempowering and disconnecting.

So, taking a moment to look at a situation, any situation, even small everyday ones, and noticing that choices actually exist helps us let go of that overwhelming feeling of being trapped in our days. It reminds us that we have agency. We can use phrases like, “I have to,” or, “You have to,” as red flags, signs that it’s a good time to step back and see where we’re feeling pinched, where we’re feeling controlled, because definitely those things can sneak up on us bit by bit.

And then, we can dig deeper to identify our underlying needs, find the choices in the soil of the have to’s and shift things up to meet our needs in ways that don’t include controlling others or even using control tactics on ourselves. Realizing that I always have choices has been such a freeing and empowering mindset shift for me. It’s just been amazing.

ANNA: Oh my gosh. For me, too. It’s been such a critical part. The shift from feeling like life is happening to me, to understanding my agency and navigating this thing called life. It’s funny, I have a good friend whose husband does not buy into this idea at all. So, he believes, “There aren’t always choices, Anna,” but I find it so interesting.

And one of the examples he used was, “Well, we have to do the animal chores in the morning.” So, they have a small farm, donkeys, goats, chickens. And here’s the thing. They don’t have to do that. They could choose to re-home the animals. They could skip the morning chores or do them later. I know the lap of luxury these animals live in and they would be just fine. They could also hire someone to do the chores for them.

There’s always a choice and with each choice, we hone in on our priorities. They don’t want to re-home the animals. They love them. They love bringing the special treats in the morning and moving the donkeys to the track to watch them play and run. They don’t have to do those things. They want to. And maybe they decide it’s not worth the money to pay someone else, or in that choice, they realize that they actually enjoy it and might miss it and don’t want someone else doing it for them.

And so, then it’s like, okay, so if we’re feeling pinched about time, in that exploration, they might find they’d rather free up time in another way, adjusting something they don’t enjoy as much. What a different feeling than to feel we’re held hostage by an obligation. And maybe it’s just semantics and energy, but I really think it’s worth examining our language about any of these have to’s and deciding if that language is serving us.

Is it helping us find joy? Is it helping us enjoy the things around us? Could examining it as a choice help us understand what we actually want to do and how we want to spend our time and resources?

PAM: Yes. I think what can happen over time is that we make a choice and then it’s new and exciting.

We relish it. It’s fun. And then, over time, we shortcut our language down to, “I have to.”

For me, it feels like as the activity becomes more commonplace in my days, “Every morning I’ve got to go take care of the animals,” my internal language becomes more efficient. “I have to take out the animals, I have to take the dogs out,” all the all the things. “I have to go grocery shopping, I have to clean the bathrooms.”

And I think the word obligation is a great way to describe that feeling and the growing weight of it. And I think we can naturally start to resist that obligation and maybe even start to resent it. So, if our internal “have to” language doesn’t catch our attention, eventually that growing weight of obligation or resentment definitely might. So, time to dig in and see what’s in there. What’s the rub?

And what’s so interesting is so often digging in helped me remember my why. So, you had that wonderful example about the animals. I’m going to take a quick moment to look at cleaning bathrooms, because it is a very basic example. But to give you an idea of ways to dig into those festering feelings.

So, I can remind myself that I enjoy the feeling of walking into a clean bathroom. If I realize that’s even feeling a bit stale for me, I can start there. So, maybe I choose to spruce up the bathroom a bit, bringing in a plant or two, or some art for the walls. Maybe I print out an inspirational quote or two that makes me smile, or a couple of pictures that make me laugh and I tape them to the mirror. How can I more enjoy walking into this mostly utilitarian room?

I find that is such a fun way to look at things. It’s like, cleaning the bathroom, what do you mean decorating it or whatever? But that is a wonderful aspect to look at, too.

I can also contemplate the cleaning schedule that I’m holding myself to. There are no bathroom police that are going to come and arrest me if I don’t stick to it. So, what if I change that up, extending the period between deep cleans? How does that feel? I can try it out and see. That’s something you can always play with and is likely to change over time, depending as the number of people rise and fall.

So, just because we’ve done it weekly for years doesn’t mean it has to be weekly forever more. That frequency may well change over the seasons of our lives.

And we can look at the how. How can I make it easier for me to slip into cleaning? Can I keep the cleaning supplies in the bathroom ready to grab quickly? That may mean having more supplies up front, but they each last longer, because they’re only being used in one bathroom. So, it works itself out. Can I make the process itself more enjoyable? I often put on my headphones and listen to podcasts or sometimes upbeat music to help my body get moving. Or we could also choose to pay for cleaning service if that’s an option. There are just so many possibilities.

So, after taking some time to dig in and discover what’s really rubbing for me, so often, I still do the thing. I clean the bathrooms. But my internal language is much different now, because I remembered how much choice and agency I have. It may not be the most fun I’ll have all day, but I remember why I want to do it and I’ve made the process more pleasurable, particularly the bits of the process that were rubbing me the wrong way. My internal language is lighter. Maybe even, “I want to clean the bathrooms today,” rather than that obligatory weight of, “I have to.”

It’s so fascinating to see that we can find choice even in the most mundane bits and pieces of life.

ANNA: And just how different it feels when we do. I mean, those choices all along the way. And I think the money piece that I talked about is a really interesting way to check in. So, do I want to pay somebody to do this? Does it have that value or is it not that big of a deal? Is my time more valuable there?

It’s playing with it, asking questions that we talk so much about. It just opens up instead of getting stuck in the weight of the have to’s. So, yeah, I love that, because again, I just really think it helps us hone in on our priorities and get back to that why, like you said, and then we know, okay, I got these animals for a reason and I like having a clean bathroom and that’s why I’m doing it for me. Whatever those things are, getting back to that why.

PAM: Yeah. And I love that priority piece. That was episode number one, because that is so foundational, playing around with our priorities and the time that we’ve got, the things that we want to do. We can always bring it back there to realize that we have choices with all the things that we think are on our plate.

ANNA: Yes. And it just really changes things. But I do want to talk about times when it feels like there really is no choice, that life has happened to us. There’s a tragedy, a death, a loss of something that’s out of our control, because that’s going to happen to all of us. It’s certainly happened to me and realizing I still had the choice of how I react made all the difference in moving through those difficult events. No, I couldn’t change the fact that the job was lost or the injury happened, but I could decide how I was going to let that impact my mood, how I was feeling, and how I wanted to move through the world.

So, for me, that helped me to put things into perspective and to feel again, that life wasn’t just happening to me. I’ve had some pretty difficult things happen to me over the years. We all have, but the times I’m able to ground back into who I want to be, how I want to learn from what’s happening around me, and how I want to find joy, even in the darkest moments, those were the times that I moved through the events with the most ease. It’s not easy necessarily, but with more ease than when I was fighting and bucking against the reality of what was happening.

And, for me, gratitude was a big part of that. Finding those little spots of gratitude is a choice, and I found that I could find them even in the darkest of days. And with that choice, that first move towards looking for the tiny points of light, the shifts would start and new ways forward would present themselves.

PAM: Yes, definitely. Things happen in our lives that are out of our control. Times where we find ourselves just reacting to things. It can feel like our life has come to a standstill with this big thing. And for a time, that can definitely be helpful, because it needs immediate attention, right? Yet moving through these challenging events often takes time and staying stuck in that emergency mode can have its consequences.

So, for me, once the initial shock and overwhelm began to ease a bit, I found it helpful to gently remind myself to come back to the present whenever I noticed myself getting stuck in my head with my swirling thoughts. Because in the present, I slowly began to notice those bits and pieces of life that are happening around me. Those spots of gratitude, as you mentioned, Anna, even small ones, like how the light comes through the window, a moment of connection with my child that makes me smile. Continuing to bring myself to the present, soon I was open enough to start to see more possibilities, new ways forward that I couldn’t see when I was like stuck in tunnel vision. I began to see choices.

ANNA: Yes. And that’s what it’s all about, finding our way to just seeing the choice in the moments. And so, this leads to another area where our choices influence our perspective. And it’s an area where we often give away our powers. And it’s, we tell our own stories. We’re the creators, we’re the writers, we’re the orators of these stories of our lives.

And digging into stories is so important to us that we’re going to do an entire episode on it in a couple weeks, but I think it’s worth talking about it right now in this context of choice and seeing how it’s playing out in our days, because our stories have a way of defining us for ourselves and for others. For ourselves, they become this sort of self-talk. If that talk is negative and full of worry and distress, then we can become that. If that talk is positive and full of joy and gratitude, then we become that. We start to embody it.

For others, it colors the way they see us. They trust that our story is our truth. And if that truth is steeped in frustration and anger, then we can attract the frustrated and angry, because it’s that whole misery loved company thing. And if that truth is infused with joy and gratitude, we tend to attract the people that are looking for joy and gratitude. And I’ve found that, for me, where I put my energy is the areas that I’m growing. And so, I just want to be really aware of that. And so, again, it just boils down to this choice. How do we want to spend our energy and what do we want to attract with it?

PAM: Yeah. The stories we tell ourselves and those around us have such a big impact on us. So, I am really looking forward to diving into that idea more deeply in a couple of weeks. But it is also a great lens to consider when we’re thinking about choice, because if the story we’re telling ourselves and the people around us is that we don’t have a choice, that we have to do X, Y, Z, that’s most likely going to be the one we all run with. So often, we treat our stories as facts. “This is the situation. Now where do we go from here?” And that’s where people join us.

So, if our story is grounded in frustration and full of have to’s, that’s where they join us, often sharing their frustrations and just generally tossing around in the muck with us. Back to that misery loves company. But if our story is steeped in choice and possibilities, that’s where they’ll jump in with us. Oh, that is a big change. Best of luck with that. Have you considered this? They’re just generally more supportive and helpful. And both stories can absolutely be true to the facts. But we get to choose which one we tell ourselves and others, which one feels better to us in the moment. And that is not a trick question. Sometimes what feels better is to vent, right?

But it is absolutely helpful to remember that it’s a choice and we don’t need to stick to that version of our story forever.

ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. We can change a story when it stops serving us. That’s another big revelation. Like, “Oh, this story I’ve been hanging onto, I can change it up.” So, lots to consider there.

So, we’re going to leave you with a few questions to ponder.

First, do you find yourself saying, “I have to,” a lot? Really listen, because actually we don’t even always notice it.

PAM: That’s so true.

ANNA: Tune in. Can you find any patterns around when you see it happening more frequently? And kind of like you talked about, Pam, it tends to be those under-resourced moments, where we kind of start clicking off the have to’s and the giant list and all the things.

How does it feel to think about having choices in each moment?

PAM: So, I think that’ll be a big one. You don’t even have to like move forward with it, but just take a moment to think, “Oh, what if I had a choice?” If you can’t see a choice yet. But it could even just be how does it feel to think about, “Oh, what if there were choices?” And that I think can be the first little baby step.

ANNA: I’m so curious how my friend’s husband’s going to think about some of this stuff, because he listens to the podcast. And so, what does it feel like to just think, but what if you did have a choice? What if you let go of that story that you don’t?

So, another thing is, what helps you find your center when you’re moving through a challenge? I think that can just be really helpful, because we’re going to keep getting challenge. So, helping people understand what helps us move through that, what helps it feel a bit more with ease, what helps us find that gratitude, whatever it is that feels good.

And lastly, what choices do you see around the stories you are currently telling about your life? Yeah, that’s going to be good. Because we’re always telling stories. If you’re sitting there listening, going, “I don’t know if I have stories,” no, you do. You have stories. And let’s look at them like, because these can be things we are carrying with us for a long time. And again, check back in a couple weeks when we really dig into stories as well.

So, just thinking about this idea of choice, I think is just interesting. Play with it. How does it feel? What feels better? How does it work? So, yeah, I think it’s going to be fun.

PAM: Yes, I think so, too. And that stories one, too. As you said, if you don’t think you’re telling stories, I think just take a pull back and instead of choices around the stories you’re telling yourself, think about, what stories am I telling myself? Just start to look through the lens of story and see how that feels. See what you see. I think it’ll be so interesting to dive into.

ANNA: Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye-bye.

PAM: Bye.

**EU392: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Strong Beliefs** Oct 09, 2025

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and this time, we’re talking about unschooling with strong beliefs.

Sometimes our strong beliefs can be a stumbling block along our journey when we put the belief ahead of our relationships. When those moments come up in our families, it can help to remember that our own strong beliefs work for us, for now, but that people are different. And leaving space for people to choose what works for them can strengthen our connection and build trust. Whether the strong belief is about food, spending time in nature, early bedtimes, a particular type of social interaction, or anything else, taking time to peel back the layers and examine how these beliefs affect our relationships can be so enlightening!

We really enjoyed diving into this topic and we hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

**THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE**

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, coaching, and more!

The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about supporting our children’s autonomy. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

**EPISODE TRANSCRIPT**

ERIKA: Hello, everyone! I’m Erika Ellis from Living Joyfully and I’m joined by my co-hosts, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia. Hello to you both.

So, today we’re going to be talking about another unschooling stumbling block, which is when parents have strong beliefs. It’s a topic that comes up a lot and I’m really excited for this conversation.

But before we begin, I wanted to invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network, which has been really life changing for me in so many ways. On the Network, we have amazing discussions about so many topics, since our community has such a wide variety of experiences. Everyone there is really learning and growing and being intentional with their families. It’s really unlike any other online community that I’ve found.

The Living Joyfully Network offers such powerful support, especially during those moments when questions and fears come up or if you’re new to unschooling and just need a place where people understand what you’re going through. If you’d like to learn more about the Network and check it out for yourself, you can visit livingjoyfullyshop.com and click on the Community tab. We’ll also leave a link in the show notes and we would love to meet you there!

So, Pam, would you like to get us started about unschooling with strong beliefs?

PAM: Strong beliefs, yes. I would very much like to do that, because exploring the idea of strong beliefs has definitely inspired an important paradigm shift for me on this journey. Because, of course we can hold beliefs so strongly that it feels like a truth for us, but the big shift for me around this was recognizing that it was my truth and that didn’t mean that it was a universal truth. Because, as we may have mentioned, people are different! My kids, my partner, my friends, they aren’t me.

And yes, a strong belief I hold is something that is working well for me, right, that helps me care for myself, helps me be the person that I want to be but that strength of that belief comes from so much experience. I’ve probably tried on numerous different perspectives along the way that didn’t quite click or that maybe sent me in a direction that I eventually found I didn’t like. So, trying to wholesale drop my strong belief and all the experience that comes with it onto someone else’s lap just isn’t going to land with that depth of understanding.

And as I was thinking about it, to me, it’s really like that web of learning that I talk about. So many bits of life are connected in interesting ways and that’s what’s bringing the richness of understanding, not that one point of information or a belief that is disconnected from a person’s experience.

So, I remember thinking back when I was first playing with this paradigm shift, I just kind of stopped jumping in to share my strong belief in the moment. And it felt a bit like I was betraying myself by not sharing my hard earned knowledge with the people that I loved, earnestly trying to convince them of its validity and that it’s the one right way in the circumstances, like it makes sense.

But when I managed to put the “it makes sense to me, let’s see how things unfold here,” oh my gosh, they unfolded in such interesting ways, in ways that I could see and I look back on that moment more closely aligned with the person that they were at that time, and in ways that they learned something that stayed with them. It was a meaningful experience for them instead of me popping in with what the cumulative belief of all my meaningful experiences along the way.

So, it doesn’t mean that I’m tossing my belief, because I know it works well for me. And nor does it mean never sharing what works for me. Those are like the opposite ends of that spectrum, and at first I needed to not share so I could see well, what would happen? Would the world end? Would they choose like something that I wouldn’t choose and it was a big catastrophe? Those pieces did not happen.

So, for me, it came to me just being more careful to share my stronger beliefs without the energy of an expectation that others take it on as their truth. I want to be in that space or that mindset first before I share, where I can see it has more information that I’m sharing with them. They learn a little bit about me, because this is something that is meaningful to me and makes sense for me and so they see how I kind of see the world, how I navigate things, and they’re welcome to try it out and see if it fits for them, see if they might want to tweak it without any fear of feeling judged by me if it didn’t work for them, at least for now. It’s not that this is your one opportunity to decide or not to adopt this belief wholesale. There are going to be so many experiences now and into the future.

There are experiences now where I get to revisit my strong beliefs and see if they are still working for me and see if they’re still making sense. So each moment is just like another point in that web of learning, another piece of experience that we can bring with us and it just makes the next time something similar comes up a richer moment because we have more experience and more thoughts and stuff to draw from as we come up with the plan for this time.

ANNA: Yeah, I think the thing that stood out for me that you were just talking about is how unique our journey is to the strong belief and how it is so involved. We really don’t just kind of pop with a strong belief out of nowhere. It comes from this experience. It comes from going down a road that was maybe the opposite and realizing that doesn’t feel good. We’re taking in information. So, again, so personality-dependent. Have I done a lot of research about this? And I feel really strongly and I’ve done all these pieces. But that’s what holds it up is all of that experience that I’m bringing to that moment. So, like you said, we just really can’t hand it over to someone and think that it’s going to have the same meaning to them.

And I think the challenge becomes, too, if we’re coming at people with the strong belief and not really giving them a chance to even have a chance to figure out if it works for them and try it on. We’re coming with this judgment piece. That was the other thing you said that I thought was important. I think it can lead people to believe we’re judging them if they don’t hold the same strong belief, whether that’s our children or partner or friends. And so, that’s not where we foster understanding. That’s not where we foster connection.

Because I do have strong beliefs, 100%. I have strong beliefs. But like you said, it’s from my learning what I know about me. And I can get excited about sharing those beliefs. But just like you, I had to go through a process of like slowing some of that down, making sure there was room for conversation, understanding what’s happening with the people around me so that we could have a more rich conversation and it didn’t feel like that judgment piece was coming in.

ERIKA: I mean, it is such an interesting and rich topic. And that’s why I think it comes up a lot. Because what it can feel like is, when we’re the one with the strong belief, it can feel like, “But this is a fact. And my child is going against this fact of life that I know in my heart is so true and right and good.”

And so, that’s where you get those relationship rubs. But if we come in really believing there is only this one right way, then we can put a lot of judgment on the other person, not give them room to come up with their own answers to things. And we forget about that whole history that we have of, how did we even get to have this belief? And I know we’ve seen lots of examples, just around of people who have had a strong belief that they grew up with and then change it in adulthood. Strong beliefs, even when they’re that strong, can change.

And so, I think just remembering that and noticing that there’s not one right way. And no matter what belief you’re thinking about, whether it’s something about diet or something about a religious belief or something about the right way to do a certain thing, any belief that you can kind of think of, you can find people who are doing it another way and it’s working out okay for them. And so, I think just noticing that, remembering that, and any time I start thinking, “They should do this,” you know, “They should be like this, I figured it out and this is the way,” that’s a good clue for me to kind of pause and get a little more curious about like, okay, this is probably my strong belief and not something that I need to give to everyone else.

