Exploring Unschooling

**EU415: Growing Up Unschooling with Halie Barrick** Aug 13, 2026

For this new *Growing Up Unschooling* episode, Pam, Anna, and Erika were joined by 26-year-old Halie Barrick, who has always been unschooled. Halie shared about her experiences growing up, her journey through college and grad school, the business she created with her mom, and her advice to newer unschooling parents. She also reflected on the connections between what interested her as a child and what she’s passionate about today. It was a beautiful conversation with so many deep insights. We hope that you enjoy listening to Halie’s thoughts as much as we did!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

QUESTIONS FOR HALIE

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

What were some of your interests growing up and how did you pursue them?

You decided to pursue a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. Can you tell us about that experience?

You have started a business called *Growing Edge Equine*imity*. What made you decide to start a business? Can you tell us about your vision for it?

As a grown unschooler, what piece of advice would you like to share with unschooling parents who are just starting out on this journey?

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Pam and I have known Halie since she was quite small. She grew up and was involved in a group that started online, but then began meeting in person a couple times a year, and that went on for many years. We all have a lot of really fond memories of it. And honestly, it’s a testament to the kind of lifelong friendships and connections that can be made through online communities. It’s how Pam and I met, and some years later how Erika and I met, online first too. And all that grew from those early years is one of the reasons we started the Living Joyfully Network, so please check that out in the show notes, or go to livingjoyfully.ca and click on the network to join us.

But we are so excited to reconnect and see what Halie’s been up to, and so Pam, do you want to get us started today?

PAM: Absolutely, absolutely. Hi, Halie, and it is so lovely to see you again. I was hoping, could you share a little bit about you and your family, just to introduce everyone else?

HALIE: Sure, so I’m Halie. It’s great to see Pam and Anna again and meet Erika. So, I am 26 now. I’ve always been a radical unschooler, never set foot in a classroom a day in my life. My mom and I traveled a lot when I was younger, lots of cross-country road trips to visit friends and family. We’d have wonderful, rich, deep discussions on those road trips and cover so many topics. It was so much fun learning about people and visiting local bookstores and shops on our travels.

When I was seven, we moved to Vermont, my mom and I, to be closer to my grandparents. So, I’ve mostly grown up in northern Vermont, although I lived in North Carolina and Utah when I was little. My grandparents have been super supportive of unschooling. They were a little skeptical at first, but we took them to the Live and Learn conference in 2005, and they got to hear from grown unschoolers, and that really helped them understand what this whole crazy thing was.

I’ve just been super close with my mom and my grandparents and living in the woods in northern Vermont, tucked into a little family cabin in the woods. We have the same driveway as my grandparents. And I’ve got horses and miniature donkeys on the property, so it’s just been a lot of fun getting to follow my interests and grow up in nature.

ANNA: I love that.

ERIKA: That’s beautiful. So, I’m curious, what were your interests when you were growing up, and how did you end up pursuing them?

HALIE: Well, two of the biggest passions I’ve had that have lasted the longest have been reading and horses. When I was young, I had a huge collection of toy horses, a very particular brand that was very realistic. That was important to me. And my cousin and I would spend hours and hours, months on end, with these imaginative, in-depth games. All those toy horses had personalities and magic powers and complex relationships, and we processed a lot of world issues through our games.

And then when, I guess let me back up, when I was five, we lived in Utah, and my parents and I audited a college course on horsemanship. And so we would go, I have been in a classroom. In my first college course, I was five. We learned about horse breeds, and then we would go for weekly riding lessons. And while we were in Utah, we ended up with a few horses. And we didn’t really know what we were doing, but we had a lot of fun.

And then when my mom and I moved to Vermont, we were able to bring Garnet, my older horse, she’s my older horse now. Just one of our horses from Utah came with us. And the year that I was nine, we, together, my mom and I spent the full year driving an hour to our mentor’s barn and learning natural horsemanship.

In Utah, we learned traditional horsemanship, which is very power over, dominance, control-based. And that didn’t sit right with us. So, when we moved here and started learning natural horsemanship, it was a whole new paradigm.

It was basically the difference between traditional parenting and education and unschooling and peaceful parenting. My mom loved to see those parallels. And my mom’s master’s degree is in early childhood education, family mental health.

She’s done tons of research and always knew we were going to be unschooling. And so we would go together every day from like 10am to 7pm and help this lady with her barn chores and work with her horses. And she coached me in kind of unlearning the old paradigm and relearning natural horsemanship with my horse Garnet.

Garnet had to unlearn those old power dynamics that she was fighting against and relearn this new relationship built on communication and trust and partnership. So, that was my deep dive into horse training, which then has continued my whole life. Off and on with that particular mentor, then bringing Garnet home, getting my mom a horse, then I got miniature donkeys for my 12th birthday. So that passion bled into what I’m doing now and wove through my time at college as well.

The other passion that I’ve always had is reading and how it’s connected to fantasy books and therefore medieval history for me. My parents read to me when I was little, my grandfather would read to me for hours on end every night. And it was an interesting conversation about unschooling at that point with my grandparents because I didn’t learn to read independently until I was 11.

And they kept getting very nervous and trying to push me and would say, just read the first page. Okay, well, just read the first sentence. Okay, just read the first word. And my mom would have to talk to them and say, back off, trust the process. If you pressure her, it’s just gonna cause more resistance. Just make it fun. Take the pressure off.

I have very fond memories of my grandfather reading to me. And then I got to the point where when he was at work, I wanted to know what happened in the story. So I started teaching myself how to read. And he had read me the Harry Potter series twice. And so that ended up being the first series that I picked up on my own. And I’d say in the first book, I was actually reading maybe 20% of it. But I knew the story. And by the last book, I was reading probably 90% of it.

ANNA: I love that. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it, Pam?

PAM: That was very familiar, because I was reading the series. And as the books came out, we would have a big to do and I’d read and everything. But yes, I couldn’t read all day, which was what Lissy would have loved. And so we picked up the audiobook versions. So she started reading along with the audiobook as well. And that was it, one day, she just came down and said, Hey, I’m reading. I read the first three chapters or whatever, whatever. So, that was a very familiar introduction.

And that’s the difference between thinking about learning to read as an end goal, like I need to learn to read or my granddaughter needs to learn to read. And then picking easier readers or whatever to try and help that process along versus when an interest and a need, like your interest and the interest in the Harry Potter books, both of them came together to where it just felt like a time where you wanted to dive in, into it, right?

Because sometimes our brains just aren’t ready for it. I feel like when your mom was easing them into, just trust the process, just let things unfold. That doesn’t mean sitting back and doing nothing. Reading the books to people getting the books, finding the books that are super fun and interesting for them.

Because you don’t have to be behind in anything. Just because the act of reading is not a skill that someone’s picked up yet. There’s so many other ways to get at that, the stories and information, all those pieces. So yeah, that’s super cool, Halie.

ERIKA: I just love the threads, the through lines when you grow up and you can look back and say, hey, this is something I’ve always been interested in. Playing with the toy horses when I was super little. And then that is a through line through your life. And with all that, it just feels like all this space and all this support for you to really dive as deeply as you wanted into your interests. I just love that story.

ANNA: Just make it fun, just share that love of reading, share the love of whatever the thing is we have with our kids. And then it’s so beautiful.

HALIE: My grandmother, once I learned to read, she was like, well, when are you going to stop reading and go outside again? Because all you want to do is read.

ANNA: That’s how it works a lot, isn’t it!?

HALIE: I’ve always gone all in with whatever I’m doing for a long time. And the love of reading then translated to a love of medieval history and getting really interested in Renaissance fairs and archery and sword fighting.

And then I connected that with my love of horses. And I taught myself mounted archery so I can be shooting the bow and arrow while riding my horse.

ANNA: I love seeing how the threads weave together, but over the course of a decade.

PAM: That space. Yeah, yeah. I’m just gonna leap off that for a second, Halie, just for people listening to get an idea of just how these things flow. We’re going to a Ren Faire this weekend. My son is working at it. He’s doing the jousting and the fighting. He’s a stunt actor. So, that piece is super cool. His interest in stunt acting started way back as a kid. He was always a rough and tumbley kind of person and then started with karate. So, that just wove over the years.

And then Lissy’s interest in Harry Potter. Then she got into reading fan fiction. Then there was a fan fiction writer who would use music quotes at the beginning of their chapters, which got her interested in music. She was also interested in photography at the time. And then eventually photography and music have woven together.

Now she mostly photographs musicians. I love hearing the stories about all the interests and how they weave together. It’s not like you were interested in horses, so you have to be interested in horses forever. I would look at how it all weaves together and weaves through various interests, right? It’s like interest just almost seems like such a small word.

ANNA: But it’s that space and time, right? It’s that space to pursue and find the weaving. I think when we think about a curriculum or if we’re trying to do something for our child’s learning, it’s so limiting, right? Because it’s this one very linear path and you can see through Halie, your story and all of our stories that we’ve talked about so many times, it’s never linear. It’s just all of these different bits weaving together and the web that we create. So yeah, I just, I love hearing about those threads and I think we’ve got more coming. So, I’m excited for what’s next.

PAM: Now, a little bit earlier, you mentioned college and you did decide to pursue a bachelor’s and master’s degree. So I was hoping you could share about that experience as well.

HALIE: Sure. So, I wanted to go to college because I wanted to get a master’s degree because I wanted letters after my name. And part of that was that my parents both have higher degrees. They didn’t push it. But I also felt like I wanted to prove to the world that unschooling worked, which is maybe not the best way to go into that.

But I did not want to go to a traditional college. I was very against that. It did not feel aligned with how I learn or what I wanted to do at all. And so I was really thinking about it for a couple of years. And my mom knew of Goddard College, which happened to be an hour and a half from us. And they were like unschooling for college.

They were entirely self-directed, self-designed, low residency. So we would go for a week at the start of the semester, work with our small advising group, like four to eight students of all different ages and interests, with an advisor. And through that process, create our study plan.

There were no tests and no grades. It was all about communicating with your advisor, writing things, getting really detailed feedback. And then you would write a self-evaluation and your advisor would write a narrative evaluation at the end of the semester.

So we went to Goddard for an open house the same day that we went to a college fair, and it was a very stark difference. And I immediately knew I was home when I got to Goddard. The people were lovely, very social justice oriented. My cousin, who was living with us at the time, she and I went to Goddard together. And it was a nice kind of buffer. We could support each other as we expanded out a little bit more into the world.

So, Goddard was really special. I got my four-year undergraduate degree there, graduated in the fall of 2022. I took a year off and then I went back with the plan to get a two-year master’s program.

And I was a year in when Goddard closed, which was super, super sad. I think largely it was for financial reasons. They had a partnership with Prescott College out in Arizona that helped take Goddard students and continue their path and help them graduate. So, I completed my master’s a year ago. And yeah, it was really special. I think we need more schools like Goddard.

I started my first semester with something that I was comfortable with, which was horsemanship. And then I moved away from that for the middle semesters and explored everything from creative writing to astrophysics. And then the way Goddard worked was they wanted you to explore lots of different things for the first three years and then hone in on a big senior study project that would be like your major.

And so I came back around to partnership-based horse training, horse psychology, and I ended up getting a young horse, Chantilly Lace. She was only 14 months old, a little Arabian filly, and she was my senior study. Training her for that first year and doing a lot of research and journaling and writing about horsemanship in general, and particularly natural horsemanship.

So, that was my undergraduate senior study. And then part of that senior study, I was learning about equine-assisted psychotherapy. And a big part of our conversations, between me and my mom, growing up have been psychology and sociology and trauma-informed care and social emotional learning.

And so, I was researching equine-assisted psychotherapy and I decided I didn’t want to be a therapist, but I did speak that language and I did see the value in working with horses to develop interpersonal skills. So, I went back for my master’s with this focus of can I start a business to support people through activities with the horses? And that was my master’s program.

So my master’s was also self-designed equine-assisted learning and business design.

ANNA: Nice. So cool. I think it is really interesting. I didn’t know that Goddard had closed. I was familiar with it before, but I didn’t know that it was closed. So that is sad.

But I love how you were able to take all these different pieces and that they really encouraged that and then weave it together to find this path that felt good in that moment. I love that.

And so that kind of leads into my question, which I’m super excited about, because I also am very into horses and have been since I was little and natural horsemanship and all the things involved with just that beautiful relationship and how it translates so beautifully to humans as well.

And so you have started a business called Growing Edge Equine-imity. I’m curious, what made you want to start that business? Can you tell us a little bit about your vision for it? Just a little bit about how that it sounded like that really started in your master’s program, thinking, OK, I want this business. And so what that looked like, where you are now, and what your hopes are for it.

HALIE: Yeah. It’s been a year since I technically started the business and it’s feeling like a really exciting point in time. Things are beginning to come together. So, Growing Edge Equine-imity. I guess I’ll start with the name.

I wanted it to be Growing Edge because it’s about personal development and finding your growth edge, having a growth mindset. And I wanted “growing” to show it’s a process. It continues. And my mom, I’ve got to give her credit for the equine-imity part of combining equine and equanimity. She thought she was very clever with that. I love it.

So it’s an equine-assisted personal and professional development business. And the goal is to empower parents and educators in understanding self-directed education and shifting adult youth relationships from power over to power with. And I think a lot of that is about reflecting on how us as adults were raised and what kind of cultural conditioning we’ve received and unpacking that and really thinking about what are our values and what are our hopes for our children. What kinds of baggage do we need to unpack, what conversations do we need to have, and what skills to develop so that we can show up and support the children in the way that we want to.

It doesn’t have to be about unschooling per se, but since that’s my experience, I really wanted to start there combining my love of horses, my unschooling experience, and the fact that this psychology and sociology has been so interwoven into my life.

So, the business was really a way of pulling these threads together in a way that I could hopefully make a living while also supporting people and making a difference in the world in a way that’s really fun and meaningful to me and brings my personal passions together. So that was the goal of the business.

ANNA: Wow.

PAM: I love the way. I feel like. I was just going to say I love the way the threads all weave together, right? That, to me, that’s the beautiful piece, like Anna was talking about before, the space and time to really discover these various threads and then finding and exploring ways to weave them together so that it’s not like, okay, I have to choose one now and ignore the other things that I’m interested in, at least for a while I can pursue this one thing.

And it is really beautiful the way you’ve been able to find those pieces and then bring those into your masters. And through that lens, because you had said you were doing some business stuff too in your masters as well, right? So just weaving all those pieces together.

I love that so much.

ANNA: Yeah. I was just going to say it too, very similarly, but I feel like the best ideas and the ideas that change the world are that, right? It’s all the pieces, it’s bringing in these passion-driven pieces and these explorations.

I am super excited about what you’re putting out into the world. And I think so many people will be drawn to it because it really hits so many notes for people. And I think just your passion and love for it is also just going to continue to attract things.

I’m excited about your journey with that.

ERIKA: Yeah, it’s so beautiful. And I love contrasting that with, if you get that tunnel vision of, I’ve become an adult, I’ve got to just go get a job. I have to make money and kind of losing parts of yourself. Which I feel like a lot of people do in our culture. I just love the creativity and the intention and thoughtfulness that you’re putting into your path where it’s like, no, I can make a difference and I can continue to explore my passions and there’s value to this, all of these interests.

It’s so much more personal and it’s so connected, which I think then makes the work really land, for other people. So yeah, that’s so beautiful.

PAM: I was just going to add, I happened to be at an extended family picnic last weekend, a few days ago. And somebody, of course, has been asking what my kids were up to. And I explained what they were doing. And they looked at me and said, they’re just doing the stuff they like to do, but as adults. And I was just like, yeah, it doesn’t have to be just what you were saying, Erika. Now I need to get a job. Those don’t have to be separate things, right? We really can weave them together so beautifully.

ANNA: From the start, because I feel like the piece that I see in the work that I do with people is that in their 40s, they’re going, wait a minute. And they’re trying to re-tap into those feelings from when they were younger and had these driving passions and had these visions for what they wanted to be in the world and do in the world. But like you said, Erika, they just set it aside because, oh, okay, it has to look like this.

And so I do think this is one of the gifts of unschooling is that you really can have a head start on that, on really understanding yourself, self-awareness, just all of those pieces that you don’t have to unlearn later.

ERIKA: It feels like we have taken the interest seriously all along, not as this is a little side thing that if you have enough time, you can squeeze into your life. It’s like, no, if you’re able to really dive in and pursue your interests, then you’ll actually be able to use them in a meaningful way for your whole life. It just makes such a difference because people are so different.

There isn’t one right path to being an adult and working. And so, yeah, I just love that so much. And I know everyone loves hearing these conversations with grown unschoolers.

I know people will be excited to hear what you’ve learned along the way. So my question is, what piece of advice would you like to share with unschooling parents who are just starting out on the unschooling journey?

HALIE: That is a good question. How much time do we have? I mean, I think trust is the most important. I think trusting yourself and your own instincts and also trusting your children and that they also know what’s best for them.

I think with trusting your instincts, being able to separate what’s actually your instinct and what’s cultural conditioning and being able to figure out where the difference is and trust your instincts and critically analyze what the cultural messaging is. And then have real authentic conversations with your children so that you can ask them what they need and you can be partners and be on the same team.

I was thinking about this this morning and I have a little flow chart in my head. If you think about what’s your end goal, what’s your why? Why are you doing this? Why does it matter? Where do you want your children to be as young adults? And then backwards map it and think about what are the steps to get there.

In my mind, if the end goal is collaboration between you and your children in this journey of life, then what does that collaboration need? And I think it needs trust and communication. And trust, for me anyways, emotional trust means congruence.

So, your inner experience and your outer portrayal need to be aligned in a way that’s not dumping your emotions and needs on everybody around you, but being authentic and honest with what you’re feeling and who you are. And so part of getting to this point of healthy congruence, which is really what the horses help you with too, because horses live in the moment and are totally authentic and respond to that congruence. But to get there, you need this self-responsibility aspect and this self-compassion aspect of also doing what you need to support yourself and give yourself grace for when you’re not perfect, because no one’s ever perfect.

And then also the communication aspect of learning how to communicate with your teammates, if that’s your friends, your family, your children, and how to work through conflict. There are obviously tons of resources out there. We’ve particularly been drawn towards nonviolent communication with Marshall Rosenberg and Ross Green’s Collaborative and Proactive Solutions.

But the other concept I wanted to mention is the idea of rupture and repair in a relationship. You’re going to run into dings, and that’s an opportunity to literally practice resilience. Because if you can come back in a calm time and address those issues, your relationship grows stronger because of that. And again, there is no real perfection, which drives me crazy.

I’m a person who wants to know what’s perfect and then wants to meet that standard. The thing that I’ve had to realize is not only are we incapable of being perfect 100% of the time, but the definition of perfect is fluid between moment to moment and person to person. And so really it’s about showing up with full presence and having compassion for yourself and others and being willing to have real, authentic conversations and go back and address things when things feel sticky.

ERIKA: That’s awesome. I feel like you’ve talked about a lot of the things that we have recently been talking about too, just about paradigm shifts in parenting. And I think that is so huge about realizing we can’t be perfect. And that in fact, those moments where we are imperfect are the perfect time to then be building trust in our relationships. That just takes so much pressure off of me as a parent, but it also, it’s true.

I’ve seen it happen for us. And we can’t be perfect, but when we can repair, we’re all stronger. We all have this shared experience with each other that we can build on for the next time.

So I loved those answers, Halie.

ANNA: Oh my gosh. So, so much.

And I love that idea that perfect is fluid because I think all of us can get caught up in that, wanting to do the best job, the right thing, that piece. But it is, the people are different idea that we talk about a lot. It is different in every situation.

And those are the perfect opportunities to learn and grow and make that repair and deepen the relationship. And so I think it is helpful for parents to realize that this is not about doing X thing perfectly. It really is just about the presence.

And so I loved that, that kind of an opposite of perfect is letting it go to just being present, being present, that’s the work that we can do to show up for the people in our lives, to learn about ourselves, to learn about each other. And so, yeah, I just thought that was so beautiful. Thank you.

PAM: That presence is really how we can learn and navigate that moment. Like being truly present helps us see the next baby step of repair, right? It’s hard to have a rupture, then come up with this whole repair plan and then bring it back and do the thing, right? It really is a team effort, it’s in that presence and that trust. Their trust in us, to hear us as we come and approach a repair, but also our trust and our developing trust with experience just in the process itself.

Because for me, again, I’m another one who wants the right answer, just tell me what to do, tell me how to fix it, and I’ll do it. But time and again, through experience, just showing up and having those authentic conversations leads all of us into the way to execute in the right word, but for the repair to happen, right? And it’s not a one and done.

I can see so many people, I want to have this repair conversation and be done. And now we’re all back to normal, right? But that fluidity of perfection, that fluidity of life, it’s just showing up again and again and being present and being open and curious and trust.

And yeah, that was all beautiful.

ERIKA: I liked how you said that there’s resources for this too, though, because I feel like so many of us as parents, we did not grow up with this being modeled. What does validation look like? What does this kind of communication look like? But there are resources out there. So we can learn and just try things out with our family. So yeah, I loved that point as well.

ANNA: Yeah, for sure. Well, Halie, thank you so much for joining us. It was just such a treat.

And I just feel like we will definitely be staying in touch. I feel like we’ll see you again down the road because I think there’s just so much to what you’re doing and all that you’re putting out into the world. That’s so beautiful.

And I want to thank everybody for listening. And we hope that you enjoyed this conversation. It was just so great to catch up with Halie.

And I know, like Erika said, people really enjoy hearing from grown unschoolers. And sometimes we’re like, it’s not about a product or it’s not one path. Halie’s path is her own.

But I think it does show this weaving in of these different pieces, these threads and how it can look so different than what the traditional paths are. I do hope you’ll also check out Halie’s website, which is growingedgeequineimity.com. But we’ll also put it in the show notes so you can find it there.

And before we go, I want to invite everyone to join us at the Living Joyful Network. It’s a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents, a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas and explore what it might look like day to day in your family and ask questions and just see it in action too. Your first month is free so you can get a sense of whether the community is a good fit for you and we would love to see you there.

To learn more and to join us, just follow the link in the show notes or you can go to livingjoyfully.ca and choose Network in the menu. So thank you everyone again and take care. Thank you, Halie.

PAM: Thanks, Halie. So nice to see you.

**EU414: When Unschooling Kids Choose School** Jul 30, 2026

We invited a panel of three unschooling parents to join us to talk about what happens when unschooling kids choose school. Ari, Terri, and Kinsey are all members of the Living Joyfully Network and they all have children who have chosen to try school. They shared about what led to the decision, how the expectations of school affected them and their families, what they and their kids learned from their experiences, and how their foundation of unschooling helped them along the way. It was really interesting to hear about their unique paths and we hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

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, as well as our special guests today, Ari, Terri, and Kinsey. Hi, everyone.

So, I am really excited for this conversation. We invited Ari, Terri, and Kinsey, who are all Living Joyfully Network members, to join us today to talk about what happens when unschooling kids choose to go to school. There are lots of reasons why kids might be interested in trying school. And if they do, it can be a different experience than we might expect, because they’re making that choice themselves. But since people are different, and so are schools, we’ve seen a really wide range of experiences. And so thank you all for joining us to share a bit about your family’s experience.

To get us started, can you briefly introduce yourself and share just a bit about your family? And maybe we could start with Ari.

ARI: Sure. Hi, I’m Ari. I have three daughters. They are 10, 5, and 7. And we live in Portland, Oregon. We’ve been unschooling for about four years now. And this past year, my 10-year-old decided to go to school. She attended our local public school for fourth grade.

ERIKA: Okay. And Terri?

TERRI: We live in Swan River, Manitoba, quite a small town. There are four of us, me and my husband, and our two kids, a boy and a girl, Felix and Stella. And Stella decided to go into school this last year, into grade four as well. We live out in the country. It’s nice and quiet out here. And we have various interests that we have going on.

ERIKA: Thank you. And Kinsey?

KINSEY: Awesome. Hey, yes, I’m Kinsey. I live in Lubbock, Texas. And I have two children, Riley, who’s 15, and Emmy, who’s 12. Emmy chose to try school in 2024, and was there for a little while. So yeah, we had some experience there at our local public school.

PAM: Nice. That’s very awesome. Okay, so now let’s get into a little bit more of the details. We’re very excited to hear everyone’s stories.

We would love to know how did your child’s choice to go to school come about? And then how did it play out for your family? Certainly like at the beginning, as you guys were adjusting and getting this kind of settled. And would you like to start, Terri?

TERRI: Sure, sure. I’m guessing like maybe two years ago, it was coming up to when we could have enrolled her for grade three. And Stella had started asking about school, saying she really wanted to go.

And we were, I guess at that point, we homeschooled from when she was young, from the very beginning, and then slowly relaxed into unschooling. So we’d maybe be unschooling for about a year at that point. It felt like we had made this choice to not do school, me and my husband anyway, to not do school. So, it was very tough to wrap our heads around, could she go to school? My husband was very against it. He doesn’t mind me saying he’s like, I said no, he said outright no to her. Outright no to me. He said, we’ve chosen this lifestyle. And this just goes against everything we believe in about the school system. And so that was fair. That was his perspective. And I had that thought as well.

But I was kind of keeping it to myself, because I could also see with my child that she’s very, when she knows something or wants something, she knows it through and through, no one will shake her, right? And she’s very strong that way. And I could see that if we held with that no, and held with what we believed was right over what she wanted, that it would be really, really bad for our relationship.

And so, my husband and I talked about it. And I just kind of brought that to him that she’s just going to dig her heels in and want it more. And then if one day we let her, maybe she won’t feel comfortable to come to us if it’s not right. So, we’ve had those conversations.

Like I said, it took like a year, because that was grade three. And then finally, when it came back around to springtime, we had all talked about it and said, you know, yes, let’s try this out. Let’s try for grade four, there’s really only two schools you can choose from here, either French immersion or English speaking.

We could have done French immersion, that was an option. But she was very much against that. So, we enrolled her and also really did lots of work, reassuring her that there would be no, I told you so, you can come home anytime. You can tell us if it’s difficult, but that it was a lot of work. It was a year of work getting to that place. And yeah, it worked out in the end. So, that’s how we came to it.

PAM: Very cool. Very cool. Kinsey, what was your experience?

KINSEY: Let’s see, school is something that Emmy has mentioned over the years, at times, just something that she wanted to try. I think it’s part of just culture, it’s everywhere. People online talk about experiences at school, good and bad.

I think it was kind of like a social experiment for her. Just to see what it was like. So, before we moved here back, we live with my parents in my childhood home, in my hometown. And so she went to the public school that I grew up going to. And still with a lot of staff and stuff that I remember from when I was there, or knew from there, or that knew my parents, that worked with my parents at the school. So, we had a lot of resources, which was great, really helpful.

She went up there and was really excited. She was really excited to try it and did okay for the first couple weeks. And then it was like, okay, I’ve seen what this is like and I’m finished with this. But she did not stop going to school, then she would actually stay on and for the rest of the semester, which was pretty challenging for her. Are we going in depth of school experiences right now or how it played out?

PAM: Right now, this is just the choice to go to school. Let’s just focus on that piece.

KINSEY: Just trying it, I think just trying it. And at the time too, her dad was encouraging her to go.

PAM: Makes sense, makes sense. And Ari?

ARI: My daughter would mention school a little bit in the few months before she made her decisive statement that she was going. But usually, it would come up like, hey, I think I want to try school. And we would say, okay, and then it would fall away for weeks or months.

And then there was one time she had been spending a lot of time during the summer with our neighbor and her good buddy, who goes to school. And the two girls were together one day and they both came up. And my daughter was like, I’m going to school this year, or I want to go to school this year. And something about it was like, this is for real. And so I thought maybe this is actually going to happen.

We were three or four weeks from the start of school. So it all felt kind of sudden and there might be a lot to prepare for. But we embraced it. We were like, okay, this is your choice. And so I just enrolled her. And that was pretty straightforward.

I think she had, she knew quite a few friends through her soccer team. And that was a big draw. She wanted to spend more time with them. I would say that, in that nine year old year, there were signs of kind of itching for more with life.

A little bit less satisfied with our co-op, our little homeschool playgroup type things. And I could see she was just kind of reaching for more. And so I viewed this as an extension of that. So, she started school and really enjoyed it. So that’s where we were.

ANNA: Okay, so I’m going to ask about expectations. I feel like school adds some expectations, because they have a way of doing things that’s very different from the way that we all would have been doing it in your families. So how did you handle that change of expectations? And how did your child, did they roll with it? Did they have questions about it? Was it hard to kind of balance those two? And I think, Kinsey, I’ll start with you for this one.

KINSEY: Okay, let’s see, expectations. Clearly the schedule part of it was super new and different. So those kinds of expectations, the absences, you know, being there, attendance, there was an expectation that took me a while to embrace. I know how it works. It still took a little bit to maybe get used to those expectations being a part of our life.

And the communication expected between me and the school about what was going on with my child. If she wanted to miss a day, is it going to be an excused absence or not, and stuff like that. And keeping track. Thankfully, our school here doesn’t assign homework. That would have been quite difficult, I think, even worse.

When Emmy was excited to go to school and motivated, I was excited for her to go to school and motivated to help her with that, because she wanted to be there and wanted to go. Even getting up and getting prepared and getting her stuff that she needed, and making connections even before and all that stuff. It was really fine.

It was when she was finished with the experience and couldn’t stop. Just because of what was going on in our family at the time. We were going through a divorce at the time. So that really complicated things.

And so she wasn’t able to just come right out. At the beginning of her trying it, that was the expectation. And that was the plan for her to just be able to try it. And then when/if the expectations were too much of a mismatch, or she got her curiosity filled, she got the information she needed to know, or whatever experience, she could come out.

And just because of the divorce and the impending case, it wasn’t that easy. And so for the rest of the semester, it was quite challenging to be with the outside expectations that we no longer wanted to be a part of. So that’s just a little bit more complicated and our specific situation. But she pushed through. And I hated it. Honestly.

But yeah, there were expectations. It was really interesting. Oh yeah, I forget that I need to tell people what’s going on in our family, I don’t know why she’s not there, and she’s not going to be there. And if she’s going to be back tomorrow or not. And to report everything to that authority figure. It can be challenging, for me anyway.

ANNA: Yeah.

KINSEY: And once when I was there as well. I had a great school experience. I really did great at school. I was there at that school my whole 12 years. It was fine. It’s going back again, on this side, was interesting.

ANNA: I bet. Oh, my goodness. All right, Terri, how about you?

TERRI: Stella was all ready to meet all the expectations at the start. Because in something I forgot to mention earlier, when she was talking about wanting to go to school, we’re trying to figure out what she was looking for. Is it the friends? Is it structure? No, she just wanted that school experience. So, she was making her lunch the night before and setting her clothes out and getting to bed on time, which is well on time. She’d say, Okay, I need to be in bed between nine and 10.

So, she would set her time and she was there. And then you come up with, a month in or so, some uncomfortable situations. Which kind of leads into what’s expected of me. She had a stuffy nose one morning, and she didn’t want to go to school. And I knew the night before she’d been up to about like 11 or 12. And so my mind went straight to that. She’s not sick enough to stay home. She stayed up too late. She should still go to school. That’s what my parents would have told me. And so there was a lot of work in just a space of 20 minutes one morning, where I was battling back and forth in my head.

Make her go to school. No, don’t. But she doesn’t need to be going to school, but she should go to school. No, she doesn’t feel well. And finally, I just called it in. I said, she won’t be in she’s not feeling well. That’s it. And that became my go to anytime that she was just not feeling like going. Sorry, she won’t be in and she’s not feeling well. And that’s it. And what happened? Nothing bad happened. I was kind of like, Oh, someone’s going to call me, someone’s going to find out. I’m going to be caught.

So, that was a big expectation that I had to work through. Both of us. She’s always been kind of skeptical about anything or everyone to make sure if people are telling the truth. Well, not necessarily in a whole, but I think with teachers and adults at school, she’s slowly began to see, they’re saying one thing, but doing another, or they’re saying it here, but it doesn’t apply here, or it applies to kids, but it doesn’t apply to them. So she saw this gap.

And over those months, anytime she came up to an expectation that was uncomfortable, she’d be a little anxious about it. But then we move through it. And she’d be like, Oh, yeah, right.

I think it really broke her trust in just any adults, right? In people who aren’t in our important relationships. And, yeah, I think that was a lot.

That was a big part of the journey for all of us, I think. And then she did, she did come out of school in March. I would say, all the way up to Christmas, she was pretty happy. And then by January, she started not to go. She was staying home more often, taking long weekends. Saying it was boring, or coming home with more stories like, Oh, the teacher said this, and I don’t agree with that. And, and then by March, she just didn’t go back after a weekend. She’s like, I don’t want to go back.

ANNA: All right, Ari, what about you? And was it? Yeah, what did those expectations bring to the family? And really, even to the other members of the family, too?

ARI: Yeah, I think this is so interesting, because we’re all talking about our expectations. And that was the biggest challenge. In our families, my expectation was that my daughter wouldn’t like it, or that it would be this environment that I had built up as this coercive, limiting world for her. And the reality wasn’t. It was a widening world for her. It was opening things up. So, I gradually let go of what school meant to me, as an unschooling parent, and just let her have her experience with it.

So, that was a journey for me. I would say the expectations from school on to my daughter were similar to what Terri and Kinsey were talking about. The schedule, the showing up, we did have homework, a light homework assignment once a week. And my daughter took all those in stride. Like Terri’s daughter, she would make a lunch, she would get herself up, she would walk herself to school. After a couple weeks, she started doing that and walked herself home. So it was pretty cool to see, I could really celebrate that, this initiated independence.

It’s not like, you must do this, because we’re parents trying to help you be independent. It was just, I’m at a phase of life where I kind of want to take on more responsibility for myself. So that was fun to watch.

I had another thought, but I can’t think of it right now.

ANNA: That’s okay. It may come to you.

ERIKA: So, our next question is how you found that your unschooling principals helped you as you were supporting your child in their school experience? And maybe we could start with Terri.

TERRI: Yeah, sure. Definitely the idea of holding it lightly, right from the very beginning. Making that decision, just really reminding myself constantly that it’s not a big deal. They can go, they cannot go.

We can try to meet some of the expectations school puts on us, and we can let some slide. There’s so much choice. So holding things lightly, all the way through. That was a big one for me.

And then also, open and curious, whenever we did meet one of those uncomfortable moments, she would come home from school and tell me something that happened. And you want to jump in and you want to fix it. And you want to suggest all sorts of things, all sorts of great ideas.

And I really worked at just being, just shutting up, just being quiet. I let her say all of the things, maybe ask some more questions to help her tell me more. And then either I might make a suggestion, or I might ask her if she wants advice. And sometimes she just needed to let it all out.

And then I just kept picking up little nuggets of information, right? And it just was more information for the next thing we ran into. So I think those are really, really helpful. Those are the two best ones.

Erika: Yes. How about Ari?

ARI: Yeah, I totally agree. Holding it lightly, letting it be their journey, following their lead, kind of matching their energy, showing interest when they’re interested and listening, so much listening. Which I felt was a gift because you hear stories about kids coming home from school and not wanting to share anything with their parents. But that wasn’t my experience.

My daughter would share what she learned, share what she did at recess. It just took a couple little questions sometimes for me. And she likes talking about it. So that was really nice.

I thought of what I was going to say, which was I love what Kinsey mentioned about matching expectations or something about, there’s a mismatch between the expectations on you and kind of what you’re willing to bring. That’s what I was always looking for.

And I think that’s what they are good at. They know that if there’s an outside expectation on them, they have a choice whether they want to stay in the situation and meet those because it’s worth it to them or go a different path. And so I liked looking for that and watching to see if my kids are paying attention to that as well.

I also wanted to mention my daughter’s teacher, who was pretty spectacular. I felt like she met my daughter and all the kids on a person level. It was like she saw them as people to interact with, not just pupils to be an authority for. And I think that made a big difference for my daughter’s experience. My daughter liked interacting with her teacher.

They would have conversations, they would joke. And that’s the kind of relationship with adults that she’s used to. So that was powerful.

But there are also times when the teacher has to be a teacher or there’s expectations on them. And I remember with the report card once, I shared in the network, how my daughter received a report that was, my goal for her is to do her best even on tasks that she’s not very interested in. And it was like, huh, okay. Why? Because that’s an expectation that people should just do things that authority tells them to do. Is that really what we’re trying to instill in our young people?

So, that’s just an interesting moment. And we talked about that. We still support you just following your interests.

Now I’ve taken us out of the question. Where were we?

ERIKA: Unschooling principles.

ARI: Yeah, I guess they all fit. Open and curious. Everybody’s voice is important. And your own opinion, your own initiative is the most important.

ERIKA: And how about Kinsey?

KINSEY: So I think the most important principle for me was open and curious for sure. But also always making sure I was seeing things through Emmy’s eyes. Because school can be such a loaded experience.

I think there can be a lot of outside pressure. We had so many people who were really, really, really happy that Emmy was going to school. So, I wanted to be really attentive and make sure that I was really seeing things from her perspective and hearing her and believing about what her experience was. And she had a great experience.

The teacher, she had no problems at all with teachers. The teachers really loved her. She didn’t have problems with the work or anything like that. It was, again, I think it was just really a social experience for her, an experiment.

And so and then when she was in a situation that she couldn’t easily get out of, it really became my focus to see things from her eyes and be her advocate in the best ways that I could. And keeping all my other unschooling principles. I don’t even really think about things as principles, I guess, it’s just kind of a way of being, a way of life. Tracking with her experience, prioritizing what that is, and the information that we’re getting from that, and responding in the most supportive ways that we can. Within the situation, the scenario that you’re in.

I think that’s what I would say, just the ways of unschooling, the ways of being were helpful. Yeah, holding it lightly. Plenty of time, there’s plenty of time. It’s just all so helpful. It’s all so helpful. In what could have been a really highly pressurized or complicated experiment.

ANNA: Yeah, it sounds like you were able to keep your connection, even though it did get harder because of just the outside context pieces.

KINSEY: That was the most important thing.

PAM: Yeah. And I think like the thread through all of your perspectives on it feels different. Like you’re saying it is, it’s just a way of being.

And that I feel like at the beginning, those were the expectations you guys were wrestling with a bit. You didn’t want to take on that authority figure, and take on those expectations wholeheartedly from school and then put them on your child. But that you were processing through all the things with them and helping them explore the things, the challenges there and the expectations they wanted to choose to take. Like you were saying Ari, sometimes it’s hard, or it may be an unexpected thing. But in the bigger picture, I want to meet it or to be able to process those things without just being told, you got to do this thing. This is how it is like that.

That is huge. I think it’s a very different way for them to experience it, even Kinsey, when she did have to stay longer, your extra effort to see through her eyes and to be specifically advocating for her as much as possible.

Those are very different experiences for kids, I think. So, I wanted to just dive into this last piece, this last question, because we could come up with all the questions that we wanted. But it would be very interesting for us to hear what else you or your kids would like to share about their school experience.

I think it’ll be fun to see what stuck out for you and for them. So would you like to start Ari?

ARI: Sure. I might come up with more ideas after I hear Terri and Kinsey’s. The one kind of big picture thought I keep having is that the school is very central to our neighborhood.

A lot of events happen there. The PTA is very well resourced and very active. There are community events which are centered around the school.

It’s probably part of my daughter’s draw to school because that’s where the center of social activity is. And it’s in some ways beautiful and in some ways kind of troubling for me because I can consider the alternative. What if our community built that energy just around ourselves, just around our kids and didn’t tie it to this brick and mortar building where we put kids for six hours a day. I see why my daughter loves to go to school. She loves gym, and music, and library, and recess. And doing projects with her friends. And that’s all possible without the coercion, without required attendance. It requires some structure and a lot of effort, but I think our community could do that without the school.

So anyway, this is my own kind of mind wandering. I think there are some wonderful aspects to what a school can be. And it shows just what human potential is to me and what a community could be. That’s my initial thought.

PAM: How about you, Terri?

TERRI: Wow, yeah, I love that idea. I never thought of it that way, Ari. That’s really cool.

So, my mind is spinning there. But yeah, well, first of all, I asked Stella this question. I said, Is there anything you want to share?

At first, she wasn’t sure what my question really meant. And I said, well, if there was another family that the child wanted to go to school, and they’ve never been to school, if there was another child who wanted to go to school that has never been before, what would you tell them? And she said, that recess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. People say recess is their favorite part. She’s like, it’s not that great. She did say that, the first few minutes, you’ll have lots of kids who might want to play with you, and then you might end up alone.

And I think maybe what she didn’t outright say, I think sometimes being alone was not as fun. But then sometimes she was alone, and was okay being alone. And she’d have an adult, a teacher come up to her and say, Why are you sitting alone? Are you sad? And she’d be like, I’m just sitting alone, leave me. So, that was something she wanted me to share.

The whole experience leading up to it was a lot more daunting than the actual experience. In the end, I think I had a lot of work to do, because I worked in this school. My boss was the principal who when my child was four, I said, I think I’m going to homeschool. And he says, that’s a bad idea. I had lots of stuff in my head, thinking about all the thoughts that other people might have with me, choosing to do this, maybe her leaving all that. But in the end, it was okay. Because generally, people are pretty nice. And her teacher was lovely. Very lovely.

She was sad to see her go. But yeah, it was a good experience. And I think Stella, now she’s talked about going back sometime, she says maybe grade six. Here, elementary goes up to five, and then they go to junior high six to eight, she said, maybe I’ll go back in grade six.

She also said by the time she left, she was bored, that things were easy, or they weren’t interesting. And she was bored. So maybe she’s thinking, by grade six, things will be more complicated and interesting. Who knows, I guess we’ll see.

PAM: And Kinsey?

KINSEY: So, I’ll talk about Emmy’s experiences that she shared with me when we were talking about this podcast and reflecting about being at school. One thing that she mentioned was that she was really anxious, and what’s interesting, you would not think she was having this experience of school because of the feedback I was getting back from the teachers. But she was really anxious at school all the time.

And she was, I think she was guarded, looking, scanning, maybe. And afraid that she was going to get in trouble. And it’s not because she engages in behaviors that would bring on discipline or whatever. But I think it’s just the energy and the atmosphere there. The children are always getting in trouble. There’s a punishment reward system, of course, as most schools have lots of children being yelled at by adults. And there’s a kind of an adversarial, I mean, it’s interesting. There can be a sense of community in the school, maybe it’s around sports teams or the band, or just the school, whatever it is. But then within that, there is a line between adults and children. And it’s very felt.

Which probably, now that I’m really thinking about it, was unsettling for her because she’s never lived with that. I mean, we’ve been unschooling since 2018. She was three years old when we came home from preschool. We’ve been in this very partnered relationship her whole life. And other adult child relationships that we’ve fostered and found in our life. So, to be in this place where that’s just not the energy at all, or the way that things are set up. I’m sure that was really unsettling for her, but she said she was really anxious, worried she was going to get in trouble all the time.

She said she had felt lots of pressure about her grades, which I found was interesting, too. Because it wasn’t from me. It wasn’t from anybody outside. It was from within herself, which was so interesting to me again, because we haven’t had that. That hasn’t been a thing for us in our lives or for her before that. But I think again, it’s the culture of the environment, of the school environment.

The expectations, people are getting in trouble for not meeting expectations. It’s a lot of pressure all of the time, compounded pressure all the time. So, let’s say she was exhausted. She was really burnt out. She got sick a lot. So, we started racking up lots of absences. Terri, like you were saying, so then I’m spending these mornings, half awake, going, Oh, gosh, do I? Is it okay for her to stay home? Or should I go ahead and say you’re going, why am I? Why am I even having this conversation with myself right now? This is ridiculous. But it’s part of the system, right? It’s just it’s part of it.

And then after you get so many absences, you get a letter. You have too many absences. We got a letter at the end of the semester. So, that was another stressful thing. I was like, Oh, my gosh, what does this mean? What does this mean for next semester?

But anyway, she was really exhausted. She was not sleeping well. Something she learned about school was, this was what she said, she just doesn’t have time for it. She’s busy. She doesn’t have time for school, it takes too much time. And she wasn’t able to spend time with her friends, her pre going to school friends. Her homeschool friends, her online friends, or she really cut into that time. And I think that was really hard for her. So, then what she would end up doing, well, at first, she was going to bed early, it wasn’t that big of a deal, it’s okay, or whatever, worth it, maybe to try.

And then after it wasn’t worth it anymore. She really, really needed to be able to spend time with her friends. And she would do that. And she would stay up. So she would stay up at night to do that. She would not get the hours of sleep that she needed to go to school or to to feel good at school.

I mean, so she was just exhausted. At this point, she does not have any plans of trying school again, that I know of, I mean, maybe online or college or something like that. We’ve talked about stuff like that, but not going to the local public school. And I just have to wonder, and really, I feel like actually, I don’t really have to wonder that much. I think because she entered into it with it being this open opportunity. And then that was taken. That agency was taken. And then she was having to continue to go for longer. I just don’t know if she would chance it again.

And then not being able to come out at her choosing when she knew. So that was it. I mean, it was rough. There were some really fun things about it. But altogether, it was very rough. And she’s not interested anymore.

TERRI: Yeah, and that sounds like Stella.

ANNA: Yeah, for sure. So just because we didn’t really cover this specifically. Stella did decide to come out, Terri, your daughter, and then Ari, your daughter is still enjoying it. Ready to go back, I guess it’s summer break now, though, maybe, and she’ll be going in soon for the fall.

ARI: Yes, she’ll be starting fifth grade in the fall. I definitely think about, how do I keep the options open? Of course, she can always stop.

But because the social life is so important to her, I think it would be very hard for her to choose to go away from school, even if there were other aspects that she didn’t like. Like the forced learning, the forced homework stuff, if that got to be hard, would she, it might be a challenge for her to weigh those two things. And so sometimes I think about keeping up my capacity, the kind of friendships I have with the unschooling community, so that if she were to choose to come out, it would be an attractive option.

Anyway, that’s another thing that I consider sometimes. But yeah, she’s going to school in fifth grade. And she’s also had some influence on her younger sisters. So, they would also like to try school soon.

PAM: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, if anybody would like to speak to that, because your kids who chose to go to school or try school have siblings as well. And just how that unfolded having one sibling going to school, like managing the schedules, too. And as you said, Ari, a little bit of it is just the excitement of it, or that she would like them to be there too?

ARI: I think it’s a whole combination of those things. There’s this joy that she had that she wanted her sisters to experience too. She did talk about it, we could see each other in the hallways, we could be at recess together, you would have this teacher that there’s this knowingness.

And at first, I had more resistance to her sisters being influenced by that than I did with her initial decision to go to school, because I could tell her decision was from herself. And her sisters were being influenced by her. And at first I was resistant to that. I wanted to provide information to my other daughters about listening to what they wanted. There’s plenty of time. Don’t have to do it now. I wanted to share with them a little bit about what I think happens in school. So we talked about it.

But ultimately, I had to let go of wanting zero influence from my oldest because that’s how our family is part of their life, right? So, they get to decide how much to listen to her and to try something that she’s suggesting, and learn from that experience. So, we’re embracing it again.

ANNA: It’s going to be really fun to see how that plays out. But I think for all of them, it may be a lesson in people are different. To find that something that works so well for one may not for the other or it may be that it works in a different way and is still beautiful. But I think that’s going to be really interesting.

I am curious about that. So Terri, how did their brother feel about it? Or did that ever bring up topics of conversation?

TERRI: Oh, for sure. We ask every once in a while, like, Oh, are you ever interested? And the answer is always no. And always a hard no. So it could change and grow over time. But I know he said, and I asked if I could share this. And he said, Okay. So, his main reason is that he wouldn’t go to school, is that there might be some things he wants to do, but there might be things he doesn’t want to do. And he doesn’t want to be told he has to do the things that he doesn’t want to do. Right? It’s agency, he loses his agency.

He’s eight. And it’s true. I mean, you don’t have a whole lot. Some of it’s really great, fun stuff. But you still have to do it in a certain order, you still have to do it for a certain amount of time. That’s his main reason.

I asked him if there’s a difference from when she’s at school to when she’s home now, and he wasn’t really able to say. From our perspective, kind of observing, I think they’re playing a lot together, with their online friends, they’ll all be in a call together, and they’ll play online. Right now they’re out on the trampoline together, I feel like, when she went away, it did create a bit of a separation.

And then when she came home, she kind of wanted to do her own thing. If she goes back again, that can always be different too, as they grow. But yeah, it’s something I noticed.

ANNA: Did Riley have anything to say, Kinsey? Or did she just think, that’s Emmy, Emmy doing Emmy.

KINSEY: Emmy’s doing Emmy things. Riley has absolutely no desire whatsoever in going to school. And she didn’t have any feelings about Emmy going to school either.

It was hard with the schedule expectations. When it was okay for Riley to stay up late and be playing, or video games, laughing with my mom late at night, when I was trying to help Emmy wind down and try to get her enough sleep for school the next day. Just trying to be aware of all of that. But it was a little bit tricky sometimes. Just didn’t feel good.

TERRI: Yeah, I agree. We got into that too. Their rooms are next to each other and going in at night and say, could you just play quietly? It’s after 9. I would say after nine, can you make sure headphones are on and speak in a low voice just just to help your sister out. So, sometimes it got uncomfortable. You’re just like, be quiet, be quiet, reminding to be quiet. But, no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to do this to you. But I also want your sister to sleep.

KINSEY: You end up kind of having to be an enforcer. And that’s not where I want to be at all. It is not at all the position that I want to be in. And that actually can really bother people. And did bother people that I was not interested in forcing anyone to do anything.

ANNA: Yeah, because they all have ideas, right? I’m just going to pull out a couple things. And then we’ll just talk about what came up.

I thought it was so interesting, because we’ve seen this a lot, Terri, that you mentioned, the lead up is so much more stressful than the actual event of going to school. Because I think we see that over and over again, with people who unschool their kids, there’s a lot of worry about what’s going to happen, what’s it going to be like, and really across the board, kids that have stayed or not stayed. So, while it’s not that it’s always the perfect match, the fears that we had ahead of time really don’t play out.

So I thought that was really interesting. And then Kinsey, that piece you were talking about with adults and kids, I was thinking just of all the adults in Emmy’s life, she has so many beautiful adults in her life that just celebrate her and delight in her and how that delta must have felt really intense. And I think in other situations, it may not, but I think that is, I think, a hard part about it, that kids and adults, we kind of set up this adversarial relationship that doesn’t need to be. And we see in our lives how it doesn’t have to be that way. But it is a part of that environment.

And then just quickly, Ari, that idea of community, I’m working with someone who has this vision of creating a community village. That is to me kind of the dream, because it is bringing adults and kids together to just learn and explore and have resources together. And I think, oh my gosh, if this actually works, it would be amazing. Because we do like community. It is fun to share resources. It is fun to have those different opportunities.

But why do we have to be at a place where we have to give away so much agency and where we have to really segregate kids is so hard. But I love your point that for your daughter, it’s worth it, right? She’s getting out of it what she needs to get out of it right now. And it may always be that way for her. I think it’s just, it’s a good testament to sometimes we do need to experiment. It’s their own life. They need to see what works for them, because there is no one right answer. A lot of things bubbled up when you were talking.

PAM: That’s what I did. I did really appreciate the point of this. Okay, I’ll finish my sentence. The point of how the lead up can be so much more challenging than the actual experience. And we see that so often, when parents are almost feeling like they need to adopt the school authority before the child even starts, because now I have to make sure they’re up to grade level or whatever, whatever. And we encourage them so often, that there are kids in school right now at every level in any topic.

So number one, is that you don’t have to use your authority and change your relationship completely with your child, so that they can become what you imagine to be a good student before they even go to school. You’ve been unschooling for years and then school comes in. And then now there’s just so much processing to do. And you guys all spoke about how that was yours, and your work to do.

And I think you all expressed that beautifully, which leads into the other piece that I was just so happy for you all to come and talk about your experience, because it doesn’t need to change your relationship at all. As we talked about the unschooling principles that can weave right through your days, and that the focus is still on the child, and their choices, and how they’re helping them process how they’re experiencing things.

We talked so much about giving them space, without needing to jump into fix, you really need to give them the space to do their processing, right? And, and then sometimes asking, do you even want me to say anything? Would you like my experience? Would you like to hear what I’m thinking about it?

You don’t have to lose that relationship that you have with all your children, just because one or more choose to go to school. Fundamentally, it’s still an exploration. And yeah, you mentioned being open and curious multiple times, I think that really is so huge, because that reminds us to see things through their eyes, to see how the experience is feeling for them, to see them choose the hard things.

So often, people say you can’t give kids a choice to go to school, they’d never go to school. They’d never do hard things, so much of the societal narrative around kids only doing things when they’re forced to do things is just bunk. Because when you give the kids a space to actually think about what they want to do and make choices, and see how they unfold and continue to make choices, you see them in action, their choices make so much sense, even if we would not make the same choices ourselves, the choices they’re making in that moment, make sense.

And just see them doing so much competent processing and choice making, right? Think of all the experience that they get just with that, in figuring out what they want to do day to day. Anyway, thank you so much.

ERIKA: I think it’s so interesting. And I love how we got to hear such different experiences. And it reminds me of people are different again, every child is so different. And all the teachers are different. And it’s kind of the luck of the draw with that sometimes and what is the school environment like? And so I just think it’s super unique.

And so that’s really fun to hear about. And then also, I just wanted to mention how I know sometimes when a child wants to go to school, it really can trigger an unschooling parent big time thinking I must be doing something wrong. If they’re asking to go there, I’ve been doing all the deschooling, convincing myself about how damaging it was in various ways. And just really questioning the importance of that.

So, I know it’s such a journey for parents to go on in this case. We want to be able to support them in going, without us going back to our previous mindset, which I think is so hard. And so yeah, I feel like I’ve heard some parents say, we’re not unschoolers anymore, because our kids are in school, or, have that kind of feeling.

And that’s why I feel like we always like to keep talking about unschooling as more of that focus on relationships, these kinds of things of giving our kids autonomy and all of that. And so you don’t lose that just because they’re back in school. And so I think that’s really cool.

And if anyone has anything else that came up?

TERRI: I will echo what Pam said of this fear that they’re not going to be ready. How many years did we not work on specific math things or specific writing things or printing or handwriting, and I’m thinking what will it be like? But she seemed to excel every time I talked to her teacher, she’s like, oh, she’s so wonderful. She asks questions, and she’s involved and is very good.

I mean, that could be just her too. But our children are just built for learning, right? They’re built for learning, and they go to school, well, supposedly to learn. So, they’re coming in and the teachers are ready to teach. It doesn’t matter where the kid is. Because again, like Pam said, there are 10 different levels in a class of 15.

Every child is different, even if they went to school from age five, or they’re just starting now. And yeah, if I can just underline that, don’t worry about it. I worried about it too. I just wasted energy worrying about that.

ANNA: Yeah, I think it’s the choice thing. Because I think when someone’s choosing to be there, I think the teachers just love that because these teachers are beautiful people, right? They are there because they love kids, because they want to create a great environment. And so to have a child who wants to be there and is excited to be there and wants to hear what they have to say, that’s going to just set them so far ahead. Even if they don’t know every single thing that someone else next to them knows, I think that energy of that choice makes such a difference.

KINSEY: Okay, that really brought something to mind. She did mention a lot at the time. And we’ve talked about it since then, too, but it was so frustrating to her being in a classroom setting when it was so clear that children didn’t want to be there.

If it’s something interesting that they were doing that she really wanted to participate in, or wanted the teacher to be able to explain how to do it because she wanted to do it. And then there were classroom management things going on. It was really, really frustrating for her. And she would get really frustrated at the other students and couldn’t understand.

But it’s a totally different story, you’re coming from a completely different place. And she’s even seen that in homeschool classes. She went to a zoology class for a semester, I don’t even think she went the whole semester, she was kind of bored with the classroom set lecture style setting.

There was, again, another thing she wanted to just try. And, but it was the same. You could tell that there were children there who really probably weren’t interested in being there. They were there because they were being put there. And it was frustrating. It was really frustrating for her. So she likes being a part of things and group stuff and class stuff when the others are there and choosing to be there. They want to be there. And they want to learn and because that synergy feels good, you know.

PAM: And I will say we saw that too in rec classes, like with Michael’s karate. There were some kids who were there because their parents wanted them to be there, for whatever reason, so it wasn’t their choice. And I remember him having the same kinds of reactions and being so happy to be asked to move up to the adult class a year earlier than typical, because it’s a choice. So everybody there wants to be there and everybody’s into it.

Fundamentally being able to choose where you go makes such a difference. Just look at kids at school and think these are kids. That’s why society in general thinks kids don’t want to learn. You have to make them do things. But that’s just because that’s the situation you’ve put them in and they are reacting to the situation. That isn’t them naturally as a human being, as a child, that is a young human being in that environment. Yeah, so interesting.

ERIKA: It’s really sad to think, most kids don’t have that experience of getting to follow their own interests with other people who also want to follow that interest. It’s such a different environment.

ARI: So, just on that choice piece. There’s also a choice of what to make of the metrics. There’s metrics everywhere. Like my daughter took, I think, three practice tests, three progress tests, and then the state assessment at the end of the year. And she got four report cards. They’re always telling her stuff about herself. But we talked about how you have a choice of how to interpret that, which was not my experience.

For 22 years of my life, I thought this authority knows me better than I know myself. So, I like viewing the assessments very differently, too. It’s huge.

ERIKA: I feel like that just creates a whole different experience, so much more empowering for your kids.

Thank you all so much for joining us. This was amazing. And we hope everyone at home enjoyed the conversation. And we invite you to join all of us in the Living Joyfully Network. It’s a warm and welcoming online community of hearted parents, a nonjudgmental space where you can explore what the ideas might look like day to day in your unique family, and be a part of conversations that are just like this.

Your first month is free. So you can get a sense of whether it’s a good fit for you. And we would be really excited to welcome you to learn more.

And to join us, you can follow the link in the show notes or just go to livingjoyfully.ca and choose network at the top of the page. Thank you so much and wishing everyone a wonderful day.

ALL: Thank you. Bye!

**EU413: A Field Guide: Shifting from Control to Connection** Jul 16, 2026

We’re back with the third episode in our series on the podcast in which we’re working our way through Pam’s book, *The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide*.

Today, we’re continuing our exploration of the deschooling phase of the journey with stage seven: Shifting From Control to Connection. Last time, we questioned our beliefs about learning and now, we’re questioning our beliefs about parenting.