But I think also there could be excitement about our strong beliefs that make it hard to not try to put that on everyone else, especially if we’ve been through a long period of learning and figuring out and trying to see, like, okay, what is the best diet? And then we start eating this way and we feel great and we want to convince everyone in the world. And so that comes from a good place. But once you start to see the kind of rubs in the relationship, either with your kids or other people in your lives, I think that’s interesting. It’s just another place to do that navigating of our relationships.

PAM: I think what helped me, because thinking back, that deschooling season of our journey when we’re questioning so many things, so it sparked, Erika, when you said it feels like a truth, right? And so, what was helping me was also exploring what we’ve come to describe as people are different.

Because it’s so easy to just assume other people are experiencing the world the same way we are, right? Because that is the only lens we have. So, the idea that people are different, that people could be experiencing things differently. We talk about sometimes not putting ourselves in their shoes, but looking through their eyes. All those ideas alongside, they helped me understand how a strong belief could be my truth. Instead of *the* truth.

And that it didn’t diminish it just because it was my truth. It’s a powerful thing, because now that self-awareness that people are different, I can now really own and embrace what’s working for me. So it was just really helpful to be able to see that separation that helped me more embrace my strong belief without feeling I had to give it up, because it wasn’t the truth. Well, then, what is the truth? It’s like, it’s okay that it works for me. And there are some really good reasons why it may not work for someone else. It may not work for my child.

Whether it’s from personality things, or just experiences, or it’s a different world 20 years later than when I was whatever age. There’s so many different aspects to it. And once you start to see the context, right? We talk about context so much. Then being able to bring that to this strong beliefs conversation going on in my head was really helpful.

ANNA: Yeah, I think the people are different thing is so critical here. And I feel like my kids definitely led the way with this paradigm shift for me. And even in little ways, like we experience temperature different. So, my mom was always like, have a coat on the kids, you know, that’s a thing. That’s a good parent. You’re bringing coats and putting coats on your kids. Not in Miami, but this is like up here where I live. And so I’m thinking, okay, that’s what you do.

But then I had a child that just ran hot. Did not want to wear shoes, did not want to wear coats. And I’m like, okay, why do I have a belief that somehow this is tied to like good parenting? And so, just that little bit of, she’s experiencing this exact same situation differently, even though that’s not a super strong belief, it started to crack that open for me to be like, okay, we actually do really have different experiences of the world.

We really do. Even something that, I mean, well, the temperature saying this shouldn’t that mean that you’re cold? But no, it doesn’t, because we’re all so different. And then it starts to go, oh, I’m really grounded outside and feel great when I move my body outside. This child doesn’t. It’s itchy and it’s scratchy and it’s warm and it doesn’t feel good and they don’t like it. Oh, okay. But aren’t we supposed to do this?

So then, it was just like slowly, this crack just got wider and wider as I realized we really do experience the world so differently. And then I feel like Pam, because you’ve been talking about open and curious for so long, that’s what I switched to. Like, okay, so if it’s not what I think it’s supposed to be, if it’s not, there’s this one right way, I want to be curious about how we’re finding our right ways and what that looks like.

And so it was, it was a really fascinating process for me. I really do remember these steps along the way, because I had a lot of strong opinions. I still do, but I was much more militant about them in my twenties, in early life for sure.

ERIKA. Yeah. I was thinking it feels like this is something that grows in with age, it becomes easier to see that everyone has their own beliefs as I get older, where in those college years and a little beyond that, it was like, no, there’s one right way and I know what it is. And so, that’s funny.

And I was thinking about this conversation also, once you start thinking about, what are my own strong beliefs? It’s possible that some of them are so externally influenced, that maybe they’re not even our own strong beliefs. Maybe they’re just part of a culture that we’re trying to be a part of. I’m thinking things like kids need to be outdoors or kids should go to bed early or things that you may see around you in parenting circles or with parent friends.

But if you sit down and really start to think about it, maybe those aren’t my actual strong beliefs. Maybe it’s just something that I’m hearing a lot and so that it starts to feel like it’s important. And so, yeah, just anytime if my kid’s pushing against being outside because it doesn’t feel good and it’s so hot and humid and sticky and terrible, it’s like, okay, so which is more important? The going outside and pushing that or is listening to them and knowing that people are different? I mean, there are still people enjoying being outside during this season in Miami and we aren’t and that’s okay.

But if I was going to take on that belief of, this is so important and everyone needs to spend time outside, it could get in the way of my relationship with my kids.

PAM: Yeah, I think that’s such a great point that some of our strong beliefs maybe were just adopted as the conventional wisdom that we hear all the time. So, that’s why it is so valuable to just take that moment to ask ourselves, where is that coming from? And is it something like that makes sense to me?

That was one of the things I did a lot of questioning about as we came to unschooling, which was like, so what does my experience look like? At first it was my experience with school growing up, that came with me wholesale, but what exactly did that look like? Which parts worked better for me? Which ones were more challenging? So taking the conventional wisdom around school and then asking, is that really true? And then looking back at my own literal experience to see what I could discover and then start to understand what it actually looked like to me and what I believed about it versus just the conventional story that I had just kind of adopted wholesale.

But it’s not like we can do this with everything all the time, right? It’s pretty challenging work and also, I mean, that’s what conventional wisdom is for, helping you move quickly through something. Oh, well, most people do it this way. I don’t think that’s going to make a big mess and we do it and totally good. Those are our shortcuts.

But it’s when they start to do things, right? Like rub in a relationship or end us up in a place where we’re not feeling comfortable anymore after we do the thing, like this isn’t working for me as I was hoping. And so, that is one other aspect I wanted to bring up too is when our strong beliefs get woven in with our personal values. Like, I value being open, as in sharing a level of details. Or I want us like to be an outdoor family. I want us to be out doing things or I want us to have dinners together or like whatever it is that we feel is a personal value but to recognize when we like a value like that actually isn’t just our own, right? It’s not a personal value. It includes other people when you have a family that you think should all be having dinner together and it can be so tricky.

I definitely had that and tried to do that, right? But navigating a value that requires other people to participate in it, oh my gosh, that’s when the rubs can start, right? And you can start to realize and question, is this really something that’s important to me? Why is it important to me? What does it look like? Because you start putting expectations on others and then you start looking through their eyes and you can see, oh I can see why this isn’t working for them, etc. It’s just like another, as you were saying, Erika, another good clue that we might want to revisit something and is it and just trying to think through like is this a value? Is this a belief? How am I bringing that into the world? Who am I expecting to not just take my belief but participate in my belief?

ANNA: Right. And I’m so glad you brought this one up. I definitely wanted you to, because I think it’s so critical. And I hope I’m going to articulate this in a way that makes sense, but there was an example on the Network around this that was interesting, because the strong belief that was kind of praised as a personal value was that everyone needs to contribute to the family as a whole. But it was rubbing. And so, it was causing friction and causing problems.

And you brought this up that that has to be tricky to have this personal belief that you need other people to participate in in order for it to feel good. And what I think is important for me to recognize is when I put it into a personal value which is really this strong belief that’s come and I now I’ve reframed it as a personal value it kind of shuts down the learning for me and for those around me, because I can kind of stand on my high horse of personal value. Like, this is this thing and it is a value that we should all hold to be good people. You can just hear it. It’s like rhetoric, almost. And it’s stopping me from seeing anything else.

And so, that was the clue for me of, oh okay if my personal value is to contribute in this way I can do that, right? That is something that I can do and show up. But if I’m wanting someone else to, I’m not taking them into consideration because we’re not even having a conversation about it. I’ve just already decided that I need you to.

And so, what was cool about the situation in the Network is they really started having different kinds of conversations and they started figuring out how to meet all the needs and they started breaking it down into, okay who feels which way about what things what feels harder? Let’s learn about each other. And so, there was all this rich learning and it became so much richer than standing here on this place of, I’m right because this is this personal value.

And so, I love that additional learning about each other. And to me these are things that are just so important about learning to live with other human beings in general and it’s not about whatever the particular value is, because we all have different ones. And like you said, Erika, it could be the early bird gets the worm so everybody needs to go to bed early and get up early, so they’re filtering from all of these cultural narratives. But then we create it as a value that you’re a better person if you’re doing that, if you’re out there getting this. And so, I think it would just be really fun for people to think about, where do I have this strong belief and is it about diet or sleep or parenting or whatever? And again, it’s not about letting go of the strong belief, because you know I’m a huge advocate for children I have a lot of strong beliefs about how I would love all children to be treated, but if I stand there I’m not learning, I’m not reaching, I’m not connecting with anybody. And so, that’s kind of what sticks out for me, and so I love that you brought that point up.

ERIKA: Yeah, I really liked that conversation on the Network, too, and I feel like what was interesting about it is that if I feel like I have a value of everyone in the family contributes and that feels like very important and sacred and wonderful to me, then I think everyone else should also feel that way and that the work that they do to contribute is coming because we have that same shared value/belief. And so, it’s coming from this deeper place.

And so, then that’s why it rubs, because if they’re not doing chores, it doesn’t just mean they were busy, it means they don’t value the family in the same way that I do. Because it’s equating two things that aren’t necessarily equal. And so, if the thing is we need to get all the chores done around the house, that’s one conversation. If it’s, I like to feel connected as a family, that’s an entirely different conversation where we could figure out other ways to feel connected to each other that don’t have to be we’re all working together to clean the house.

Because obviously people are going to have different opinions about what feels good. And so, yeah it was just super interesting and fun to unpack some of these beliefs for ourselves.

PAM: Yeah exactly. And I think what you mentioned there, Erika, too, is it just bubbled up for me how often as well that whole productivity conversation comes up. Because, oh if I can make this thing mean this and this and this that’s effective and efficient and like we bundle it all together and hand it to somebody else. But they don’t know all these nuanced meanings and all the little tick boxes that we’re checking off in our head that this means and they’re just like maybe doing the thing.

ERIKA: Like for a family dinner, I could totally picture that, where someone in the family is like, well I’m not hungry, so I don’t want to eat right now. But then it’s like, no but to me, it’s everything. This is our only moment of connection and it’s so important and deep. And so, yeah a lot more conversations and peeling apart the parts that you’re wanting.

ANNA: Right! Because, in that situation, are we even communicating that? So, we have it in our head that the family dinner means we’re all valuing each other and finding out about each other’s day, but have we said that? Or are we just saying, come to dinner? Because again, that child who’s not hungry may be like, oh but if you want to hear about my day or I could hear about your day, that might be fine. But it’s interesting to think about how much we do in our head with these ideas and how much we’re putting on it, which maybe we aren’t even communicating. And that’s why those conversations can be so helpful to figure out what are the priorities for each person. And how do we make sure we meet those in a way that feels good to everybody?

ERIKA: Well, this one has been a lot of fun! We hope you enjoyed our conversation and maybe had an aha moment or picked up some ideas to consider on your own unschooling journey. If you enjoy these kinds of conversations I think you would love the Living Joyfully Network. It’s such an amazing group of people connecting, having thoughtful conversations about all the things we encounter in our unschooling lives and you can learn more at livingjoyfullyshop.com. Just click on community at the top of the page and we hope to meet you there.And you can also check out our new Substack at whenschoolisntworking.substack.com. Thank you for listening and we’ll see you next time.

ANNA AND PAM: Bye!

**EU132 Flashback: Deschooling Two Cultures with Iris Chen** Sep 25, 2025

In this episode, we’re sharing a conversation that Pam had with Iris Chen in 2018. At the time, Iris was new to unschooling her two sons in China and was writing blog posts about her experience at her website, Untigering. Pam and Iris talked about why she and her husband decided to move to China, her family’s move to unschooling, what unschooling in China looks like, deschooling expectations around achievement, feeling like an outsider in both Chinese and American societies, and lots more!

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

QUESTIONS FOR IRIS

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?

I love how you describe your blog, untigering.com, on your about page: “Untigering is a blog about my adventures of trying to be parent in the tension of my Chineseness and Americanness. It’s about me moving away from being a typical tiger mom, but still wanting to hold on to my cultural heritage. It’s about figuring out what I believe about identity, family, and success as an outsider to both societies.” Let’s start with your shifting definition of success. You and your husband were well on your way to fulfilling the “American Dream” when you guys did a complete 180. How did that come about?

And then you had children. How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?

I’m really curious about unschooling in China. Can you share a bit about your experience and the pros and cons you see?

You have a great blog post about the value of letting go of expectations, especially ones around achievement. When a child dives into an interest it’s so easy for us to start envisioning that as their lifelong passion and career, like we need to rationalize to ourselves that it’s okay to let them have at it. Maybe we try to convince ourselves we’re just being supportive, but it can quickly backfire, can’t it?

I’d love to talk some more about your experience with the tension of feeling like an outsider in both Chinese and American societies. Can you share your thoughts around the process of weaving together your cultural heritage with what you’re discovering makes sense to you about children, learning, parenting, and family? What does that look like for you?

You recently published a blog post titled, ‘Unschooling as an Asian American is an Act of Resistance.’ I thought it was a great piece and was hoping you’d share your thoughts about it here.

What is your favourite thing about unschooling right now?

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

Iris’s blog, untigering.com

Scott Noelle’s podcast episode

The Alliance for Self-Directed Education

Peter Gray’s article, Kids Learn Math Easily When They Control Their Own Learning

Iris’s blog post, Pros and Cons of Unschooling in China

Iris’s blog post, 3 Unschooling Expectations and Why We Shouldn’t Have Them

Idzie Desmarais’s blog post, In Praise of The Unexceptional: Because Unschooling Doesn’t Have to Be Impressive

Iris recently went to see the play Soft Power

Iris’s blog post, Unschooling as an Asian American is an Act of Resistance

Iris’s Facebook page, Untigering: Adventures of a deconstructing Tiger Mother

The Living Joyfully Shop – books, courses, including *Four Pillars of Unschooling* and *Navigating Conflict*, coaching calls, and more!

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about seasons—in unschooling and in life. Come and be part of the conversation!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive *The Living Joyfully Dispatch*, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, *What is Unschooling?*

Listen to our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @pamlaricchia on Instagram and Facebook.

Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Welcome! I’m Pam Laricchia from livingjoyfully.ca, and today I’m here with Iris Chen. Hi Iris!

IRIS: Hello Pam.

PAM: Hello! Iris is an unschooling mom and I came across her work a few months ago. I really enjoyed reading around her website, untigering.com, and I was super excited when she agreed to come on the podcast!

So, to get us started Iris …

Can you share with us a little bit about you and your family?

IRIS: Sure! So, I am a Chinese American, and I was born in the States and grew up in the States and Canada actually. After I got married, we moved out to China to teach English, and then we had two boys out there in China.

And I’ve only been unschooling for about a year but have really just fallen in love with it.

PAM: Oh, that’s awesome, yeah, and it’s doesn’t take too long once you start diving in, does it? If it’s for you, if it’s a good match, it just sucks you right in, right?

IRIS: Yes, yes.

PAM: So, I love how you describe your blog, untigering.com, in your about page and I just wanted to read a little quote from it.

“Untigering is about my adventures of me trying to be an parent in the tension of my Chineseness and Americanness. It’s about me wanting to move away from being a tiger mom, but still wanting to hold on to my cultural heritage. It’s about figuring out what I believe about identity, family and success, as an outsider to both societies.”

And look! I got goosebumps again just as I was reading it.

Let’s start with your shifting definition of success. That’s a big one we talk about quite a bit here on the podcast, and as you mentioned, you and your husband were well on your way to fulfilling the “American Dream” when you did that complete 180 and moved to China. I’m really interested in hearing how that came about.

IRIS: Yeah!

So, we lived in the Silicon Valley. It’s a very driven, very ambitious culture here, and, at that time, my husband had been working for five years as an electrical engineer, and was doing well, and we were living a very comfortable, good life.

But I think we just wanted something different; we wanted something meaningful. We wanted to be of service somewhere. And we wanted a sense of adventure too, something different. And so, we went to China just planning on teaching English for just a year—we didn’t expect on staying out for very long.

We were going to give it a year and have a good time with it. But once we got out there, we just fell in love with it—fell in love with the people and the culture. I mean we are both Chinese, but yeah, just really falling in love with the people and the culture there. And ended up staying for the next 15 years and have been there ever since!

PAM: Was the biggest piece when you were talking about wanting to feel like you were doing service kinds of work, helping people—that was something you felt was missing? Was that a big chunk of it?

IRIS: Yeah.

I think sometimes when you stay in your own culture, you are stuck in these scripts or these tracks that ‘everybody around you is doing this,’ ‘everybody else is buying their house and having children,’ or whatever. And I think we just wanted to be intentional about the choices we made—we didn’t want to just do what everybody else was doing. But we also wanted to make intentional choices about what we wanted to do with our lives.

PAM: That’s cool! So, it was noticing that you on this track, I guess, the definition of success for people, right? And you guys were rocking that.

IRIS: Yeah, yeah, we were doing well…

PAM: And it became time to question it. Is that how?

IRIS: Yeah, Definitely. And not to say that that is wrong, but are we being intentional and mindful about that choice. For us, we just felt like that wasn’t our path, that wasn’t our calling. We wanted something different for our lives.

PAM: I love that point too, because, just because it’s conventional doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, right? Like, you said, just knowing which path is feeling good for you and is working for you, right?

IRIS: Right, exactly! I feel that follows really closely with unschooling too. It’s not that you can’t have a conventional education, or you can’t go to college. It’s not about that. It’s about doing it intentionally and because it’s meaningful and purposeful for you. Don’t because it’s just with you do.

PAM: I love that word, purposeful, because that shows the intention behind it, right? Because unschooling lives can run the gamut for young adults. And some, when you’re looking from the outside, can look very conventional, and some can look very unconventional, but they are all, either way, lived with intention and purpose. I love that.

IRIS: Yes yes yes.

PAM: I love that.

So, you guys went, and you spent your year there, in China, and you had children. I’m curious to see how that phase went, and then how you discovered unschooling and what your move to unschooling looked like. You said that was about a year ago?

IRIS: Yeah. I had this blog called untigering, because I think I was a typical tiger mom. Like, I had very high standards for what I wanted my kids to do and to study. It was my full intention to send them—well, at first we were considering conventional homeschooling, and then we were thinking about sending them to local, Chinese school, because we were living in China. We thought that if we send them to local school, they will be fluent; they will be bilingual in both Chinese and English, and that was sort of like a high priority for me, so we were really trying to get them into a local school.

But that didn’t really work out because they didn’t have enough space for foreigners, so we went another option where we went to like a local, private Chinese school. And I think we had a good experience there, but after a few years there, I felt that there was a lot about the schooling mindset that I didn’t agree with—that didn’t resonate with me. Because I had sort of part-time homeschooled them when they were younger, I felt that there was just a lot of wasted time, a lot of busy work. A lot of it was meaningless, that you just felt like you had to do as part of school.

And I was also teaching there at that school, and I was sucked into those types of patterns too, even though I didn’t believe in them, like giving homework just to give homework, or seeing what the results of grades like a mark did. They just cared about looking at the grade, they didn’t care about whether or not they understood the material. Or, even seeing my kids. They did really well in that environment, but then noticing that they were doing things more for the affirmation of the teacher; like, they were trying to get recognition and saying, “Look! Look at this!” And comparisons and stuff like that.

So, I was noticing, even though they were doing well, attitudes that were inadvertently passed on to them because of this environment. I had not really been exposed to unschooling, but I listened to a parenting conference and one of the speakers was Scott Noelle who is part of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education, I think, and he wasn’t really talking about unschooling, but at the end of his talk, he referenced it.

Then I went to the website and read what self-directed education was about. I just really resonated with it and felt like, “Oh, this is something that I really believe in; or I want to believe in.” It was a very radical way—at least for me—of looking at education and sort of letting go of the reins. But there was something very appealing for me, especially since, at the time, I had to think of other options, because the school that I was sending my kids to was shutting down.

Pretty much my only option was to homeschool, and yet I was really stressed by that idea because I knew that if I took a schooling mindset and applied it to homeschooling, that would just create so much stress in my family life and for my kids because I’d just be this really controlling mom trying to get them to do their work. And I didn’t want to do that!

And so, once I discovered unschooling, yeah, I think I just really resonated with it, and was excited about what that meant for my relationship with my kids and a way that we could homeschool that would just work for us.

PAM: That’s cool! Yeah!

You were mentioning that you were teaching at the school and you were doing all the things that were expected. You mentioned, giving homework, paying attention to grades, and using that as a measure etc. And it’s so interesting to see that, and you were doing it because you had to in that situation, and then imagining having to do that at home, because it wasn’t something that you really believed in. Is that kind of how it felt, like you would have to bring that home?

IRIS: Yeah, definitely. And actually, in the school environment, I felt frustrated, because I was behaving in ways that I didn’t believe in either. Like, maybe I was just putting on that teacher hat and feeling like I had to be very authoritarian in some ways, like, “sit in your seat, pay attention, follow along,” you know…

PAM: Yeah, you were playing that role rather than being yourself.

IRIS: Yeah. Right. Like, interacting with them in the way that I would if they were just my kids or we were just home together. So, just the role of being a teacher and being in that role meant something to me, where I needed to be the one imparting information and they needed to absorb it or whatever, so…

PAM: And I guess it might be a little bit easier trying to do that within the institution because all the teachers are doing it, whereas at home, ‘Oh now it will just be me trying to play that role.’ That could be a lot harder!

IRIS: I don’t think my kids would like it, would respond well to it either, me always wearing the teacher hat.

PAM: Yeah, that’s such a good point too. So, did the school close? Did you guys finish out they year there, and then the school closed, and then you kind of transitioned into it at home?

IRIS: Yes. So, the school closed and we transitioned to what we were doing at home. A lot of the kids—it was a private, local school, and so all of the kids are pretty much local Chinese kids—they went back to their different situations, like, to a local school, or a private school, or to other options. But yeah, for us, we ended up homeschooling.

PAM: Did you pretty much end up unschooling at home from the beginning?

IRIS: At that point, yeah. It was sort of like we had our summer off and then we started.

At the beginning, I was like, “There’s a few things that we are going to do,” so, I wasn’t in total “jump in the deep end.” We were still in the process of deschooling. So, I was like, “We still gotta do math.” You know, “We’re Asians, we do math!” At that point, I was not yet ready to let go of that and felt like that needed to be taught. And then we did other things like Chinese class and piano class, but other than that, I was really able to sort of let the rest of it go.

I would read to them—sometimes I would pick a book or they would pick a book and I would read aloud to them. But the rest of the day was pretty open and they could do what they wanted to do. But I think after a few weeks into it, because of my changing views and my philosophy of unschooling, making them do math didn’t make sense to me anymore. Because, if I truly believe that kids can learn through life and learn naturally in ways that are meaningful for them, then why was I making them sit and fill out these worksheets that didn’t have meaning for them?

And I also read, I think it was a Peter Gray article about learning math, and how kids in the future if they want to go into a field that requires math, that they can actually learn it really quickly, because they already have the skills to know how to learn. So, they *don’t* have to spend their entire childhood spending hours and hours doing workbooks and learning math, they can just go on and learn it really quickly if they want to. And so, I think hearing those things and wrestling with it a little more allowed me to let go of the math. So yeah, I no longer require them do math. That was part of my deschooling process.

PAM: Oh absolutely. I think whatever “the thing” is for us—whether it’s math, or maybe it’s reading, or spelling. That was something that I held onto for a little while, just for the first couple of weeks. Because, whatever that one thing is, then we see them all the rest of the time, and see how much they are learning, and we see them in action. And we’re continuing to learn and read ourselves. So, I think that’s a pretty normal transition time, because there’s always that one last thing that it’s hard for us to let go of. But as we keep going just a few weeks, it starts to gel together and we can kind of release that last big thing, right?

IRIS: Yeah. Absolutely.

The other two things that I was holding onto was Chinese—Chinese language lessons—and piano. And we live in China, so it sort of made sense. And with piano, that is something that they had wanted to do when they were younger, but it’s been four years and we were still having them do it, and sometimes there was a lot of tension around piano practice and stuff like that. So, it wasn’t until more recently, maybe a couple of months ago, where we actually again had to question why we were continuing those activities and whether or not those activities were things that our kids wanted to do.

So, we put them before them and asked, “Do you want to continue? These are the reasons that we think, from our perspective, but what do you guys think?” And it was interesting, because they didn’t really want to continue with the Chinese lessons, but they did want to continue with the piano. That was actually really affirming to us in a way, because we had thought that maybe if we didn’t force them to do it that they wouldn’t do either. But to know that once they had the option to consider for themselves and really tap into their own desires, that they realized that, “I do really want to continue with the piano.” So, now as we move forward, at least with the piano, they can continue with enjoyment, and not feeling like it’s not mom and dad making me do it, but that they are in control.

PAM: That’s a really great point. It is so interesting to see them, executing their agency, I guess, in making choices. And it’s nice to know that you get to that point in the relationship—it might have been a few months till you guys felt like you could ask that question and get a real answer from them; because at first, it could be very reactionary. Like you said, we figured at first it could be like “No I don’t want to do anything because you were making me do that.” But to actually take the time to think about it and to make a choice for what really works for them, right?

**IRIS**: Right, that’s a really good point.

I think sometimes they might react because we have been so controlling and we’ve robbed them of that agency for so long, so, once they have agency they’re like, “Ok, well, I’m just going to rebel, or I’m just going to do my own thing and not do what I know you want me to do.”

But yeah, I think that can be a process too, allowing them to do that until they get to the point where there is that trust and they are like, “Oh, mom and dad honor my choices, and maybe some of what I want to do is what mom and dad want me to do, and that’s okay.”

PAM: Yeah, that’s such a huge process—I call it deschooling for us—but also for the kids too because it’s building that relationship and that trust back in, right? Because if they say no to everything that’s ok too. And when you ask, it’s about being ok with the no. And none of these noes are forever. They can always, like you said, later on, say, “Hey, you know what, I think maybe I do want to pick that back up.”

**But now they’ve gotten to a point in the relationship that they know they are making that choice for themselves, not to please you, and you know that too.**

IRIS: So, that was something that both my husband and I had to be ok with, it like, “Ok, if they say no to both of these things, we have to be ok with this, rather than trying to manipulate them to choose something.” Being ok with the no.

I think with unschooling we are always hoping that they will say yes to something, that they will grab onto something that they really love, but I think that for kids who haven’t been given a lot of freedom, I think the first choice is to say no, and they have to have the freedom to do that.

PAM: That finally helps them to feel powerful when they haven’t felt like they’ve had a lot of power.

I’m really curious to learn more about unschooling in China. I was hoping you could share a bit about your experience and kind of like the pros and cons that you see about unschooling there.

IRIS: Yeah, I actually wrote a blog post about this, and I would be interested to know if there are any other unschoolers in China. I have no idea.

But I think one of the really challenging things is the easy access to information because we have a firewall. It’s really hard to get information online, and I feel like probably for a lot of unschoolers, a lot of the information they get is online. So, that is sometimes really challenging for us. We can’t get on YouTube or Twitter or Instagram or Facebook without a VPN—a virtual private network. Sometimes the Internet makes it hard to get all those things. I think that is a challenge.

I think another thing is just the cultural values is just very high on academics. It’s definitely the whole society is very focused on children doing well in school—getting the good grades, doing well on the tests. We are in an environment that really pushes those types of values. So, we’re pretty weird to them. So that’s also, I guess, another challenge.

And I think there’s also the lack of affordable resources. Whereas here I feel like there’s the library, the community center, there’s the free days at the museum, there’s nature, there’s a lot to work with, and there’s also a community—a pretty strong unschooling or homeschooling community.

I think in China there aren’t a lot of free resources, because most families only have one child and they are willing to pay a lot of money for their child to do cool stuff. And so, a lot of things cost a lot of money, so in that way there aren’t a lot of affordable resources, in my opinion. We do have a homeschooling community, which I’m very, very thankful for, but not necessarily unschooling, so not very many people with the same perspective on schooling.

So those are some of the cons, but those can also be pros too, in my mind. Just the fact that because they culture emphasizes so strongly on academics, people actually see the detrimental parts of that. They see how the system is really broken and they don’t want that for their kids, but their choices are limited and it’s pretty risky for them to try other things. So, in some ways they see a more extreme example of the negative things we see in schooling in the west. They know something needs to change, or something isn’t right here. They can understand the value of more choice, more freedom, more agency. Like, when I tell my friends about it, it’s something that sounds really amazing, but it’s too outside of the box for them at this point.

And I think also the bicultural aspect of living oversees is something that’s built-in for us. This sense of learning from another culture, learning a different language, eating different types of foods. Sort of like the worldschooling thing, right? We are learning from life and our perspective isn’t just based on our own experience or our own culture—you’re exposed to different people and different cultures. So that’s a big one too.

PAM: That’s really interesting. Especially the part that academics are such a big focus, and there’s so much pressure on the kids, they really see the negative effects. And yes, I can see that yeah, it’s totally too out of the box to step away from it, but I can imagine them wanting to figure out ways to support their kids, while still putting the pressure on? You know what I mean? It seems it’s quite a dichotomy, but I can see how, “This is what we have to do, this kind of pressure, but I’m going to help you to live with it, because this is just the way it has to be,” right?

IRIS: Yeah, there’s definitely that attitude, it’s like, “Well, this is the way it is. How can I help and support you? And I know it’s really stressful and unfair, but this is the way it is.”

So, I feel that I recognize that I have a lot of privilege in this in terms of the choices that I have as a foreigner living in America, and, even if I was in America, I’m very thankful for the privilege to not have to send my kids to school. So, I really try to not try to push unschooling upon my Chinese friends, because I know that that’s an unfair standard for them, I guess. All I know is that I believe in it, and I’m going for it, and I will support you in whatever choices that you make because I know that you are doing what’s best for your child too.

PAM: Exactly, because everybody’s choices to make right? And they see you living it. You don’t have to convince them or change their minds or anything. Just by seeing you living it they know it’s an option. I can’t imagine trying to put pressure on that or trying to convince them. That won’t help at all, will it?

**IRISI:** I have talked to some local moms who have chosen alternative ways of doing education and I’m so proud of them. I mean, it’s a really big risk and a really big jump for them. So, I do want to support them as much as I can and to help them to think about education in a different way so that it’s not so scary for them, because it is really scary for them to make choices like that.

PAM: And I mean, that’s the thing about living out in the world as you do—people know you’re there when they have questions or are even just curious. Not even that they are planning a move in the near future, but just curious to learn a little bit more and ask questions. That’s awesome that you’re speaking with them and sharing your experience. That’s awesome. And so, how often do you guys visit in the States then?

IRIS: We come back every summer. I’m not sure how my kids feel. I mean, we grew up in the States, so we are very comfortable in both cultures. I wonder how my kids feel about it? But they love visiting the States and seeing family and everything. We come back every summer for about two months.

PAM: That’s awesome. I will definitely share a link to that blog post.

You also have a great blog post about letting go of expectations especially around achievement—as we’ve been talking about already—but when a child dives into an interest, it’s so easy for us to envision this as “Oh, ok, piano! This is their life-long passion and they can make a career out of it!” And I feel like we almost rationalize to ourselves that it’s ok to let them have at it because, ‘This could be their big career, this could be what they do forever.’ And maybe we realize that that could be pushing a little bit too much, and we try to convince ourselves that we are just supporting him. But that can quickly backfire, can’t it?

IRIS: Yes. I think sometimes that our version of support is actually in the guise of support, but we are actually coming in with our own exceptions, like “Oh, they are going to be amazing at this!” Or, “They are going to go to the Olympics!” Or, “They are going to win an amazing prize!” But we’re actually coming in with our own expectations, and in a lot of ways it’s still about achievement and outside affirmation rather than about the joy and the process of learning something new.

So, maybe part of the appeal of unschooling for me in the beginning was like, ‘Oh, these kids are doing amazing things and they are following their passions, but I think I just read this headline by Idzie Desmarais who writes “I’m Unschooled…” What does she write?

PAM: I’m Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write.

IRIS: Yes, I can write. Yes! And it’s like, sometimes our kids are unexceptional, and why do we have this pressure that we put on our kids to be exceptional and to be a genius at a young age? I mean, some are, and that’s great, but how just to accept our kids where they’re at and just to be fellow sojourners with them in the process of their learning.

I think something that I’m not actually good at right now is actually empowering them and giving them the resources. Sometimes I’m just like, “Oh, just use the free app and see how much you get out of it.” But I don’t know if that’s bad either, because if they really are into it, then they will let me know, and then I will hopefully get them the resources. Maybe in the meantime they can just dabble and that’s ok too.

PAM: Yeah, I think that’s a great point, and I kinda think of it as a dance. I often call it the dance of parenting, because it’s like, you don’t want to overpower them with stuff, and step on their toes and kind of take over like you’re directing, like you’re leading—like in dance terms. But you also want to react to their lead, right? As long as you are reasonably comfortable that in the relationship, if they want more, they’ll say something.

And for us, that’s part of making sure we’re connected, staying connected. Asking them, “How’s that free app going? Did you finish all the stuff that was available there? Did you want a little bit more?” Not always expecting them to come to you. So, again, it’s the dance, right?

You don’t expect them to come, but you don’t want to push too hard, so that they feel like you’re controlling or like you’ve got some kind of expectation hiding in there. So yeah, it’s just the push and pull, back and forth. It’s living together.

IRIS: So, I think that’s something that I really had to learn to step back and hold my tongue and really not try to strew too hard. Like, we go to the library and there’s all these books that I think they might be interested in, and I like ask them, “Do you want to read this?” And they slip through and they are like, “Nope.” And I have to be ok with that! Maybe in the past I would have been like, “Well, I’m going to borrow it anyways and read it to you.” And I’m just backing off and saying. “It’s ok, you’re reading a lot of other stuff.”

My boys are really into coding and gaming and stuff, and so, we are back in the States and I know some people at gaming companies, people who are coders and stuff like that. And so, I asked them, do you want me to ask if you can visit this gaming company or whatever. And I thought this would be really fun for them and they are like, “Ehhhh.” So, there are ways that I’m trying to open doors for them and help them improve or whatever, but they are just not there yet, and so I have to be ok with that.

PAM: I love that example because I had that so many times over the years. Because, they are at a place, and you can kind of see next steps, a few steps down, but I came to realize that that’s a few steps down the path that I envision, right?

So, we are all surprised when I say, ‘I have this way to contact this person, that’s a few steps down. Would you like to go hang out with them, meet them,’ whatever, and they are like, ‘no thanks.’ Because we have no idea what path is their’s, and even if they’re ready to take a next step—maybe they are completely comfortable where they are.

It’s a lot of our work, isn’t it? Thinking that through, figuring that out, realizing that not all of these plans, all these possibilities that we are envisioning for them around the spot that they are in, may be completely different from what they are, right?

IRIS: And my kids are like eight and ten. So, I have to realize that they are still young and there’s no need to box them in yet. See, the tiger mom in me. See, I still need to do that, to untiger.

PAM: Well yeah, because they have this time, if they have the interest, they could be rocking it a few years from now, right? But but but…

IRIS: Exactly. I realize a lot of it is about my own aspirations, my own projections for them, so I need to let that go…

PAM: Because it’s our envisioning their achievement at a young age. So again, it’s our thinking, our conventional definition of success. And it can sneak up on us in so many different ways, can’t it?

IRIS: Yep yep.

PAM: Um, let’s see. Yes!

I have been looking forward to this question, about your experience with the tension of feeling like an outsider in both Chinese and American societies. I was wondering if you’d share your thoughts about weaving together your cultural heritage with what you’re discovering now makes sense with what you’re learning now about children and learning and parenting and family. I was just hoping to know what that kind of looks like for you now? How do you weave that together?

IRIS: Sure. Yeah, It’s a really big question, and I’m still in process. I just went to watch this play last night called Soft Power, and it’s like a, they call it a Chinese musical about America, so it’s written by an Asian American, but it’s sort of like a Chinese view of what America is like.

And there are some scenes in it where, it’s like, as an Asian American in America, I’m never American enough, I’m not western enough, I’m not white enough. And in China, I’m not Chinese enough—like, my Chinese isn’t good enough, my ways of communicating aren’t Chinese enough. And so, in both culture, we are outsiders, or there’s feelings of not being enough, not belonging or whatever.

But I think there is also value in that, in that we can sort of step back and be observers of both cultures, so that we can sort of critique both cultures but also celebrate both cultures so that I don’t have to feel defensive about America. If there’s like something about America that’s gone terribly wrong, I don’t have to say, “Oh, I’m an American. I need to defend it.” or I don’t need to be patriotic or defend it. And same with Chinese culture. If something says something bad about Chinese culture, I can also accept it or deconstruct it or whatever because I’m a little bit of an outsider.

And so, I’m finding that being in this position as an Asian American, I can be a lot more intentional about the things from different cultures that I am incorporating into my family life and into my parenting, so, it doesn’t have to be fully western, or and it doesn’t have to be fully Chinese. Like, nowadays we are more of a global society, and I think if we had the humility to learn from each other, that there are ways that we can learn from different cultures.

I’m just reading all these articles about the Mayan culture in Mexico, and how their children are very different from American children, and how can we learn from that culture, and just how the blessing of being bicultural is that we can be a lot more intentional about the things that we take from each culture.