We talked about how parenting doesn’t have to be adults vs children, that children are capable of making their own choices, that equal doesn’t mean fair, how quitting is not a failure, and how strong relationships are the key. We also remembered to allow ourselves the time and space to grow and change.

Exploring these parenting mindset shifts was so much fun! We hope you find this episode helpful!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

Learn more about Pam’s book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide.

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hello everyone, I’m Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully and I’m joined today by my co-hosts Anna Brown and Erika Ellis. Hello to you both. And we are back with another episode in our “A Field Guide” series.

We are working our way through my book, “The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide”, which is framed around the hero’s journey and is a weave of myths, contemporary stories, and tales from my own journey. And we are deep in the de-schooling phase of our journey right now. In the last episode of the series, which was episode 408, we dug into some of the popular conventional paradigms about learning and found new truths buried in there.

And as we continue our journey on the road of trials, in this stage, which is stage seven, we are exploring some unconventional truths about parenting. If you’re newer to unschooling and this is your first time exploring these truths, you’re likely dancing with these ideas more intellectually to just understand what they mean, what are we talking about, and maybe some of the further reaching implications that come along with it. And if you’ve been unschooling for a while and feel like you already intellectually embraced these ideas and have been bringing them into your family’s lives, now’s the time to peel back some more layers to build more connections and contacts around them.

Strengthening your web of understanding with your own experiences, building your wisdom around this. And this is where you move towards, what feels to me anyway, believing these truths in your bones, you own them. These are your truths.

So, the first truth that we’re going to explore is that parenting is not adults versus children. And right off with that phrase, there are so many aspects to that one truth. Does the conventional approach of pitting adults against children really make sense for us?

What assumptions are we making if we believe that to be true? Does it mesh with our experiences with our own children and with the families that we see around us? The presumption of parental power over children is definitely widespread in our culture.

We are meant to assume good parenting means power struggles will happen, a battle of wills over whatever the issue at hand happens to be. Yet many of us see right in front of us that it’s a draining and stressful way to live. And that so many adults who grew up in that environment continue to have strained relationships with their parents.

That’s always been a curious one for me. So what if, let’s play with what if we choose to drop the assumption that the one right way to successfully parent is to exert power over your child to ensure that they do the right thing at the right moment? It can be challenging when we have little idea of what else to do.

Because shifting away from power and control doesn’t mean doing nothing. So to that end, I personally found it really helpful on my journey to focus on connecting with my child rather than directing them. That’s what I could do instead.

That helped me shift my energy in the moment to be open to seeing more of what was actually happening rather than that tunnel vision that comes with trying to control something to go one particular way and my way. And to instead get curious about how they were seeing the moment too, recognizing them as other human beings who are with me in this moment, not ones I’m trying to show the right way to go. Anyway, I found this a huge part of my unschooling journey.

ANNA: Oh my gosh, it really is this fundamental shift that changes everything. And I feel like we’re handed these ideas about parenting and what the dynamic between parents and kids should look like. This does not feel innate to me. It really feels like something that’s coming from outside. And I truly don’t believe that it feels good to anyone to be locked in power struggles with the people they love most in the world. And I think people press on because they think they’re supposed to. They think this is how it is. This is what I have to do. Even when they have these niggling feelings inside that it doesn’t feel good and I don’t want to interact with my family this way.

Because it really just doesn’t make any logical sense. Control, manipulation, and punishments do not work well in any healthy relationship. So take it outside of that parent-child dynamic. It does not work. These are not tools we want our kids to use. They aren’t the tools that we use in our close relationships as adults.

So why would we want to bring those tools into the relationship with these beings we cherish above all else? Why would we want to model that? That just never made sense to me.

The idea that really helped me the most was understanding that needs drive behaviors. So behind every behavior is an unmet need. Conventional parenting is about controlling behavior, but it never gets at that underlying need where change can actually happen.

And if we look for that underlying need and address it, what you find is that behavior that may be offending or challenging at the time can really melt away because the need is being met. And not only that, but it deepens our understanding of each other and our connection. Like you were talking about Pam, that’s how we get to that connected piece by understanding each other.

And so for me, that kind of defines the shift from control to connection, from trying to control behaviors, to connecting to understand the needs and address them together. And once there, it just feels better to everyone. And in that environment, we are all learning critical relationship skills that set us up for success, how to express our needs, how to hear another person’s needs, how to problem solve together to meet the needs.

That will play out over and over and over again in every relationship in our life, from the clerk at the post office to our closest partner. And that is where I wanted to spend my energy on us all fine tuning those skills together in a safe environment.

ERIKA: I agree. This is such a game changer. Moving from that power over dynamic that we’re all so familiar with just from living in our culture, to this place of connection. It just makes such a huge difference in my relationship with my children. And really, like you’re saying my relationship with everyone.

And I think it’s surprising to people when they first think about this or first see it in action, because people are not used to this dynamic. I’ve had many experiences, in relating to my kids, friends, with teenagers who are just like, what is this? This is an adult who’s not just trying to tell us to stop, an adult who’s just telling us what to do, or an adult who’s criticizing and judging everything that we do.

I’m an adult who is interested in them and wants to hear what they are interested in. And I just have had so many comments like, this is so weird to me, my parents don’t want to hear about this, that I don’t understand this idea of adults who are nice to us. And I think a lot of teenagers have that experience, it really feels like adults are just against them.

And so I think it’s kind of mind blowing. It really surprises people. But it helps me to remember how I felt when I was a child, and how I felt like I was a whole person, and then people would treat me like I wasn’t, but I knew that I was. And so that feeling is the feeling that kids have.

And so the power over dynamic does not make sense to them, it does not feel good to them. We can have people pleasing kids who go along with it. And then we can have kids who push against it, because it doesn’t make logical sense, and it feels terrible.

And then about those kids we’ll say, Oh, they’re a difficult child or whatever. But kids are people too. We’re all people. And so if I think about how I would have preferred to be treated when I was a kid, that’s a good place for me to start, with respecting children and not wielding my power over them.

And what I’ve found in my family is that it’s just so peaceful. Our interactions have a lot more peace, understanding, and mutual respect. There’s not a reason for them to be pushing back so hard against me. There’s not a reason for them to ignore everything I say, because they think I’m just trying to control them. All of those elements that you typically see in mainstream media relationships between teens and adults, it’s just not there.

It’s just so much more peaceful. And I think that helps all of us, it helps all of our nervous systems to not constantly be in battle with each other. And it has that feeling of, we’re solving problems together, you’re talking about the underlying needs versus me trying to force my will on to someone else regardless of what they want.

And so again, these are our most important, most treasured relationships. So I just think why would we want to bring that power over dynamic into that space that’s so important to us.

PAM: I know, I love that. I love all the little bits you guys brought to it. I love having this conversation. But when you think back on, especially, the teen relationships and the teen years, it’s like, oh my gosh, what a huge difference. I didn’t have a lot of conflict with my parents. But I also basically didn’t have a lot of conversations with them at that point, right?

Because you knew they were, from best of intentions, but only looking through their eyes. It’s about how they think you should do something. So much of it is their baggage from their experiences, right? And I want you to have a better life. It’s almost like inhuman expectations that they share and put on you, like, if I could help my child be the perfect teen into an adult and launch into that whole thing. Those are the kinds of stories that they’re bringing. And yeah, it just feels like one demand after another, right in the conversation.

So you don’t start the conversations for the most part. Because you know where they’re going to go. So I, why set myself up for that, right? So that’s the distance that conventionally you see with teens and parents. If we don’t talk, then I’ll never know what they’re bringing with those stories. I think when you tweak it to the kid, older kids, like wanting to build their independence, absolutely. That doesn’t mean the connection’s different. The connection is still strong. It’s still there. Of course they can do that.

But I think we tend to blame all of that on the teens wanting independence, but so much of it is just because they are bucking against the control, right?

ANNA: Absolutely. It’s just so disconnecting.

PAM: So, the second truth we are going to dive into is that children are capable of making choices. And this is another one I think can be so surprising for people to discover, right? Because conventionally many parents make most of their children’s decisions for them. Just believing that they’re modeling the right thing to do. And then assuming that their children have learned it and will make those same choices when they grow up and are finally in control of their own lives. And again, most often it’s not done with any malice, right? We love our kids and we want them to learn good choices.

But what if we aren’t telling our kids what choices to make? What do we do instead? Again, because it’s not about doing nothing. It’s not about leaving them to their own devices, all these phrases that you hear getting tossed about.

It’s about processing with them. What are their questions in this moment? How are they seeing things? What choice makes sense to them? When we aren’t struggling with our kids and are actively trying to nurture that secure and supportive environment, they have the space to consider things from various angles. And make the choice that makes the most sense to them in this particular moment. And have conversations with us about it both before and after the thing. They learn how to make choices by making choices.

And I think a key thing to remember as we make this shift in our parenting is to recognize that their choice may well be different from the choice that we would make in similar circumstances. Because, again, people are different. People are so different. I love how different people are.

ERIKA: Yes, and I’m so glad you ended with people are different because I really think that is the key here. If I stay stuck thinking that what I would do in this case is the only right answer in that situation, then it can feel impossible to allow my children to make a different decision. But since they’re different people, it doesn’t really even make sense for me to try to impose my preferences on them. Because that takes away their learning. It takes away my learning about them.

They can trust me as a sounding board if they want. But if my kids have the space to make their own choices about their own lives, which, you know, maybe that is a big paradigm shift right there, realizing that these are their lives, not mine. I don’t own their life as their parent. Then they can add to their own web of learning about what works for them. So how their choices play out for them will be so much more meaningful if they were the ones who made the original choice. If they’re just doing something that I suggested, and then however it works out, it’s like, why do they even care?

It doesn’t really have that same sort of importance to them, because they didn’t choose it. I love the point too, about the opposite of us making choices for them is doing nothing. And it really is not that. It’s being present, building that trust, being trustworthy, being non judgmental about the things that they’re interested in and the things that they want to do.

And so they will come to me if they’d like to imagine different scenarios, or if they’re not sure about something. And I know also just by having that connection, when they might need a little push or a little confidence booster, you know, you can do this, you’ve got this. And I know when to trust that even if it doesn’t work out how they thought it would.

And sometimes I even know that it won’t. And sometimes I’m right about that. And sometimes I’m wrong about that. But even if it doesn’t work out, I just believe that what they’re learning about themselves and the trust that it builds for themselves, trust in themselves, and then also trust in me that I’m trusting them. There’s just so much trust building that’s happening. I think it’s just huge.

ANNA: It really is. I love how you describe that interplay. Because I do think that’s a common first reaction. I’m not supposed to be over involved. So I’m just going to go away. And it isn’t hands off, but it is this what you were describing really being in tune with who they are and trusting in their journey, trusting in your relationship with them. Knowing when you can have conversations and when we can add a little something here.

When do I need to just observe or listen or reflect back? And yes, this is where people are different means everything, because we really do tend to think that people see and experience the world in the same way that we do, and that they want to move through the world in the same way that we do. And they just don’t.

So how I said it to myself in the early days was that I just don’t know what’s best for another person, even my child, ever. And that just helped stop me and help me stay open and curious about – what is their unique experience here? What are they getting out of this?

And it also helped me learn about myself and what things were uniquely mine. And I like how you said, Erika, now, maybe I just lost it. But it’s that sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong. Sometimes it didn’t work out. But it’s not about it working out, right? It’s just about the unfolding of it, because we’re learning all along the way by just taking a step by trying something.

I love that so much that this is even about letting go of some end goal of something that we’re all trying to get to. No, it’s about this exploration and learning about ourselves. And I just find kids are so capable. They know from the start, what they need at any given moment, and if they don’t have a fully formed vision of what that is, they know the next step they want to take, just so intuitively. I saw over and over again, they just don’t have the baggage that we’ve had, that I think can make things so much harder. And I think that baggage, kind of in light of what you were saying, is that we tend to have a fixed goal, like, this is what we’re trying to accomplish, so we have to be tunneling in on this endpoint. And I think kids are much more naturally playing with things and figuring things out.

And then, like you said, Pam, oh my goodness, we learn how to make choices by making choices. I don’t know how many times I said that to people when my kids were little. I’m like, how can you say that you want them to make good choices, but you don’t let them make choices? How are they going to learn how to make choices? And in that process of making choices, we do learn what works for us, what doesn’t, when to slow down, when to go full steam ahead, when to pivot. All these things come from the doing, not from being told which decision to make. That just short circuits all the learning, and begins this external orientation that’s actually really hard to break.

We’ve talked about this a lot too, that once that external orientation is fixed into you, from school, or even family, it’s really hard to step outside of thinking, what does everyone else want from me here? Versus, what do I want?. And I just found kids to be super capable of solving problems. Earlier I mentioned looking for these underlying needs, they have these best suggestions for solving issues.

And I will say, if this is new for your family, it can take some time to develop that trust. Can I really say something here? Am I going to be heard? But it can develop, and with that trust, just like you were saying, Erika, it’s trust, trust, trust all around, everyone feels safe advocating for their needs and really helping each other meet their needs. I just love that.

I know it’s a big shift to think that kids know best for themselves, but I truly believe that each one of us knows best for ourselves, and if we can give it some space and observe, you will start to see how different we all are, and how there is this knowing. And I feel like my kids helped me get back to my own knowing. It’s organically there in them from the start, and as adults, we may have to peel back some layers of conditioning, but I think it’s there for us too.

PAM: Yeah, I think so. I love that. And I mean, as you were saying that, it just became more and more clear. That giving them the space to make the choices that feel like they make the most sense for them, is such an effective way for them to learn more about themselves, which they bring to the next choice and the next choice. It’s just this beautiful cycle.

And then the reminder too, that it can take some time to build up that trust, absolutely, trusting that somebody’s not going to come back and tell them, no, no, no, that’s not the right way, do it this way. Or, see how it turned out after you made that bad choice, I told you so.

Okay, so the third truth is, fair doesn’t mean equal. I found this one really interesting to think through. It was so interesting, we don’t want to show favor to one child over another, right? We want all our children to feel equally loved by us, and conventionally, we extrapolate that to treating our children equally. So, like, all kids get one piece of cake, and you’re careful to make them all the same size. That’s just one little example, but it’s like the epitome of fairness, right?

But again, people are different, so instead, can we consider what the moment looks like through each of their eyes. How does it feel to each of them? So, I remember when I was thinking this through, I tested this little hypothesis. At the next birthday, I asked everybody how big a piece of cake they would like. And I was flabbergasted, nobody said the whole cake. But, so even as kids, I’d get different answers that really depended on how much they’d liked that particular cake or dessert, whatever we were having to celebrate, how hungry they were at the moment, if they were actually even fancying something sweet, right?

So, getting the amount of cake they wanted felt fair to them. They felt seen and heard just by being asked, not just, this is the size that all kids get, and here you go, and, finish it, or you don’t get more. The whole thing, equal does not mean fair. **I began to see fairness, not as that quantitative measure of anything that parents give, but as the qualitative measure of the value that each child receives.**

So, looking back over different seasons, one child may need more of their parents’ time, while another has a passionate interest that needs more of the family’s money to support it. We may be giving each of our children very different things in any particular moment, that take varying amounts of time, of our effort, of our money, but when their unique needs are being met, they each feel secure and happy, they feel seen and heard as who they are. And, in my experience, they do feel equally loved. What a difference, right?

ANNA: Oh my gosh, all of these things are so important. This one is huge also, and it’s one I cannot get my mother to understand. It’s funny, because she really does think that doing exactly the same thing for all three of us is fair, and that shows that she loves us the same, and that we’re all equally loved. But gosh, being on the receiving end of that just feels super disconnecting, I don’t feel seen and heard or understood at all. But at this point, she’s 92, so there’s no real changing her, so the three of us will just roll with it. But again, there are three of us, we have a huge age gap, brother, sister, and then I’m the baby, huge age gap. We’re all so different.

I think that’s why we talk so much about, people are different, because just understanding how different and unique we all are, just lights people up. They want you to know them, to see them, see their unique gifts and beauty. And so yeah, this whole, everybody needs to be treated exactly the same, does not do that.

So, I knew that with this one, I wanted to examine it deeply and do it really differently with my kids. My girls are very different, I just have two, very different, though, and it really would have been a disservice to think in those kinds of black and white, equal is fair, terms. And I think a big part of this is watching my own language, countering the cultural messages about fair, like you did with the cake, right? And so you created a new fair, which is, hey, how much do you want, and let me help you get that. And I think it takes some digging in, to figure out what the need is in any given situation. Sometimes you can just ask, but sometimes there’s a little more to it.

And also, just to build the culture of trust, that we will work to meet all the needs, and to recognize our choices in each moment. I think the other byproduct of everyone trusting that they’ll get their own needs met, is actually, they’re pretty happy when other people are getting their needs met too, because we can all celebrate each other doing our own things, and because we know that if we want something, we’ll figure it out, there’s no doubt about that.

So, as I was thinking about this one, I’m not even sure you can step away from this kind of equal as fair cultural idea, without moving to a more connected idea of everyone getting their needs met. I think it kind of goes hand in hand, so you don’t have any kind of backlash or misunderstanding about it.

ERIKA: Yeah, when I was growing up, we definitely had a huge, equal is fair, message in our family as well. And I think the funny thing is that, by constantly emphasizing trying to make everything equal among the three kids, we became so fixated on looking for the little discrepancies of, like, that’s a little bit more, that’s a little bit less, and we were also focused on it, and it gives you that feeling of scarcity, right? We were always on the lookout for, that’s not fair, how come she got that, I only got this, like, all of those things.

And so when I contrast my memories of that with my own children’s experience, it’s just so interesting. From the beginning, I was so careful not to ever indicate that our food, my attention, our toys, whatever the resource was, I made sure I was showing them that there’s abundance, they don’t have to fight over it. And so we provided what we could to each one, but it was what they individually wanted, and, like you both have said, people are different, so I’m not just handing both of them the same thing. Maybe sometimes, and in fact, sometimes that really helps too, to create that feeling of abundance, we don’t need to fight over things, but we don’t need all the same things, we all get what we need.

And so, when my kids were younger, my mom would play with them, but it was overwhelming, because if you have little kids, you know, a lot of times they’re both talking at the same time, wanting something, wanting her attention. And I remember she would set a timer. Okay, I’m going to play with Maya for 15 minutes, and then it will be your turn, Oliver, which feels really fair, but it really is just equal, because one might not need the full 15 minutes, and then the other one’s just focusing on what they’re not getting for those 15 minutes.

And so, even though it was at times overwhelming in those younger kid days, I did try to just include them both at all times. So I’m hearing them both, you know, kind of being like, oh wow, oh wow, oh, you know, it’s just the spec, and that’s all they really wanted. They wanted to be able to say what they wanted to say in the moment. It was more chaotic, I think, but they didn’t really notice that, they just knew that I was there, they both felt I was there for them, and they don’t have a feeling of competition between each other, and still don’t, to this day.

And so I feel like many of these paradigm shifts boil down to, people are different. This one feels like that too. If we can recognize that people are different, we know that meeting each person’s needs in our family is going to look different, and that’s what makes a family really interesting and unique.

PAM: Yeah, I love that you guys are both pointing out how so much of these boil down to, people are different. And it’s just recognizing that difference and incorporating it into the different aspects, that really is one of the fundamental paradigm shifts.

Okay, so fourth truth, and that is, quitting is not a failure. Choosing to quit an activity, I mean, think about it just for a second, it is as much a learning experience as starting an activity. So conventional wisdom says that if we let children quit whatever they want, they will never finish something when the going gets tough, right? They’ll just say, oh, that’s too hard, I’m going to quit. And I see you guys both smiling, that is just not what we see, and I bet you, anyone listening, if you watch your kids in action for any length of time, it’s not what you’ll see either.

In fact, if we continue to insist that they finish what they start, what they’re likely learning more fundamentally is to not try out new things unless they’re quite sure they’ll enjoy it. Because they can’t quit it, they’ll have to stick it out, as it were, you committed to this, like, all those kinds of messages. So they’re just going to only want to engage with something that they’re pretty darn sure they’ll be happy to follow through. So what that means is less exploration and less learning.

When we favor connection over control, our children gain lots of experience with wanting to try something, choosing different ways to explore it, and seeing how well those different paths meet their goals. They’ll discover things that they like, they’ll discover things that they don’t like, and they will get a better feel for the clues that help them decide when they want to lean into something and when they want to quit and move on. And each time they choose to quit, they’re learning so much.

Okay, I just got a rush of goosebumps, because I love this point. How does that choice feel moving forward? Do they miss the activity? If they miss it, that’s not a failure, that’s not wrong. What do they miss about it? That’s more learning. What are they doing with the time that quitting the thing freed up for them? Are they enjoying that? Are they enjoying that more? There’s just so much that comes when you quit something, that’s not the end, it’s not like, you therefore are not allowed to think about it ever again, right? There’s just so much processing that unfolds even beyond that one act, and it’s not forever either.

ERIKA: Oh yeah, I think mainstream parenting culture is just so hooked on this. They really want kids to stick it out, and I feel like it’s in this way that we don’t expect ourselves to. And yeah, I think it’s a little short-sighted, right? It’s trying to teach responsibility and commitment and all of these things, but who wants somebody who is committed to something that they’re no longer enjoying? This is a path that does not lead to success, it’s a path that does not lead to good places.

I still carry with me some feelings of failure that I have, due to, you know, in quotes, quitting something. I don’t even like the word quitting, because that kind of makes me feel like, I’ll never go back, I quit it. But I don’t view it like that with my kids, they can stop doing an activity and come back to it later, and there’s really no weight to that. But if I look back, I can see that my choices were valid, and that my life path has ended up being amazing, but looking back at certain things, I still feel the pressure and the weight of that, what felt like failure at the time, just because of the messages that I absorbed.

Sometimes we don’t know how something’s going to feel until we try it. When we do and it’s not a fit, sometimes it’s an immediate thing, right? Like when I tried taking computer programming in college, I was like, immediately, no, my brain doesn’t do this. For some reason, I thought it would, it didn’t. And so sometimes it’s right away, but sometimes we’re just changing and growing over time. We all know, we’re growing and changing so much, even as adults, but our kids are certainly growing and changing, we see it happen right in front of us. And so maybe it’s like, this used to be great, now it’s not anymore.

And so I think it’s just a gift to be able to listen to our inner voice, and make a choice that fits us right now, without that pressure of, this is a forever choice, or this is a failure if I don’t do this. There’s just no one right way to live, and each choice we make, it’s going to lead us somewhere, so we could just try things, quit things, shift gears, dive deep into something, and as long as we’re listening to our own voice, we can trust that we are building a life that works for us. I think we only really get stuck if we’re focusing on the external voices that don’t know us on the inside, and know what we really want and need.

ANNA: It really is a clue, that those outside voices are taking up way too much space, because those outside voices, the peanut gallery about the quitting, they’re not the ones that are going to be there doing the thing, they’re not the ones that know how you’re feeling. So it really is just that, slowing down to recognize that and push it away, because this idea of quitting equals failure, is so ingrained, and it’s so counterintuitive, because you’re right, Pam, if kids are forced to stay with something that isn’t working for them, what they learn is to not try, because, I’m going to be stuck with it forever.

And they’re so young, you know, they don’t know if they’ll like piano or baseball or that specific art class, there’s so many factors involved, and all the time that they’re stuck in something that they don’t love is time they aren’t getting to try other things to find out what they do love. And I love your point, Erika, that sometimes we know right away, nope, this is not for me, but sometimes interest wanes, right, and we grow and we change, and we’ve gotten what we’ve wanted out of it.

I think that’s another thing, sometimes parents get caught up. Oh, but they’re so great at the piano or that sport. But that person, that unique human, has gotten what they want out of that experience, and that’s okay. All of that is okay. And goodness, I mean, I’m 57 and still I want to dabble and try things to get a better sense of if something will work for me. I can get very excited about a lot of different ideas, but until I’m actually doing it, it’s hard for me to say, does it suit me? Does it fit in my life? Do I want this? Is this how I want to be spending my time?

And just quickly, if money is your sticking point here, because that’s usually a big one for people, we have a podcast about this, but David really helped me move through this one with the financial idea of sunk costs. And so the reframe is that we’re paying for the opportunity. When we go into it with this idea of we’re paying for the opportunity to try this, it feels very different.

The value is in learning whether it’s something we’re enjoying versus the value being in getting all of these specific instructions or finishing the class or staying on the team. And if letting the team down is your sticking point, you only have to have played a tiny bit of sport to know that someone who doesn’t want to be there isn’t helping the team at all. And you kind of alluded to this, Erika, like we really don’t want somebody that’s forced to be in any situation, sports or otherwise, or any kind of work.

And all of this doesn’t mean that there’s no discussion though, right? Because sometimes there are discussions before, during, and after. And for us, thinking back, if something was a particularly pricey activity,because that happens and kids are like, I want to do this thing. And it’s a year’s commitment for thousands of dollars. We would talk about how we spend that money, where it comes from, what it impacts. Is there another way to learn more about the activity before we commit to something that’s maybe as long or as expensive as that?

What I found is that kids are so creative and they often could find their own alternative paths as we’re playing with it and looking different things up. And also just talking to the organization, is there a way we can observe or trial it? People are pretty accommodating when you ask nicely. And I know for me, sometimes it is hard to ask for what I need. I don’t want to bother anybody. I know how busy and hard they’re working to do this program, but I really do find people to be understanding and generous when they can be. And that’s the information we need, right? Is it possible?

If not, okay, then that’s another thing to put in the hopper for the decision. And I just love that all of us feel comfortable leaving something that isn’t working. I have seen this play out in all of us over the years. You really just won’t find any of us stuck in jobs we hate for decades, which is so common in our culture. And we know there’s always a choice and there’s always another way. And I think I just have seen it serve my kids and it serves me and David as well.

PAM: Yeah. And I think that’s the whole point, with the relationships, with connection being in the lead, those processes are something that we can do actively. Like, okay, you’re stuck in a job that you really don’t like, you may end up quitting immediately, but also it can be, you’re disliking it more and more and more over time, but we’re having conversations, we’re making plans.

It’s not, well, you know, you have this job, it pays well, or whatever reason we say, oh, you need to stay, et cetera. No, you actually can. That’s the control piece coming right back in. We can instead focus on that connection piece. We can talk through it more and even later, it feels lighter, at least for me showing up to something maybe I don’t like, but I know I’ve got a plan to move through it. I know where I’m going to keep talking. It’s not black, white, like we were talking right at the beginning there. And then there was just one other tiny piece.

And now did I lose it? I’m trying to think what you, oh, oh, it was about, was it about, it was about like, how much we learn, I think, when, oh, yes, it was, it was, sorry. But it’s something that I love to do. When people come to the network. When we have the quitting discussions, et cetera. And, but then, so we talk about like, once they’re interested in something that may be expensive, I love brainstorming all sorts of ways that you can be involved in it without the expensive class. Because so often, certainly at the beginning of our journey, we turn it into – they’re interested in swimming, swimming lessons. Oh, piano, piano lessons, like dance, dance lessons.

That’s our first go-to because that is what we know, right? But there are so many other possibilities that can help them experience the thing that they’re interested in and may or may not at some point want actual lessons for it, but you don’t have to wait for the lesson to become involved. You can go swimming in the public pool. There are just so many possibilities. So I love that piece of just brainstorming ideas and people get very excited and off they go to play and it’s very fun.

Okay. Okay. Finally, truth number five, strong relationships are key.

It’s not about parenting that parent-child power dynamic in which the overarching goal is to turn out a successful adult, right? It’s about being in relationship with your child. This is a lifelong relationship. We’re two human beings. We’re multiple human beings. That relationship shifts over time as they grow and change, as we grow and change.

It looks very different when they’re young versus when they’re in their teens versus when they’re young adults versus when they’re older adults. Even if at any given moment, it feels like things will never change, right? But they really, really do.

You can’t imagine when this is ever going to change. And, and getting focused on and fixating on when it will change is going to get in your way. But that’s a conversation for another day.

A few years ago, I wrote a very long essay about the value of relationships to learning. And I will link in the show notes to anyone who’s interested. But oh my gosh, when I first came to unschooling because my kids were in school, it was like, oh, how are they going to learn, right?

And in the last episode, we talked about paradigm shifts around learning. But I really did come to see pretty quickly that I didn’t need to worry about the learning. What I could focus on was a relationships and this shift from control to connection and recognizing that strong relationships really just drive everything like that was key for me.

ANNA: Yeah, I think when we switch the lens to being in relationship, things just change dramatically across the board. I’ve talked about it before, but I would just often ask myself – Is what I’m about to say or do going to help or harm our relationship? That kept me focused on what was important to me. And that litmus test really served me well.

Because if I’m tending to the relationship, we’re able to navigate the challenges together from a place of connection. So if I’m wanting my kids to be safe. As parents, we kind of see that as a responsibility. They are safest when our relationship is strong and they can come to me versus rules and punishments to try to keep them safe, which serves to disconnect us.

If my kids came upon a situation that seemed a little sketchy, they would ask me about it. They knew I wasn’t going to stop the exploration just off the bat, but that I could be a sounding board and a processing partner as they navigated it. For kids who think they’re going to get in trouble, they may push down those niggling thoughts that this doesn’t feel good or something isn’t right here because they want to learn more.

There’s still something intriguing about it to them and they know their parents might deem it unsafe and stop the exploration altogether. And really that puts them in harm’s way without the support of someone who cares about them. And this applies when they’re young and maybe even more so when they’re teens.