For example, Chinese culture, the values that we have, the focus on family is very strong, and respect and responsibility and just working hard, and these are things that I associate with Chinese culture. And those are good values, I believe in those values, but I think the how—the way we get to that—is also important, and so maybe the how is a more western approach, because the Chinese way of getting to these values is often through patriarchy, through authoritarianism, through shame.

Those are maybe the ways that sort of get embedded into the culture in a lot of ways, and now that I can see that that’s not how I want to get to those values, I can find other ways to get to those values that are more respectful and provide more agency and freedom. Those are still values that I want to honor and instill in my family, but it’s just a matter of how we get there.

PAM: Yeah, I loved that. I loved the realization that you can still get to the same place, but a different way, with a different path. It’s not, ‘If you don’t use these authoritarian shame control tools, you’ll never get there.’ Like, that’s the message that they use to continue parenting and just structuring society these ways. But to realize that you can still get there but in different way, that’s eye opening, right?

IRIS: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I think—and I’m just speaking for myself as an Asian American—we don’t have a lot of models or examples that we have seen of a family dynamic that operates like that. I think that, at least for me, I’m feeling my way through.

Like, we have the typical white, western family, but in my experience, Asian families, the way we interact, the dynamics are a little bit different. Just feeling our way through so that we can uphold our Asian values and the things that we love about our Asian culture, while doing it in a respectful and honoring way. That seems very un-Asian in some ways.

PAM: I’m really curious. You were talking about being bicultural and the advantage in that you could choose what resonated with you from both cultures. So, it became more about, you’re already open to choices, it sounds like, right? Did that kind of help when you discovered unschooling, which is focused on choices? Did that help a bit that you were already picking and choosing things that were working for you, that this was just kind of another thing that you were going to pick?

IRIS: I think so! I think that living overseas made our lifestyle, very intentional. Because we didn’t totally fit into that culture, and we weren’t going to just bring American culture over there either, right? So, it was definitely we made very intentional choices about how we were going to live, and the aspects of American culture that we wanted to bring over that were important to us, but ways that we wanted to incorporate the culture around us too. And so I think that did give us the freedom to be more intentional and purposeful—those words keep coming up!—about the choices we made with schooling.

So, maybe if we had lived here in the States we wouldn’t have had to question it was much, because that’s just the way everyone does it, but because we had to be really intentional about that as we lived overseas. In some ways it opens the doors for us for a lot more options in some ways, because we aren’t stuck in a certain track.

PAM: I can’t remember, I’m going to butcher the quote completely, but you know “once your mind opens to a new idea, right? Or grows from a new idea, it can never go back.” Like, once you see one choice and you make a little bit different choice, all of a sudden you see more of them everywhere.

IRIS: Yeah.

PAM: Well, that’s beautiful.

You recently published a blog post titled, ‘Unschooling as an Asian American is an Act of Resistance.’ I thought it was a great piece, Iris, and I was hoping you’d share your thoughts about it here.

IRIS: That blog post was about how, as a Chinese American specifically, it adds a different layer to my decision to unschool, and I think that’s true for a lot of people of color. It’s not solely about educational choice, that there is a component of resisting racism in it. So, part of it for me was about resisting.

There are three thing I was resisting, and the first one was resisting cultural pressures, and I talked about this already a little bit, about Chinese culture in particular emphasizes a lot on academics, like, the test-based system pretty much originated in China. So, really rejecting that view of what education looks like, so from the Asian side, resisting those cultural pressures of having high academics or going to an Ivy League school or having a certain type of career. So, I’m resisting those pressures on that side, which as a culture and maybe my extended family, they are like “What are you doing? That’s very strange what you’re doing!”

And I think also as a second generation immigrant, where a lot of our families have moved to the west to provide more opportunities, to provide these educational opportunities, and then if you don’t take them, they feel like, “Why? What did we sacrifice all that for?” So, there’s a lot of pressure on that side of it.

I think there is also the resistance of Asian stereotypes. Where maybe there’s views of like the stereotypical Asian nerd, or you see Jeremy Lin, who’s a Chinese American basketball player. He has faced a lot of racism because people just don’t see him as athletic. People just don’t see Asians as athletic, or attractive, or as outspoken, or as a leader. So, there are these ways that society stereotypes Asians as not having these opportunities, especially in a schooling environment.

So, there’s ways that we can achieve. Like, if we were on the academic route and we’re smart and that follows the stereotype so people can accept that, but if you don’t want to follow that stereotype, like if you aren’t super academic but you really enjoy dance, or you want to be a football player or whatever it is, there are stereotypes that prevent you from achieving those things in that environment.

I feel that unschooling is a way outside of that. That we can provide different opportunities that hopefully can resist some of those stereotypes and not have kids boxed into being a certain type of Asian. So, there’s that.

And then I think the last one was the curriculum, and the very white-centric, very patriotic, American, information that is given in most western schooling environments is very western-centric. And I think that we are realizing more and more that the story we are telling each other isn’t the whole truth, and that there are many different perspectives out there on the history. So, not only stories about our country or about the world that are very euro-centric, but pretty much all of curriculum is. Or even sports—most schools don’t necessarily have Asian sports like badminton, but they will have basketball or golf, things that are more associated with western things. Or the music that is played in band, or just a lot of different things that are just typical, white-centric instead of a more global, multicultural, view of the world. And so, unschooling can allow us to expose them to whatever resonates with them, and it doesn’t have to be just that one canon that we are used to.

PAM: Yeah, that’s so narrow, isn’t it? The curriculum, just in general. And yeah, you don’t really realize it because, if you’re on that path, you just absorb it because that is what we are supposed to do. Somebody has said, “This is what we cover,” and somebody has said “This is the angle of the story that we are going to cover.”

I loved the idea of it’s also being a resistance to all that—conventional isn’t even the right word, stereotypical probably is, for lack of a better word—white culture that’s there, and all of the other stories are ignored. And I love that idea of it also being a big act of resistance of that main cultural story.

That the world is so much bigger, so much wider. And that we can bring that world to the kids. But also, just standing up and choosing that it’s important to us. It’s our choice too for our families. That this is an important way that we want to be in the world and that we want to share with our children. Does that makes sense?

IRIS: Yeah, definitely. And where they can be sort of the protagonist of their own stories, whereas like, if we grow up in the typical American schooling system, we are never the protagonist of our own story system, we are never the protagonist in our own stories. The stories that we read, there are very few, there are more and more, but very few books that are required reading at that age, that tell stories about Asian Americans or Asians.

PAM: I love that point too, and I’ll share a link to that too.

I really wanted to know what your favorite thing about unschooling is right now?

IRIS: There are so many things, but I really think it’s not so much just about schooling, but it’s really a whole lifestyle sometimes, so I just really love how it gives me so many opportunities to connect with my children, and just the relationship that we have with one another and the growing respect we have for one another. And just enjoying each other.

Whereas, it’s not about herding my kids through the day, getting them to one class or that class, it’s really about just enjoying life together. It’s a really slow pace that allows us the opportunity to just connect and enjoy one another. So, I’m really thankful for that.

PAM: Oh, I love that. And you don’t realize how fast that pace is until you step away, do you think? I found that I appreciated that slowness and that ability to be in relationship and be in the moment with them way more than I even expected.

IRIS: Yeah, yeah, and I think that’s sort of my personality too, I’m more of a homebody I like things to be slower. I get overwhelmed with too many things. But, yeah, just really enjoying that opportunity to build relationship with them.

PAM: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me Iris. I’m so glad you said yes. I had so much fun!

IRIS: I had a lot of fun too. Thank you for asking me Pam.

PAM: Before we go, where is the best place for people to connect with you online?

IRIS: My blog is untigering.com and I also have a facebook page that’s Untigering. I also started a facebook group for parents who are or have been tiger parents, and that’s called Untigering Parents, and then on twitter I am @untigeringmom.

PAM: Excellent. I will put all those links in the show notes for people too. And thanks so much. Have a great day. Say hi to everyone. You guys are in the States now, right?

IRIS: Yes, we are.

PAM: Yay. Thank you! Bye!

IRIS: Ok, bye!

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This week, we share a conversation that Pam had with Roya Dedeaux in 2021, diving into her book, Connect with Courage. Roya is a grown unschooler, a marriage and family therapist, and an unschooling mom of three, so she has lots of experience to draw from as she considers how children learn and thrive. In […]

EU387: Foundations: Seeing Through Someone Else’s Eyes Jun 19, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Seeing Through Someone Else’s Eyes. “Seeing through someone else’s eyes” is a shift from the typical phrase, “walking in their shoes.” And it’s a valuable paradigm shift to consider when trying to learn more about the […]

EU386: Building Confidence Jun 05, 2025

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about building confidence. We had an interesting month in the Living Joyfully Network recently where we dove deep into this topic and it was fascinating how many layers we found to uncover. In this episode, we talk about letting go of comparisons, cultivating trust in ourselves and […]

EU163 Flashback: Growing Up Unschooling with Adrian Peace-Williams May 22, 2025

This week, we share a conversation that Pam had with Adrian Peace-Williams back in 2019. At the time, she was 24 years old and in college. Pam and Adrian talked about her childhood unschooling, her choice to go to high school, her years of traveling the world after high school, where she was at the […]

EU385: Foundations: People Are Different May 08, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, People Are Different. It’s natural to assume that other people see the world in the same way we do, and that they experience and process things just like we do. But in reality, we are all […]

EU384: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: The Stories We Tell Ourselves Apr 24, 2025

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and this time, we’re talking about the stories we tell ourselves. Stories is a topic that comes up a lot in conversations on the Living Joyfully Network. In fact, we had a monthly theme by that name! When we start to get curious […]

EU105 Flashback: Unschooling Dads with Nick Hess Apr 10, 2025

In this week’s flashback episode, we’re sharing an interview that Pam had in 2018 with Nick Hess. At the time of the interview, Nick, also known online as The Unschool Dad, and his wife were unschooling their five children. They chatted about about his family’s move to unschooling, what it was about unschooling that resonated […]

EU383: Foundations: Connection Mar 27, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Connection. How connected we’re feeling to the people in our lives is a helpful barometer of our relationships. Feeling disconnected can be a sign that it’s time to more intentionally cultivate connecting moments. Anna shares one […]

EU382: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: It’s Not the Unschooling Mar 13, 2025

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and this time, we’re talking about how it’s not the unschooling! It can be really common for newer unschoolers to blame unschooling for the things that come up in their family lives. Unschooling was a big new change in their lives, and so […]

EU036 Flashback: Deschooling with Lauren Seaver Feb 27, 2025

In this week’s flashback episode, we’re sharing an interview that Pam had in 2016 with Lauren Seaver about deschooling. At the time of the interview, Lauren Seaver was an unschooling mom to 9-year-old River. She first considered the possibility of homeschooling way back when she was in college to become a teacher. Life took some […]

EU381: Foundations: Priorities Feb 13, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the first Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Priorities. We are handed a set of priorities by society and our culture, but when we really consider ourselves and our personal values, we can see how individual our priorities can be! When we choose priorities […]

EU380: Revitalizing Our Nest Jan 30, 2025

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about revitalizing our nests. Our homes are such an important part of our unschooling lives. We can get open and curious and creatively find ways to make the spaces in our home fit the individual people in our family. After all, people are different! We share examples […]

EU379: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Personal Hygiene Jan 16, 2025

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about personal hygiene. Questions and concerns about hygiene come up regularly in parenting circles and, in unschooling communities, this topic can sometimes trigger fear. We wanted to dive into personal hygiene to address some of the most common areas that […]

EU378: Bringing a Playful Energy to Our Days Jan 02, 2025

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore bringing a playful energy to our days. Shifting to a playful energy can be helpful when we’re feeling stuck, with spinning thoughts, worrying about the future, or focused on external expectations. We can cultivate a lightness and curiosity that helps us get creative and come up with […]

EU377: Consent and Autonomy Dec 19, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika dive into consent and autonomy. Moving towards respecting our children’s autonomy and consent is typically an important part of the unschooling journey. In our conversation, we talk about independence vs autonomy, looking for underlying needs, questioning societal messages, and moving from control to connection with our children. We […]

EU376: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Weaving In Our Needs Dec 05, 2024

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about weaving in our needs. When we first come to unschooling, it’s common to start questioning the traditional roles of parent and child. Maybe we go from seeing adult needs as the priority and then we swing on the pendulum […]

EU375: Supporting Our Children’s Inner Voices Nov 21, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika dive into supporting our children’s inner voices. External messages and cultural roles can disconnect us from our internal wisdom and knowing. Our unschooling lives give us an opportunity to provide time and space for our children to really tune into their inner voices, and showing them that we […]

EU374: Beyond the Golden Rule Nov 07, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the popular maxim known as the Golden Rule, which states, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Once we realize how different people are, however, we can see how treating others how we would like to be treated may fall short in our […]

EU373: Navigating Disagreements with Our Partner Oct 24, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about navigating disagreements with our partner. No matter how harmonious your relationship, disagreements will inevitably come up between two people. We share some tools that can help us navigate disagreements and give a few examples from our own lives where these have come into play. We hope […]

EU372: Building Trust with Our Kids Oct 10, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about building trust with our children. We regularly mention trust on the podcast, as we’ve found that trust is the foundation of the strong relationships that help unschooling thrive. We had a lot of fun talking about ways to build trust in and with our children. We […]

EU371: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Transitional Ages and Seasons Sep 26, 2024

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about transitional ages and seasons. While there is definitely not one path through childhood, there are common transitional ages where major changes typically occur. In this episode, we talk about some shifts that happen from the toddler to child years, […]

EU370: There’s Plenty of Time Sep 12, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about one of Anna’s favorite sayings, “There’s plenty of time.” This mindset shift is so helpful in many different circumstances, making it a very useful tool! We talk about using it in busy moments, when thinking about learning and child development, and even in more urgent situations. […]

EU369: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: People Are Different Aug 29, 2024

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about how people are different. “People are different” has become a common refrain on the Exploring Unschooling Podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network and for good reason! Once we sink into the reality that people are truly so different—their […]

EU368: Curiosity-Led Learning Aug 15, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about curiosity-led learning. We thought this would be a fun topic to dive into during this back-to-school season! Focusing on curiosity—our own and our kids’—can be so grounding. In this episode, we explore the definition of learning, how school-based learning looks different than learning through unschooling, and […]

Teachers Turned Unschoolers (EU282 Encore) Aug 01, 2024

Let’s dive into a question I get pretty regularly, and that’s whether I have podcast episodes with unschooling parents that used to be teachers. It’s fun to ponder the why behind the question. Does it seem like a strange leap to make? To me, choosing teaching indicates an interest in children and in learning, so […]

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU333 Encore) Jul 18, 2024

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We talk about the fears and doubts that come up at the start of the unschooling journey, the idea of wanting to measure success, and what to do when a child is interested in a topic that seems too grown up for them. And as I mention […]

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU328 Encore) Jul 04, 2024

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We talk about navigating sibling and friend relationships, the idea of self-regulation when it comes to technology, and the journey of finding community and connection for ourselves and our children. And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving […]

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU322 Encore) Jun 20, 2024

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We talk about cocooning and connecting with young teens, the mainstream concept of productivity and how we get curious about external messages of judgment, and the idea of an “ideal unschooler.” And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on […]

Exploring Unschooling Q&A (EU314 Encore) Jun 06, 2024

Anna, Erika, and I dive into listener questions! We explore technology and “screen time,” deschooling, connection, and validation. And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for […]

EU367: The Abundance Mindset May 23, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the abundance mindset. We often find ourselves thinking about abundance versus scarcity in conversations on the podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network. In this episode, we dive into the many ways that shifting to abundance has helped us and our families with creative problem solving. We […]

EU366: Talking Consent with Sara Davidson May 09, 2024

Pam and Anna are joined by Living Joyfully Network member Sara Davidson to talk about what she’s been learning about consent. Sara was previously on the podcast in episode 312. It was great to hear her family updates and to dive deep into the topic of consent. We talked about four different types of consent, […]

EU365: The Independence Agenda Apr 25, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika dive into a very interesting lens on parenting—the independence agenda. It’s fascinating to see how this seemingly reasonable goal of fostering our children’s independence can get in the way of not only our relationship with them, but their developing self-awareness and inner voice. We talk about how different […]

EU364: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Including Kids in Decisions Apr 11, 2024

We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and we’re talking about including kids in decisions. There are many reasons why parents may rush through big decisions without giving children a chance to weigh in, but we’ve found that including kids in decisions provides us with useful questions and information, helps […]

EU363: Deschooling Mar 28, 2024

Deschooling is a bit of a buzzword in homeschooling and alternative education spaces at the moment. So, let’s dive in! Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about the definition of the word, what that transition to unschooling can look like for parents and adults, the importance of letting go of expectations, some of the paradigm shifts […]

EU362: On the Journey with Kendel Ricker Mar 14, 2024

We’re back with another On the Journey episode! We had a delightful conversation with Living Joyfully Network member Kendel Ricker. Kendel is an unschooling mom of two kids, 11 and 9, and she shared some of her journey with us. Kendel’s own education included homeschooling, private school, and public school, as well as university and […]

EU361: Siblings Feb 29, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the sibling dynamic and some of the questions that come up when unschooling families navigate sibling relationships. We talk about letting go of expectations, watching out for casting our children in roles, understanding our own triggers, and how “fair” doesn’t mean “equal.” We hope you find our […]

EU360: What’s So Magical About Age 18? Feb 15, 2024

What’s so magical about age 18? Pam, Anna, Erika, and our guest Erin dig into the transition from childhood to adulthood and what it means for our unschooled kids. It’s common for parents to bump up against some cultural beliefs about this phase of life and inadvertently put expectations on young adults. Strangers, friends, and […]

EU359: Unschooling Stumbling Blocks: Quitting vs Sticking It Out Feb 01, 2024

In this episode, we are starting a new series called Unschooling Stumbling Blocks, where we talk about common challenges on the unschooling journey. For this first stumbling block, Pam, Anna, and Erika talk about “quitting” vs “sticking it out.” This idea comes up in parenting regardless of whether you’re unschooling or not. Do we need […]

EU358: On the Journey with Jahaira Luzzi Jan 18, 2024

This week, we’re back with another On the Journey episode. Pam and Erika are joined by Living Joyfully Network member Jahaira Luzzi. Jahaira is an unschooling mom of two, ages 6 and 8, and a former early childhood educator. We talk about Jahaira’s path to unschooling, including her exploration of various types of elementary schools […]

EU357: Building Community Jan 04, 2024

In this episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika dive deep into building community. As we regularly mention, people are different, and each member of your family will likely have different needs for community, friendship, and social time. We talk about in-person versus online connections, the value of interest-based communities, some of the many different ways we’ve […]