We always had a policy of, I will come get you no matter what, no questions asked if they ever needed out of something. And they also knew they could use me as an excuse. My mom needs me to come home. Because then it wasn’t about me stopping their exploration. It was about giving them tools, tools to get out of situations if they needed it, tools they could use to explore safely. And that’s just the safety lens. But this really applies to all areas.

If we have trusted people in our corner, we’re going to be able to explore and learn more. And I think we can see that in our adult lives too. When we feel supported and loved and cared for, we’re so much more likely to learn and grow. Those basic needs have been met, we’re so much more likely to explore and learn and push the limits of what we can do.

And I think that’s the piece that you’re getting at, Pam, right? This is the basis for learning. These relationships really, that is what makes learning happen and easier.

ERIKA: Yeah, I think those strong relationships with people we trust helps us in every area of our lives. And it’s the same for our children. And I love the parts about how it helps with safety and with learning.

It just makes so much sense. I had a book club with a bunch of unschooling parents, and we were reading Pam’s book together many years ago. And Pam joined us on a call one week. And we were all, I mean, everybody’s like, oh my god, Pam. It was very fun. But I remember having a bit of the conversation, someone felt like they had messed things up, they maybe had an argument with their child, or in some way felt like it was just this negative interaction, it didn’t feel good.

And the question was more along the lines of, how can I do better? How can I stop doing that? And Pam’s idea was about how the repair is the important part. Because we’re trying to maintain this connection and relationship with our kids. But we’re humans, and we’re imperfect. And we’re going to say and do things that hurt our children at times, or we’ll say or do things that hurt other people in our lives at times.

And so we can let that moment crush us and pull us away from them. And we can just dive into negative self-talk about what a terrible job we’re doing. Or we can see those moments as opportunities to own our parts, own our words and our actions, apologize for the impact, and make the repair with the person that we care about.

I get goosebumps thinking about this, because it’s such a more powerful place to be. And it doesn’t require us to be perfect, which we cannot be. But since relationships are so important in all of these ways, when hard things happen in the relationships, knowing that we will be able to move through it, that builds trust between us and the other person. And it gives us more capacity to weather the next challenging thing, whether it’s something outside of our relationship, or the next misunderstanding between each other.

And so I always come back to keeping my relationship strong. How can I feel more connected? How can I give my children the feeling that I understand them, and I’m here for them? And it doesn’t always mean I’m talking with them more, or even spending more time together. It’s really figuring out what do they want from me in this particular season?

And since they’re unique individuals, what is it that’s helping us feel connected in this moment, in this season? And now that they’re teenagers, we do a lot of reflecting on, remember when that was hard, and we got through it? Things like that.

I feel like it really helps us all build resilience and realize that being humans is sometimes hard, and we’re always learning, and I’m always learning. And I feel like me being vulnerable in that way just develops trust between me and my kids. And looking at that, what is going to help us in this moment just to increase our connection is such a valuable place to take a look.

PAM: I love that. I love that you brought that up, because yeah, the whole thing, you’d say strong relationships are key. So I need to be perfect at that. I need to do my best at that. That’s the most important thing. I might have mentioned it at the time, the attachment parenting book I had read, because it’s the thing that knocked me, it’s like, oh really? That around 50% or so of our interactions with our children go awry in big ways or in little ways, and that it is the repair that brings us back, right?

It’s not trying to avoid it, because imagine what someone feels if they think someone else is perfect. Oh, they’re perfect at that. They make all the right choices. That does nothing but put pressure to be perfect on them. They’ll be putting that on themselves as well. I want to be as good, etc. So, understanding that repair piece, that is so much where trust is built.

That we’re coming back, that we’re going to be engaging again. We’re going to be moving through this, and as you said, using those previous examples of times you guys have moved through challenging things, and just bringing those up when new challenging things come up. We may not know how this is gonna resolve, but we know that we’ll find our way through it.

We can trust that. So I love that so much, and thank you. Thanks so much to you both for having this conversation. I feel like we touched on a lot of interesting pieces, so I hope people find it helpful.

Thanks so much to all our listeners for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this dive into the second stage of the de-schooling phase of our journey as we challenge some of our conventional beliefs about parenting, and we invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network to continue the conversation.

It is a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents, a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional unschooling ideas, and just explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. And your first month is free, so you can get a sense of whether the community is a good fit for you. We are very excited to welcome you.

To learn more and join us, just follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfully.ca and choose Network in the menu. Wishing everyone a lovely day. Thanks so much.

Bye!

**EU412: Foundations: Recognizing Our Biases** Jul 02, 2026

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

Let’s talk about cognitive biases. Commitment bias, confirmation bias, and negativity bias are common thinking patterns that can lead to errors in judgment as well as conflict in our relationships. Anna and Pam dive into how they show up in our everyday lives and how becoming aware of our brain’s tendencies can allow us to be more open and curious and to find more joy and connection in our relationships.

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

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE QUESTIONS

Examine your thoughts around quitting, sunk costs, and commitments. Are those thoughts serving you? Do you and your partner see them in the same way?

Describe a time when confirmation bias stopped you from seeing someone else’s point of view.

Do the Joy Writing exercise for your partner or another loved one. Reflect on how it felt and how it changes your energy when you read it.

TRANSCRIPT

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

If you’re new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and really have enjoyed how they’re kind of playing off each other and building on one another. And if you’ve already been enjoying the podcast, we’d love it if you could leave a rating and review. That definitely helps new people find us.

In today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about a few common cognitive biases that trip us up as we navigate our relationships. Cognitive biases are basically mental shortcuts that our brains will take as they try to quickly process the vast amounts of information in our very complex world.

So, let’s start with commitment bias and the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy is associated with the commitment bias, where we continue to support our past decisions despite new evidence suggesting that it isn’t really the best course of action. We fail to take into account that whatever time, effort, or money that we’ve already expended will not be recovered.

And this could be something as simple as finishing a meal or a movie one of you isn’t enjoying, because you’ve already paid for it, or something bigger, like finishing a college program even though, at this point, you’re pretty sure you don’t want to work in that field at all, but you stay because you’ve committed to it.

This can cause friction in our relationships when we have different ideas about money, commitment, and what those things mean. Very often, the idea to stick it out at all costs was pretty much ingrained in us as children. Somehow we’re a failure if we quit or we would be wasting the money, so we have to stick with it to make these expenditures worthwhile.

It’s really worth examining those beliefs if you see them coming into play in your relationships. Understanding sunk costs helps us see that the money is spent, period. The choice then becomes whether I want to take what I’ve learned about myself and move on to something else I can enjoy or stay with something that I don’t.

Take the money out of the equation because it’s already gone, but what can I get out of that situation? What I get out of is up to me. Just learning that we don’t like something has value. Letting go of judging ourselves or our partners as failing when we decide to quit something goes a long way to learning more about each other. And providing unconditional support as we figure out what we want to do with our time.

The conversation is so much more valuable when we’re looking at the nuances of the situation. And this also comes into play big time with children, doesn’t it?

PAM: Oh, it definitely does. We think we’re teaching our children something positive by insisting they stick it out and follow through on their commitments when we sign them up for a rec class or they join a team. But the message they’re often absorbing is, don’t try new things unless you’re really sure you’re going to like it, or you might get stuck having to do something you really dislike.

It can be so helpful to frame these kinds of choices, not as commitments, but as opportunities to try something new. You’re paying for the opportunity for them to try it out and discover if it’s as interesting as they imagine. Insisting someone not quit doing something they’re not enjoying or just judging them negatively when they do is disconnecting and damaging to the relationship. And to what end? Because they definitely learn something more about themselves through discovering they don’t like the thing and they can use that knowledge along with the time they freed up to pursue something else more in alignment with their interests.

So, when you think about it in the bigger picture, they’ll find the things that they love more quickly this way. And it’s in finding the things they really enjoy where you’ll see commitment in action. Even when things get frustrating or inconvenient, they’ll show up. So, it’s not about teaching commitment, it’s about finding the things they are excited to commit to.

And that definitely applies to us as well. Sometimes it’s easier to think about it in the context of another person, but then to make that shift to realize this applies to us. We don’t need to pressure ourselves to follow through on commitments if our enthusiasm has waned and we are ready to move on.

Instead, let’s celebrate that. Yay! Look what we know. We know more about what we like and what we don’t like, or even more about the environments in which we’re comfortable. That’s another big piece of it too, right?

ANNA: Yes. I love celebrating when we’re learning more about who we are and how we want to move through the world. And I love the idea of paying for the opportunity. It’s such a helpful framework. We’re always learning and I want to support my kids, my partner, and myself in trying things that seemed interesting to us.

I didn’t need to have an attachment to the outcome, because no matter what, there will be learning, even if it’s just, I really don’t like this particular activity.

And so, it goes back to conversations too though, because we can talk about the money involved in trying something and we can see if there’s ways to trial it first, and what would be some of our other options. But I didn’t want to get stuck only looking at decisions through the lens of how much it costs.

It’s one part, but it’s not the only, and I usually found it wasn’t the most important part.

And it was actually my finance major husband who first told me about sunk costs when one of our children wanted to quit a class they were taking and it made honoring where they were and what they were learning so much easier, because I could let go of any guilt or baggage around the money part. Because the money’s already spent, and again, this was work I needed to do for myself, as well. Giving myself permission to try something, even if I wasn’t perfect at it, even if I decided at any point along the way that it wasn’t working for me.

PAM: Yeah, it’s interesting how it’s often easier to give grace to other people than it is to give it to ourselves, but we’re people too. And I wanted just to bring back that point, when we talk about sunk costs, it’s not about ignoring the money. It is once it’s spent, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have that conversation up front. Maybe this is gonna be a big chunk of our budget and we want to look at all sorts of possibilities. If there is a way to get some experience with it before spending the larger chunk, that can be a valid way, too. Again, back to the conversations.

ANNA: That’s the richness of the conversations and staying connected and the baby steps from last week. It all wraps together.

PAM: Okay, so now let’s talk about the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to process information by looking for or interpreting information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring what feels like inconsistent information. “That doesn’t make sense. I’m going to toss that.”

It’s hard to be open and curious when we’re filtering information through our existing beliefs. This can sow disconnection in our relationship in a few ways, like discounting the other person’s ideas or always bringing the same old ideas to our conversations. We are less creative.

And in conversations, we tend to listen to the other person with an eye to picking out the bits that match how we see this situation, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago as well. And we’re just waiting until we can jump in with those pieces, rather than hearing the full picture of what they’re sharing.

When our confirmation bias is in full swing, we are not seeing that bigger picture, are we?

ANNA: Not at all. And it really reminds me of our talk about seeing through their eyes from episode four. If we’re only seeing through our eyes, we already know what we’re looking for and it colors everything. I think this comes into play when we’re upset with our partner or children, as well. We tend to see things that confirm our ideas about them.

With our partner, it could be reading into every little behavior and thinking, see, they don’t care about my feelings. Hello, writing stories! And with kids it can be seeing dysregulation and blaming a video game, because we’re thinking that video games are bad, when the dysregulation could just be a need for connection, some food, or some rest, something carried over from school that morning.

With our partners and children, we don’t want to be writing stories about the meaning of things. If we have an idea that’s causing distress, they don’t love me, they don’t trust me, they don’t like this or that, ask them. Open the conversation and enter it with that open and curious mindset we talked about earlier in the month. Upsets can rarely survive the light of inquiry, openness, and understanding.

PAM: Yes. The stories we tell ourselves, right? So, for me, the clue is noticing when I’m telling myself a story about someone else. That’s when I need to step carefully, because I am not them. I don’t know all their personal history or the extenuating circumstances they’re seeing right now. I don’t know they were tired or feeling frustrated by something completely unrelated. I don’t know until I ask.

Because when I’m telling myself a story, it is pretty natural for it to be all about me. And definitely that works pretty well when I am talking about myself, how I’m feeling, how I’m seeing these things. But it can take me down all sorts of unhelpful paths when I’m making assumptions about how others are seeing me.

As you say, it is so much better to have the conversation with them and just check in and see what’s going on.

ANNA: Yes, just get out of our head and get into that moment with our partners and loved ones.

Okay, so the last one we want to touch on today is the negativity bias. So, the negativity bias is the tendency to remember negative events more starkly and more frequently than positive events.

So, this isn’t inherently problematic since it’s a great way to learn from mistakes and avoid negative experiences in the future. You can see it’s actually a survival skill. We quickly learn what can hurt us and what’s dangerous, and we actively avoid those things. Our brain is wired to give us those things at a higher priority in order to keep us safe. We haven’t really evolved out of that primal need to evaluate safety in our environment.

But here’s the thing. Most of us don’t have tigers lurking around the corner, so bringing that intense survival energy to things like our relationships can cause a lot of heartache. We don’t want to constantly be thinking about every negative thing that has happened. It keeps us stuck in the past and doesn’t give our loved ones a chance to grow and change.

PAM: Everybody just sit with that for just a little bit. It is so true that negative experiences stay with us longer and are recalled more quickly in a challenging moment. And, as you say, there’s reasons for that.

And not only does it play out on that personal level. We see it on a societal level, as well. Society in general is focused on the negative things that are happening. So often, those are the stories that are widely in the news and on social media. We find ourselves surrounded by negative stories, which fills us with more negative events to recall at a moment’s notice, round and round. It can become a lens through which we see the world. Our negativity bias seeping into our confirmation bias.

ANNA: Yep. And bringing awareness to these biases helps us understand that we need to be very intentional about changing our focus. Things like joy writing and gratitude practices can help bring our focus to all the things we love, all the things that are actually working.

So, when I’m working with couples, I ask them to do a joy writing exercise. Basically, you each write down a list of things you love about the other, what you love about the relationship, beautiful moments, lovely gestures, things that can fill you with love when you’re thinking about them. Keep it handy, have it on your phone or somewhere you can read it daily.

Rereading it changes our energy and it changes how we interact with our partner, how we see our relationship. It keeps the focus on all the wonderful things there and it fosters that connection. And from a place of connection, we can move through the bumps of life with more ease.

PAM: That is so, so true. Just the act of remembering the good side, alongside the challenges. It doesn’t mean ignoring the challenges. It’s not, let’s just pack those in a box and forget about them. But remembering that so much of our lives are all these good things, too.

So, as you mentioned, gratitude practices can also foster that loving energy towards our partner and our kids. We can make a point of writing down a few things that we’re grateful for related to our partner and kids each day. It need only take a couple of minutes and we can share it with them too.

This practice helps us notice the positive bits in our day and in our relationships, because they are there. And it’s a great way to counteract that negativity bias.

ANNA: Yes. And incorporating these practices and just keeping an eye towards what’s working, what feels good, will help train your brain in a way that’s more useful in our current environment. You’ll still have the skills of recognizing danger, but will be less likely to label something that’s just a bump in the day, or the relationship as something serious that feels very threatening.

PAM: That’s such a big difference there. Put it in the context, in the context of your whole day, not having this one moment that felt uncomfortable or challenging and having that override or color, the whole rest of your day, discount all the other bits that happened that were connecting, that were fun. They have so much value, too.

ANNA: And I think just understanding that our brains tend to do that helps us just put that little check in place. Like, okay, wait a minute. Am I forgetting about all the good things and only focusing, because that’s what brains like to do? And so, then we’re able to take those additional steps and do those practices.

So, here are some questions that you might want to ponder as you explore how these cognitive biases might be playing out in your relationships. So, first, examine your thoughts around quitting, sunk costs, and commitments. Are those thoughts that are serving you? Do you and your partner see them the same way? It could be some really fun discussions to have there.

Describe a time when confirmation bias stopped you from seeing someone else’s point of view. And this, you may even have to watch for, because it’s so natural that we don’t even notice, but just start seeing it as you’re having conversations. Are we looking for what we want to see?

PAM: Yeah. And that’s where that open and curious piece comes in. That’s just that little reminder, for me anyway, just to not get stuck in there. There’s other possibilities.

ANNA: Yeah. Love it. Okay. And do the joy writing exercise for your partner and other loved ones.

Reflect on how it felt and how it changes your energy when you read it. I cannot tell you just how powerful this has been for so many people that have tried it and just really have enjoyed it.

PAM: Yeah, I think that that it really does help just change our energy. Reminding us, oh yeah, these are all true. It’s not like we’re making up anything or trying to fool ourselves. Literally these are the things that we love about our partner, our children, the fun things that we’re doing, the fun pieces of the day.

And the one thing I want to mention about these questions is I love that we’re going through and asking them now. And I really encourage people to take some time to sit with them, because it really is much more helpful I think to be thinking about these things outside of a particular challenge. But don’t wait until all of a sudden y’all are arguing about, oh my gosh, our child wants to quit this activity, to have a conversation about sunk costs. Like you were saying, that could be a very fun conversation.

When it’s heated about a particular thing that’s happening right now that feels urgent and feels like it needs a quick decision, that can be a hard time to have that kind of conversation. But if we can start playing with these ideas and asking ourselves these kinds of questions and playing through them without the pressure or urgency of something happening right in this moment, that can be so very helpful.

ANNA: Right, because you’re steeping in these new ideas and then they’re there for us.

When these challenges come up, we can recall back like, hey, I want to put it through this lens. I want to blow back a little bit and look at open and curious and see what else is at play here. I want to know that I have plenty of time. All these things that we’re talking about can just be things that you keep in your back pocket as you go through and you’ll start seeing how they’re just helpful tools that help you navigate these things, so we don’t have the spirals or the big blowups about it.

So, I hope it’s helping. It’s been a lot of fun to talk about, anyway. So, thank you so much for listening and we hope to see you next time. Take care.

PAM: Yes. Bye, everybody.

**EU411: On the Journey with Sam** Jun 18, 2026

We’re back with another *On the Journey* episode! Pam, Anna, and Erika had a powerful conversation with Living Joyfully Network member and unschooling dad Sam.

Sam shared deeply about his journey with his daughter through autistic burnout. We talked about Sam’s experiences in both PDA and unschooling parent communities, the depth of the inner work that this journey involves, and some of the major paradigm shifts that Sam has made along the way.

It was a really meaningful conversation and we hope it resonates with you!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

I really appreciate Sam joining us today. He’s a member of the Living Joyfully Network and it’s been really nice getting to know his story and watch how things have unfolded. He brings that thoughtful, intentional energy that I love about the Network. That energy helps fuel my own personal growth and create a beautiful, supportive environment where we can dig deeper and question the prevailing narratives.

So, Sam, to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about you and your family and what everybody’s interested in right now?

SAM: Sure, yeah. Well, I live in Minneapolis with my wife Kate and my daughter. I recently retired from work early. I did the early retirement thing. I had been working part time for the year previous to that.

And so, I guess I can start a little bit with what my daughter’s into. I mentioned to her that this was going to be one of the questions and she said interior design and interior decorating and games. And then I would add a few things to that, too. Right now, she’s super into making slime, large amounts of slime in many different permutations.

There’s lots of experimentation happening with different ingredients and add-ins and colors and that kind of thing. So, that’s kind of fun and messy. She has a wide doll collection and she’s been really into making her own rooms. She calls them mini rooms and they’re essentially like dollhouse rooms, like a kitchen or a bedroom.

She makes one room at a time and adds them on to each other and buys these little, tiny little Mini Brand versions of real life products that she stocks in the doll refrigerator really intricately. And I guess that ties into her interior design interest, as well.

She’s super creative. She really likes to do drawing. She makes videos and she actually, I’m kind of amazed at some of the videos that she makes because she’s, I don’t even think I said she’s nine. And so she uses her iPad to make videos and she has her own YouTube channel.

She has two YouTube channels, which are not updated too frequently. It’s something she’ll get really into and then completely abandon and then six months later be really into it again. And so, that’s fun. And then she likes building forts. She likes playing with our dog Lucy, and various other things. And she watches videos. She loves YouTube and learning. She’s really into watching videos about Minecraft and Toca Boca World, which is the other game that she’s really into at the moment.

She watches videos about all kinds of things like science and history. It’s interesting. She’ll frequently tell me very random facts that she’s learned by watching videos and I, being skeptical, when I look at the videos she’s watching then I’ll Google it and be like is that really true? And it’s interesting because it almost always is accurate and so that’s been an interesting learning for me because I’m the kind of somebody who’s avoided YouTube and never wanted to have anything to do with it for many years. And now I watch quite a bit of it just to keep up with what she’s doing. So that’s kind of fun.

And my wife Kate, she works in public policy. She’s an environmental climate scientist, and she works on making and contributing to the creation of policy to help us in the state of Minnesota adapt to climate change. And she is super engaged and super smart. And she also likes to compete in triathlons a couple of times a year.

She and I are very different in the sense that she needs to have some kind of external motivator to do things and so she really thrives on deadlines and procrastination and that sort of thing and I’m completely the opposite of that. And then we just hang out a lot. We do a lot of hanging out at home, reading, and that kind of thing.

And then, for me, I always have a hard time talking about myself, but I read a lot. I’m currently really interested in reading 19th century British novels, and I’m not sure why, I’ve just been really obsessed with it over the past year or so. So, I’m always reading a couple of books. I’ve really been into reading poetry from different periods, and I’ve been writing for most of my life. My first career was as a professional writer, which kind of drained the fun of writing out of me for a good long time. But I’ve been writing, some creative writing and some poetry which I haven’t done in a very, very long time so that’s been really fun.

And then, my daughter and I, we just hang out pretty much every day. And we just kind of roll with it and see what happens. We don’t really have a lot of plans. We never really know what’s going to happen. But that’s how we approach it, one day at a time.

PAM: I think that’s so fun. I loved the little YouTube story that was tied in there as well. I love the interest piece for you wanting to see what she’s enjoying about this because it’s a way to connect with her, no matter the interest.

And I loved that you could share the various things that she’s watching rather than saying, she loves YouTube and cutting it off there. It makes such a difference like you were saying, even just in that little synopsis, the variety of things that she’s engaging with, right?

SAM: Yeah, well that was a big change for me because at the beginning of our unschooling journey when we started allowing unlimited screen time, which was a huge, huge hurdle for us to get over, for me to get over. I was definitely in the mindset of, oh my god, she’s just watching YouTube all day and not caring what it was. It was just YouTube bad, whatever, internet stuff. And now, she doesn’t like me to watch with her but she’s happy to have me, like not review but just kind of check out what she has watched and then we talk about some of the videos and I tell her what I liked and she tells me what she was into and we talk about which things were silly or which things were interesting.

So, that has been a huge growth for me to just spend more time to really understand what these things are that she’s interested in, in a level of detail that I can actually see it and get it and relate to it in some way, rather than dismissing it, which is what I would have done previously.

ERIKA: I loved all of your shares about all of your interests. I always think when people share about family member interests, it’s like, that’s only three people in the whole world and you’re already covering so many different areas and there are so many ways and things are kind of interacting and you’re learning from each other and you’re all so different. And I just love that and I loved the slime phase. We had that big time with my youngest too and it’s pretty messy, but it’s a lot of fun.

ANNA: I know the slime thing was actually after our time. Did you have slime, Pam? We didn’t have slime. It wasn’t a thing. I have friends from the Network that have younger kids that I get to visit and it’s a whole thing, right? It’s just unbelievably amazing and messy, but it’s incredible.

I love that. And just that again, the diversity of interest with the three of you is just, wow, this is how rich life is when we’re just exploring these things that are interesting to us.

PAM: I love that. And so, Sam, you kind of alluded to this, so I’d like to dive in a bit more, but I would love to hear a bit more about how you actually discovered unschooling and what your family’s transition to unschooling looked like.

SAM: This will be good to talk about because this was definitely a big journey for us and not something we ever would have imagined, conceived of, anticipated in any way. And so I guess we were just, I mean, for me, I hadn’t really put that much thought into it. Maybe this sounds terrible, but I didn’t really think that much about what it would be like to be a parent. And I had no plans, I had no ideas of how it should be, or the right way to do it or anything like that.

I just kind of, I don’t want to speak for Kate, but I just made assumptions that like, okay, you have a kid, kid goes to daycare, until they’re old enough to go to kindergarten, and then they go to kindergarten. And so, we were following that path. And I think we’re lucky that we found out about this daycare pretty close to our house that was, I think, a generally positive thing for our daughter at the time.

It’s a Montessori daycare. And it ended up having just some really wonderful teachers, but also some really wonderful friends, and several of whom live just within a couple blocks of us, and have become, in her short life, lifelong friends of our daughters. So, her closest friends in the neighborhood she’s been with since they were three months old, which thinking back on it, I’m like, oh my god, I can’t believe we dropped her off when she was three months old, and just went to the office.

But you know, at the time, Kate and I were both in very busy parts of our careers. And I was very, very career focused. And, generally, our daughter did great with other kids, did great in daycare. And then there were a few times like towards the end when she was around five, and we were getting close to the kindergarten transition, she started having days where she just really didn’t want to go. And she would be literally kicking and screaming. I would literally carry her kicking and screaming, which is something that looking back on and I’m kind of mortified that I did. But my mindset at the time was, this is not optional. I’ve got to go to work. And you’ve got to go to school, this is the deal. Welcome to the world. And I really felt like I was leaving her in a safe place.

And then we live about two blocks from a public school, and we are here in Minneapolis, and we really wanted to send her to that school, and we just kind of made that choice. We didn’t talk to her about it. We didn’t tour schools. And then it turned out most of the neighborhood kids including all her friends were going to the school that’s just a mile down the road but it’s in the suburban district.

So, when she was at this school in kindergarten she didn’t know anybody there. And socio-economically and demographically the school that she went to for kindergarten is very different from her. And it was pretty rough. She encountered a lot of bullying. She encountered a lot of what was probably traumatic talk about what they call live shooter drills, and the discussion around that was extremely explicit and extremely scary.

And so it was overall not a positive experience for her and within the first month, she was refusing to go and really upset about it. And we realized pretty quickly, though we did this whole, “No, you’ve got to go, there’s not a choice.” We did that for a little while and then finally she was literally just begging us to send her to the other school.

And so we said okay, we’ll do that. It still didn’t occur to us that not going to school was an option. That was definitely not on the radar, but we were able to transfer her to the other school. They put her in the class with her friends, and she had this great group of friends. It seemed like everything was fine. It seemed like it was a total 180. We really didn’t have any more school refusal. The rest of the kindergarten year seemed good.

And then we went through first grade and that seemed good. Summers were challenging because there’s this whole world of summer camps that’s super competitive and you have to sign your kid up for camps in January for the summer and my work schedule was so intense, and I was traveling a lot for work.

So, Kate was alone with our daughter for a lot of the time. And so we signed her up for every week that we could. In retrospect, that was pretty intense. So, at the end of first grade. And while we went through first grade there were various signs, but nothing that was really telling us definitively that this is not working for her. And she really had a wonderful teacher in first grade, who really got her. And what we realized is that the teacher was really providing our daughter with a lot of accommodations, without her or us having to ask for them, and sort of would bend the rules of the school, just to make her more comfortable.

And so that was super helpful and, and I think also pretty unusual. But after first grade ended that summer. We signed her up for a camp, a couple camps, and something happened in the course of that, where she really didn’t have a break at all between school and the camps, and she hit a wall, and we just started to see a dramatic, dramatic change in her.

That was really frightening, because it was so intense. And so, at first it was not wanting to leave the house, I’m not going to go to camp, that sort of thing. Which was okay, by that point we were already into the pandemic so my travel had stopped and that was actually a big relief. I was still working a lot but I was at home, so it wasn’t like the end of the world if we couldn’t drop her off somewhere.

But we started seeing a lot of physical aggression, and just anger and rage really. And it was something that was just very scary and challenging. And then that summer between first and second grade, she stopped wanting to get out of bed, and would not get out of bed the entire day. Wouldn’t comb her hair, bathe, brush teeth, none of those things were happening. It really felt like we’re in a crisis. And so, we sought medical help.

But she wouldn’t go, she would not go to see a doctor. So we did virtual sessions with psychiatrists and that was extremely unhelpful. We were really approaching it through this medical model of, this is a crisis, our daughter is having some kind of like so far unexplained psychiatric episode.

And like the psychiatrist basically said, you should commit her to some kind of inpatient thing. Everything about that just felt wrong to me.

That was the point at which it was like, okay, we’re not going to talk to the psychiatrist anymore. This whole time I’d been Googling kind of ferociously trying to figure out what’s happening here. What I came across was all this content about PDA. It felt like, wow, this really sounded like it was describing what we were experiencing. So, I signed up for a class for parents who have PDA kids. And that was an interesting experience.

On the one hand, it was like this huge relief because the class was from a parent who had gone through this experience and had taken a very scientific approach to trying to understand what was happening and how to readjust their lives to deal with this. In that class, which I generally had very mixed feelings about, but that’s the class where I heard the term unschooling for the first time. So to get to the question, I guess, that was definitely a phrase that I had never heard.

In this class, there were 400 parents in this virtual class. I was just astonished at how many parents there were. And we would have these calls and the stories that people shared were all very similar, definitely very relatable.

The thing I noticed is that everybody similar to us was approaching it as a crisis, like as a problem that has to be solved. One of the big lessons from the class was this is not something you can change. This is something you have to adapt to.

So that definitely got me thinking and it was a real shift of mindset for me. It’s like, okay, this is it, life is not going to be the way we thought it was. And we have to make changes. And it was the facilitator of that class who first mentioned the term unschooling. There was lots of talk about homeschooling because so many of the kids whose parents were in this program were refusing or unable to go to school. In the school world, they label it school refusal.

And I think the way I would talk about it now is just, unable to go to school really. So, then I started Googling unschooling and wondering, what the heck is this? Because I was not interested in being a teacher. I actually tried being a teacher in an early career. I had several, false starts, I guess I would say. And one of them was in education and I kind of left that thinking, okay, that is not something I can do. I am never going to do that again.

My conception of homeschooling, and I think Anna, you were just talking about this in one of the recent discussions was like, homeschooling means you’re sitting at the kitchen table with workbooks and curriculum and you’re going through the whole thing. And I was like, I don’t want to do that. And I’m 99% sure that my daughter is not interested in that. And so that’s where the unschooling thing came in, I’d like to learn more about this.

And so through Googling, I found this podcast (Exploring Unschooling) and it was a totally life-changing experience. I think just listening to the podcast, because I think the thing that really struck me is that I was immersed in this PDA community, which was very much using the medical model for looking at things and the deficit lens of looking at things. And then in the podcast, you all were taking this totally different lens.

You’re not doing this because it’s a last resort and you have no other choice. It’s this intentional way of approaching life differently. And then just kind of turning all these things that I never questioned, like school is required and just asking, well, why? Let’s actually think about that. Is that actually true? What’s the goal of education and what are other ways of achieving that goal? And so just listening to stories of parents who were making this choice was really a really transformational experience.

And then I went back into this class that I was taking, this class spanned a period of three months. And so in those three months was a huge learning for me, I would go back into these calls with these other parents and their voices are all just filled with panic and fear. And I was just like, I’m not feeling that anymore.

When I went into it, I was all panic and fear. That was the deal. And then after listening, and I probably listened to like 150 episodes of the podcast, I’m just walking around the house, the headphones all day, just episode after episode, after episode, everything I’m doing, I’m listening to it. I was just like, I’m not afraid of this anymore.

Then I joined the Network, really not knowing what to expect, but one thing that really struck me when I joined the Network is nobody in the network was using any of the same language that I had learned in my PDA curriculum that I had found. But a lot of people were describing similar things that sounded like similar experiences.

And I was just like, wow, this is like a parallel universe over here where we’re dealing with the same human things, but this group of people is taking a completely different mindset and a completely different approach to it. It’s not a crisis. It’s not a problem.

We’re just rolling with the phases of life and making adjustments that we have to make.

I got really excited about unschooling and I was like, this is great. And then I wanted to be talking about it all the time, but I quickly found that people who are not unschooling are not interested in hearing about unschooling.

That is a lesson I learned very quickly. So, it’s not something that we talked about at the park or at the neighborhood gatherings very much. So, that’s kind of the long winded story of how we arrived at this point.

ERIKA: That gives me goosebumps.

PAM: I know. I do appreciate you sharing the details of it because I mean, it is a very familiar journey for me. I remember the years, the two years where we had a great teacher. I was in the same place, working with my kids. I had no clue that this was a choice. This was something we had to figure out and having those teachers who were not as rigid and who saw my child and celebrated them and thought it was really cool and just accommodated. It was only night and day when then the next year you’ve got another teacher who was very, very fixated.

But yeah, I super appreciate that whole journey and the comparison, the language and the approach, right. With these kids, I don’t even like saying these kids, but with these kinds of situations, this way of moving through the world. We don’t see the deficit side because I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it is completely a choice. It’s like we’re introduced to it maybe because something has gone sideways. Because we grew up with the narrative of, this is the way we do things. We have kids, they go to daycare, they go to school, et cetera. And then something knocks us to ask that first question.

But yeah, once you open that up and then you recognize all the different questions that you can ask and that shift to just being in the world with the people who are part of our families and, and it’s hard to explain fully respecting them and just living together and coming and going and, and understanding each other, and shifting to that perspective versus, oh my gosh, here’s all the accommodations I need to make to try to fix it. And then eventually, hopefully, they’ll work enough that we can go back to the life that we had.

It’s still holding that because it’s revisiting the questions, revisiting the assumptions that we have been basing our life on that this is the good stuff to do. And what are all the things, even the super hard things, that we have to do to get ourselves back to that.

ANNA: I think one of the things I really appreciate was you sharing the whole journey, because I think it will actually resonate with a lot of people. Just hearing how many people were in that PDA group is kind of amazing to me. But one of the things I love, when you first came to the Network and other people that have had a similar journey, because like you said, you’ll hear similar stories to yours very often in the Network, but it’s that first moment of relief, because I think so often you’re really focused on all the things that are happening that feel terrible.

This is so serious, this is so terrible, but then really opening up to really seeing the gifts in your child. I mean, oh my gosh, from the beginning, your daughter just delighted me, she just had so many interesting things about her and the way she moved through the world. And I think when we can bring that perspective and I think parents are craving that, right? It’s why those teachers that were so kind felt so great because they saw the thing that you see in your child.

And I think that is something that I love about the Network where we just celebrate all these amazing kids for the things that they bring to the table because it’s amazing. We don’t need to make everybody look the same and do the same thing. So, I loved that piece and just that little spark that happens when it’s like, yeah, she is amazing. And I love that we can be in a place where we can all see that.

ERIKA: Yeah. When you’re too in the tunnel vision of a certain paradigm, the school paradigm where it has to look like this, and it’s not looking like this, and this is an emergency, it can be really hard to even imagine anything outside of that.

But right, I feel like I remember when you first came to the Network, just the idea of what if there’s nothing wrong, actually, and we just are who we are and that’s okay. I think that feels so good, especially when we’re hearing all these messages about something being wrong.

And then, for me, with my neurodivergent kids, I just have found being in the Network so validating and reinforcing and positive for me, because I just keep seeing all these similar experiences, they get it, they’ve been there with these same things. And everyone is just really appreciating the uniqueness of each of each child. And that just feels so much better.

And I mean, we could try to fix things for our whole lives and just be in constant conflict, and nothing would necessarily even get better or change. And so, I think it’s just so much nicer to be in a nice relationship, in a positive relationship with their kids. And I know you’ve talked about a lot of shifts already.

But the question I wanted to ask is, what has been like the biggest mindset shift for you in this journey so far?

SAM: I think it’s got to be around the school. There are so many things around this. And I was thinking about this on the most basic level, just the idea that school was optional, or that there were different ways to approach it was a big learning.

I think one thing that I left out of the story is that as we were approaching second grade, our daughter was enrolled. And as we were getting closer and closer, I just couldn’t picture how this was going to happen.

I think at the end of the summer, on the day after Labor Day, which is when school starts, it was like, I don’t think things are going to be magically different. And we can’t just pick up and go back to where we were. But our daughter was, I think she also had the message already ingrained that school was not optional. And so she did rally.

We went and got her haircut, and we got clothes. And she went that first day. First, we went to the open house. And that went okay, and we met her new teacher. And then she went to the first day. And everyone in the school said that they were amazing.

And that second day, she woke up, and she said, “I am not going back to that school.” And it was firm, this is the deal. And so then I went through a lot between that early September, and probably mid October, which is right around the time, this would have been 2024, which was right on the time that I joined the network.

I was calling our daughter in sick every day. And keeping in touch with the school, having weekly calls with the school, trying to explain to them what’s going on. And then I switched her from the school district that we had enrolled her in, and had a virtual only. It is a really innovative virtual-only option that they developed during COVID, and then really invested a lot in. And it seemed really cool, actually. So we switched her to that program. And that did not help at all.

She was not going to get on those classes. And she was not going to log in. But I had calls with the teacher every week. And the teacher told me, “I went through the same thing where my daughter refused to go to school. I am totally with you. I totally get it. I totally get where you are.” And I mean, these people at the school could not have been more supportive. But then as soon as we hit the 30 day mark, they were like, well, it’s been 30 days.

And now we got to call the county, we got to get the county in there. Suddenly, it was like, okay, we’ve been accommodating, but time’s up, it’s been 30 days, and it can’t go on for this long.

At that point, we had had our daughter assessed for neuropsychological evaluation and had all of these assessments done and found a really knowledgeable doctor who specialized in autism in girls.

And I felt more confident that what our daughter really needed was rest, and was in a state of burnout that she was not going to recover from quickly. And the psychologist said you should think about it as a year, at least, that she’s going to be in this reduced-capacity state. But it wasn’t until the school said, we got to call the county, that I was like, okay, we’ve got to make a decision.

And at that moment, the decision is we are not going to try to work through this medical deficit lens to try and get our daughter back on track to return to the environment which put her into this state. And so, I think it really took that for me to have that internal shift or transformational kind of moment of, we have to make a different decision.

And so, from that point, instead of being like, okay, this unschooling thing sounds great and we’re gonna do this until we no longer have to, I think that’s where my mindset had been, and then I moved into more of what I would call acceptance of no, no, no, we’re going to really choose this path. And it wasn’t until that point that I really started to embrace unschooling and get excited about it and actually think about it as a deliberate choice.

And I think the other shift that I think is important was more about me and my worries and my career, because I have always had this sense of financial insecurity and just kind of fear around that. When I was insisting that she go to school, forcing her to go to school, it’s true that I had to go to work and it’s true that my work was very busy and that I had to travel a lot for work, but I didn’t have to work that job. And that was really the way I had approached work.

I worked really hard. Work was a top priority in my life before meeting Kate and thinking about having kids and all that. And I was achieving a lot of recognition and success at work and there was no part of me, any new opportunity that I was given at work I said yes to any new challenge I was given.

I said yes to anything. If I was given negative feedback at work, I was going to overcome that and do whatever I had to do. And I just was in this mode of thriving on the validation systems of the corporate world and just moving up that ladder.

And I had ended up in a leadership position and there was really no part of me that was like, this is optional or I don’t have to. It was like, no, I have to do this. And so, I think that when I started to go through the shift about school, it really made me think about, why am I spending so much time at work? When I was working from home, I had like 12-14 meetings back-to-back on Zoom every day. And I was anxious and frustrated all the time and I was super stressed out and it’s like, no matter how hard you work, there’s always more work. It’s just never finished.

And so, I started to think that I don’t have to have this career path. It just doesn’t have to be this way. And so, then I started making decisions at work to pull back from work and first I changed into a lower stress job. I stepped down from the leadership role and I took a different kind of role and then I reduced my hours and then eventually it was like, I’m just going to stop working. And there’s definitely a privilege involved with that and there was also, it really was in in the case of our family, I think it was a huge mindset mindset shift for me about how important work really is and how important money is and what you need to do versus what you want to do and all these different things. So that was like a pretty huge thing.

And I think that’s the other piece. I often think this related to unschooling now, is that I feel like and I really like that the name of the network is Living Joyfully, because I feel like the term unschooling just doesn’t quite do it, because school is just one part of it or how we approach learning. It’s just one part of it. But really it’s been a total change of how I approach life on a daily basis, right? In big ways and in small ways and so that’s really just a huge transformation that this journey has involved for me.

PAM: I love it and yes, the name of the Network was very intentional because absolutely unschooling was my window to this world. It was that the school was the first question when I eventually discovered that it wasn’t the law that there were other options than just dropping your kids off at school or else you go to jail. And it is just so brilliant how you asked that question. You start diving into that and how it opens up It’s like oh, well if I can question school, maybe I can question work.

As I am questioning school I am starting to have different perspectives and thoughts about relationships and the value of relationships and the value of my child, a different way of seeing my child as a human being versus somebody I need to train and who needs to learn that you go to school and then that becomes work.

I remember there was a season where I noticed when I was writing blog posts many years ago that every blog post I wrote that started about unschooling, obviously, by the end of a thousand words, fifteen hundred words was and that’s life because really the perspective can be applied across every aspect of life.

It’s not just school, yes or no, when you want to dive deeper. When you discover it’s not so much that I need to fix all these things so that the kid can enjoy school so that I can enjoy work. Thinking there’s something wrong with me if I’m not making these conventional systems work for me versus questioning the systems in the first place And just I love the journey of how you tweaked it, right? It’s like oh, I’m gonna change my job to release some of the stress.

Now I’m gonna lower my hours. That was the same approach with school, right? Those 30 days you’re just calling in sick because it’s keeping your doors open, keeping the possibilities open until there was a moment where that door is closing and now we really want to make an actual choice. Are we going to force through this or are we going to decide to step out of that system?

ANNA: I think, for me, I mentioned at the top, questioning the prevailing narratives and I think that’s the big piece for me. We have a lot of narratives, school is a have to and school is hard, you just have to do hard things and work is hard and you have to do hard things and we need to be productive and all of these kinds of beliefs that end up not necessarily serving us individually or as a family but end up serving the system that we’re in. That is one of my favorite parts of this, really just questioning all of it and you may still choose to work in some way or to go to school in some way but boy does it feel different as a choice and an intentional path than it does as a have to and the drudgery.

That is why it’s called Living Joyfully, why we so intentionally chose that and why Pam really really resonated for me. It’s questioning, why do we have to have these hard things? Why does life have to be hard? Why does work have to be hard? Why does school have to be hard? Maybe it doesn’t.

And so once we can start asking that question and really examine the answers, I think everything changes so dramatically.

ERIKA: Yeah, I love that your answer to the question is basically everything. I just completely changed into a new person. I totally remember that part of my journey as well. When it’s just this ripple effect of one little thing that doesn’t have to be like that and then it just all kind of ripples out from there and I just love it.

PAM: One thing I just wanted to say, I think at first like when I remember way back when we started, when I first heard the term unschooling and you hear of people describing living joyfully, making choices from that perspective rather than, life is hard. We have to do these hard things. At first, I remember thinking- well, if I step back and start choosing not to do hard things, won’t my life or my kids be so boring because we won’t be doing all those things. But like Anna said, you’ve discovered and shared Sam, it’s that shift to the motivation behind the choices.

The fact that they are now choices, we see our kids choosing to do hard things all the time. Challenging things that get them right up at the edge. Tipping over into frustration, but the fact that they’re choosing them intentionally makes all the difference in the world.

That was just something out there because at first you can think oh well then we’re going to be doing nothing but that’s one of the feedback we get to our questions. We used to get so often well, they’re never gonna do anything if you don’t make it do these hard things, right? They do all kinds of things!

ANNA: We’re about to wrap up, but I feel like because you’ve shared this journey I just want to and hopefully this isn’t too much of a surprise. I know you’re about a year and a half into your unschooling journey, maybe just give a brief glimpse into, things really do feel better, right? Your daughter really feels better, you see her kind of coming back into the person you felt like before and even more so I just maybe that would help give the arc for people that are feeling like it’s hard and it’s scary right now.

SAM: Yes, and I thank you for that opportunity because if I think back to where we were. If I think back to a year and a half ago, I was scared. I guess on the one hand I would hear stories of parents who’ve been through something similar and were in a different, better place now was helpful, but on the other hand the voice in my head was like, but that’s not going to be your situation. This is the rest of your life.

And it was slow and I think you, Anna, said something really helpful to me at one point. We were probably six months in and I was saying something and I can’t remember what we were talking about but it was in one of our weekly calls. I was commenting on being in burnout and what it was going to be like after and you said, Sam, I think you have some thinking to do about what it means to be done with burnout or what is life going to be like after burnout? What does that even mean?

That was super helpful and I’ve thought about that a lot because going into burnout felt very sudden. It just felt like one day we woke up and we were in a different universe. That’s how it felt. But when I think back, there were lots of signs. And if I go back and read, I’m a journaler, and if I go back and read my journal entries from three years ago, the signs are there in my journal or even from longer ago than that.

So, it really wasn’t sudden and the sort of transition out and now our daughter does talk about how she was in burnout and she talks about that sometimes. She talks about it as in the past tense and sometimes. She’s still a little bit in there, but she knows she’s in a better place. It really is just very incremental one day at a time, but things have changed dramatically. And we’re just in it as a family.

I think we’re just in a way, way, way better place and it doesn’t look anything like it looked before. I think it’s better than it was before but I could never have imagined or thought that this is what we would want. But now I just think things are great. I just feel more confident that we can deal with whatever challenges come up as they come up and we just have a new approach and a new lens for life.

ANNA: I think one of the cool things about her and some of the other kids that we’ve seen transition in that way is just how they teach us how to regulate. I want to do this thing and then I want some time off and wait, I don’t want to do this thing. I’ve loved watching her journey of really understanding herself because I think she was pushing herself beyond her limits, sometimes with a little help from you all.

But sometimes I think she was just reading the signs and saying okay, I need to do this. But now with this freedom you see her just being so intentional and expending a lot of energy on some things and then saying hey, I need to dial it back. I just feel like that’s great for all of us to learn and remember and normalize that that’s actually how humans like to move through the world.

That fast, linear pace is really hard for most humans and our nervous system. So, I love what these kids have to teach us as well. I appreciate you just sharing a little bit more of that arc.

Thank you so so much for being here. It’s been really interesting and powerful and I hope everyone enjoyed the conversation and maybe had their own kind of aha moment or just resonated with the feelings that we’ve been talking about. If you enjoy these kinds of conversations and want to come hang out with us. We’d love to have you join us on the Living Joyfully Network. We invite you to check it out and see if it fits with our free month trial and you’ll find the link in the show notes. And also at livingjoyfully.ca. The link will be on the home page.

Thank you so much for being here and for everyone for joining us.

PAM: Thanks so much, Sam.
ERIKA: Thanks, Sam.

SAM: Thank you.

**EU410: On the Journey with Ari Lambie** Jun 04, 2026

We’re back with another *On the Journey* episode! We had a fascinating conversation with Living Joyfully Network member Ari Lambie. Ari is a mom of three young children and she spoke with us about her journey. We talked about the philosophy of learning, the fallibilism of humans, creativity, children’s social development as well as their capability, and a lot more.

It was a really rich conversation and we hope you find it helpful!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. **We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you.** Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

ANNA: Hello everyone, I’m Anna Brown with Living Joyfully, and today I’m joined by my co-host Erika Ellis and Pam Larcchia, as well as our special guest today, Ari Lambie. Hello to you all.

Before we get started, I just want to mention the Living Joyfully Network. It’s a lovely place where you can find support at any stage of your journey, and I feel so lucky to get to hang out with so many amazing people from all over the world. If you’d like to join us, we’ll put the link in show notes, and you can also go to our website livingjoyfully.ca, and there’s a link right on the home page.

I am so excited that Ari is here with us today. She is one of those amazing members of the Network I was just mentioning, and it’s been so fun getting to know her and her family. She loves to dive into all the nuances, and that is my favorite, so I’m very excited.

Ari, just to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about you and your family and what everyone’s interested in right now?

ARI: Sure. Well, thanks so much for having me. I’m really grateful to be here. I am Ari, and I’m part of a family of five. We live in Portland, Oregon. My husband, Joaquin, is a critical care doctor, so he spends a lot of time taking care of people and solving challenging problems, but he’s also really fun. He brings a lot of light energy to the house. He likes to cook, which I love. I mean, I don’t love cooking, so I love that he cooks.

He also likes to garden and play sports and come up with challenging ideas and concepts that are away from the norm, which is our favorite thing to talk about. We’ve been together for 20 years, and we just love talking about the ideas he comes up with, which makes me think hard and come back with either a new way of thinking or challenging him with a new idea. So, that’s what we spend a lot of time doing when we have time to ourselves.

My nine-year-old daughter likes to come in on those conversations sometimes. She really likes figuring out the world, talking about it. She likes to read. One of her interests is unusual animals, particularly marine animals. She’s taught me a ton about all these animals I’ve never heard of. She also likes to bake and do some crafty things. She likes to watch Minecraft videos and hang with friends. She spends a lot of time with her friends.

My seven-year-old is just this fantastic person of expression. She loves to draw. She loves to listen to music. She’s teaching herself how to play some music. She loves stories and is really good at telling stories. And she expresses herself with her body, too. She’s really athletic, and she gives the biggest, best hugs that you’ll ever feel.

My five-year-old, she’s really into pretend play. We play a lot of games together. She loves to be a pet in a pet store, and I come and have to buy her because she’s the most special pet in the store. Or we’ll play that we’re both shape-shifting dragons, and we have to defend against the other dragons. So that’s kind of her jam. She also likes to cook, and she’s really into numbers right now. She’s always figuring out how they go together, how they count up. So that’s been fun to play with her, too.

We all like to move. We’re all pretty physical. One of our favorite games is tag. When we go to the park, we will almost inevitably end up playing some form of freeze tag. We’ve invented lots of different games of freeze tag.

Me, I like to move outdoors. Hiking is probably one of my favorite hobbies right now. I also like to journal, and craft, and do art here and there. I spend most of my time hanging out with my kids and figuring out life. I’m loving it. It’s so nice.

PAM: It’s so great to hear about everybody. I feel like we say this every time, but it’s just so fun to hear the different kinds of expressions of each person, yet as you’re listening, you can see how they weave together. Like you were even saying, oh she likes to join in cooking. This one likes to join in on conversations. There’s so many pieces.

What I always love is just how it’s a beautiful expression of the idea of a family of individuals. How we can all be living together and being ourselves. Like you said, you’re very busy with parenting and figuring all those pieces out, and also you have the things that you enjoy doing, and that you notice you enjoy doing, and bringing those where they weave in to all the different pieces. So, I just, I love unschooling families.

ERIKA: I love that too, and yeah, it’s just making me think about, people are different, and how when we have these different individuals in our families, how we learn from each other, and I think initially when I went into parenting, I was thinking they’ll be a lot like me, and they’ll just learn from me kind of thing. I didn’t realize quite how much interconnected learning there would be, just because we’re all so different. I didn’t realize how different they could be, and I think, each child you add is just a whole new layer of learning for everyone in the family.

So, I love that for sure.

PAM: I think for me, that’s been one of the big shifts, was recognizing the individuals, right? As a family, we’re going to do this, and as a family, we’re going to do that, and then recognizing that legitimately doesn’t work for some of us, and that was kind of an eye-opening moment.

Okay, so the next question. We are very interested to hear a bit more about how you discovered unschooling, and what ideas and people have influenced you so far along the way, because, you know, the journey keeps going, doesn’t it?

ARI: Yeah, I don’t think it’ll ever end. So, my interest in unschooling started about four years ago, when I read a book by a physicist named David Deutsch. He talked about a lot of physics concepts that are beyond me, but he also talks about this philosophy or understanding of knowledge, and how knowledge grows, and it really shook up my understanding, but made it clearer to me what I believed, it made it make more sense.

And he draws a lot on a 20th century philosopher, Karl Popper, who coined the term, the bucket mind theory, I guess it is. So, thinking about the mind as a bucket, where you pour knowledge in, which is wrong, but it’s how a lot of us think about how knowledge is passed from one person to another.

It’s just this receiving process, where someone tells you information, and you receive it, but Deutsch and Popper challenge this and say, learning is actually a creative process. And it happens when we have a conflict in our mind, two things that are incompatible, as simple as a desire. I want this, and I don’t have it yet, or I want to understand this, and I don’t yet, and then what we do in our mind is we come up with ideas that can reconcile the conflict, or solve the conflict, and we use our knowledge to criticize all the ideas we come up with.

A lot of this is subconscious, but we’re criticizing our ideas, and picking the one that is the best explanation, and then we try it out, and then we see how the world responds, and we learn more information. This idea just made so much sense to me. They apply it to a larger scale, how humans as a species gain knowledge, and how science advances, but it also applies to the individual, so that really got me thinking.

I realized that school is so much based on the bucket theory of pouring knowledge in, and it doesn’t really allow for as much of this creative trying, or see your ideas are as valid as anybody’s, let’s hear more about them, so that was a big knock against school for me.

Deutsch also talks about the fallibilism of humans, that we’re just, most of our ideas are wrong. We don’t know anything for sure, and school sends the message, at least I got the message in school, that we’re telling you information, this is how it is, and it’s not going to change, we’re the authority here. I think that’s a real disservice, because the truth is that knowledge is always changing, the truth is, these are our best explanations right now, but in the future, we’ll probably prove most of this wrong. And so I think it’s dangerous to tell kids, this is how it is, don’t think that it could be different

So, you combine these ideas of creativity, that learning is about creativity, and that our ideas are always coming up with better explanations, replacing things, and it shows the big problem with ever forcing a person to think a certain way, or to do a certain thing, because even when you think you’re telling somebody to do something because it’s in their best interest, you’re probably wrong. We just don’t know enough about the world, or about that particular person, and then you’re also taking away their ability to come up with their own ideas, and test them out. That’s how they’re going to learn about their interfacing with the world, and how they want to be, and the best understanding that they can come to. You stunt human progress, because you’re limiting ideas, new ideas for us to test out.

Those were all big epiphanies for me, this new way of thinking, and I was like okay, so we should avoid forcing people as much as possible. It changed my view on society really. But I still wasn’t sure that it could apply to children. I had a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a baby at the time, and I was telling them what to do a lot, and so I was like how do you apply this to, does this even apply to children.

So, I did some research, and I was like yes, people are doing this. Kids are full humans, they can be seen as creative knowledge growers as much as anybody, in fact they’re more creative, because they haven’t learned to criticize as much. I found John Holt, I found Peter Gray, I found you all, I found the term unschooling, and I was like wow, this is possible.

So, I talked with the family, presented it to my oldest, who was in kindergarten at the time, and our life was not as interesting as it was before they started preschool and kindergarten, I was not feeling, I don’t know, not as full myself, schlepping them places, and just dealing with the, let’s get to places on time energy. My oldest was starting to get a little bored with her experience in kindergarten, and she was all for staying home and continuing to play, so that’s when we started.

ANNA: All right, see, this is exciting though, because I think it’s so interesting, that idea that he was talking about, and that you were looking into that, how it really does systematically shut down that creative mind, that critical thinking mind. What a disservice, it really is. That’s why it’s so hard for me when, and I know it feels to people like such a radical concept, but I just think, oh my gosh, how does it not make sense, you can see it happening, and I think it’s just so fascinating. I love that this idea was related to adults. And still I think for many people it’s that resistance, but can it be for kids? I see that with so many interesting people that are putting interesting ideas out in the world, and so often are not applying to children, and I just think, whoa, you’re really missing the boat, one, because kids have so much to teach us, and they bring such creativity to things, but I just think, wow, you are missing that the ideas definitely apply to kids. That was very interesting, thank you.

PAM: The part that really bubbled up for me, that connected, because I feel like that’s something that I learned so strongly at school, that still gets in my way, so yeah, maybe it might be partly personality-based, but the idea of having the right answer first before acting. That is something I learned watching my kids, but still, it’s so ingrained.

I have to literally remember, and which is why I talk pretty often, and I don’t know if we’ve shared it yet, the Baby Steps episode from the Living Joyfully Podcast, but Baby Steps have become a mantra for me to remind myself to think, just as you were describing, what’s my best interpretation or thought or idea about this thing that I am feeling a push with? And go try it, and see what I learned, because I’ll learn more by trying it, more that I can take back, rather than just intellectually trying to solve it completely to the end, before I ever actually take it out in the world and see what it looks like.

So, I’ve spent all that time trying to figure it out, versus experimenting. I think maybe it looks like this, boom, go try it, learn some more, come back and, ooh, I’m going to tweak it a little bit more from what I learned, how things unfolded in that moment, and I’m going to take that idea out into the world and test it, that just makes so much sense.

It is how I saw, even though my kids were in school for a handful of years before they came home, but yeah, that period was just, like, releasing the crud, right. The crud that they had been absorbing, so their own kind of de-schooling, but mistakes still were not yet this huge, horrible thing to them. They didn’t even see them as mistakes, they just said, oh, that didn’t work as I expected, let me bring that information, tweak it, and try it a little bit differently next time, or two minutes from now when I want to keep pushing down this path. For me to recognize that mistakes aren’t literally bad, they’re just more learning, they’re just more context to the situation that I’m pulling in,

And that, to me, that’s where the creativity lies, because the more little bits of information I have, or if we think about learning as a web, the more little connections I’ve got, the more creative I can be, because I have more pieces to play with, to bring together.

It reminds me, you were talking about the discussions you and your husband love to have about very interesting things, it’s like, oh, let’s pull it apart this way, what if we look at it this way, what if we go way over here, and what would that look like, let’s go try it, or even if it’s a mind experiment. It’s just so fun and creative, and that’s what learning is, versus the, oh my gosh, here’s the bucket, take the fire hose, all the stuff you’re supposed to memorize and implement, because it’s the right way. Anyway, yes, so fun.

ERIKA: I feel like I’m going to be thinking about some of these for a while, it’s very interesting, and kind of a unique path to get to unschooling. I don’t know if I’ve heard this exact story before, which is really fun.

It was making me think, that idea of, you’re probably wrong, it could be a really good one to kind of play around with, because that’s so not what we learned growing up. It was, there’s one answer, that’s what the fact is. Then I was thinking back, and I remember in school, learning in science or something, we would learn something that people used to believe, like spontaneous generation, or something, where now we think how could they have been so clueless? I remember having the thought at that time, so what about now, don’t you think people in the future are going to be like, how could they have been so clueless back then?

So, I had that thought, but then you don’t really have a chance to play around with that. Everything is taught as facts now, and I just remember being, like, how will we know which ones of these are completely wrong, that we’re learning right now?

And so it is really interesting, and I think maybe approaching my kids with the idea that I’m probably wrong about what I think I know about whatever it is, I think that could be helpful. It might also make it more challenging to know what to say sometimes. I think I grew up in that environment of, you listen to the person, and they know what’s true, and that’s it. It feels super expansive to kind of shift that.