Harbor Highlights, Issue #1 Dec 28, 2023

Pam shares the first edition of Harbor Highlights, the new monthly audio dispatch she’s creating for her Patreon supporters. In it, she’ll be sharing the behind-the-scenes details of her next grand adventure! Listen in to learn more. And click here to join her on Patreon! Note that it’s only her Patreon page name that has […]

EU356: Unschooling “Rules”: About Food Dec 07, 2023

We’re back with another episode in our Unschooling “Rules” series. And we use the word “rules” in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning something new, but we […]

Podcast Update, Nov 2023 Nov 27, 2023

Quick Links Check out the Black Friday-inspired bundle specials on the newly refreshed Living Joyfully Shop! Transcript Hello, everyone! I’m Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully and I’m popping in to share a couple of bits of news with you. First is the Black Friday-inspired sale happening in the Living Joyfully Shop right now! It runs […]

EU355: Unschooling “Rules”: Freedom Leads to Self-Regulation Nov 16, 2023

We’re back with another episode in our Unschooling “Rules” series. And we use the word “rules” in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning something new, but we […]

EU354: Unschooling “Rules”: Unschoolers Should Never Divorce Oct 05, 2023

On this episode of the podcast, we’re sharing another entry in our Unschooling “Rules” series. We use the word “rules” in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning […]

Redefining Success and Parent-Child Relationships Sep 21, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a conversation I had recently for the Self Directed Podcast with Jesper and Cecilie Conrad. It was such an invigorating conversation that I asked if we could share it here as well and they graciously agreed. We dive into the art of fostering strong, respectful, and trusting parent-child […]

EU353: Unschooling “Rules”: Unschooling is Child-Led Sep 07, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a new episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series. We use the word “rules” in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning […]

EU138 Flashback: The Sparkle of Unschooling Aug 24, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a compilation of experienced unschooling parents answering the question, “Looking back, what has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?” Another apt title might be Remembering Our Why, which is why we think it’s especially powerful to listen to during this back-to-school season. When we are able to […]

EU352: Unschooling “Rules”: Unschoolers Are Always Happy Aug 03, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a new episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series. We use the word “rules” in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning […]

EU351: Bringing It Home: Navigating Technology Jul 06, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into another Bringing It Home episode. We’re looking deeper at our last Unschooling “Rules” topic, that unschoolers have unlimited screen time, and exploring what it can look like to navigate technology with our unschooling families. Unsurprisingly, there is no one right approach. It’s so much about seeing through […]

EU350: On the Journey with Sarah McMackin Jun 08, 2023

This week, we’re back with another On the Journey episode. Pam, Anna, and Erika are joined by Living Joyfully Network member Sarah McMackin. Sarah is an unschooling mom to Eamon, who just turned seven. She also runs a restaurant in Austin, TX with her husband, Ray. We talk about Sarah’s experience unschooling an only child, […]

EU349: Unschooling “Rules”: Unlimited Screen Time May 25, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a new episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series! We use the word “rules” in quotes to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning […]

EU348: Q&A Deep Dive May 11, 2023

In this week’s Exploring Unschooling podcast episode, we’re diving deep into a listener question submitted by Michelle in Texas. She writes, I listened to the episode with Xander regarding gaming, and it really helped change my perspective, especially during this unschooling phase. The question that keeps coming for us is definitely fear-based, but for good […]

EU347: Bringing It Home: Staying Up Late Apr 27, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into another Bringing It Home episode. We’re looking deeper at our last Unschooling “Rules” topic, that unschoolers don’t have bedtimes, and exploring what it can look like to navigate staying up late with our unschooling families. Unsurprisingly, there is no one right approach. It’s so much about seeing […]

EU346: On the Journey with Cassie Emmott Apr 13, 2023

This week, we’re back with another On the Journey episode. Pam, Anna, and Erika are joined by Living Joyfully Network member Cassie Emmott. Cassie is an unschooling mom with four children with diverse needs. She shares her path to unschooling and some insightful reflections about parenting and deschooling. We talk about navigating challenging seasons and […]

EU345: Unschooling “Rules”: No Bedtimes Mar 30, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a new episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series! We use the word “rules,” in quotes, to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning […]

EU344: Q&A Deep Dive Mar 16, 2023

In this week’s Exploring Unschooling podcast episode, we’re diving deep into a listener question submitted by Julie in Ontario. She writes, How would you encourage parents to best unschool themselves? I’d really like to be a better example of someone who follows their passions. My husband would love to do a job more suited to […]

EU343: Bringing It Home: Navigating Lessons Mar 02, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re diving into another Bringing It Home episode. We’re looking deeper at our last Unschooling “Rules” topic, that unschoolers don’t use curriculum, and exploring what it can look like to navigate lessons and adult-led activities with our unschooling families. Unsurprisingly, there is no one right approach. It’s so much about […]

EU342: Helping Kids Find Their Passion Feb 16, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing a talk that Pam gave at the 2022 Canadian Online Homeschool Conference, Helping Kids Find Their Passion. Following our children’s interests and passions is one of the joys of unschooling. And truly, humans are born curious. As parents, we can give our children the gift of encouraging that […]

EU341: Unschooling “Rules”: Don’t Use Curriculum Feb 02, 2023

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing our second episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series! We use the word “rules,” in quotes, to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning […]

EU340: On the Journey with Nora McDonald Jan 19, 2023

This week, we’re back with another On the Journey episode. Pam, Anna, and Erika are joined by Living Joyfully Network member Nora McDonald. Nora is an unschooling mom of two living in Costa Rica. She shares her journey to unschooling as well as two major a-ha moments she has had in the last year. We […]

EU339: Q&A Deep Dive Jan 05, 2023

In this week’s Exploring Unschooling podcast episode, we’re diving deep into a listener question submitted by Jessie in Colorado. She wants to explore a quote from Free to Learn that took her off guard, which is: One proviso, though. Unschooling won’t work well if you actively avoid having your family interact with the world, with […]

EU338: A Conversation with Lore Blancke Dec 08, 2022

This week, we’re sharing a conversation Anna Brown and I had recently with Lore Blancke on her podcast, Intimate Breath. Lore came across unschooling and the Exploring Unschooling podcast and was intrigued by the similarities she found with her work as she listened. And while she’s not a parent herself, her enthusiasm was apparent when […]

EU337: Bringing It Home: Yes Energy Nov 24, 2022

This week on the podcast, we’re sharing our first Bringing It Home episode. In this series, we’re going to dive even deeper into the topics that we explore in the Unschooling “Rules” series, with an eye to showing how these concepts come up in our real lives and the many possibilities for how to approach […]

EU336: On the Journey with Josh Ellis Nov 10, 2022

This week, we are excited to share our first episode in our new On the Journey series! Anna, Erika, and I are excited to bring guests on the podcast to share their experiences. We’ll be talking about paradigm shifts, a-ha moments, challenges they’ve faced, and realizations they’ve made on their unschooling journey. In this episode, […]

EU335: Unschooling “Rules”: Always Say Yes Oct 27, 2022

This week, I’m excited to share our first episode in the Unschooling “Rules” series! We use the word “rules,” in quotes, to draw attention to the fact that there is no such thing as an unschooling rule! It can feel easier to reach for a set of rules to follow, especially when we’re learning something […]

EU334: Q&A Deep Dive Oct 13, 2022

In the intro, I share my new vision for the podcast: helping people figure out how to apply bigger picture unschooling ideas in their everyday lives. I want to help listeners explore how these big unschooling ideas work on a more practical level. In real life, with the real people that make up our family. […]

EU213 Flashback: Unschooling and Math with Marcella O’Brien Oct 06, 2022

This week, I’m sharing a popular episode from early 2020 with unschooling mom Marcella O’Brien. Marcella’s grown sons, Jack and Sean, have also joined me in Growing Up Unschooling episode 181. Marcella’s experience as a public school teacher and math tutor gives her a unique perspective, which led to an interesting conversation about math in […]

EU239 Flashback: Unschooling Dads with Roop Bhadury Sep 29, 2022

This week, I’m sharing a fun conversation I had with unschooling dad Roop Bhadury. I connected with Roop through his wife Susan, who is a member of the Living Joyfully Network. She has also joined me on the podcast in episode 220. Roop and Susan live with their now three young children in Australia. It […]

EU119 Flashback: Gaming and Growing Up Unschooling with Xander MacSwan Sep 22, 2022

I get so many questions about “screen time” and video games and how they fit into an unschooling life, so I thought it might be helpful and fun to reshare a conversation I had with Xander MacSwan in 2018. Xander left school in the 5th grade when his parents—both professors in the University of Maryland’s […]

EU111 Flashback: Ten Questions with Jan Fortune Sep 15, 2022

This week, I’m sharing a conversation I had with Jan Fortune back in 2018. Jan home educated her four children in the UK and wrote many articles and five books on unschooling and parenting. Her book Winning Parent, Winning Child, focuses on living with children in ways that respect their autonomy. In our conversation, Jan shares […]

EU207 Flashback: Advice from Grown Unschoolers Sep 08, 2022

It’s compilation episode time again! This week, I’m sharing one of our listener favorites from 2019, a collection of conversations with grown unschoolers in which they offer their thoughts for newer unschooling parents. I’ve woven together answers from eleven episodes featuring twelve grown unschoolers. I think you’ll find their answers helpful and enlightening wherever you […]

EU282 Flashback: Teachers Turned Unschoolers Sep 01, 2022

This week, we’re revisiting a popular compilation episode from last year. Many people have asked me whether any former or current teachers have been interviewed on the podcast. And the answer to that question is a big YES! We have had more than 20 podcast episodes featuring guests who were or are teachers or university […]

EU333: Exploring Unschooling Q&A Aug 25, 2022

Anna Brown and Erika Ellis join me again this week to dive into listener questions! We talk about the fears and doubts that come up at the start of the unschooling journey, the idea of wanting to measure success, and what to do when a child is interested in a topic that seems too grown […]

EU332: An Unschooling Journey with Jae Williams, Part 3 Aug 18, 2022

This week, I’m sharing the second part of my recent conversation with Jae Williams (you can listen to the first half here). Jae is a former teacher and new unschooling dad of two young children. We first spoke about a year ago, right at the start of his deschooling journey. It was great to catch […]

EU331: An Unschooling Journey with Jae Williams, Part 2 Aug 11, 2022

Jae Williams is a former teacher and new unschooling dad of two young children. I first spoke to Jae when he was about two months into his unschooling journey, in episode 290. It’s been a year now and we had so much to catch up on! Jae and I talked about the inner work of […]

EU330 Bonus Episode: A Peek Inside the Living Joyfully Network Aug 08, 2022

I’ve mentioned the Living Joyfully Network online community here and there on the podcast over the last couple of years, sometimes sharing the theme we’re exploring that month or testimonials from members. But I feel like that doesn’t actually say much about what we get up to in this rich and vibrant community. So, for […]

EU023 Flashback: Learning to Read in Their Own Time with Anne Ohman Aug 04, 2022

Anne Ohman is a long-time unschooling mom of two grown children. Back in 2016, Anne and I had a lovely conversation about reading that I have referenced countless times over the years. When we spoke, she was working as a library director, giving her powerful insights and amazing stories to share about children learning to […]

EU154 Flashback: Unschooling Dads and Documentaries with Jeremy Stuart Jul 28, 2022

This week, I’m sharing a conversation I had a few years ago with unschooling dad and filmmaker Jeremy Stuart. Jeremy directed and co-produced the documentary film, Class Dismissed, which was released in 2015. Since then, it has been screened in more than 60 countries and translated into five languages. His second documentary, Self-Taught, which explores the […]

EU038 Flashback: Time to Think Jul 21, 2022

This week, I want to share one of my conference talks, Time to Think. So many of the questions and concerns we hear from unschooling parents boil down to the fears that bubble up when we project our current situation into the future. So, it’s not surprising that the value of bringing ourselves back into […]

EU090 Flashback: Growing Up Unschooling with Phoebe Wahl Jul 14, 2022

This week on the podcast, I’m sharing a conversation I had with grown unschooler Phoebe Wahl a few years ago. Phoebe is an artist whose beautiful work focuses on the themes of comfort, nostalgia, and intimacy. After first grade, Phoebe left school and dove into unschooling. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in […]

EU329: Unschooling Stories with Jennifer McGrail Jul 07, 2022

Jennifer McGrail, long-time unschooling mom of four, joins me on the podcast this week. I last spoke with Jennifer on the podcast in episode 18 and her kids have grown a lot since then! Jennifer shares a family update and we dive deep into how parenting and unschooling change as teenagers transition into young adults. […]

EU007 Flashback: Diving into Parenting with Anna Brown Jun 30, 2022

This week, we’re going alllll the way back to episode 7 to revisit a wonderful conversation I had with Anna Brown about parenting. I had been inspired by one of Anna’s conference talks and was so excited to dive deeper into these concepts with her. We talked about uncovering underlying needs during conflict, validation and […]

EU027 Flashback: Ten Questions with Teresa Graham Brett Jun 23, 2022

This week on the podcast, we’re revisiting a conversation I had with Teresa Graham Brett back in 2016. Teresa is currently the associate dean of diversity and inclusion at the University of Arizona’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She’s an unschooling mom of two and author of the book Parenting for Social Change. Teresa’s background as a […]

EU042 Flashback: Curious and Engaged Jun 16, 2022

This week, I’m re-sharing one of my conference talks, Curious and Engaged, with you! Here’s the description: Our conventional society honours learning deeply, yet its definition has steadily narrowed over the years to checking off curriculum expectations and awarding graduation certificates. Does this restrictive view do learning justice? What if real learning is bigger than that? […]

EU116 Flashback: Growing Up Unschooling with Summer Jean Jun 09, 2022

Back in 2018, I spoke to Summer Jean about her experience growing up unschooling. We talked about how her mom came to unschooling, how they dealt with disapproval from extended family members, how her interest in glass art came about, and some of the common questions she gets when people learn she didn’t go to […]

EU328: Exploring Unschooling Q&A Jun 02, 2022

Anna Brown and Erika Ellis join me again this week to dive into listener questions! We talk about navigating sibling and friend relationships, the idea of self-regulation when it comes to technology, and the journey of finding community and connection for ourselves and our children. As always, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone […]

EU084 Flashback: Enjoy Parenting with Scott Noelle May 26, 2022

This week on the podcast, I’m sharing a conversation I had with Scott Noelle, unschooling dad of two, back in 2017. Scott is an author and a life coach dedicated to supporting parents who want to move away from control-based parenting methods. He founded The Daily Groove, an email newsletter and website where he shared […]

EU125 Flashback: Challenges on the Unschooling Journey May 19, 2022

This week, we are revisiting the first compilation episode I ever created for the podcast! I gathered clips from fourteen different episodes where I asked some version of this question: “What has been one of the more challenging aspects for you on your unschooling journey?” It is so interesting to hear a wide variety of different […]

EU238 Flashback: Deschooling with Jessica Kane May 12, 2022

This week, I’m sharing a lovely conversation I had with Jessica Kane in 2020. Jessica and her husband live in Ireland and have three children. Her oldest attended school through high school, her middle son left school in grade 4, and her youngest son has never been to school. This gives her such a unique […]

EU037 Flashback: Ten Questions with Carol Black May 05, 2022

In 2016, I asked Carol Black ten questions about her unschooling journey. Her two daughters were then 22 and 26. We talked about her documentary, Schooling the World, as well as her popular essay, A Thousand Rivers. Carol approaches unschooling and parenting from a cultural lens, through which she’s made many valuable connections and insights. […]

EU327: Exploring Unschooling Q&A Apr 28, 2022

Anna Brown and Erika Ellis join me again this week to dive into listener questions! We talk about navigating a dyslexia/dysgraphia diagnosis, sharing unschooling information and parenting ideas with grandparent caregivers, and the mental overwhelm that can occur at the beginning of the deschooling journey. As always, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone […]

EU326: Walking Together: Seeing the World through Your Child’s Eyes Apr 21, 2022

This week on the podcast I share a talk I wrote in 2015, Walking Together: Seeing the World through Your Child’s Eyes. In this talk, I dive into some of things I’ve learned on my unschooling journey about the value of walking together through our days with our children. I touch on: ways to shift and […]

EU325: Unschooling through Menopause with Sara Yasner Apr 14, 2022

Sara Yasner joins me on the podcast this week. Sara is an unschooling mom of three and we talk about unschooling alongside her experience going through menopause. Sara’s two sons are older now, but her daughter, Pamela, is nine. We talk about her family’s flow and how the addition of Pamela shifted things for everyone […]

EU324: Open and Queerious with Ellie Winicour Apr 07, 2022

Ellie Winicour joins me on the podcast this week! Ellie, her wife Jodi, and 8-year-old Celia have always unschooled, following Celia’s interests and flow. Ellie shares some of her experience embracing pretend play and the deep connection that comes from stepping away from the mainstream adult-child power dynamic. She also shares how she has intentionally […]

EU323: Spinning a Web: The Art of Learning Mar 31, 2022

This week on the podcast I share a talk I wrote in 2014, Spinning a Web: The Art of Learning. With unschooling, learning often looks very different than what we’ve been taught to expect, so it can take a while to recognize it in action. And then it takes time to figure out how, as […]

EU322: Exploring Unschooling Q&A Mar 24, 2022

Anna Brown and Erika Ellis join me again this week to dive into listener questions! We talk about cocooning and connecting with young teens, the mainstream concept of productivity and how we get curious about external messages of judgment, and the idea of an “ideal unschooler.” As always, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving […]

EU321: A Passion for Creative Writing Mar 17, 2022

This week on the podcast, I am joined by two teenage writers, Isabella Watkins and Caitlin Wharton, and their mentor, Milva McDonald. The three of them share their experience creating and participating in a homeschool creative writing group. This past year, they published an anthology of short stories and poetry and they describe some of […]

EU320: Amy’s Unschooling Journey with Amy Hughes Mar 10, 2022

Amy Hughes, unschooling mom of eight children, joins me on the podcast this week. Over the years, Amy’s family moved from school to homeschooling to Charlotte Mason and finally to unschooling. She shares the big a-ha that led her to unschooling as well as how unschooling works in her large family. We talk about Amy’s […]

EU319: Unschooling Stories with Missy Willis Mar 03, 2022

Missy Willis, a longtime unschooling mom of two, joins me again on the podcast this week to share more about her unschooling journey. We talk about the way that unschooling leads us to question everything, from conventional parenting and education to productivity and success. And we dive deep into a few common misconceptions about peaceful […]

EU318: Exploring Unschooling Q&A Feb 24, 2022

Anna Brown and Erika Ellis join me again this week to dive into listener questions! We explore the idea of unschooling philosophy and strong beliefs, how gaming and unschooling might go together, and the idea of “self-directed” learning. And, as always, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer, because there isn’t […]