ARI: Yeah, I love all that. I think the way we try to come at our kids is not with that authority of, we know what’s best, but we have some ideas. We have stories that we’ve experienced, and we try to look at our kids. Are they interested in hearing from us about this topic?

And when you were talking, Pam, I was thinking about how the internal versus external processor, how maybe you go try things out, and that’s how you test ideas and criticize them and come up with better ones. A lot of people like to process them against the knowledge they have in their head or maybe go read about stuff. I love how you all talk about these different kinds of processing.

Some people want to talk to other people. The problem with the mindset that we learn in school is that talking to another person means asking an authority for the answer when it could mean let’s bounce some ideas around, like, what do you think of my ideas? Tell me your ideas. Let’s come up with what’s the best one to try, you know?

PAM: Yeah, or cheating, right? Then don’t talk to them about it. It does very much say you have to learn it all, and you have to regurgitate it this way. Just imagine external processors. You can’t talk to the teacher. You can’t talk to the other students in the classroom, and do you have a lot of time for processing outside of the school hours?

That was something that surprised me when my kids first came home, because we went from very scheduled and busy and stuff, right, and I thought, oh, well, we’re not going to school anymore. We have all this time to do other things, but then to realize that, they’re like, no, thank you. No, thank you. They spend so much more time just processing and engaging in what they were interested in, much more than I was kind of expecting. I thought, oh, I’m going to have to keep them busy, and that too is personality-based.

Some people like to, but that’s the difference. Even when we went to, say, the Science Center, seeing the difference between how they moved through exhibits and just the whole environment versus how the school kids in the exhibit right beside us were moving through it. They had no control, no agency over that pace, and they didn’t even get to choose what they were trying to process because they had the little worksheet that said, at this exhibit, when you do X, what happens. There was no time then to be creative with what is actually catching your attention. What would you like to focus on versus, what somebody else, authority, is telling you.

These are the important bits that you need to be picking out of that, right?

ANNA: Right, which I think makes you question things too, if you’re picking up different things than what the authority is picking up. I think a piece of my journey that’s related to this is, just kind of toying with the whole subjective reality piece, which I think was really the foundation for my understanding of how different people are. I do a lot of internal thinking about all the things, and that was really it for me.

Oh, things that feel like a fact, we are experiencing differently. So there was this nuance to the fact. The fact is that it’s 40 degrees outside. I’m cold, someone else is hot.

Okay, so we have a fact, but we have how we’re interacting with that fact. A dramatic example of one nation’s terrorist is another nation’s hero. There’s a fact of what happened, but the interpretation of the fact is so subjective, and so it was just this idea of, wow, we are experiencing the very same things very differently because we’re all so different. That just really changed so many things about the way I related to my kids, related to the people in my life.

Then we’ve just built on that as we’ve talked about relationships, but I think it’s all related. And I think school really stifles that understanding because it’s trying to put everything in a very neat box. And again, I think it can make kids kind of doubt themselves too, because they’re seeing different things that are just as important, but that aren’t being highlighted on the worksheet.

ERIKA: I think the younger kids, especially, like, when you’re describing being able to talk things through and that everyone’s ideas have value. I feel like it gets more like that when you get into college and beyond where people actually want to talk and professors want to hash things out. I mean, not everyone, but some.

But younger kids, you’re not ready for it. You know, you need me to dump all this information into your bucket because you don’t know anything yet. And so I think that’s so interesting that if we question that, kids have so many ideas and are so open to that.

ARI: Simply the idea that they might know what they want. They’re having this subjective experience and they have unique wants. But no, we want to take them to this class and this activity and they shouldn’t be watching this TV. There’s just this idea that we know better what they want.

PAM: Right. We don’t trust. Like you said, we just can’t know. We can’t. And I think that’s why when we talk so often about this de-schooling phase of the journey, how so much of it we recognize quickly enough is our work to do.

Because we are questioning some of these more basic ideas and then playing with them and seeing how they unfold. Here’s the school’s conventional ideas and here’s, for lack of a better phrase, unschooling’s unconventional ideas. And it’s not about just taking those on wholesale as your new set of rules to follow, et cetera. Because then you don’t get that richness. You don’t get that understanding. You’re not playing around with them to see how they make sense for you. But to take this, like you were saying, that makes sense to me. Does this apply to children?

And then looking to your children and playing around with some of those ideas and then seeing how they actually unfold is how you learn how capable kids really are and how they can have an idea of subjectively what they want this experience to be. Notice that it’s different from the experience we were kind of hoping they were going to have.

But letting it play out and seeing, oh, look how super valuable that was for them, for who they are as that unique human being versus, yeah, sure, I could have said, oh, no, but do it this way, but do it this way. And they would have taken that in, but they would have taken it as my interpretation. And then, yes, you get into all the, oh, does that mean I’m wrong? Does that mean I can’t think through this properly?

I should be thinking about it and seeing and being interested in what they think, et cetera. So there’s all that piece that comes along when they didn’t get to play around with the one thing that they were super interested in about it all.

ERIKA: The next question we had is how you have shared on the network about how trust has been harder to find related to your children’s social development more than physical or intellectual development. I was hoping you could share a little bit about that journey and what has helped you in that area.

ARI: Yeah, it’s been really interesting to watch in myself how I have no qualms about the kids climbing up structures and maybe taking a tumble, playing sports and making mistakes. I see that as part of their physical development. And with intellectual, academic stuff, it was pretty easy for me to make the paradigm shift of if they follow their interests and their problem solving, they’re going to be able to lead their way here.

But when it came to social stuff, the moment my kid said something mean on the playground and I’m worried what the other kid is going to think, I immediately tense up and rush to intervene. Even if my kids like making a suggestion for a game to a stranger on the playground, I feel myself, oh no, what if, I don’t know if she asked it in the right way. What if the other kid says no and I’m so untrusting of their social exploration, it’s been really interesting. And so with all of your help, I’ve been exploring why that is and where I can go with it.

I think that the social stuff has always been really hard for me, or the hardest part for me. And so, in a way, I wish I had more help with it. And so I want to help my kids. And this is how I know how to help is to jump in and tell them what to do. I also think that in our society, and I’ve noticed it, in particular in the homeschool spheres, there’s this real desire for everyone to play nice. I think even families keep their kids out of school to avoid bullying and terrible behavior, which is legitimate.

But then it makes these expectations in the play spaces of, we don’t accept certain behaviors. And so we have less tolerance of their developmental journey in this social stuff. They’re supposed to know how to act now, which I think is really interesting.

And so I feel that social pressure. And then the third piece, I think, is that I feel like my impact on the world, my desire to bring certain energy, certain positivity to the world is intertwined with how my kids act, how my kids are in the world. And so if they do something socially that I don’t like, if they do something that might hurt someone, or behave in a way that is not how I would carry myself, then I think that’s a problem, because I am too connected.

So there are those three pieces that I’ve tried to work through. I think the first one, as far as me wanting to intervene, because social stuff is hard for me, I’ve unpacked as like, would little Ari have wanted more instructions, more judgment, telling me how to act? Or would I have wanted curiosity and more questions like, what’s going on for you? Compassion, trying to understand what’s going on. And an acknowledgement that we don’t know the right way, there’s no right way to act, right?

Language like, this is not okay, or we don’t do that. That doesn’t fit in my sphere anymore. It’s more about, what was this experience? And do you want to process it with me?

That’s the energy I would like to bring to my kids. It’s still a struggle. I get triggered all the time. But I try to think back on what would have helped me and looking into my kids eyes, what is going to be helpful for them now? Is it judgment? Is it instruction? Or is it this openness and acknowledgement that you’re on a journey and you don’t have to get it right now.

First of all, there is no right, but also, it’s just a long learning process. And then with the social expectations, I’ve tried to surround myself with people who are interested in trusting their kids more. And I found some beautiful people. And that’s been helpful.

I acknowledge that we don’t want our kids to be hurt. So we still want to talk to our kids about and inform them if somebody else is being impacted by their behavior. I try to just have a lot of conversations without judgment around that. And I think helping our kids through difficult social situations by being okay. Helping our kids know that hurt is going to happen and that I’m here for you and what do we want to do about it? Instead of mom should have prevented that.

I think there’s just so much more nuance to their social development than kids should have these instructions of how to treat other people. Because social interactions are really complicated. And then, my biggest aha, I think, has been untangling my impact from my kids’ impact.

I think there’s a story that I have. And I think a lot of people believe that our kids are part of our way of making the world a better place. We’re raising our kids to be good people so that the world can be a better place. And the moment, this statement came into my head that my children are not my agents to make the world a better place. It’s like, whoa, that’s me. That’s about my actions. And they are full people. And I am here to support them in becoming who they are. That has been a really helpful aha moment for me.

ANNA: Yeah, that one’s huge. And I think that is interesting, because I think we do often put things on children that are really ours to carry. It is okay for me to say I want to be this change agent myself, but this idea that our kids can do that is super interesting.

But something when you were talking earlier to just the idea of, we tend to focus so intently on behaviors that we really do miss those nuances of needs that are happening underneath of that. And so when we’re solely focused on, even just the labeling of bullying behavior, it’s like, oh, there’s so much underneath of that. Now, granted, in a school environment, they don’t have the tools or the time or the people that can work with that. So, I totally get wanting to get kids out of an environment like that that doesn’t feel safe.

But when we have engaged parents with kids, we’re able to dig under that to see, oh, is this actually not a good environment? Have we not eaten? Is there something else going on? We can look at all these pieces. And when we’re having that kind of conversation with our kids, they’re actually learning about their own triggers, like, okay, I don’t do well in large crowds, or I need to eat before we do something, or I can only last two hours.

That’s so much more productive for everyone, for the family and the group as a whole. But for the individual to have the space to learn about themselves in that way, when they’re young, is so valuable. I also feel for you because I’ve been there feeling that like, oh, that’s not what I would say. That’s not how I would have handled that. And I love just being able to help myself, find that compassion for the person and really see them and have really seen so many people just kind of melt under that and just feel really held. And have a real learning opportunity of what was happening for them in that moment. There were just so many interesting things about that.

PAM: So many. I mean, it really is the piece, maybe I’m reiterating again, but that piece of how much they’re learning about themselves, having the space to process that, spaces in that doesn’t mean literally leaving them alone, because that’s what we feel we’re supposed to do or anything. We have the conversations and they’re like, I don’t want you to come jumping in if you see, I want to try this, this and this.

But you’ve made that plan beforehand. This is an experiment that you’re running. This is how you’re trying and how you’re going to learn more about all the pieces. Because like you were saying, there’s just so much context to every moment. Maybe one park day, everything goes fine, there are no big blow ups or anything. And, the next one, there’s clashes.

And to be able to chat more about the context of those moments. And if you don’t have as much of a chatter, we’re still observing. I think that was one of the things too, so often was seeing that, like you talked about finding a group of engaged parents, Ari.

And I think that makes a huge difference because so often it was the parents all off in one area and then the kids just off on their own. And I was often one of the only parents who would hang out with the kids. They’re fun.

But because we saw what was going on, we could have meaningful conversations after about it. When they did this, how are you feeling? Or we have enough information and context to have meaningful conversations to process through which they can learn.

I was really hungry or I was frustrated because like three interactions ago, something happened that I was stewing about that came with me. So my cup was almost full. And this one little thing which I could have moved through 90 percent of the time just kind of filled me up and I exploded because of that.

Those are all such valuable pieces to learn about ourselves. And for them to learn about us, like moving forward that they can bring that you can then prep for it. Like you were saying, eating before you go, noticing the time and maybe even having like a code word for when it’s time.

There were times when I’m like, we’ll totally just blame this all on me or whatever. Like I’ll come up and say, oh, we have to go, we have to go. And we’ll have prearranged it before that, that they’re going to want to go at this point.

Or if we see something happen, but then I am able to just pull them out of it. We are just learning so much every time we just try something out and see it takes us right back to where you started. I try something out and see how it unfolds and what do we learn from it?

And yes, it applies here too. But yeah, socially, that can be a hard place to take these ideas or a more challenging place to take these ideas. Because there are so many social roles. And like you said, you kind of have to find the people who are also willing to engage with social situations in the same kind of way.

ERIKA: It is so interesting. I think it’s just an area that triggers us, because of our own experiences and how you’re describing that social life was hard for you. Then that’s so triggering. I have the same experience with my kids. I don’t want them to lose their friends. I want them to be accepted and I want them to not be rejected.

And there are these very kind of almost scary feelings that can come up for me. It feels very urgent that this go well. And I just hope that they say the right thing. It’s a panicky feeling that can come up for me. But just like everything else, there’s no one right way, which you mentioned, which I think is so huge. That doesn’t even seem possibly true at the beginning.

But then it’s like, well, of course, there’s not one right way to behave socially. And that it requires learning like anything else in life. And so just being open to it, they’re going to try things and see how it turns out. And that’s just how humans learn. And that’s okay. That’s safe. It’s been really interesting to sit with the reality of that.

My oldest does a lot of processing of social things with me. That has been very enjoyable to have things occur and him to notice things he didn’t the first time, after our discussion. So he’ll be like, so and so is really making me mad right now, he’s furious. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, what’s going on? But then he’ll bring things up. I think he probably didn’t sleep well, you know, just the context pieces or we don’t know. Maybe I could provide information. His mom’s been out of town all week or just different things.

There are things that go on with people, maybe it’s hormones. And so we’ve talked about hormones and maybe it’s all these different things. And so just kind of giving everyone more space, I guess, to make mistakes socially and that to be like, and we’re still okay. And we can make repairs.

It’s such a different feeling and story than I had when I was growing up. I feel like the validation I got from my mom was kind of like, that’s a mean person. It wasn’t about, I wonder what’s going on with them. It was more, no one should talk to you like that. They must be a mean person kind of feeling. Maybe she didn’t use those words, but that was what I internalized about it.

So, yeah, I totally appreciate that this area is so hard sometimes. I really enjoy hearing you process about it and just opening up to, there’s no one right way, even here.

ANNA: Yeah. Something you said too, that I think a lot of us deal with is we take our childhood experiences and I mean, of course, because they’re a part of us, right? And so they become these triggers in these situations with our kids. But I think it’s so important to remember how different the environment is for our kids. You are there to have those conversations and those nuanced pieces. And it is so different.

And almost the stakes, while they still feel high, I know what you’re saying, Erika, they are lower. In the sense of my experience of school was just me having to go to this place and figure it all out on my own. I had a close relationship with my mom, but she didn’t know anything about school or the politics of school or what was happening at school. And so I didn’t even bring that to her.

I think it’s so different when we’re with our kids more in this weaving in and out of our lives day to day, where they just have that space to talk about their feelings and what’s happening with it. And even if they’re not kids that share every little bit, there’s just some different nuances there related to how we support our kids. So it’s always important for me to remember, that was my experience. And it was so hard because I didn’t have the support.

But I guess that’s what I liked about what you said, too, Ari, asking what would I have wanted? Would I really have wanted somebody to jump in and tell me what to do? Or would I have wanted this nonjudgmental space with somebody to help me figure it out for myself? I thought that was really interesting.

ARI: I think it’s one of the most rewarding parts of parenting in this way that our kids come to us to process. Like you were describing, Erika, when they just see a moment and they know that it’s always an opportunity to process with mom or anybody here. It’s just a beautifully different environment.

PAM: It just reminds me of, I always remember the drive home from Girl Guides meetings. That was always a big processing time. But what stood out for me often was just like you were saying, Erika. It’s like, oh, so-and-so seemed like really out of sorts today or whatever, whatever. And she would be explaining to me, yeah, because X, because Y. Where I feel this defensive mama bear come up. But I got to the space where I could just recognize that in me. Doesn’t make it wrong either, right? Nothing, it’s not wrong, wrong. It’s just recognizing that experience.

And then when I just put a little sentence out there, I get the whole context and the understanding. And I was like, oh, yeah. That’s the human being I want to be.

ANNA: Whoa, right? It’s not getting defensive. Being able to see other people’s experience.

And also, just be able to make that repair if it’s needed. Or be open to repair if something’s happened to us. I think it’s a big difference. And it’s a learning process, right?

It’s not perfect for any of us at any age. And so this expectation that kids are going to be perfect doesn’t make sense, but it’s creating that environment where that’s possible. And I feel like even, Ari, some of the stuff you’ve talked about on the network, you’ve seen changes in them as they’ve had this freedom. Especially your oldest to really be understood in some of the ways that she was approaching situations. So I think that was really cool.

ARI: Absolutely.

ANNA: Well, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun and I just really, really enjoyed it. And we hope everybody enjoyed our conversation, maybe had a little aha moment or picked up on some ideas to consider for your own personal journey.

And of course, if you enjoy these conversations and want to come hang out with us, we’d love to have you join us at the Living Joyfully Network. It is really such an amazing group of people connecting and having thoughtful conversations about all the things that we encounter in life, our own and our kids and all the things. So we invite you to check it out and see if it fits with our free month offer.

And you’ll find the link in the show notes or you can go to livingjoyfully.ca and the link is on the homepage. But thank you so much again for joining us. It was just really great to hang out with you all.

ARI: Thank you for having me.

PAM: Thank you, Ari.

ERIKA: Thank you so much, Ari.

**EU409: Foundations: Baby Steps** May 21, 2026

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

So often, when we’re faced with a challenge or making a choice, we don’t need to have the full picture or the final answer in order to move forward. By taking a baby step in the direction that makes sense to us or to our loved ones, we can learn more about the situation and see how it feels. One baby step can lead naturally to the next. As we keep communicating and checking in, we can find a path forward that works for everyone.

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

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE QUESTIONS

Does it feel like many of the day to day choices you’re making are urgent? Are they really? If you haven’t listened to episode 8 yet about Anna’s mantra, “there’s plenty of time,” I highly recommend it.

Thinking back, can you remember a time when you felt pressured (often by ourselves!) to make a decision quickly yet the better choice wasn’t immediately clear? Can you think of a series of baby steps that might have helped? Feel free to get creative!

Is there a choice or a goal you’re considering right now that feels big? You don’t need to know exactly how you’d get there, but can you see a baby step in that direction? Can you do that and see what happens?

Are you more of a leap-first person or a firm-footing person? What about your partner? Your children? How can understanding that help you communicate with them about future decisions?

TRANSCRIPT

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

If you’re new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas in these first dozen episodes and have really enjoyed how they are building on one another. And if you’ve already been enjoying the podcast, please share it with the people in your life that you think would benefit from contemplating these ideas. It’s super easy to share. Just send them to pod.link/livingjoyfully. From there, they can pick their favorite podcast player and it will take them right to the show in that app. Thanks so much for helping us spread the word.

And so, this week, we are going to talk about the idea of baby steps. When we’re trying to make a choice, so often, we don’t need to make the big, ultimate decision right now. This builds on the idea that there’s plenty of time, which we talked about a few weeks ago. These are the threads that are moving through them all.

So, maybe we’re not yet sure whether we want to pursue the end goal that we’re considering. When we find ourselves here, what’s often missing is more information or experience. So, taking the next baby step in that direction can give us more information to help us make that bigger picture decision. Sometimes we need to take quite a few baby steps before we get a keen sense of what we ultimately want to do.

Or, maybe our partner or child wants to do something that stretches our comfort zone. Chances are, we don’t need to make a yes/no choice immediately. Staying open and curious, which we talked about last week, can help us take the next baby step in that direction and just learn more about what it entails and how it feels. It can also give us a better understanding of why they’re wanting to go in that direction and some experience that can help us better explain our perspective. We’re learning more about them and we’re learning more about ourselves.

That deeper level of self-awareness and having a better grasp of the language around their goal, now we can have more meaningful and connected conversations with them. There’s just so much we can learn when we try just that next baby step, isn’t there?

ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. And it really is the natural extension of last week’s discussion on being open and curious. When our partner or child brings us something they want to do, sometimes if we don’t see the whole path clearly, we’ll just shut it down. At the first thought of resistance, we’re just like, “No, that doesn’t sound doable.” But if instead we can ask some questions and start walking in that direction, we learn so much more about each other and also about the task at hand. What does it really mean? What is it really going to entail?

We don’t have to commit to that end goal, like you’re saying, right away. Taking that first step helps us learn more and keeps us connected.

PAM: Yeah. Yeah. So, I have a story to share about taking baby steps and stretching my comfort zone, that, looking back, I do remember fondly.

It’s an example of how we don’t need to make all or nothing decisions immediately, and how choosing the next baby step does not mean that you’ve committed to a big yes right now.

So, this happened years ago now, in the aftermath of a big January snowstorm. My daughter was maybe 13 or 14 and we had tickets to see a concert in the city about an hour away. So, that morning, the snow was falling heavily and I was sure they’d cancel the show. People were being told to stay home if possible. I was looking forward to settling in and hanging out around the fire in our wood stove.

My daughter had been looking forward to the show and was understandably disappointed. I told her that I was pretty sure they’d reschedule the show. So, she wouldn’t miss it. It would just be postponed. She kept checking the website. And by early afternoon, they announced that the show was going to go on.

Obviously, she wanted to go and I wanted to stay home. I imagined all the hurdles in our way. And it seemed like way too much work, yet I could see her immense disappointment and I chose to shift to being open and curious about the possibility.

And though I couldn’t yet muster a, “Yes, let’s go!” I did manage to take a baby step to meet her with a maybe. Though the snow had now stopped falling, I explained the obstacles I saw and that I was willing to try the next baby step and see how it looked. If it looked okay, we’d try the next baby step and the next, and she agreed.

So, step one was, clean off the car and shovel enough of the driveway to get out by our planned departure time. And we did it, even after the snow plow went by and created another curb of snow at the end of the driveway that we had to dig through again.

So, step two, is our local rural road plowed and safely drivable? Once we could peek out and see the road, that was a yes, too. Step three was pack the car with extra hats and mitts and snacks in case we get stuck along the way. Done.

By the time we pulled out of the driveway, it felt like we were on quite the adventure. I was rather surprised we’d actually made it this far, but there was no point that said, “Stop,” so we kept going. Step four, as we slowly drove into the city, I reminded her that if the road or the traffic got bad, we would turn back. Even in her excitement, she was fine with that. It turned out that though the roads were snow-covered, they had been plowed, so it wasn’t deep, and traffic was very light. Slowly but surely, we made our way into the city.

Step five, we pulled into the venue parking lot. We were both so surprised to find ourselves there. It was almost surreal. I can still remember the feeling. So white and quiet outside. And inside, the concert turned out to be a very intimate show. The band thanked those who showed up and really connected with the audience as they played. It ended up being a pretty magical night.

I remember that day vividly because it was a great reminder that, when I’m feeling overwhelmed, when I’m feeling like I need to make a big yes/no choice, taking baby steps and looking around after each one to see what’s up and see how I’m feeling can be a really helpful way for me to move through it.

I could acknowledge both my discomfort and her enthusiasm, holding both of them gently in my hands. And baby step by baby step, explore whether we could find a path forward that worked for both of us.

And that said, sometimes we don’t have the capacity for that, and that’s okay. Sometimes we start out and come to an impasse. That’s okay, too. But sometimes we find a path of baby steps that works out. And over the years, that happened way more often than I expected. That inspired me each time just to give it a shot.

ANNA: Just to give it a shot! Oh my gosh. I love that story. And I think what I want to highlight is that by being open to those next steps and communicating along the way, you stayed on the same side.

You were a team. You were solving it together. You were traveling those next steps together. And you could have shut it down with a no saying, it’s just too snowy, which really wouldn’t have been that unreasonable of a reaction. But most likely, it would’ve led to some kind of rupture, even beyond the disappointment. Maybe even a slammed door or just some kind of upset. But instead, you dug into your concerns. You were honest about them, talked about them, and slowly started to address them together, knowing that at any time you could change your mind.

And what she saw was that you were trying, and again, that you were working together. And that is just such a different energy than making top-down decisions. Because had it not worked out, she would’ve seen the path of why it didn’t work out. The road’s impassable. We can’t get the driveway dug out. The car’s not starting. Whatever the real thing would’ve been, as opposed to you inside by the fire making that choice for her.

I think we can do this with our partners, too. They’ll have an idea and instead of examining where our reactions are coming from, we just react and we shut it down and it’s really disconnecting. And interestingly, we can do this whether the idea has anything to do with us or not. It’s really easy to fall into that trap of pointing out all the problems. Instead, we can listen, ask questions, celebrate the excitement that the person has for the idea. That’s what keeps us connected and helps us find the next steps that make sense.

So, it’s back to being open and curious. I want to cultivate that mindset when someone comes to me with an idea, because from that place, we can figure out any resistance and start to address it with those next baby steps. And the key with this process is to remain connected and curious. I can be honest about what’s coming up for me without judging or shutting down what’s happening for them and where they want to go.

I think part of it is releasing any sense of urgency, which we talk about a lot. I know sometimes I can feel pressured when somebody comes to me with a request, but what I’ve learned is that, if I answer from that place, I most likely will say no or something that disconnects us. It’s okay to ask for some time to think and gather your thoughts and consider things. And that’s back to, are you an internal or external processor? Taking time to think about what’s causing the resistance helps you to be able to communicate that with your partner and child.

And honestly, the first step is often just listening, like really listening. What’s behind the request? What are they excited about? How do they see it playing out? Then perhaps the next step is really still information gathering. There’s a lot you can do that’s pretty low stakes, but it shows that you’re open to understanding and trying to find a path forward, and it just makes all the difference in a relationship.

PAM: Yes, as an internal processor, I have said to my kids over the years and they learned to work with, “If you need an answer right now, it’s gonna be a no. But if you give me a few minutes to just take it in and figure out how it feels and what it looks like,” I just need to process it and it’s not something I can do aloud. As an internal processor, I just need to do it in my head. And do the different paths. Okay, so this is the change, this is what that change looks like over the rest of the day or week, depending on what it is. And then I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s all good.” And then I go back and say, yes, or I actually discover what the hiccup is, and then I can go and say, “Oh, but look, that impacts this for me. How can we address that?”

But if I need to answer right away, I would say no. And most people are not like, “I’ll take the no right away, please.” So, seeing through their eyes is just so very helpful, because that’s what each baby step can help us with. So, even if I don’t get to a place where I share their level of excitement about the thing, I can definitely often get to a place where I can appreciate their excitement. And want it for them. That makes all the difference in the world for me.

ANNA: So much. And I think just what you were just talking about it, it’s important to acknowledge that there are differences that we can learn about in each other. And we talked a bit about that in episode three, but I think this is another potential difference that can trip up relationships.

So, you’re going to have the people who like to leap first, ask questions later, and then you’re going to have people who really need to feel out every step, to confirm that there’s some firm footing here before I go any further. And understanding where you lie on that continuum will help you communicate with your partner.

So, if you’re a leap-first person and you’re partnered with a firm-footing-only person, you can take that into consideration, just like your kids were able to do, and see that their questions are not about discounting your idea at all but that they’re trying to make the idea work for them.

So remember, often our work is to not take things personally, but to see that our partner’s actions or behaviors are trying to meet a need. And so, then we’re learning about one another and we’re learning about how to approach these conversations. So, even when you have two different styles, you can find ways to come together honoring each other. That starts with setting any defensiveness aside and trusting that the two of you will keep working to find a path forward that feels good.

You may find some unique combinations of leaping and planning or leaning on each other’s strengths to get the best outcome, because so often in these situations, it’s really a bit of both, right? Leaps of faith and some pre-planning that get us there. And sometimes there’s certain situations that are better served by one or the other, but knowing each of your strengths puts you in the best position to get where you want to go together and helping one another. Knowing that there are options and keeping the lines of communication open helps us remain connected even if we’re navigating difficult decisions or stretching our comfort zones.

PAM: Yes. Our differing personalities are such a great thing to consider when we’re talking about goals, paths, and what that next step might be. It makes all the difference. And as you were sharing there, what comes to mind for me is just the experience. Each time we move through it, we’re building trust with the other person. Trust that I will consider the kind of person you are. What feels good to you? What doesn’t feel good to you? I’m not gonna try and railroad my answer. But I’m not going to just accept your answer either and be martyrly about it, because that’s going to lead to burnout. That’s going to lead to overwhelm, all sorts of places. And sometimes that happens, but then there’s work to move through that and to get back to connection from there.

So, the more I can bring myself and be open and curious about other people, each time that happens, we build a little bit more trust that this process is working for us, no matter what path we ended up on. That, to me, was always one of the most fun things. Yes, there was a hard piece about the uncertainty, like going into the conversation, not knowing where we’d go, but oh my gosh, the places that we ended up so often were way more interesting and fun than the original path that I thought of.

ANNA: That’s so true, but that’s because we were open and created this environment where they could feel open to ask and respect and understand, and all of those pieces that weave together to create these strong, connected relationships that we’re talking about every week.

PAM: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, here are some questions you might want to ponder as you explore how taking baby steps can make choices and decisions easier. It’s a skill that you can definitely get better at through experience.

So, number one, does it feel like many of the day to day choices you’re making are urgent? Are they really? If you haven’t listened to episode eight yet about Anna’s mantra, There’s Plenty of Time, I highly recommend you start there.

Question two, thinking back, can you remember a time when you felt pressured (and that can be pressure we’re putting on ourselves) to make a decision quickly, yet the better choice wasn’t immediately clear? Can you think of a series of baby steps that might have helped you along the way? And feel free to get creative. It can feel like, oh, that’s just more work. But, oh my gosh, the journey is the experience.