EU317: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown Feb 17, 2022

Anna Brown joins me for another Unschooling in Context episode! This time, we explore unschooling in the context of boundaries, comfort zones, and capacity. This topic came up as we were diving into cultivating self-awareness in the Living Joyfully Network last month and we wanted to talk about it here too! Setting boundaries is a […]

EU316: Teens and Passions with Robyn Robertson Feb 10, 2022

Robyn Robertson, unschooling mom of two, joins me again on the podcast this week. Since our last conversation in 2018, Robyn’s kids have grown! We talk about how unschooling changes when our children become teenagers. Robyn shares how supporting their interests and passions looks different now, but that the connection and relationships are still strong. […]

EU315: Nurturing Our Children and Ourselves with Teresa Hess Feb 03, 2022

Teresa Hess, unschooling mom of three, joins me again on the podcast this week to explore how her unschooling journey has helped her not only nurture her children but re-parent herself. We talk about Teresa’s spiritual view of unschooling and the upward spiral of connection and love that happens when we see children as whole […]

EU314: Exploring Unschooling Q&A Jan 27, 2022

Anna Brown and Erika Ellis join me this week to dive into listener questions! We explore technology and “screen time,” deschooling, connection, and validation. And as I mention at the beginning of our conversation, our Q&A conversations aren’t focused on giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any […]

EU313: Advice for New Unschooling Dads Jan 20, 2022

This week, I’ve put together a compilation episode with answers to a question I ask many of the unschooling dads who are on the podcast: As an unschooling dad, what piece of advice would you like to share with dads who are considering or just starting out on this journey? And I love the range […]

EU312: The Breadth of Unschooling with Sara Davidson Jan 13, 2022

Sara Davidson, unschooling mom of two, joins me on the podcast this week to explore the breadth of unschooling. Sara shares her journey from controlling, conventional parenting to the connected relationships she has with her children now. We talk about many of the paradigm shifts she made along the way and how her entire view […]

EU311: Ten Questions with Erika Ellis Jan 06, 2022

Erika Ellis joins me again on the podcast this week! On previous episodes, Erika and I have talked about unschooling book clubs and self care, but she’s back to share more about her unschooling journey. We talk about the paradigm shifts that she made during deschooling and how her and her husband’s teaching work influenced […]

EU310: Unschooling Through the Teen Years Dec 30, 2021

We may have been unschooling pretty comfortably for years, connecting with our kids, having fun, actively supporting them as they pursue their interests, but then our eldest approaches the teen years and all of a sudden we start to feel a bit uncomfortable. We begin to worry. Is unschooling going to work through the teen […]

EU309: Deschooling with Christina Kauffman Dec 23, 2021

Christina Kauffman is an unschooling mom of three young kids, and she joins me this week to talk about her deschooling journey. We explore both what she’s found challenging and what she’s found surprising so far. She also shares her experience with navigating sibling dynamics. We have a lovely conversation! Questions for Christina Can you […]

EU308: Unschooling Dads with Philip Mott Dec 16, 2021

Philip Mott, a former teacher and unschooling dad to three young children, joins me this week. Philip shares how his unschooling journey began and how his experience as a teacher and what he learned about educational philosophy shaped his path. We talk about the challenges of deschooling and how ingrained our cultural beliefs really are. […]

EU307: How Unschooling Grows with Fran Liberatore Dec 09, 2021

Fran Liberatore, unschooling mom of two and the creator behind the Instagram account Big Mothering, joins me this week to talk about her unschooling journey so far. Fran, currently working on her master’s degree in early years education, shares some of her reflections about educational philosophy and practice and how she hopes to see schools […]

EU306: Unschooling Seasons with Iris Chen Dec 02, 2021

Iris Chen, author of Untigering and mother of two, returns to the podcast this week to share what their unschooling lives look like right now and talk about her book. Iris talks about her family’s experience with a self-directed learning center and the path her sons took to make the choice to attend one. We […]

EU305: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 7 Nov 25, 2021

This week, we’re finishing up my miniseries, In Celebration of Unschooling, sharing the draft of an as yet unpublished book I wrote a few years ago. The book looks at unschooling through the lens of parenting. In chapter 8, Childhood is Bigger Than School, I explore how we can choose to embrace the unschooling mindset […]

EU304: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 6 Nov 18, 2021

I’m continuing my miniseries, In Celebration of Unschooling, sharing the draft of an as yet unpublished book I wrote a few years ago. The book looks at unschooling through the lens of parenting. This week, we’re diving into Chapter 7: Family Relationships. In this chapter, I explore moving beyond power struggles, the idea of fairness […]

EU303: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 5 Nov 11, 2021

I’m continuing my miniseries, In Celebration of Unschooling, sharing the draft of an as yet unpublished book I wrote a few years ago. The book looks at unschooling through the lens of parenting. This week, we’re diving into Chapter 6: Exploring Character. In this chapter, I dive into some of the character traits being explored […]

EU302: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 4 Nov 04, 2021

I’m continuing my miniseries, In Celebration of Unschooling, sharing the draft of an as yet unpublished book I wrote a few years ago. The book looks at unschooling through the lens of parenting. This week, we’re diving into Chapter 5: Cultivating Creativity. In this chapter, I dive into the widely accepted Geneplore model of creativity, […]

EU301: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 3 Oct 28, 2021

I’m continuing my miniseries, In Celebration of Unschooling, sharing the draft of an as yet unpublished book I wrote a few years ago. The book looks at unschooling through the lens of parenting. This week, we’re diving into Chapter 4: The Joy of Learning. Things mentioned in the episode Pam’s Instagram, sharing highlights of the […]

EU300: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 2 Oct 21, 2021

To mark the occasion of hitting 300 episodes, I decided to share the draft of an as yet unpublished book I wrote a few years ago. The book looks at unschooling through the lens of parenting and with an audience in mind who are curious, but maybe haven’t yet made the leap. And I was […]

EU299: In Celebration of Unschooling, Part 1 Oct 14, 2021

Episode 299! Wow. For the last few weeks, I’ve been pondering what I’d like to do to mark the milestone of 300 episodes. Maybe a compilation episode, maybe a solo episode. Hmm. I’ve been doing those regularly for the last while (which I’m loving), so I planted that seed and let it bubble around in […]

EU298: Unschooling Stories with Megan Valnes Oct 07, 2021

Megan Valnes, an unschooling mom of six, joins me this week to talk about her unschooling journey. Megan was on the podcast once before, way back in 2018, and it was so fun to catch up and see how her life has unfolded since then. She shares some of the challenges of having a large […]

EU297: Cultivating Trust with Anna Brown Sep 30, 2021

Anna Brown joins me this week to talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Cultivating Trust. This has been such a valuable theme to explore because trust really is foundational to unschooling—I can’t imagine unschooling thriving without trust! We begin by looking at how we can develop trust with our children, […]

EU296: Deschooling Discoveries Sep 23, 2021

This week, I’ve put together a compilation episode exploring deschooling discoveries. One of the many things I love about the unschooling journey is how unexpected it can be. As we dive deeper and deeper into deschooling, we begin to question so many things! Things we thought were pretty much facts—about children, about learning, about relationships, […]

EU295: Unschooling Dads with Jesper Conrad Sep 16, 2021

Jesper Conrad joins me this week to talk about his experience as an unschooling dad. Jesper shares his perspective of their family’s decision to unschool, which began when their now 15-year-old son tried kindergarten. We talk about Jesper’s move from an office job to working from home and some of the paradigm shifts that he’s […]

EU294: Worldschooling Nomads with Cecilie Conrad Sep 09, 2021

Cecilie Conrad joins me from Istanbul this week to talk about her unschooling, worldschooling life with her family. Cecilie shares about her path to unschooling, which started when her second child began attending school. We talk about how her family’s love of travel has enriched their lives and how the unschooling lifestyle fits so well […]

EU293: Raising Free People with Akilah S. Richards Sep 02, 2021

Akilah S. Richards joins me again to talk about her most recent book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work. We talk about her definitions of unschooling and deschooling and dive deep into the far-reaching impacts of choosing an unschooling lifestyle. We also dive into some of the profound realizations she’s had about […]

EU292: Embracing Cocoons and Bubbles with Anna Brown Aug 26, 2021

Anna Brown joins me this week to talk about our monthly theme in the Living Joyfully Network, Embracing Cocoons and Bubbles. It is part of the human experience to have periods of introspection, of pulling inward, processing, and integrating. Our children may lose interest in their usual activities while not yet knowing what’s next for […]

EU291: What to Do Instead of School Aug 19, 2021

This week, I have a solo episode for you! As the back-to-school energy hits its peak this month, I thought it might be helpful to re-commit to our choice to NOT go back to school. It’s completely understandable to feel a bit off-kilter as the “back to school” messages ramp up around us—be kind to […]

EU290: An Unschooling Journey with Jae Williams, Part 1 Aug 12, 2021

Jae Williams recently decided to leave his teaching job and stay home to dive into unschooling with his two young children. Leading up to this choice, he spent the last year immersed in podcasts and books, exploring natural learning and questioning many mainstream paradigms about children, schooling, and success. We talk about his experience as […]

EU289: Unschooling Dads with Izaak Sibley Aug 05, 2021

Izaak Sibley joins me this week to share his experience as an unschooling dad. He shares about his own school education, how he saw his love of learning disappear over time, and how unschooling with Q has reignited it. We talk about trusting human curiosity and how he has seen Q’s learning naturally lead in […]

EU288: Sitting with Fear and Discomfort with Anna Brown Jul 29, 2021

Anna Brown joins me this week to talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Sitting with Fear and Discomfort. This is something that comes up on our unschooling journey pretty regularly because, not only are we challenging lots of cultural norms around learning and parenting, we’re also giving our children space […]

EU287: Why Joy? Jul 22, 2021

This week, I have a solo episode for you! The idea to share why I focus on joy and the unschooling journey bubbled up a couple of weeks ago and it’s been fun to put this together. And for listeners who may be newer to the podcast, I share a bit about me before diving […]

EU286: Connect with Courage with Roya Dedeaux Jul 15, 2021

Roya Dedeaux joins me on the podcast this week to talk about her new book Connect with Courage. Roya is a grown unschooler, a marriage and family therapist, and an unschooling mom of three, so she has lots of experience to draw from as she considers how children learn and thrive. In her book, Roya […]

EU285: Unschooling Stories with Erin Rosemond Jul 08, 2021

Erin Rosemond, an unschooling mom of four, joins me this week to talk about her unschooling journey. Erin shares her earliest reflections on her own schooling experience and how they prepared her for embracing the idea of home educating her children. We dive deep into the ideas of interdependence, collaboration, and kindness, and how unschooling […]

EU284: Deschooling with Lane Clark Jul 01, 2021

Lane Clark joins me this week to talk about her unschooling journey and to dive into what she’s learned through deschooling. Lane’s journey began when her family was living abroad and felt their best option was homeschooling. When their carefully chosen curriculum didn’t feel like a good fit, she discovered unschooling and has been questioning […]

EU283: The Value of Play with Anna Brown Jun 24, 2021

This week, Anna Brown and I talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Play! We dive into how integral play is for learning both about the world and about ourselves. We can carry a lot of preconceived notions about play, its value, its place in our lives, even the definition of […]

EU282: Teachers Turned Unschoolers Jun 17, 2021

This week, I want to dive into another question that I get pretty regularly, and that’s whether I have podcast episodes with unschooling parents that used to be teachers. It’s fun to ponder the why behind the question. Does it seem like a strange leap to make? To me, choosing teaching indicates an interest in […]

EU281: Going Deep with Unschooling with Talia Bartoe Jun 10, 2021

Talia Bartoe joins me again on the podcast to update us about her family’s unschooling journey. We didn’t know it going in, but it quickly became obvious that the theme of our conversation was “going deep”! Talia generously shares so much about her inner work and the shifts she’s made as part of deschooling and […]

EU280: Growing Up Unschooling with Samantha Donndelinger Jun 03, 2021

This week, I am joined by 20-year-old Samantha Donndelinger, who has always been unschooled. Samantha shares some of her childhood stories and reflections on growing up unschooling. We talk about how her family’s lifestyle gave each child the space to make choices and figure out their own path, and how making choices and exploring her […]

EU279: Validation with Anna Brown May 27, 2021

This week, Anna Brown and I talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Validation. Diving deep into validation flows beautifully from last month’s theme of Stories because practicing validation with the people in our lives is about hearing, understanding, and accepting their stories as their truth in the moment. Our connections […]

EU278: Unschooling in Large Families May 20, 2021

This week, I’ve put together a compilation episode to dive into a question that I get pretty regularly: What does unschooling look like in larger families? As we learn more about unschooling, we’re encouraged to spend time with our kids, to say yes more, to connect with them more, to explore ways to meet everyone’s […]

EU277: Unschooling Q&A with Sue Patterson, Part 2 May 13, 2021

Sue Patterson joins me again this week for the second part of our conversation, diving into three more listener questions. Check out part one here! Question Summaries I feel like I should be finding more friends for my kids to play with, but I’m introverted and it’s hard for me to reach out. My 12yo […]

EU276: Unschooling Q&A with Sue Patterson, Part 1 May 06, 2021

Sue Patterson joins me this week to dive into listener questions! And I’m sure it’ll surprise nobody that our conversation went long, so I’ve split it into two episodes—three questions each. A quick reminder, these Q&A conversations aren’t about giving anyone a “right” answer. We can’t know that because we don’t intimately know the real […]

EU275: Stories with Anna Brown Apr 29, 2021

Anna Brown joins me this week to talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Stories. Diving into this theme has been fascinating because there are so many ways in which we tell stories as humans, with really far-reaching impacts. We talk about the stories we tell ourselves and our families in […]

EU274: Rules versus Principles Apr 22, 2021

This week, I’ve put together a solo episode. This episode is geared to parents who are newer to unschooling, navigating the paradigm shifts that come with questioning so much of the conventional wisdom around learning and parenting that we absorbed growing up. Spoiler alert: there are no unschooling “rules.” But I think more experienced unschooling […]

EU272: Our Unschooling Journey with the Beck Family, Part 2 Apr 08, 2021

The Beck family of five—Angie, Darren, Josh, Rylie, and Ellie—are back to continue our conversation about their unschooling journey. We had so much fun chatting and sharing stories that our conversation flowed for about two hours, so I split it across two episodes. Check out part one here! This week, we talk about each of […]

EU271: Our Unschooling Journey with the Beck Family, Part 1 Apr 01, 2021

The Beck family of five—Angie, Darren, Josh, Rylie, and Ellie—joins me this week for a wonderful conversation about their unschooling journey. As you can imagine, the six of us had so much fun chatting and sharing stories that our conversation flowed for about two hours, so I’ve split it across two episodes. In part 1 […]

EU270: Supporting Our Partners with Anna Brown Mar 25, 2021

This week Anna Brown and I talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Supporting Our Partners. We chose the word “partners” to represent any important adults in our family’s lives who have active relationships with our children—spouses, co-parents, significant others, grandparents, and so on. Our partners are an important part of […]

EU269: Unschooling Doesn’t Spoil Children Mar 18, 2021

This week, we’re diving into a question that comes up pretty regularly, not just from people new to unschooling but also from extended family and friends when they see our parenting choices in action: Won’t unschooling spoil a child? We look at four examples of parenting behaviours or actions, the typical conventional and unschooling motivations […]

EU268: The Joy of Unschooling with Karen Matthews Mar 11, 2021

Karen Matthews joins me this week! Karen and her grown son, Tyler, own a furniture and wood craft business together. We talk about how their unschooling journey began and how following Tyler’s interests has not only been a rewarding path for him, but also for her. Karen shares some of the big a-ha moments she […]

EU267: Growing Up Unschooling with Laura and Allen Ellis Mar 04, 2021

Siblings Laura and Allen Ellis join me this week to talk about growing up unschooling. They share how their childhood interests and experiences connect to the work that they currently do and some of the realizations they made along the way. We talk about the role their mother played in supporting their interests and providing […]

EU266: Finding Our Guides with Anna Brown Feb 25, 2021

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 […]

EU265: Unschooling Passions Feb 18, 2021

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 […]

EU264: Unschooling Stories with Julia Triman Feb 11, 2021

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 […]

EU263: Unschooling Paradigm Shifts with Susan Walker Feb 04, 2021

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 […]

EU262: Nurturing Our Children’s Learning with Anna Brown Jan 28, 2021

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 […]

EU261: Deschooling with Joss Goulden Jan 21, 2021

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 […]

EU260: Unschooling Stories with Betsey Tufano Jan 14, 2021

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, […]

EU259: Nuggets of Wisdom from Five Years of the Exploring Unschooling Podcast Jan 07, 2021

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 […]

EU258: Seeing the Magic with Anna Brown Dec 31, 2020

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 […]

EU257: Unschooling Instincts with Ali Walker Dec 24, 2020

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 […]

EU256: Deschooling with Marta Venturini Dec 17, 2020

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 […]

EU255: Choices and Unschooling with Holly Clark Dec 10, 2020

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 […]

EU254: Finding Unschooling with Daniela Bramwell Dec 03, 2020

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 […]

EU253: Navigating Family Gatherings with Anna Brown Nov 26, 2020

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 […]

EU252: Unschooling Stories with Eva Witsel Nov 19, 2020

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 […]

EU251: Unschooling as a Lifestyle with Lucia Silva Nov 12, 2020

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 […]

EU250: Embracing Unschooling with Donna Anderson Nov 05, 2020

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 […]

EU249: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown Oct 29, 2020

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 […]

EU248: Favorite Things about Unschooling Oct 22, 2020

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 […]

EU247: From Teaching to Unschooling with Kelsi Stembel Oct 15, 2020

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. […]

EU246: Unschooling and Neurodiversity with Michelle Morcate Oct 08, 2020

Michelle Morcate joins me this week to talk about their unschooling journey and how unschooling is such a natural fit when considering neurodiversity because it’s all about facilitating our children as individuals, how they learn, and how they want to move through the world. Michelle’s excitement as an ally and advocate is contagious and we […]

EU245: Unschooling Stories with Cate & Jenna Phillips Oct 01, 2020

Cate and Jenna Phillips join me to share some of their wonderful unschooling stories! With six children, it was inspiring to hear about how their journey has unfolded as they prioritize relationships, follow their passions, and work together to support each other. Questions for Cate and Jenna Can you share a bit about you and […]

EU244: Not Back to School with Anna Brown Sep 24, 2020

Anna Brown joins me again this week! This month in the Living Joyfully Network our theme is Not Back to School. It has been a rich month of checking in with ourselves, quieting the outside noise, and focusing on our kids and the joy around us. Anna and I talk about the “back to school” […]

EU243: Parenting Shifts with Sarah Peshek Sep 17, 2020

Sarah Peshek joins me this week! Sarah is an unschooling mom of three and she shares the details of her journey and her parenting shifts from control to connection. Her insights and experiences are so helpful in really pulling out why this lifestyle is so amazing! How unschooling encourages us to recenter around the person […]

EU242: Deschooling with Nadia Joshua Sep 10, 2020

Nadia Joshua joins me this week to talk about her family’s move to unschooling and her personal deschooling journey. It was delightful to learn more about her family and how they navigated moving to one income, explored the need to go and do, learned to honour both her daughters and their individual personalities, and lots […]

EU241: Exploring Race, Racism, and Diversity in Unschooling with Erika Davis-Pitre Sep 03, 2020

Erika Davis-Pitre joins me again this week! I rebroadcast her episode, Unschooling and Diversity, earlier this year and she graciously offered to return and answer listener questions that arose from that episode. The result is this amazing episode with so many actionable steps and layers to peel back for all of us on this unschooling […]

EU240: Kids Are Capable with Anna Brown Aug 27, 2020

Anna Brown joins me this week to dive into the topic, Kids Are Capable. It’s a foundational principle of unschooling, and seems simple enough, but it’s about so much more than meets the eye! Questions for Anna Choice is a great lens through which to start looking at the idea that ‘kids are capable.’ Paying […]

EU239: Unschooling Dads with Roop Bhadury Aug 20, 2020

This week I’m joined by unschooling dad, Roop Bhadury. Roop’s wife Susan joined me earlier this year in episode 220. It was such a treat to get to hear about their family from Roop’s perspective but more than that we had an amazing conversation about the philosophies of unschooling and entrepreneurship, life, relationships, we covered […]

EU238: Deschooling with Jessica Kane Aug 13, 2020

This week, I have a lovely conversation with Jessica Kane. Jessica and her husband live in Ireland, and have three children. Her oldest attended school through high school, her middle son left school in grade 4, and her youngest son has never been to school. This gives her such a unique perspective to share! We […]

EU237: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Six Aug 06, 2020

This week I’m sharing part six of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. Last week, we covered stages ten, eleven, and twelve, ultimately reaching the holy grail of our quest: unschooling with confidence and grace. Let’s do a quick review to set the stage for the final leg of our […]

EU236: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Five Jul 30, 2020

This week I’m sharing part five of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. Last week, we covered stages eight and nine. And while our deschooling story to that point was working through much of the nuts and bolts of unschooling, in stages eight and nine we begin the personal growth […]

EU235: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Four Jul 23, 2020

This week I’m sharing part four of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. Last week, we entered the deschooling phase of our journey and found ourselves on the aptly named road of trials: a series of tests and challenges that the hero faces as they begin this personal transformation in […]

EU234: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Three Jul 16, 2020

This week I’m sharing part 3 of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. One thing I love about looking at our unschooling lives through this lens is how intimately it connects us to the human journey, which can help us feel less alone. Recognizing that yes, other people really […]

EU233: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Two Jul 09, 2020

This week, I’m sharing part two of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey framework, The Unschooling Journey is a weave of myths, contemporary stories, and tales from my journey. It’s not a “how to” book—no two paths through the world of unschooling have the […]

EU232: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part One Jul 02, 2020

This week, I’m sharing part one of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. Published in 2018, here’s a bit of the description: Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey framework, The Unschooling Journey is a weave of myths, contemporary stories, and tales from Pam’s journey. It’s not a “how to” […]

EU231: Growing up Unschooling with Michael Laricchia Jun 25, 2020

My son Michael joins me this week to talk about his experience growing up unschooling! We had a lot of fun diving into his varied interests, the threads that weave through them, and how they have helped shape the person he is today. We also talk about his experience with type 1 diabetes and our […]

EU097 RECAST: Unschooling and Diversity with Erika Davis-Pitre Jun 18, 2020

This episode was first shared in November of 2017, and I want to share it again now as the Black Lives Matter movement gains important momentum to bring Erika’s valuable experience and insights about diversity and racism through the lens of unschooling back into our conversations. Erika and her husband, Michael have four adult children—they […]

EU230: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown Jun 11, 2020

The idea with the unschooling in context episodes is to deepen our understanding of unschooling by exploring it in the context of other, related things. In this episode, we dive into unschooling in the context of parenting and examine some of the paradigm shifts around parenting and parent/child relationships that are integral to helping unschooling […]

EU229: From Control to Connection Jun 04, 2020

This week, I’ve put together a compilation episode! This time, the lens is on parenting and the shift away from control and toward connection and engagement with our kids. I think you’ll get a lot out of this deep dive. Audio clips taken from these episodes … EU027: Ten Questions with Teresa Graham Brett EU084: […]

EU002 RECAST: Ten Questions with Pam Sorooshian May 28, 2020

Pam Sorooshian is a veteran unschooling mom of three now adult daughters. Originally broadcast as the second episode of the podcast, I wanted to bring this gem back into the light! In our conversation, Pam shares so many incredible insights from her experience. She talks about the early years of unschooling, tips on navigating sibling […]

EU228: Free to Learn, Part Three May 21, 2020

This week, I’m sharing the third and final part of the audiobook recording of my book, Free to Learn: Five Ideas for a Joyful Unschooling Life. This episode dives into the fourth and fifth ideas: instead of ‘no’ and living together. If you haven’t read it yet, this is an opportunity to learn more about […]

EU227: Free to Learn, Part Two May 14, 2020

This week, I’m sharing part two of the audiobook recording of my book, Free to Learn: Five Ideas for a Joyful Unschooling Life. This episode dives into the second and third ideas: that learning is everywhere and that choices are key to learning. If you haven’t read it yet, this is an opportunity to learn […]

EU226: Free to Learn, Part One May 07, 2020

For the next while, I’m doing something a little different on the podcast. With many people sheltering in place worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s become increasingly challenging to arrange interviews. At first that seemed curious because people are connecting online even more so during these uncertain times. But as I thought more about […]

EU225: Unschooling Stories with Liz Brady Apr 30, 2020

Liz Brady joins me this week to share some of her family’s unschooling stories. Liz and her husband live with their four boys in Western Australia. We dive into how she discovered unschooling, her parenting journey, and the gift of sharing her life with so many unique and dynamic personalities. The love and joy shines […]

EU224: Deschooling with Fiona Munday Apr 23, 2020

Fiona Munday joins me this week. Fiona and her husband live with their 4.5-year-old son in New Zealand and she dove into researching unschooling when her son was a baby. We have fun exploring her journey and she shares some of the wonderful insights and a-ha moments she’s already experienced—including applying the same principles to […]

EU223: Unschooling with Young Kids with Eva Whipple Apr 16, 2020

Eva Whipple joins me this week! With children ages four and two, she and her husband have always known that they wouldn’t send their kids to school. We have a wonderful conversation diving into their journey, how she discovered unschooling, what their days look like, how capable and emotionally intelligent their children are, and how […]

EU222: Living Joyfully Network and Q&A with Anna Brown Apr 09, 2020

This week’s episode is a special one for me. For a few months now, I’ve been percolating lots of thoughts and possibilities around building an engaging and supportive online unschooling community. Finally, it’s HERE! And Anna Brown is an integral part of it all, taking on the role of Community Advocate. We are well into […]

EU221: Unschooling and Neurodiversity with Tara McGovern Dutcher Apr 02, 2020

Tara McGovern Dutcher joins me to talk about neurodiversity, how we are all unique in our experience of the world, and how unschooling creates an amazing environment from which our individual gifts can shine. Questions for Tara Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everyone into right now? […]

EU220: Pursuing Our Curiosity with Susan Bhadury Mar 26, 2020

Susan Bhadury, an unschooling mom with two children, joins me this week. She shares some wonderful stories and insights as we dive into deschooling challenges, the joys of technology, helping our children follow their inner compass, how curiosity weaves its way through their lives, and lots more! Questions for Susan Can you share with us […]

EU219: Home with the Kids with Pam and Anna Mar 19, 2020

For any parents who find themselves at home with the kids during these uncertain times, Anna Brown and I dive into the value of using this time to embrace and strengthen our relationships with our children, tips for navigating sibling conflicts, and some ideas to get your brainstorming juices flowing for fun things to do […]

EU218: Growing Up Unschooling with Jayn Coburn Mar 12, 2020

Jayn Coburn joins me this week to talk about her experience growing up unschooling. Her mom, Robyn, joined me back in 2017 so it was great to connect with Jayn! She openly shares her unschooling experience and insights. We talk about video games, learning, food controls, and touch many of the big topics that come […]

EU217: Change the Way You See Things with Jason and Kim Kotecki Mar 05, 2020

Jason and Kim Kotecki are back! We had a great time catching up and hearing about what’s going in their unschooling lives. I love Jason’s new book, ‘A Chance of Awesome: How Changing the Way You See Changes Everything’ and found so many parallels to our unschooling lives. The lens of unschooling changes how we […]

EU216: Deschooling with Nikki Zavitz Feb 27, 2020

Nikki Zavitz joins me this week to talk about her deschooling journey. She talks about how her life as a teacher influenced her decision to unschool, and how it also created challenges in her deschooling journey. She shares stories from what she calls the “messy middle,” and the beautiful moments that come alive everyday, and […]

EU215: Unschooling Stories with Dola Dasgupta Feb 20, 2020

Dola Dasgupta is a long-time unschooling mom with two older children and we have a fascinating conversation! She shares some wonderful stories as we dive into her journey to unschooling, deschooling challenges along the way, the value of free time, her experience unschooling in India, and lots more. Questions for Dola Can you share with […]

EU214: Unschooling Dads with Bob Mahan Feb 13, 2020

Bob Mahan joins me to talk about his experience as an unschooling dad. An accountant for 24 years, he had all the bells and whistles of that career, but he didn’t enjoy it. In our conversation, he shares his journey from there to unschooling and living a life of freedom, fun, and connection. Nowadays, Bob, […]

EU213: Unschooling and Math with Marcella O’Brien Feb 06, 2020

Marcella O’Brien joins me this week. Marcella is an unschooling mom of three boys. Her grown sons, Jack and Sean, joined me to share their experiences back in episode 181, so it was such a treat to hear Marcella’s journey. She was also a public school teacher and still tutors math which led to a […]

EU212: Ten Questions with Nisa & Jewel Deeves Jan 30, 2020

Nisa Deeves and her daughter Jewel join me this week to answer ten questions about their unschooling lives. This was a lovely chat that felt like sharing a cup of tea with old friends. I love the rich tapestry of lives created by all of the unschoolers who so generously share their time with me. […]

EU211: Learning in the Real World Jan 23, 2020

When we first decide our children aren’t going to go to school, it can be daunting to envision how they’re going to learn instead. The great thing is, we don’t need to re-create the ethos of school in our homes to help our children’s learning thrive in the real world. In this talk I gave […]

EU210: Unschooling Stories with Michelle Conaway Jan 16, 2020

Michelle Conaway joins me this week. Michelle is an unschooling mother of three and grandmother to one! She also runs the Texas Unschoolers group, coordinates their annual conference, and was gracious enough to share her journey and some wonderful stories and insights from their unschooling lives. Questions for Michelle Can you share with us a […]

EU209: The Lovely Chaos of Unschooling with Shan Burton Jan 09, 2020

Shan Burton is a writer, an unschooling mom and a recent widow. She kindly joins me this week to talk about her unschooling life, how the idea of Lovely Chaos (her website name) came about and how embracing unschooling healed her relationships and helped her family through the loss of their beloved husband and father. […]

EU208: Don’t Aim for Perfect with Sue Patterson Jan 02, 2020

Sue Patterson joins me to talk about how the idea of “perfect” can get in the way of living our best unschooling life. We touch on comparisons, tough times, the personal work involved, the gifts that these choices bring, and lots more! Discussion Points Let’s start with the genuine excitement that bubbles up when we […]

EU207: Advice from Grown Unschoolers Dec 26, 2019

It’s compilation episode time again! In many of my conversations with grown unschoolers, I ask what advice they’d like to share with newer unschooling parents who are starting out on this journey. In this episode, I’ve woven together answers from eleven episodes and twelve grown unschoolers. It’s so interesting to hear the things that they […]

RECAST: Unschooling the Holidays Dec 19, 2019

Anna Brown joins Pam to talk about navigating the holiday season through the lens of unschooling. As we move into the holiday season, things can get challenging. Maybe you’re deep into deschooling and questioning everything—including holiday traditions—to see how well they really fit your family. Maybe you’re the lone unschooling family and anticipating uncomfortable visits […]

EU206: Deschooling with Kinsey Norris Dec 12, 2019

Kinsey Norris is an unschooling mom with two kids and we had a wonderful chat about her journey! She has a background in Early Childhood Education and it was fascinating to see how many seeds were planted along the way that ultimately grew into the amazing unschooling life they are living as a family today. […]

EU205: Unschooling Dads with Lucas Land Dec 05, 2019

Lucas Land is an unschooling dad with three kids, and we have a wonderful conversation about deschooling, living in another country, trusting our kids, and lots more! He also recently started a podcast, We Don’t Talk About That with Lucas Land. Questions for Lucas Can you share with us a bit about you and your […]

EU204: Q&A with Anna and Pam Nov 28, 2019

Anna Brown joins me this week to dive into listener questions. Question Summaries The first question is about deschooling and moving to unschooling. She has two boys and they have always homeschooled. They’ve been looking at moving to unschooling. She’s been reading and researching and she’s feeling a little bit overwhelmed. The main focus of […]

EU203: School’s out. Now what? Part 2 Nov 21, 2019

School’s out. Now what? Choosing to step off the conventional education path and leave school behind is often the culmination of a long, and sometimes emotional, process. But, in the bigger picture, it’s really just the first step on your new path. School’s Out is a curated collection of some of my published articles, in an […]

EU202: Unschooling and Connected Relationships with Liza Swale Nov 14, 2019

Liza Swale joins me to talk about her unschooling journey and the value of connected relationships. She shares some amazing stories of trusting, being open, and following the flow. We also dive into what she’s learned about staying connected with her two children, who have very different needs and personalities, and how they prioritize connecting […]

EU201: Unschooling and Self Care with Erika Ellis Nov 07, 2019

Erika Ellis joins me this week to talk about the very important topic of self care. Of course, we look at the topic through the lens of unschooling, dispelling some myths and letting go of some “shoulds” about how to take care of ourselves. Erika shares so many practical, easy to use tips to help […]

EU200: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown Oct 31, 2019

It’s the 200th episode!!! What a wonderful journey it’s been! This week Anna Brown joins me for another Unschooling In Context episode. We explore the idea of deschooling and how it fits in the larger context of unschooling. We talk about language, our values, ideas that we can let go and so much more. Anna […]

EU199: Unschooling Stories with Holly Johnson Oct 24, 2019

Holly Johnson is an unschooling mom with two children, and her family is currently traveling the world together! How they got to that place is an amazing story. We dive into the choice to remove a child from school, helping an anxious child, hacking their lives to suit themselves, and how unconditional acceptance and love […]

EU198: School’s out. Now what? Part 1 Oct 17, 2019

School’s out. Now what? Choosing to step off the conventional education path and leave school behind is often the culmination of a long, and sometimes emotional, process. But, in the bigger picture, it’s really just the first step on your new path. Welcome! School’s Out is a curated collection of some of my published articles, […]

EU197: Choosing School, Part 2 with Alex Polikowsky Oct 10, 2019

Alex Polikowsky joins me to share an update about how her family weaves school and unschooling together. Recently, a listener posted a comment on Alex’s first podcast appearance (almost three years ago) about how much she enjoyed the episode and that she’d love to hear an update. I thought it was a great idea and […]

EU196: Growing up Unschooling with Katie Patterson Oct 03, 2019

Katie Patterson left school after kindergarten and grew up unschooling. She is an actress, a writer, and an all-around lover of horror. We have a wonderful conversation about her childhood, how her path has unfolded, what she loved about unschooling, and what she’s up to now. Questions for Katie Can you share with us a […]

EU195: Unschooling Stories with Renee Cabatic Sep 26, 2019

Renee Cabatic, the mother of two unschooled teens, joins me this week to share some wonderful stories from their lives. We dive into passions and comfort zones, college and quitting, agency and self-efficacy, and lots more. Questions for Renee Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What did your family’s […]

EU194: Stretching Our Comfort Zones Sep 19, 2019

Compilation episode time! This time, let’s explore the idea of stretching our comfort zones. This can come up in various ways along our unschooling journey. Often, we first encounter it when we’re actively deschooling and questioning so much of the conventional wisdom around learning and parenting that we’ve absorbed growing up. We can also find […]

EU193: Unschooling Younger Kids with Martha Delmore Sep 12, 2019

Martha Delmore joins me this week to talk about unschooling with younger children. Unschooling wasn’t on her radar before she had kids—she’s a former high school teacher—but her desire to maintain and enhance her relationships with them led her down this unexpected path. We dive into attachment parenting, when family members question our choices, the […]

EU192: Unschooling to College with Amy Milstein Sep 05, 2019

Amy Milstein’s two children have grown up unschooling. Last year, her eldest decided she wanted to go to college. We dive into how they handled the legalities of unschooling in New York, her daughter’s journey to college, and the lovely flow of their unschooling days along the way. I hope you enjoy the conversation as […]

EU191: Q&A with Anna and Pam Aug 29, 2019

Anna Brown joins me this week to dive into listener questions! Question Summaries Mom hears many parents on the podcast talking about hanging out with their kids so much more now that they’re unschooling. But since she stopped limiting screen time back in January, her boys, 15, 13, and 10, play online games. Her question: […]

EU190: Unpacking Unschooling Memes with Sue Patterson Aug 22, 2019

Sue Patterson joins me this week to dive into five popular unschooling memes. Memes can be quick, inspirational pick-me-ups, but we don’t need to stop there—we can use them as a springboard to learn more about both ourselves and unschooling. It’s so worth doing the work. The five popular memes we discuss 1. “You cannot […]

EU189: Ten Questions with Amy Martinez Aug 15, 2019

Amy Martinez joins me this week to talk about her family’s move to unschooling. Amy is a mother of five, who range in age from 15-29. They had time in public school, homeschooling, and ultimately moved to unschooling. Her insights on those transitions, on living in a big family, and on the connections and amazing […]

EU188: Our Unschooling Work with Jen Keefe Aug 08, 2019

Jen Keefe joins me this week! Jen was on the podcast almost three years ago and I really enjoyed learning a bit about how their unschooling lives have grown and changed since then. We dive into what she found challenging as they moved to unschooling, how it’s been life-changing for her as well as the […]