ANNA: Exactly. And the creativity is all a part of it and what makes it a little bit lighter, not so much weight, as we can be creative together.

PAM: Yeah. All right. Question three. Is there a choice or a goal you’re considering right now that feels big to you? You don’t need to know exactly how you would get there, but can you see a baby step in that direction? Can you do that and just see what happens?

And lastly, are you more of a leap-first person or a firm-footing person? What about your partner, your children? How can understanding that help you communicate with them about future decisions?

All right. Thank you so, so much for listening and we will see you next time. Bye! Have a great day!

**EU408: A Field Guide: Challenging Our Beliefs About Learning** May 07, 2026

We’re back with the second episode in our new series on the podcast, in which we’re working our way through Pam’s book, *The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide*.

Today, we’re beginning our exploration of the deschooling phase of the journey with stage six: Challenging Our Beliefs About Learning. Deschooling has several aspects, and this is one of the big ones. We may carry many beliefs about the way that school is connected to learning and the way we expect children to learn.

In order to challenge those beliefs, we dug into five truths about learning: teaching is not a prerequisite for learning, curriculum is unnecessary for learning, children are always learning, learning is fun, and learning is not hard. Once we start to question our existing beliefs, many of these new truths come to the surface. And they really build on each other until we’re living in a whole new paradigm!

We loved diving into learning and we hope you find this episode helpful!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

Pam’s Substack article, “But if they don’t go to school, how will they learn?”

Learn more about Pam’s book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide.

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

ANNA AND ERIKA: Hello!

PAM: So we are back with another episode in our Field Guide series. We’re working our way through my book, *The Unschooling Journey, A Field Guide*, which is framed around the hero’s journey and it’s a weaving together of myths, contemporary stories, and just tales from my own journey.

In our first episode, if you haven’t listened to that yet, you can go back, we dove into the first phase of the unschooling journey, which was Choosing Unschooling, in which we answered the call to unschooling. We found our guides, which in a fun twist are so often our children. We navigated past various threshold guardians as we crossed the threshold from the ordinary world into the world of unschooling and moved through our time in the belly of the whale where we came to embrace the curiosity of a beginner’s mind.

Now we are firmly in the deschooling phase of our journey, which encompasses seven stages and really does represent the bulk of our transformational work. Joseph Campbell calls this next stage the Road of Trials, which through the lens of unschooling, I have broken into two stages because I experienced them as quite distinct from each other. The first focuses on challenging our existing beliefs about learning and then the second one on those related to parenting.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about five truths about learning. And if you’re new to unschooling and this is your first time exploring these truths, you’re likely to be dancing with these ideas more intellectually to just understand what they mean and some of their further reaching implications because it’s just mind-blowing enough to hear these the first time and go what, that doesn’t match with what I’ve known so far. Anyway, if you’ve been unschooling for a while and feel like you already intellectually embraced these ideas, now’s the time to peel back some more layers to build more connections and context around them.

You’ll be strengthening your web of understanding with your own experiences, because you’ve been doing this for a while, so building your wisdom. And you are moving towards really believing and feeling these truths in your own bones, owning them for yourself.

All right, after all that preamble, the first truth we are going to explore is that teaching is not a prerequisite for learning. And right off, oh my gosh, there are just so many aspects to this one truth, isn’t there?

ANNA: It’s true. And I think it’s so interesting, because all of us can think of so many things we’ve learned without being specifically taught in that one way. And, oh my goodness, just look at babies learning to walk and talk without expert classroom instruction. And yet somehow schools have really sold us on this concept that to learn you need to be instructed by someone.

And not only that, but learning happens while sitting at a desk. And let’s throw in some power dynamic, loss of autonomy, a little peer pressure for good measure. But even without all of that soup, the idea that we need another person to teach us in a very specific way is just so limiting.

But what’s funny, personally, is that I didn’t want to homeschool in the beginning. I was very resistant because I didn’t want to be a teacher. So that statement right there shows you how deep I was in the idea that learning was about a teacher giving information to a student.

I think it was just so baked into my experience and what I’d been told for my whole life. And so even when in my own life, there were all these examples of me learning things all the time as an adult on my own in different ways. But somehow those didn’t count now. It was just so interesting to unpack that for myself.

And watching my kids was really what changed that, with a little point in the direction of observing from John Holt. I could see that I couldn’t even stop them from learning. They were just these little sponges, so interested in taking in everything, turning it around, trying to make sense of it, building context, building their own unique web of learning that we talk about so often. And then I started to kind of deconstruct the whole process.

So, even with the most amazing, well-meaning teachers, and there are so many of those beautiful people out there, if a student wasn’t interested, it wasn’t going to work. And I also read a lot about brains at that time and how we don’t learn well under stress. And that’s when I started to think, is school ever a helpful environment for learning? Does it ever make sense? And I’m just not sure that it does. And I think learning can happen there, but it’s kind of despite the terrible environment, not because of it, not as if it’s an optimal environment.

And like you said, it’s so individual. How does each person take in information? I prefer reading. I’m not auditory at all. David’s much more hands-on and experimental. So, long lectures just wouldn’t hold his attention. He needs to be moving at all times.

There are definitely times I turn to people who know more than me about a particular subject. I love that. It’s fun to see how they approach it, how they move through the challenges. But in the end, their approach may or may not work for me, but I can learn more about them, the subject, and ultimately myself as I’m able to move in and out of that type of learning environment.

I think the big thing here is just as we start to question and observe, ourselves, kids, our partners, see all the different ways that learning is happening every day around us. And it really just opens up such a new world.

ERIKA: I love that. This idea is so huge. Once I started thinking about it, it’s like, oh my gosh. And it was one of my biggest paradigm shifts at the beginning of my own unschooling journey was realizing this truth. And I had a lot of fun digging into the word “teaching,” which started to not even make any sense to me anymore.

Once I thought about it, it’s like somebody can say, “Well, I taught these kids how to do whatever.” And it’s like, but did you? You could say that you told them about it, but you really can’t say what happened inside of their brains. And so, I really liked questioning the word “teaching” overall and trying to move to the idea of just learning.

Learning does not require teaching. Learning happens inside of the learner. And having someone teach you could be a way of learning something, but those two are not necessarily connected. And just because a teacher says that they taught people does not mean that they learned it. I know that’s true from my own experience in school and my experience as a classroom teacher in high school. I’ve taught more than high school. I taught music classes and some little kid classes as well.

Everyone is so unique, every individual is so unique. And what I’ve seen is that process of teaching, the way that I would teach makes sense to my brain. It’s such a challenge to try to, what they would call in school, differentiate your instruction in order to meet everyone’s brains. But then the thing that’s missing from that is the interest.

And so, the way people actually learn is by being open to learning and about being ready to learn. And so the format is less important. And the teacher is just a possibility. It’s not the only thing. And it’s not the thing that makes learning happen.

I really think that having that experience as a teacher probably helped me get there a little bit faster on this part, because I’ve seen it. And so, I know that the classroom experience can be really frustrating for teachers and students. But I think you’re right, it’s not an optimal environment for learning in any way. Because we’re trying to get every single different person onto the same page in the same method. Trying to learn the same thing. And that just doesn’t really make sense if we think about how different everyone is. So yeah, I love this one.

PAM: Yeah, I mean, for me, too, Erika, this was one of my big first shift. Because as you were saying, Anna, I didn’t want to be a teacher. When the kids came home, it was, oh, so I’m supposed to teach them now. But to recognize that teaching didn’t mean learning was happening at all. Why don’t I use the lens of learning for a while? Because anytime I use the word teaching in a sentence, I could actually rephrase it to look at learning instead. And looking at it through that lens was just so helpful for me on my journey. And it’s something to dance with, which we talked about.

We’ve talked about the pendulum swing. We may think, oh, well, if teaching doesn’t make them learn, I guess I won’t teach. And then if we’ve started thinking of everything we share as teaching, I shouldn’t tell them things, right? So, you just let them figure it all out themselves.

And then you recognize, oh, no, I can be part of this picture, as you were talking about, and I like dipping in and out when somebody else has more knowledge that you’re interested in getting. And Erika, you pointed out how important the interest part is. Because that is when it all bubbles up, right?

When somebody is interested, maybe they’re asking questions, maybe they’re trying to do something. And we’re like, hey, I know a little something about this. This is how it works for me, do you want me to show you how it works for me? Keeping in mind that learning looks very different for each person.

But we can still share the stuff that we know, that we think, all those pieces. So, the dance of the relationship of learning, for me, it’s really, really fun. And I don’t need to frame that as teaching. It’s just our relationship and how we all enjoy learning new things that we’re interested in at the moment.

And so, Erika, something you said there at the end leads very much to the next truth that we wanted to talk about, about how people learn better when they’re interested and how teachers have this thing that they are supposed to be teaching. But so, anyway, second truth, curriculum is unnecessary for learning.

That is something that many of us grew up with. It was a foundational truth that we didn’t even visit. School curriculum is all about just creating and delivering this linear system all around teaching delivery. It’s about divvying up all the bits that they want to teach over the next however many years equally, so that, this is what we do in grade one math, grade two math, grade three, blah, blah.

And while most teachers understand that the most effective learning happens when the topic is relevant to the learner’s life, at least even better if they’re actually interested in it, that’s just not possible within this system, right? And most of the time, curricula is out of step with the learner.

So, we flipped the perspective between teaching and learning. Let’s consider learning without following a curriculum. What would that look like? And what would that look like through the lens of a particular child? And when you think about it, that unique set of knowledge and skills that will be valuable to that child will be different, definitely, maybe a little bit, maybe wildly, from a school’s generalized curriculum, right?

I think it’s so interesting to contemplate what our child chooses to learn just by following their curiosity and their interests as actually creating a beautifully individualized quote “curriculum” that really just fits them like a glove, because it meets them where they are in each moment.

ERIKA: I like how that turns it on its head. We could still use the word curriculum, if we want to. It’s just completely different than it was in the school context. And I really think that this truth was hard to see when I was in the middle of it, because they’re saying that school is about learning, but school is more like a game where you have a goal to get good grades.

And so, when you’re in that system, it doesn’t really matter what’s on the curriculum. That’s just the process of this particular game that we’re trying to play. So, it didn’t matter if something that I would want to learn was missing from that curriculum, because the point was to get good grades on this curriculum, so who cares? But in the real world, there’s just so much outside of school learning.

If you think about almost anyone’s work in the real world, there are just so many aspects to it that are specific to that field that would never have been covered in school. I learned that curriculum was really chosen because it’s easy to test, or it’s easy to assign grades to these particular areas. Math could be so interesting. But school math has to be easy to grade. And the testing is really easy, based on the things that they’ve chosen for the curriculum. And so, once I realized that, it’s just so much less important than it feels when you’re inside that system.

What people are supposed to learn in school, are not actually the most important bits of knowledge for living life. It’s much more random than that. And so, that’s why so many people get out of school and they’re like, why didn’t they teach us about these important things? Taxes, or how to buy a house, or fix my air conditioning system, or whatever, like things that would actually be useful, or even being in relationship, communication tools. Those would be useful things for life.

What I’ve seen since then, in our unschooling lives, is that kids following their interests really does include everything that they’ll need to know for the life that they want to lead, which makes perfect sense. If they’re living the life they want to lead, they’re going to be learning the things that make sense for that.

And so, any additional learning that looks more like school subjects could come up naturally, or maybe they’re just curious. What if they’re like, I’m curious about what school math is like. And so, it could be a side project if it’s interesting to them. But another great benefit of learning without a curriculum is like you were talking about the pacing and the order in which they learn is so individual and unique.

So maybe they would be considered very far ahead in one area or behind in another area, according to school, but in the real world, that there’s no ahead and behind, there’s not a fixed order to things in the same way. And so it’s like what you were saying, developing their unique web of learning based on what makes sense to them and developing their own interests and skills as they grow with their unique brains, which is just going to look so different for different people.

ANNA: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that piece of really deconstructing the whole of it. What is the goal? And what tools do they have?

Because they’re saying, we’re going to take the things out of math that are the easiest to measure. We’re not looking at what are the most important things of math to learn about, because they may not be easy to measure. And as soon as you start to unpack and deconstruct that a little bit, it’s like, wait a minute, why are we all in service of this system? What is that serving?

I think a big sticking point for me with school learning has always been that linear aspect of it. It’s interesting, because it stuck out to me at first when I was pregnant and going through natural childbirth classes, we talked a lot about how labor isn’t linear. Doctors and hospitals would have you believe that you’re dilating at this set rate per hour. And if you don’t, they want to intervene. Well it’s one centimeter per hour we need to be doing.

But that’s not how the body works. You know, it’s fits and starts, rests and surges. And so quickly, I could see how that made sense with learning, too. We aren’t going to learn one number a day. And then the next day, we’re going to learn one number. And let’s learn one color. No, no more colors today. Just this one color. And I saw my kids get interested in colors when they were so young, and wanting to know the color of everything, running around the house. What’s this? What’s that? Showing me all the pieces. That’s how they get excited about things and want to make sense in their brain.

I saw them dive so deeply as they were exploring any topic, because you could see them building this context, building their web, placing the new information into their existing web. It is anything but linear, and any interruptions or redirections just messed with their flow.

And that really reminded me of another thing I remember from my own time at school, was being in class in the middle of a large geometry proof, and the bell would ring, and on to a completely unrelated subject. Now we’re going to talk about history. And only to have to get back into that mindset for the proof later that night to do my homework, because it didn’t get finished during the class. And I hated it. I loved proofs so much, but I wanted to do them from start to finish without interruptions, because there’s so many pieces to it. But the constant interruption just killed my natural love of learning and love of math.

And I just started playing the game, like you’re talking about, Erika. I just started playing the game. Okay, this is what they’re wanting me to do, is just check these boxes. So, give them what they want for the test, and then promptly forget it, because it doesn’t mean anything. And what I learned was not the material that was being presented, but how to survive and master that system. And so, I just think that’s happening every day in schools all around us, and nobody’s talking about that piece.

And I will say that I definitely looked at all the different curricula when my girls were young. I was like, oh, there’s all these cool nature-based ones, because that’s what I love. But like we’ve talked about with any kind of classes before, I’d look at these things, and I’d feel like, oh my gosh, they’re so dumbed down, because even those more alternative curricula, we’re trying to make it linear. We’re going to learn about this bug today. Doesn’t matter if you’re seeing other bugs outside. We’re just going to do this one.

And after observing my kids learning when they were so young, I knew context was everything. And to divorce a subject from the context of it just made it so abstract. It lost the meaning and just became about memorization.

Okay, we’ll memorize what these bugs are. We won’t look at where they are, where we’re finding them. And it almost felt like it was tying their hand behind their back, because the world is so rich with things to learn, to see in context, to explore. And I came to believe that really no curricula could improve upon engaged parents exploring, supporting kids as their interests popped up in their kind of natural environment.

And I say that to say, it’s not just schools that can do this. We can do this in homeschooling as well, if we’re trying to follow this linear model and not really watching how humans learn and understanding the specific brains of the people in our family.

PAM: Yeah, that’s that whole curriculum piece, right? And another aspect that came up for me recently, in this area, someone commented on one of my Substack posts where I was talking about learning, and I’ll link to it in the show notes. But it was really interesting. They were very favorable. But the one thing they were concerned about was learning gaps. Gaps in their knowledge.

And it’s just so bright now, having thought through all this. But look at all the assumptions that are just built into that learning, the idea of a learning gap, or summer learning loss, all those ideas. Because, number one, you basically got a curriculum against which you are comparing what somebody should know at some age for you to determine that’s a gap or you didn’t learn that when you were supposed to. So you’ve tied in curriculum there.

And no matter how much people talk about lifelong learning, if you’ve still got a curriculum that something should be known by some particular age, lifelong learning doesn’t fit. It doesn’t matter when somebody learns something. When you have bring that lifelong learning lens to it, it’s like, when is it important? When are they interested in it? When will they actually use it? That’s a great time to learn it.

It’s not like you need to learn in the past, in case someday you need it in the future, which is a lot of what curriculum is based around. So, I just found that to be super interesting, that there are just so many pieces wrapped up that just assume curriculum is the way people learn. And that just shows up and says, but I’m worried about learning gaps, which you can totally understand, but my goodness.

ERIKA: I totally understand it. But it’s so interesting, because if you think about something, like if you were to point out to that adult about their learning gaps, something that they don’t know about, it’s like, oh, but that isn’t important. So, the school curriculum devalues everything outside of it. And so, learning gaps can only happen with school learning. You wouldn’t say, I have a learning gap about auto mechanics or something. I’m not expected to know that. And so, I think that’s super interesting and really something for us to turn around in our minds so that we value all of the different things that people might want to learn about and not just this one set.

ANNA: Right, because I guarantee any of those kids that we’re talking about having a learning gap, they know things off the charts that other people, adults included, don’t know, because they followed a passion or interest. We see that all the time. And like you said, you wouldn’t say I have a learning gap because I don’t know about chainsaws like my husband does, but that serves him. And so, yeah, I think that’s one of those thoughts like my thought about how I don’t want to be a teacher. It’s that it’s so baked in. It’s so baked in that we don’t even see it.

PAM:

Yeah, yeah. And that’s what I was excited to point out. It’s not that when that thing was being taught that we were just sitting in a corner, not doing anything, we were just learning so many other things. And I think this conversation also comes up some with some unschooling families when their kids decide to try school or they want to go check it out. And then all of a sudden, they’re measuring their knowledge versus the knowledge they think the child should have in whatever grade, etc. And, oh, we need to catch up.

But instead of the phrasing “catch up” and “behind,” bring the lens of they’ve been learning all sorts of other things. Yeah, maybe not what matches specifically that curriculum, but they’ve been learning all sorts of other things. And they don’t lose those if they decide to go check out school. That is there, as you were talking about before, Anna, how rich life is, the context, all the things we know that are related to who we are as a human being and the things that we’re interested in.

And if school becomes something we’re interested in, it’s like, oh, I’m not behind, but I’m bringing my full self. And then I can learn those other things, rather than getting all stressed, like, oh, my gosh, did we fail because they don’t know?

ANNA: Okay, one quick thing before we move on, because I think it’s where we have that hierarchy, where we’re thinking school is somehow this important monolith, whatever we want to call it. And really, that’s why this deconstruction process is so important to understand school for what it is. It serves a particular purpose, and it is what it is.

But if you were to take your child and put them into an auto mechanic shop, you wouldn’t expect them to know all the things in the auto mechanic shop. You would know they need to figure those things out and learn them. And someone might tell them about stuff, and they might read a book, and they might try different things.

But why can’t we have that same environment with school to go, okay, yeah, they haven’t learned about how they annotate things and do this particular thing a certain way, so then they’ll learn about it, versus there’s something inherently wrong that they don’t know about it. Because it’s its own system, no different than any of these other systems. It’s not better or worse, but that takes the deconstruction to understand what’s behind it and how we got here.

PAM: Oh, that’s beautiful, beautiful. Okay, yes, we should move on. The third truth is that children are always learning, because I mean, they really, really are. Humans are, right? But when you look at kids, you can see it in action, whether or not you can name it, whether or not they can name it, they are learning.

Even when they’re cocooning, even when they’re watching a favorite show on repeat, they are having an experience. And the idea that children are always learning implies that learning doesn’t just happen at school, it doesn’t just happen with the teacher.

So, let me go back another layer, and that nudges us to consider the idea that all learning is valuable, just like we were saying, like auto mechanics to somebody who needs that information and skill is just about as valuable to stuff that would appear in a regular school curriculum.

Learning about themselves, learning about being in relationships with others, as you were talking about earlier, Erika, learning what they like and what they don’t like, what they’re curious about, what seems uninteresting, and how that changes over time. That is just all such valuable learning. Facts and skills are just other bits that are on that buffet table of learning, which each person can individually select at any particular time, what they’re interested in. And without the curriculum, and with this always learning lens, that brings us right back to that rich context that you were talking about, Anna, because if we’re following a curriculum, we’re really just picking out those bits.

But when we’re like, I’m interested in this thing, all the things that are connected or that we notice come with that, when we’re not just focused on the quote “important little bits.”

ANNA: And I think we’re at such an interesting time in human history, too, where we have access to everything, to people, to resources, to information that is very unique to our time, if we look back over the long scale. But no matter what, it’s really almost impossible to stop a human from learning. Even if you had no internet, you’re still going to be learning what’s important to you, what’s right in front of you. Every minute, we are taking in information, learning about ourselves, those around us, the environment.

Learning is so much broader than the idea of subjects at school. And as I said earlier, divorcing concepts from context is really counter to actually learning about the concepts. And I feel that way about math, English, history, music, all of it. It’s that interconnectedness. It’s that understanding why we need it, why it’s important, how it serves us in the life that we want to live. That’s what gives it meaning and helps it stick.

I loved watching my oldest as a toddler when she was putting things into context. The lion we saw in a book, then she saw it on a show, then she saw it at the zoo. And you could just see her building this web of understanding about it. And it’s so amazing to watch.

I think that’s the special thing about kids is that they have so much context to build. So it’s happening very quickly. I think we’re all doing it as adults too, but we’ve been working on that web a little bit longer. So, I think it’s so much easier to see in that young child.

And I think just that important piece of not ranking learning. Learning numbers is no more valuable than learning to draw or learning that you don’t like bright lights or learning how to be in relationship. It all has value.

And I guess if there would be a ranking, it would be more about what helps you the most in your unique life. That’s really what we’ve been talking about. What helps you explore your interests, achieve your goals, be the person that you want to be. That’s a very different metric than what school values. And I think it’s why people get disenfranchised because they think I’m supposed to be learning this. They’re telling me this is important, but it’s not helping me towards my goal of being an artist or a musician or even a mathematician because it’s very different than what they’re doing in school. And so, I think that’s where people get where it feels bad and they start to think “I can’t learn” and all of those pieces. Okay, I’m going to stop.

ERIKA: I remember getting those questions about, why do we need to learn this school? And I think most of the time I was pretty honest about, it’s on the curriculum and it’s going to be on a test. And so, that’s why we’re learning it. It’s interesting to some people and not to everyone.

And I really think, people intuitively know that children are learning, especially when they’re babies and toddlers, like, as you were describing, you can just see it happening. But then we might forget if we think that learning happens in school. And so, we might forget that they were capable of that and they are still capable of that. And we all are.

So if we think big kid learning needs to look like school, adult learning has to look like college courses, then you may not notice what’s actually happening and that learning is happening all the time.

But as we were talking about earlier, what they learn might be outside of that limited range of what is like observable learning in school. And what’s really interesting for me to think back on is what I learned in school was also mostly outside of the range of what was tested. The memories I have of school and what I learned there were about people, how to be safe, like what the signs are of dysregulation, is what I would call it now.

But that kind of hypervigilance, watching how people are behaving, how the teachers are behaving, how we’re being treated, and all of that kind of stuff. That is much more my memory of school than any particular little curriculum item that I would have learned and then forgotten.

And so, how kids learn outside of school might not look anything like how it was taught in school, or how you remember learning it and everyone’s brains are different.

I definitely have seen unschooling parents say they’re just not learning anything or things like that. And it’s just like, maybe let’s look at it differently, because that’s not possible. And so, the way that a unique child puts together their own web of learning, I love that image for it too. It makes so much sense that each person’s construction of their web is unique to them.

And I’ve heard my kids come back about things and be like, oh, that’s what that meant when I saw that on that show one time. They will literally make connections, and I can see it happen, but it may not look anything like something that I would have thought they were supposed to have learned.

But it’s just natural human learning. And there are so many internal things that people are learning. I think even in my experience in school, or other kids’ experience in school, there are so many internal things they’re learning about themselves, they’re learning about relationships and human nature, it might look like they’re learning nothing. But I trust that they’re getting what they need out of those moments and putting together their own web.

PAM: Right? That is so often conventionally devalued, because in school, that’s not measured. You want to measure just on those little bits that you know now. And then when we move on, the next time you kind of circle back, it’s just not valued. When you learn something and connect it, like you were saying earlier, Anna, it can’t really be measured. So, we can’t give it a grade. So, we just don’t consider it at all. It’s not part of school, which is how we come to see learning.

Oh, my gosh! And I think that richness is just what is so missed, that context, that building that web of deeper understanding, that’s just so valuable. Okay, I’ll be quick.

The fourth truth to explore. I love this one, too. And that is that learning is fun. Ooh, yes. Let’s try that one on for a bit. I think an interesting aspect of this idea. It’s something that you will, when you start learning about unschooling, you will come across it pretty quickly. The idea that our focus isn’t on learning a particular skill. We talk about following their interests and their passions instead of following a curriculum.

So, from there, they pick up the skills that we’ve talked about that are helpful along the way, but they do it on their own timetable versus the curriculum’s timetable. I like to use reading as a classic example, because that’s something that people are concerned that their kids learn quickly. And that’s totally understandable, because at school, learning to read is definitely a goal. One that they hold out as key for a child to be able to learn. And again, that makes sense, because at school, not being able to read can definitely interfere with learning, because so much of the communication at school is written. It’s a characteristic of that system. Here’s your worksheets, write this test. It’s all about words and reading.

But when the goal is pursuing their interests and passions, they have the time and space to find all sorts of ways to engage with the thing that they’re interested in. And we are there to read things for them whenever they like, if that’s how they want to bring in some information.

And they also have the time and space to explore just that complex puzzle of reading in their own way, and at their own pace when their unique brain is ready for it. So not reading is in no way a handicap to learning when we’re unschooling. Another layer around the idea that learning is fun.

It reminds us that people learn in different ways, as we’ve been talking about this whole time. Real learning is just so much more interactive and fluid than a classroom can accommodate. You really just have this one teaching style learning with reading, writing, communication, that’s really what you’ve got for learning there.

Okay, then there’s yet another layer, because we like peeling back layers, and seeing how when kids are following their curiosity and pursuing their interests and goals, so often this learning happens almost incidentally, like they’re just having fun. They’re just like doing the thing they wanted to do. And it doesn’t even need to be labeled as learning.

Once we get to that layer, at first we want to see, we want to expand our understanding of what learning is by basically labeling everything they do as learning. And then it’s like, when everything is a thing, then we don’t even need to label it. But because when they’re just engaging and doing the thing, it just now makes sense to them, and they remember it, like we were talking about earlier, because they chose to engage with it, it means something to them, and they’re going to be using it because it’s something they’re interested in.

So even if something gets challenging or frustrating for a little while, so often they choose to keep going, because it’s helping them accomplish something that they want to do. And again, they learn along the way, they learn how to deal with frustration, feelings, learn how to move through those, maybe learn how to take a break. They learn how to choose, is this worth continuing pushing through or do I want to give it a break now? Do I never want to see it again? And then they learn six months later, it’s not quite as hard as it was when they first burst out with it. But yeah, learning can be so much fun.

ERIKA: Yes! And I feel like when they do hard things because it’s important to them instead of because someone’s telling them to, all of those things, it’s so curious to think about. And I really think the fact that in our schools, at least in my country right now, they’ve pushed the curriculum lower and lower into the younger ages, because it’s like, oh, well, if we want them to be at this level at this age, then they should be preparing for that earlier.

And so, I mean, it’s gotten to the point where there is three-year-old curriculum that’s preparing them for four-year-old. All of this exists now. And so, this is not developmentally aligned. It doesn’t actually make any sense. And it backfires, because then kids think that they are stupid, or they think, I’m not good at this, or whatever internal messages they develop. But it’s really because we’re putting things on them in schools that their brains are not ready for, literally not ready for it.

And so, there are kids who can thrive in that environment. But it’s pretty unusual. And so, following what’s most interesting to them, it’s like a little secret. I feel like it’s just the best way for them to learn everything.

And I love that you pulled reading out, because it’s a tool. Reading is not an end result. And in school, it feels like reading is this end result. And we get so focused on it. Can they read? Can they read? It’s like, okay, but reading is a tool that humans use. Writing and reading are to help us share information with each other.

This is a way that we can learn about things or research things or whatever. And so, reading is part of life, because it’s helpful to us. It’s not important as a skill on its own. Treating it like that, like a tool that is helpful, makes so much more sense.

What I saw with my kids is they were curious about reading. They wanted to be able to do it because it would help them. It helps them in their games. It helps them communicate with others and all of this. And so, it really was a journey that they owned for themselves and it didn’t feel like me pushing them to learn it younger than they were ready to learn it. It felt like their curiosity was the driving force and then they picked it up as they needed in a way that made sense for their own brains.

And so, I think kids just naturally learn about what’s fun and interesting to them. And when they’re young, it looks like playing and when they’re older, maybe it still looks like playing, or maybe it starts to look like something different and unique to them. It could be projects or processing ideas with us or interacting with friends. Maybe they want to sign up for a certain class. Maybe they love collecting certain things or whatever it is. It’s so unique to each individual person. I think the idea that learning isn’t fun that school gives us is so terrible and damaging to people.

ANNA: Oh, it really is. Oh, and I love that you mentioned that reading is a tool, a tool among many other tools to learn and take in information. And I just love this whole idea that learning is fun.

And I think it’s because I love learning all the things, that it is fun! And I love your point, Pam, about how unschooling, the learning almost appears incidental, but it’s so purposeful in the way that it’s helping the learner move towards something that’s important to them, whether that’s a goal, an understanding, whatever it might be.