EU187: Time and the Wild Landscape of Unschooling Aug 01, 2019

I originally wrote this essay for Rosemary Magazine, for their winter issue, which had the theme, “wildschool.” I loved playing with that idea! There’s the outer wildness of living outside the structure of compulsory school. In the world, rather than in the classroom. Kids in the grocery store in the middle of the day. Running […]

EU186: Sparkle and Zest and Unschooling with Teresa Hess Jul 25, 2019

Teresa Hess is an unschooling mom with three kids and the family—Teresa, her husband, and the kids—live in a cool co-housing community on an island in Washington state. Teresa and I had a wonderful conversation about their unschooling lives, diving into the shift to peaceful parenting, the ever-deepening spiral of mothering and self-awareness, the concept […]

EU185: Deschooling with Talia Bartoe Jul 18, 2019

Talia Bartoe is an unschooling mom with four young children who have never been to school. We have a wonderful conversation about her deschooling journey—as someone who excelled in school, she had no idea this would be in her future. Her excitement and gratitude for finding this path and for the beautiful connections that have […]

EU184: Sprinkle in More Love with Shannon Loucks Jul 11, 2019

Shannon Loucks joins me to talk about unschooling, parenting, and her new book, Love More: 50+ ways to build joy into childhood. Shannon’s an unschooling mom with two boys and she believes in the power of play and partnership as a way to bring more joy and love into our children’s lives. We dive into […]

EU183: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown Jul 04, 2019

Anna Brown joins me this week for another Unschooling in Context episode! This time we’re diving into unschooling in the context of life. And what I mean by that is, we’re exploring how unschooling eventually weaves so tightly into our lives. Which is beautiful! Unschooling IS living our lives. Yet, as challenges arise, it can […]

EU182: Unschooling and Video Games Jun 27, 2019

It’s time for another compilation episode! This time, let’s dive into video games. Video games are a common topic of conversation in unschooling circles because, when it comes to questioning conventional advice, this topic is a hot bed of widely varying perspectives. For me, when I find myself in that conundrum, I look to my […]

EU181: Growing Up Unschooling with Jack & Sean O’Brien Jun 20, 2019

Jack and Sean O’Brien both grew up unschooling. Sean chose to continue unschooling during his teen years and Jack chose to go to high school. Now they’re both in college and we have a wonderful conversation about the ways that unschooling has woven its way through their current college experiences. Questions for Jack & Sean […]

EU180: Growing Up Unschooling with Nick Bergson-Shilcock Jun 13, 2019

Nick Bergson-Shilcock joins me this week! In a nutshell, Nick grew up unschooling and now runs the Recurse Center in New York. It’s a wonderful space for both new and experience programmers to take a sabbatical and vastly improve their programming skills. It was fascinating to hear the story of how the Recurse Center came […]

EU179: Unschooling Stories with Joan Concilio Jun 06, 2019

Joan Concilio joins me to share some of her family’s wonderful unschooling stories. We dive into her journey to unschooling, the learning that happened along the way, the profound changes it brought to their lives and the deep connections that it forged. She also talks about what it’s like to live in a highly regulated […]

EU178: Q&A with Anna and Pam May 30, 2019

Anna Brown joins me this week to answer listener questions. We talk about finding ways to live together when we have different styles and needs, considering diplomas and next steps, allowances and family money, and how learning looks different in unschooling families. Question 1 [00:00:20] How do I make a minimalist, quiet home dynamic enough […]

EU177: Growing Up Unschooling with Alyssa Patterson May 23, 2019

Alyssa Patterson joins me this week to chat about growing up unschooling! Alyssa and I dive into her interests growing up, her choice to go to high school for a year and a half, how she came to open her own business a few months ago, what she appreciates most about growing up unschooling, and […]

EU176: Coming Home with Tara Soto-Regester May 16, 2019

Tara Soto-Regester, an unschooling mom with two children, joins me for a wonderful conversation about her family’s journey from school to unschooling. We dive into how she discovered unschooling, her son’s transition from school to coming home, what’s surprised her along the way, her new podcast, and lots more! Questions for Tara Can you share […]

EU175: Deschooling with Leah Rose May 09, 2019

Leah Rose joins me this week to share her unschooling experience. Turns out, our conversation had such a lovely, organic flow that we soon left the questions behind! Show Notes In our conversation,we wove our way through these ideas: intrinsic motivation the pitfalls of comparison transitioning to unschooling breaking down deschooling conversations taking the place […]

EU174: Unschooling Teens at Camp with Laura Bowman May 02, 2019

Laura Bowman is the founder of the East Tennessee Unschooled Summer Camp for teens and previous guests have said wonderful things about their camp experience. We dive into Laura’s unschooling journey, how the camp came to life in 2010, what a day at camp looks like, the idea behind the Mentor Groups, reluctant campers, and […]

EU173: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown Apr 25, 2019

Anna Brown joins me this week for a conversation with a twist: we’re not talking about the ins and outs of unschooling itself but about how it fits in the bigger picture. Hence the title of the episode, Unschooling in Context. It’s a topic I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but I really […]

EU172: Unschooling Travels with Heather Clark Apr 18, 2019

Heather Clark joins me this week! I first met Heather a few years ago at an unschooling conference and I love the way she and her family have slowly but surely woven an interest in travel into their lives. We dive into her journey to unschooling, the story behind embracing travel, the value of embracing […]

EU171: The Magic of Learning to Read Naturally Apr 11, 2019

It’s time for another compilation episode! This time I went with a topic rather than a particular question: the topic of learning to read naturally. Listen to ten different guests share their experiences around unschooling and learning to read. Hearing their stories in this new context—side by side—may well spark helpful new connections and insights […]

EU170: Unschooling in Action with Kelli & Rhanna Lincoln Apr 04, 2019

Kelli and Rhanna Lincoln, unschooling mom and daughter, join me this week on the podcast. I had so much fun chatting with them and hearing about their unschooling lives—from both their perspectives. We talk about their journey to unschooling, living and learning with four kids (or three siblings!), their family’s RV travels, their latest business […]

EU169: Deschooling with Alicia Gonzales-Lopez Mar 28, 2019

Alicia Gonzales-Lopez joins me this week to talk about her deschooling journey. We dive into how she discovered unschooling, the emotional healing that’s happened for her, what she’s found challenging along the way, connecting with our kids, what has surprised her most, and lots more. Questions for Alicia Can you share with us a bit […]

EU168: Embracing Unschooling with Joan Karp Mar 21, 2019

Joan Karp, unschooling mom with three kids, joins me this week! We talk about her fascinating journey to unschooling, what she found challenging about deschooling, we dive deep into the teen years, what she most appreciates about having embraced unschooling, how her passion for sports weaves into their days, the new business they’ve recently started […]

EU167: Unschooling Dads with Ben Lovejoy Mar 14, 2019

Ben Lovejoy, a long-time unschooling dad, joins me this week. I met Ben and his family at the first unschooling conference we ever attended. His boys are grown now and we have a lovely chat reflecting on his family’s journey, including the influence of his military background, the idea of rules versus principles, the value […]

EU166: Unschooling and the Teen Years with Sue Patterson: Part 2 Mar 07, 2019

This week is Part 2 of my wonderful conversation with Sue Patterson about unschooling and the teen years. In this episode we talk about the later teen years, transitioning into adulthood, is there preparation needed, should we be defining success for someone else, connection and how relationships evolve and change. So many wonderful moments talking […]

EU165: Unschooling and the Teen Years with Sue Patterson: Part 1 Feb 28, 2019

Sue Patterson returns to talk about unschooling and the teen years. We are both rather passionate about the topic and our conversation ended up lasting almost two hours! I decided to split it into two, and it actually worked out quite well, with Part 1 covering the transition into the teen years, and Part 2 […]

EU164: Q&A with Anna and Pam Feb 21, 2019

This week Anna Brown joins me to answer some questions from listeners. We talk about finding friends, letting go of worry and fear of the future, the teen years, and more. I think you’ll find some helpful nuggets no matter where you are on your unschooling journey. Question 1 We are an Italian family. Here […]

EU163: Growing Up Unschooling with Adrian Peace-Williams Feb 14, 2019

Adrian Peace-Williams joins me this week! A companion conversation to last week’s episode with her mom, Adrian and I have a wonderful conversation, diving into her childhood unschooling, her choice to go to high school, her years of traveling the world after high school, where she is now in her journey, and lots more. Her […]

EU162: Ten Questions with Alex Peace Feb 07, 2019

Alex Peace has been one of my unschooling inspirations for many years! She has three adult children and I’m so excited that she agreed to come on the podcast to talk about her family’s unschooling experiences. We dive into what she found to be the most challenging aspect of deschooling, building trust, stretching comfort zones, […]

EU161: What is Unschooling? Jan 31, 2019

This week, please enjoy the audiobook edition of my intro book, What is Unschooling? Written and read by me, Pam Laricchia. Here’s the description: Life in the real world is much bigger and more exciting than a school can contain within its four walls. If you’re ready to embrace life and eager to share its […]

EU160: Ten Questions with Kirsten Fredericks Jan 24, 2019

Kirsten Fredericks and her husband Carl have three boys—now young adults—who pretty much grew up unschooling. We have a wonderful conversation as we touch on how she found unschooling, the most challenging aspect of deschooling, supporting our children’s passions, moving from control to trust, what has surprised her most about how their unschooling lives have […]

EU159: Growing Up Unschooling with Max VerNooy Jan 17, 2019

Max VerNooy grew up unschooling. I’ve known Max’s family for many years, online and through unschooling gatherings, and I’m so happy he agreed to chat with me about his experience growing up unschooling. We talk about the ebb and flow of his interests through the years, his time mentoring at an unschooling summer camp, and […]

EU158: Unschooling Book Clubs with Tracy and Erika Jan 10, 2019

Tracy Talavera and Erika Ellis are unschooling moms who also host an unschooling book club! We dive into the flow of a typical meeting, going about choosing books, figuring out membership, what they’ve personally gotten out of being part of the book club, and lots more. Questions for Tracy and Erika Can you each share with […]

EU157: Unschooling Intentions with Sue Patterson Jan 03, 2019

Sue Patterson, a long-time unschooling mom with three now-adult children, joins me to talk about unschooling intentions. I love the energy of a new year, but I’m not so keen on making resolutions. For lasting change, I need something meatier. I’ve found that when I think about the kinds of changes I’d like to see in […]

EU156: Surprises on the Unschooling Journey Dec 27, 2018

It’s time for another compilation episode! Let’s dive into how twelve unschooling parents answer the question, “What has surprised you most so far about how unschooling has unfolded in your lives?” I hope you enjoy hearing what these unschooling parents had to share! Audio Snippets Taken from These Episodes … EU036: Deschooling with Lauren Seaver […]

EU155: Let ‘Em Go Barefoot with Missy Willis Dec 20, 2018

Missy Willis is an unschooling mom of two children and host of the website, Let ‘Em Go Barefoot, where she shares her personal experiences, thoughts, and research around unschooling. We dive into her journey from getting her master’s in Special Ed to unschooling, what she means by the phrase “ego-schooling,” how jumping in to help our children […]

EU154: Unschooling Dads and Documentaries with Jeremy Stuart Dec 13, 2018

Jeremy Stuart joins Pam for an engaging conversation about unschooling, documentaries, and life. Jeremy is an unschooling dad and video editor who also directed and co-produced the documentary film, Class Dismissed, which was released in 2015. Since then, it has been screened in more than 60 countries and translated into five languages. He’s now in the […]

EU153: Unschooling the Holidays with Pam and Anna Dec 06, 2018

Anna Brown joins Pam to talk about navigating the holiday season through the lens of unschooling. As we move into the holiday season, things can get challenging. Maybe you’re deep into deschooling and questioning everything—including holiday traditions—to see how well they really fit your family. Maybe you’re the lone unschooling family and anticipating uncomfortable visits […]

EU152: Ten Questions with Vicky Bennison Nov 29, 2018

Vicky Bennison and her husband always unschooled their two children—now young adults. I met Vicky years ago and we’ve stayed connected online ever since. We have a wonderful conversation diving into her unschooling journey, including what she found to be most challenging, the importance of being curious ourselves, what has surprised her most along the […]

EU151: Escape Adulthood with Kim and Jason Kotecki Nov 22, 2018

Kim and Jason Kotecki are unschooling their three children, and they are also the brains and the fun behind escapeadulthood.com! We have a fantastic conversation, diving into their journey to unschooling, how they got into the work of fighting adultitis, how encouraging people to see their days through a more child-like lens is remarkably similar […]

EU150: Stories of an Unschooling Family with Sue Elvis Nov 15, 2018

Sue Elvis and her husband Andy have eight children, seven living, ranging in age from 14 to 31. Sue hosts the podcast, Stories of an Unschooling Family, as well as a website and blog. We have a lovely conversation, diving into her family’s move to unschooling, the difference between unschooling and unparenting, how unschooling has grown […]

EU149: Deschooling with Tatiana Plechenko Nov 08, 2018

Tatiana Plechenko is an unschooling mom with two children. I met Tatiana online pretty early in her unschooling journey and then had the pleasure of connecting with her in person a few times at unschooling events. We have a really fun conversation, diving into her deschooling experience, including her most challenging area, how her relationships with […]

EU148: The Value of Relationships for Learning Nov 01, 2018

When I began unschooling my three children in 2002, it wasn’t long before I came across the idea that strong relationships with my children were essential for unschooling—and learning in general—to thrive. At first, I thought, sure, that’s a worthwhile goal, but what exactly does that have to do with their learning? That became clear […]

EU147: Unschooling as Flow with Robyn Robertson Oct 25, 2018

Robyn Robertson is an unschooling mom with two children and host of the podcast, Honey, I’m Homeschooling the Kids. We have wonderful conversation, diving into her family’s early travels, their move to unschooling, figuring out what unschooling looks like for them, her favourite thing about the flow of their unschooling days, and lots more! Questions […]

EU146: Common First Questions About Unschooling with Sue Patterson Oct 18, 2018

Sue Patterson, a long-time unschooling mom with three now-adult children, continues to encourage and support unschooling parents through her website and Facebook group, UnschoolingMom2Mom. In this episode, we have a great time tackling some of the common questions people ask when they are first exploring unschooling. Questions for Sue Can you share with us a […]

EU145: Healing and Unschooling with Caren Knox Oct 11, 2018

Caren Knox is a long-time unschooling mom who found that, while she has been in and out of therapy over the years, nothing has been more impactful and life-changing for her than becoming a good unschooling mom. We dive into her family’s move to unschooling, when her healing journey began, her healing process and what […]

EU144: The Decision to Leave School Behind with Jen Lumanlan Oct 04, 2018

As Jen Lumanlan puts it, “I don’t have much in the way of parenting instinct but I make up for it with outstanding research skills.” Her deep dive into parenting research led first to a Master’s in Psychology with a focus on Child Development, then to another Master’s in Education, and then ultimately to choosing unschooling as […]

EU143: Follow the Joy with Natasha Allan-Zaky Sep 27, 2018

Natasha Allan-Zaky joins me this week for a wonderful unschooling conversation! We talk about her family’s move to unschooling, the challenge of embracing fun, learning piano, her biggest a-ha moment so far on the journey, and lots more. Questions for Natasha Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What did […]

EU142: Second Generation Unschooling with Amanda Sharma Sep 20, 2018

Amanda Sharma joins me this week to share her fascinating perspective as a grown unschooler who is now unschooling her own children. We dive into her experience growing up unschooling, the process of choosing unschooling for her children and family, what she’s found challenging on the journey, her favourite thing about unschooling right now, and […]

EU141: Growing Up Unschooling with Alec Traaseth Sep 13, 2018

I first met Alec Traaseth and his family when he was maybe twelve or thirteen, at an unschooling conference. I’ve enjoyed little glimpses of his life over the years through social media and I was so happy when he agreed to come on the podcast to chat about his experience growing up unschooling. We talk […]

EU140: Freeschoolin’ with Wendy Hart Sep 06, 2018

Wendy Hart and her husband are unschooling their eight-year-old daughter. They live in Ontario, Canada where Wendy runs a local un/homeschool group that hosts fun activities, like yesterday’s Not Back to School Beach Meet-Up! We dive into how she discovered unschooling, how she’s helping her daughter pursue her interests, her biggest stumbling block on the […]

EU139: Questions from the Inbox Aug 30, 2018

This week on the podcast, I’ve put together a new kind of Q&A. It dawned on me recently that I’ve written many thousands of words in email replies to unschooling-related questions over the last few years. And I suspect that, for every person who actually emailed me, there are many others with a similar question in mind. […]

EU138: The Sparkle of Unschooling Aug 23, 2018

This week on the podcast, I’ve put together a compilation of sixteen experienced unschooling parents answering the question, “Looking back, what has been the most valuable outcome from choosing unschooling?” I titled this episode The Sparkle of Unschooling because the guests are talking about THE ONE THING. It’s the thing we eventually discover that we celebrate […]

EU137: The Untamed with Courtney Barker Aug 16, 2018

Courtney Barker and her husband Dave are unschooling their three children. Originally from Australia, they moved to Northern Zambia when their first child was 12 weeks old. Four years later they moved to Chile, and four years after that they moved to Canada. We have a wonderful conversation about their journey from school to unschooling, […]

EU136: Our Unschooling Journey with Jessica Hughes Aug 09, 2018

Jessica Hughes and her husband, Micah, have three children, ages 11 to 18. When their kids were younger, they were homeschooling with a curriculum but they eventually found their way to unschooling. We talk about that journey, what you can do when you feel caught up in everyday “struggles,” supporting your husband’s journey, shifting away from […]

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To get us started Lucy, can you share with us a bit about you and your family?

Can share with us how you actually discovered unschooling? How’d you come across it?

So, let’s talk a little more about your family’s move to unschooling. You went to the camp, and it made sense, it connected, you guys loved that. Did your days just kind of keep on going, or how did that work?

I was wondering if you might share a little bit about your husband’s journey. Was unschooling a new kind of idea for him, and how did you guys work together along the way?

I was wondering what you have found to be the most challenging or the hardest part of your unschooling journey so far?

So, I am curious—what has surprised you most about your journey so far?

You recently started a group and a website called Parent Allies, and I have joined. I am really looking forward to that. And I would love to know the inspiration behind it, and a bit about your plans for it?

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Can you share with us a little bit about you and your family?

So, you guys went, and you spent your year there, in China, and you had children. I’m curious to see how that phase went, and then how you discovered unschooling and what your move to unschooling looked like. You said that was about a year ago?

I’m really curious to learn more about unschooling in China. I was hoping you could share a bit about your experience and kind of like the pros and cons that you see about unschooling there.

You recently published a blog post titled, ‘Unschooling as an Asian American is an Act of Resistance.’ I thought it was a great piece, Iris, and I was hoping you’d share your thoughts about it here.

I really wanted to know what your favorite thing about unschooling is right now?

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