And I think because it can appear incidental, we brush it aside or think it’s not as important, or that it’s not this drudgery. And with any passion, the learning isn’t linear or confined to a subject. With a passion for Minecraft, you’re learning about building, geometry, animals, strategy, gems, tools, so many things. A passion for horses, the same. It incorporates all the school subjects, but then so much more, the connection, the nuances, all the pieces.

And so, observation is really our friend here. Watch and walk alongside your kids and be amazed, because I was constantly amazed. And I think, Erika, you touched on this, unfortunately, one of the side effects of a poor school experience is a belief that learning has to be hard and it has to be drudgery to mean anything. But that’s not true. Learning is magic. It’s amazing.

And again, there’s a deep internal drive that we have as humans to learn and understand the things around us. And as you both mentioned, it may not look like learning if we’re so narrowly defining learning, if we’re holding onto this school book drudgery as our definition of learning. But if you broaden your definition, you will see it’s rich and rewarding and absolutely equipping them to live a life that’s meaningful to them.

PAM: Yeah. And you started talking about it and that’s the next truth that we’re going to explore, because they’re very related. So, that’s that learning is not hard. Through the lens of unschooling, that’s our next truth, that learning is not hard.

And I found it distinct, because I could think learning is fun and hard. Like I want to enjoy learning, but it’s something hard that I do. So, I think that that’s why for me, I separated these out as well. And when you think about showing up at school, and this ties into what you were saying earlier, Erika, about the curriculum getting pushed down and down earlier and earlier, when kids are presented with this stuff, it really is so easy just to pick up the message that learning is hard.

Because there are so many reasons in the classroom following this curriculum that it is hard for them. It’s totally true. Trying to learn something that you’re not interested in can definitely be hard. Trying to learn something that your brain is not ready to process and connect and bring together can definitely be hard. If it’s just something that’s not part of their day-to-day lives, so maybe they’re not super interested in it, but also they won’t be using it because it’s not something they need to do, then that is hard to learn because it often just doesn’t make sense.

It’s just this little floating point, which earlier you mentioned, Anna, that’s when we end up stopping trying to understand what we would call learning and just memorize that factoid, because it has no context in our lives or in our interests. So, I just have to memorize this thing to perform on the test and to play that game.

So, for lots of brains, learning in school and following curriculum is hard. And then just put yourself in there. If you’re trying to be interested in the thing, questions are so discouraged. And not because the teacher’s just like, I don’t want to, but they don’t have time. If it’s not on the curriculum, we don’t have time to spend 20 minutes discussing it, because it won’t be on the test. How many people ended up asking that question eventually? It’s like, is this going to be on the test? And if not, you could just forget about it. It’s like, okay, I don’t even have to try memorizing or understanding it, because it’s not going to be on the test.

When you imagine kids in school, their days really are just filled with that push and pull of what is it that I need to know? How do I memorize it? And in all that, because of all the testing and the grading, we become so afraid of being wrong and we can’t ask questions. So, we stop being curious about stuff. We have to answer questions on the test in exactly the same way that we were told. So, we don’t even try to think of other ways that might connect for us better or understand better. We have to say it the way it’s supposed to be said. So, our creativity fades. I just feel it’s become so ingrained in that school experience that we now think that is the human experience that learning is hard. Full stop. That’s just it. Learning for anybody is hard.

But what so many unschooling parents have seen over these decades, as we’ve talked to more and more unschooling parents, what we’ve seen with our children is it’s the environment that makes a fundamental difference in how learning feels. When you’re doing the things that are interesting to you or that you want to learn, you’re following your curiosity, you’re following your needs, your own goals, oh my gosh, learning can be fun.

And the incidental piece is like, it’s not hard because I’m meeting it where I am. And I’m meeting it right at the place where I can learn. If I do jump too far ahead, it’s like, this makes no sense. I’m going to find information or a person or whatever that’s going to meet me where I am. So, now I can just soak it up like that sponge. We can learn like little kids do no matter our age. When you think of challenging or frustrating moments in it, it doesn’t feel like the learning piece is hard. It’s just like, ooh, I’m trying to figure out this piece and I want to play around with it. I want to figure it out. It’s much less about defining all learning as hard, because this particular piece is challenging or frustrating for me in this moment. It’s just so interesting.

ANNA: It’s true. And so this is going to sound a little bit cynical, but I think it’s really one of the ways that the powers that be keep us in line. Learning’s hard. You can’t do it on your own. You need these experts in this building or you’re not going to be successful. You’re not going to get a job. You won’t amount to anything.

Because as soon as you realize learning isn’t hard when it’s in service of an interest and that you don’t need that expert and that building, the whole system starts to crumble. But truly what you said is so important to tease apart. Memorizing facts devoid of context is hard, especially for some brains. For other brains, memorization comes really easily and I think those people do well in school. And so, like most things, there is a grain of truth to the idea that learning is hard. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be.

And for me, I think watching the babies and toddlers learning so much in such a short amount of time just really blew the lid off the idea that we can’t learn without proper instruction. But even then, they pick out specific things. Well, then reading’s going to be hard or math is going to be hard.

But again, it’s made harder by that environment and by that environment not taking into account different brains and different timelines. And if something does seem hard, is it still hard if we let go of the agenda around it, the timeline around it, the context? Is it a context issue that’s making it feel hard? Can we examine something that we’re saying feels hard and just understand it a little bit more?

A few months ago, a Network member talked about how people will say learning gets harder as you get older. It’s another truism, learning gets harder as you get older. When really, it’s that being in that school environment gets harder because as adults, we have much more context for living alongside learning. So, the artificial environment and arbitrary hoops make much less sense and are much less tolerable than when we were kids and didn’t know there was a choice.

And I think that there are actually some kids that intuitively know there’s a different way and they end up not doing well in school, because they just keep bucking, like, I’m going find my way out of this tiny little narrow place that you’re putting me in, because I know there’s another world out there. And for a lot of us, we don’t really discover that until we’re adults and realize we just performed for that system for many, many years. And now there’s this whole other world out here.

ERIKA: My kids didn’t go to school and I didn’t question it when I was in school. And so, this was a lot of new information for me and super interesting. But what I observed with my kids was that they just resist anything that doesn’t interest them, period.

And that’s not every personality. My husband, Josh, and I are really curious and interested in almost anything, where my kids are more interested in very specific things. And so, I can be like, isn’t this cool? And they’re just like, no, like, why would I care about that? So, it’s so unique.

And then imagine in school where they’re not even saying, isn’t this cool? Most of the time, they’re just saying, you have to learn this. It’s important to learn it. Of course, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard to learn something if your brain either isn’t ready for or if it holds no interest at all. It just is so logical now for me to think about that.

But when I was in it, I didn’t know what was the problem with these other kids, that they weren’t actively participating or they weren’t trying hard or to do better. So looking back on it, I’m like, okay, that doesn’t make any sense though. The reason why I’m doing well in this system is because I’m good at memorizing or because I’m able to put my internal feelings and thoughts to the side in service of, this is what they said to do. I want to get this good score, whatever.

And so, looking back when I was first coming to unschooling, I felt a little bit jealous of the people who had realized about school when they were actually in school and were a little bit more rebellious, because I just totally got sucked into the game. I didn’t even see it. I did start to see it when I was a teacher in school.

But the more I think about this story that most people tell about learning being hard and learning being no fun, the more upset I get about this. Because it really doesn’t have to be that way. And I think it affects people for the rest of their lives, either thinking that they can’t learn or that they hate certain topics. And I think this is also the core of the “adults versus kids” conflicts that people have in their lives.

Because if the adults are saying, this is the most important thing, and the kids are saying, this is hard and I hate it, that clash is so terrible. And so, I think some kids can push themselves through it, but I don’t think that it’s natural and it doesn’t really make any sense because, like you were saying about the memorization aspect of it, the things that I remember from school are few and far between.

It’s not like that memorization type of learning to put it down on a test. It’s not learning that lasts or that makes any sense as something we take with us through our lives as important information. And so, yeah, this one upsets me.

PAM: I know, it’s so true. That is what is so fascinating about this stage of the journey, I think. Okay, so it’s been a long time. I do want to thank everyone for joining us. And we do really hope that you enjoy diving into this stage of the de-schooling phase as we challenge some of our conventional beliefs about learning.

I really think, as you were saying, it fundamentally sets us up so negatively, those conventional beliefs of how you have to be taught by a teacher, you have to follow a curriculum, learning is hard, learning is not fun, all of those pieces, we bring all that weight with us into adulthood. And we carry the message that we can’t learn. But then all the fun stuff that we’re doing and the deep dives into our own passions and interests, we don’t call them learning because they weren’t on a school curriculum, right?

ANNA: We devalue it.

PAM: We still carry the message, I can’t learn. Oh sure, I love this and I could do this for hours, but that doesn’t count, right? I mean, it’s just so deep, the messages that we carry.

We do invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network to continue these kinds of conversations. It is a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents, absolutely. And a nonjudgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional unschooling ideas and just explore what they might look like in the day-to-day of your unique and wonderful family of individuals.

No matter where you are on the journey, just learning about it, been doing it for years, there are always layers to peel back around as things come up at different ages and stages. And we are very excited to welcome you. To learn more, just follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfully.ca and just choose Network in the menu. And thank you so much, Anna and Erika!

We wish everyone a lovely, lovely day.

ERIKA: Bye!

ANNA: Bye, take care.

**EU407: On the Journey with Lucia Silva** Apr 23, 2026

We’re back with another *On the Journey* episode! We had a rich conversation with Living Joyfully Network member Lucia Silva. Lucia was previously on the podcast in episode 251, *Unschooling as a Lifestyle*. She is an unschooling mom of two and she came back to share some updates about her unschooling journey.

We talked about trusting our children’s learning journeys, Lucia’s inner growth and mindset shifts, as well as her experience in the Living Joyfully Network and how the community has supported her over the years.

It was a really beautiful discussion and we hope you find it helpful!

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

EU251: Unschooling as a Lifestyle with Lucia Silva

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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, as well as our guest today, Lucia Silva. Hello to you all!

PAM, ANNA, AND LUCIA: Hello!

ERIKA: Before we begin our conversation with Lucia, 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 such great discussions about so many topics. Our community has such a wide variety of experiences, and everyone’s really interested in learning and growing and being intentional with their families. It’s really unlike any other online community I’ve found.

Being part of the Network offers powerful support, especially during those moments when fears pop 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 livingjoyfully.ca and click on Network at the top of the page. And we’ll also leave a link for that in the show notes. We would love to meet you.

So I’m very excited that we get to talk to Lucia today. I met Lucia on the Living Joyfully Network and have just loved getting to know her over the years. And she was also on the podcast back in episode 251 and shared her journey to unschooling in that episode.

I encourage everyone to check that out as well. And we’re excited to dive in for an update five and a half years later, which is wild. So Lucia, we would love to hear what everyone is interested in right now.

LUCIA: Five and a half years later sounds like, in the scope of kid time, it’s so long. It’s so long. And then thinking, how long have you been unschooling? Five and a half years still seems really new.

So, it’s interesting to think about those elastic times. And it was fun to see how some things are just so similar. I’m sure you guys see that with your kids. But, wow, I can connect where they’re into the exact same thing.

So there’s four of us. It’s me and my husband, Micah, and my two kids. They’re older now. To respect their privacy, I’m not going to be using their names. And I’ll just refer to them with neutral pronouns. They said I could talk about them in general.

My oldest child is still really into ballet. And that’s their primary passion. And that has remained strong, grown, changed a little bit. It’s not what they want to do professionally, but it is just a primary part of their lives. They’re also still really into reading and drawing and making.

They have a great friend group. And they do lots of fun stuff. I just dropped them off at the botanical gardens to hang out with friends this morning. And let’s see, there was one other thing I wanted to mention. I lost my train of thought.

My younger child, back when I originally did the podcast, they were really into building and constructing items out of stuff. And I had not really forgotten, even though we still have a lot of that preserved in the garage. But they’re really into building tabletop games, mostly card games. They’re constantly inventing new games.

We’ve brought a lot of them to the table, done a lot of design. We’ve taken them to little fairs and sold lots of them. And we have game tournaments.

They’re kind of based around the Wings of Fire lore, because that’s what their friends were into when they started it. It’s turned into this thing where they have this whole group of friends that are waiting for the next booster pack to come out. But it’s kind of amazing to see connections, from that fascination with construction, like moving pieces, how they fit together.

And now it’s, Mom, I have a new game. And it’s this whole fully formed game mechanics and point values. Now it’s branching out to some things that aren’t just trading card games. They’re thinking about what would be a good family game? But mostly card games. So they’re really into that. They’ve gotten really into fencing and chess, which I think are both similar sort of mental games.

And they love talking with Micah about probability problems and stuff like that. They’re also really into philosophy and philosophical debate, or debating anything. So that’s that.

And I think when we last spoke, Micah, my husband, was a professor at UGA, and he’s now moved into tech. And along that whole journey, so much of what we’ve gone through in our unschooling journey, I’m putting that in air quotes, because it just sort of becomes your entire sort of life philosophy, unschooling. But that has really been so meaningful for him on his journey of just learning the way his mind works, what his interests are, stuff like that. So he’s still in the research, data field, has gotten really into improv and musical improv with a little group here, and plays music all the time.

And I am, I think, still doing a lot of the same things. I like to sew, and I’m reading, and I love following little rabbit trails and researching anything and dabbling about here and there.

ANNA: So fun. All the things, but how they all weave together, right? You can just picture the household and the weaving together of all the things.

ERIKA: I love connecting it back to the old conversation and seeing how that tracks, because we always talk about that, looking back and seeing how those threads connect together. And it just also makes me think, oh my gosh, kids are all so different, the things that they love and are interested in. You can’t predict it. And it’s just so interesting.

PAM: Yeah, I loved hearing the piece of looking back and now seeing how that is weaving into the things they’re interested in right now, because they can seem very different. Yet, when you look back, you can see the thread that underlies the various things together over time. And that is so interesting, just as a piece of knowledge, just a little bit more understanding about who they are, right? I think that is super cool. Did you want to say something?

LUCIA: Oh, just as you were saying that I realized that along the way, I feel like that’s given me, it’s a really important reflection to have when they get interested in something that maybe I’m unsure about, like video games, for example, and thinking, what is happening with all this time? And it’s so easy to see what’s underneath for them. How does this work? How do the team dynamics work? How do I analyze these moves? It doesn’t mean that if you’re not doing that, it’s not important, but there’s always something going on underneath an interest unless they’re not being attended to, right? But if it’s intentional, just like we’re intentional.

And seeing that there is that through line and that intention under it. Oh, and then sorry, one other thing about my oldest kiddo, who’s really into working with kids these days. They’re interning at a Waldorf school and they’ve been babysitting a lot too, which is a job, and they assist in the little kids’ classes at our co-op. There’s something underneath it that’s more like a passion rather than just like, oh, I go babysitting. Looking at the intention they bring to that and how respectful they are of the children, their privacy, what they’re going through and what reverence they have for that job.

I mean, there’s all kinds of ways to have a job, but also to look at that as we are spending a lot of time doing that because I’m seeing that it is something that is really important to them to do rather than, oh, they’re working or they’re working without getting paid.

PAM: All the different stories we can tell ourselves, right? But when we take that moment to actually dive a little bit deeper, so often we can see those threads. We can see the intentionality rather than the surface story that just, oh, I’m taking them to their job. They’re doing this thing. I don’t quite know why they’re not getting paid. Whatever lenses that kind of automatically bubble up, if we take a minute to just dig a little bit deeper and see what else comes up alongside it, it is really exciting.

And it helps, as I think back, just helps with the mechanics too. Like I don’t mind driving them to X, Y, Z because I know the impact and what they’re getting out of it. I’m not just a chauffeur or something like that.

If I take that as the superficial story of what’s happening, but no, I’m fundamentally supporting their pursuit of something that they are intentionally interested in. Who knows where it will go? We’ve talked a lot about how you really can’t predict it because we can guess but it’s really only looking back where we can see those threads and the connections and go, oh my gosh, I am so glad that I supported and helped with that along the way.

ANNA: I just want to say I feel like this is a core piece of unschooling for me, this valuing the experience and the exploration and facilitating that. But it’s hard because it doesn’t necessarily have a product at the end, or it doesn’t necessarily even have a photo op or whatever the thing might be that grounds it in our culture. But gosh, it’s such a big part of it.

And when you can take this time to look back, you do see those threads and you do see that growth. And again, it may be that they end up doing something with children, but maybe they’re just building a wealth of information and connection and relationship pieces that’ll be used in some other way. So yeah, just love that.

ERIKA: It’s trusting, trusting that they know, right? They know the thing that’s interesting now, and that’s going to lead to something. And I feel like it can be hard because we are always seeing through our own lenses. That’s the part that can be challenging about that for me. I think, but it doesn’t make sense. Or why would you want to spend your time doing that?

Or little judgmental feelings can come up just based on what it would be for me, like that interest doesn’t make sense to me. I think if we can drop that part, drop the judgment and just trust that they know themselves and this is going to lead to whatever it needs to lead to for them. I really love them.

LUCIA: And it is so hard for people, they really want to attach it to something. Are they going to be a professional dancer? Are they going to go into child development? I’m like, I don’t know.

Are you going to become a historian because you learned about the battle of the bulge. I get it. I think they want to know that everything’s okay. I understand it, but it’s important, or it’s been important for me to make my little energetic bubble and go like, yeah, is that cool?

No, they don’t want to be a professional dancer because of XYZ or whatever. Then their face falls, oh, but they dance for 12 hours a week. Yes, that’s pretty awesome. That’s still great. It’s very, it’s just interesting when you get so steeped in this, to have to pull yourself out and see through those eyes, right? Remembering, that’s where they are. And I get it. And I’m going to figure out how to talk to you about this in a way that doesn’t make you so worried.

PAM: Yes, I would want them to not be worried. Although I have no control over that. I got those questions so many times, especially as your kids get older, right?

People start, well, then what are they going to be? Et cetera. And I got to a point where I just loved answering those with, “I don’t know, maybe.” They look at you like, don’t you know your child?

LUCIA: Don’t you care? Well, especially as they get older, right? When they’re seven, that’s fine for everybody. When they’re 15 going on 16 and everybody’s talking about college and what are you going to do?

And they look at you like, do you not care? Are you going to abandon them? And they’re starting to feel that, not pressure to do, but pressure to answer. Luckily we don’t get that from our family.

So, I’d like to care a little bit less, but we’ll encounter adults who are like, what are you going to major in? Oh, are you going to this? Are you going to that? What do I say? It’s like, well, here are the options. We can prepare a little, you can just be out there with it.

ERIKA: It depends on how humorous you want to be. You have lots of options.

PAM: Oh my goodness. So I wanted to pull back something that you mentioned a little bit earlier and we’ll tie it in with the first interview we did. Episode 251. I do recommend everyone go back there and check out because you talked a lot about your journey to unschooling there. The theme and the title of the episode was unschooling as a lifestyle.

And like you said earlier, it just becomes the way you live. So I was curious as you look back, how has your journey evolved so far? Because we know it will continue. And what things have helped you along the way?

LUCIA: Well, I did read the transcript of that episode again. I had a vague idea. And it was so interesting to me to see both how I was at the beginning and how I was already like two feet in, here’s what we’re doing.

And a lot of the sort of philosophy for lack of a better word, or like the ideas now are just, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I know then that my yes was a different kind of yes. It just had a different feel and I was really eager and trying hard. And now a lot of those things just feel like, Oh wow. I can’t believe I was worried about that. That was my primary focus. I totally remember feeling that way. And I was thinking of Pam’s unschooling journey. Also, that was the first book that I read. That’s what it’s called, right? *The Unschooling Journey*.

PAM: Yes.

LUCIA: And thinking about the Network as this constant companion and knowing that the unschooling journey is based around this idea of the hero’s journey as the journey into and through unschooling. And I’m thinking about how many times we do that journey in this spiral, right? This big sort of macro journey of we won’t do that and we won’t do this and let go of that.

And we’re okay with this and then you go the next layer in and in and in, and now we’re sort of on this really micro journey where sort of everything spins around more quickly. I enter an unfamiliar situation or way of thinking, or how do I feel about this that my kid wants to do?

How do I feel about this and do a little whole circle of a journey with that. And I realized that for me, and I think for a lot of us who are part of the Network, that it’s a mix of a companion, a champion, an oracle, like all of the things that those mystical mythical heroes come upon that reveal some little truth, here’s a little encouragement, here’s your magic potion to keep you going.

But, for me, symbolically, there is no way, I guess I won’t say there’s no way I could have done it without the Network. But I know that my life is just totally different because of it. I know that every relationship I have is totally different because of it. I know that our family is totally different because of it.

And it’s funny, because I never get to talk about the Network. I think all the people outside my life know that I’m part of this unschooling network. They know it’s this online thing, and I have to go to a Zoom all the time. People will ask, why do you have all these Zoom meetings? Do you have a job? I’m like, no, no, I have, it’s a very important meeting I have to go to.

Because there are all these layers to it. When we started, I approached it the same way I approached listening to the podcast as like, I was in mentorship mode. And I still am in a different way. I remember, every week, as soon as the talk came out, I would listen to it. And then Micah and I would sit together on the couch at night, and I’d either play certain parts, we’d listen to the whole thing. We were steeping in this lecture series, and then we’d talk about it.

And I’d make notes and have these things I wanted to keep top of mind that week. And I could feel that transformation of ideas come loose in me and be like, okay, these are ideas I want to steep in. But then, I think I was maybe a little hesitant sometimes to post in the network, but I realized so quickly how much I learned from reading other people sharing it, everybody commenting and realizing this is unlike any other place that I’ve been.

And in the same way that unschooling is unlike any other place that I’ve been. If you think of this as the ultimate community for that based on intentionality, and not based on this set of rules and ideals. Which is so funny that a lot of the homeschooling and unschooling communities online turn into exactly that. Because I think people look for advice. And there’s always one person who wants to be the expert.

And that person ends up being the quote, unquote, expert and having the rules and you’re either in or you’re outside of that. And what I love seeing, even now, when somebody new comes into the Network, I learned so much from reading their new posts and the new things they’re wondering about. And I learned so much from people who are dealing with things that could seem totally irrelevant to me and my family. You learn so quickly how to read into the core of that relevance, how to offer support from your own experience to receive support from that shared experience.

And the ability to share those things and be in a space that is really without judgment, which is so weird. Especially when you’re dealing with something that feels like a high principle, or just high intentionality. Most of those spaces, and I’ve been in a lot that have to do with unschooling, but also that have to do with health or lots of other things, and it can feel like there’s this sort of untouchable expert at the center, or this untouchable idea, and we’re all sort of at the feet of that.

And feeling like we have this communal place, or real community, but also there’s this strong architecture that makes it so that anybody who walks into that space knows, gets the vibe. You can read the room really quickly, what’s going to be allowed here and not allowed here. There’s just not any bad behavior. So it feels really safe in those ways. But now it just lives in my head, all three of your voices live in my head, other people’s voices live in my head, phrases that people have said that I’ve written on a Post-it and stuck on my wall.

So that sometimes throughout my day, like, I’ll be like, oh, okay, I’m feeling uncertain about this. I got to post in the Network. But I can write the whole post and all the answers before I even do it. I realized that’s why I’m maybe posting less, and I think I should just do this anyway, because it was so helpful for me then.

And I love knowing that there are people in there who have been in there since I was there, whose kids are much older, and who aren’t visibly active so much. But just the other day, I posted something that was kind of a tender post. And immediately someone who had been in the group since I joined, who I wasn’t even sure was part of the group anymore, because I didn’t see them, but I thought about them as we’ve had some dialogue, and they just messaged me the loveliest message. Just knowing that there are people for whom this is so important. And just looking at the calls, I get so emotional sometimes when someone is sharing something. And everybody’s giving space, holding space, giving feedback, whatever it is.

And I see these 16 tiles of faces. And I think these are parents all around the world, who are dedicating their Saturday morning or afternoon or whatever it is, to talking about their families and their self development as caring people who are stewards of other people in the world. And that just blows me away. I think that in and of itself is so powerful.

ANNA: I feel like you captured it in a way that I don’t know that I could, because I think it’s really hard to explain to people. Because we do have those calls every week, we’ve been having them since we started in 2020. And I think of all of those weeks that we’ve had calls.

And that’s the piece too, that this web of people all over the world, bringing such intention and there isn’t one path. And you know that we don’t ever talk about there’s one right way or one way to be. But gosh, have I learned so much from just seeing other people navigating all the different pieces in their life.

And again, it may be a relationship issue, and maybe I’m not having that problem in my relationship, but just steeping in that intentionality and growth mindset is so powerful for me individually, and then just the collective of it is incredible. But yeah, I just am so grateful for you being there. And you really have seen it from the beginning and how it’s grown and what it looks like.

I just really appreciated that and got very emotional, because it is, it’s so powerful.

LUCIA: Yeah, and the growth mindset part of it. I think maybe you get lucky to meet a few people along the way in your real life who are invested in that. And I feel so lucky to have that in my partner, Micah, that’s where we are too, that is so important and central. And some people do have that with friends, but to be in a community of people where that’s their focus. And I think it’s maybe the kind of community that some other people may find in a totally different way in, like a church or something.

I always wanted that type of community without any of the one right way, or the dogma piece. Even with the most wonderful ones, there’s a book we’re going to go back to, or there’s a principle we’re going to go back to. Well, our principles are there’s no one right way. Everybody’s different. These expansive ideas.

Some people are nervous to come on the calls. At first, I know that I was, sometimes I’m even nervous now. But it’s hard to describe what it feels like once you’re there. It doesn’t feel like how I imagined, how can you create a warm, kind of magical community online on Zoom? I don’t know how it happened. But I think it’s just exactly that. You guys are the stewards of people coming together in this container with this intentionality, and everybody sort of rises to that occasion. And to do that kind of work in my life constantly is absolutely transformational. It’s changed every relationship I have. Really.

ERIKA: It speeds up the process for me. I feel like being around people who are constantly kind of reminding me of things that I need to work through or things I want to process. It helps me grow faster. I don’t know if that’s the right word. But that’s what it feels like. I don’t know if I would have gotten to these places. You know?

PAM: That’s the word that keeps coming up for me. This whole conversation is intentional, right? It’s like with that intentionality, and just showing up with that openness and curiosity. Okay, we’re going to go open and curious. Showing up with that piece, instead of the dogma, the direction, the measuring against, am I doing it right? Those are the pieces that we work hard to dispel, really, right? Which on one hand feels really good, there’s no rules to follow.

And then on the other hand, it’s like, oh, what do I replace that with? What do I do if I don’t have a rule to orient myself towards? But that’s where the openness, the curiosity, and the intentionality come in. It’s the intentionality piece, like you mentioned, Erika, that helps with the moving forward versus feeling stuck.

And I understand your hesitation about using the word fast to describe it, but maybe faster. It’s the reminder to visit those things. And also the compassion when we don’t have the capacity in the moment, and the space, as you mentioned, just the space, right? Just the open space that’s there for whatever is going on.

But I think that brings me back to the book, The Unschooling Journey, because number one, I love that you talked about the commonality of the different roles and people, mentors, and monsters. We talked about that a little while ago in the network, things that seem like maybe they’re getting in your way, but really, maybe they’re bringing messages. And that side is super interesting.

And to see when we’re spiraling or using that journey, how we can go more quickly, because we have more experience, and we have more language to help ourselves walk through those pieces, to remember, oh, yeah, this is my intention. This is why I want to do this. And oh, yeah, this is new.

Why is this bubbling up now? We’re always talking about that. It’s not that we don’t have challenges in life, we can just notice them a little bit more quickly, and move through them a little bit more quickly, because we gained these tools on what to do, instead of following the one path, right?

ANNA: That’s what I was going to say. We talk about that a lot. It’s not like this makes it the panacea, that nothing ever happens. It’s not all rainbow and sunshines. But wow, do I catch myself faster. I reorient faster. I get back to connection faster. I just slow things down to be able to be present with whatever’s happening faster than if I didn’t have that. So I think that’s the piece, because it keeps happening, keeps happening, all these decades later.

And there’s such a gift to it. And like you’re saying, I think it is faster, but there’s no end point. And I also appreciated you saying, Lucia, that it’s not always comfortable for people. I think some people come to an environment like the Network, and it isn’t comfortable because the one answer idea feels easier. Like, if you just give me the one answer, I’ll do it. That’s how we were trained in school. Tell me what I’m supposed to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll exceed the expectation. This is a little scarier in some ways, I think.

But if you can just get past that fear piece of it, and kind of steep in that container of acceptance and curiosity, it’s so empowering. It just opens up so many possibilities. And I think it really speaks to people when they can get past that piece of, but wait, I don’t want to do it wrong.

PAM: I was just going to say, that reminds me of, Pam, don’t lose it. When you mentioned it, Lucia, too, like when questions or challenges and things come up that don’t directly relate to things that are going on in our life, but it is still so useful to think through because it’s the foundational processes, right? It’s the tools that we’re using.

How do we apply the tools in this situation and in that situation? And that is just so much more deeply useful because then that’s understanding the tools and how you apply it in different places. It just gives us so much more experience on the breadth of how I might take this tool and apply it to all sorts of different things. I think of when we first come to unschooling and you encounter a challenge and you go and you ask, and you get an answer and you’re like, oh great, that worked great.

And then another challenge comes up a few months later. It’s like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do. I need to go ask and you ask and you get it, et cetera. If you’re not taking that intentional step to foundationally understand what’s the connection between why these different answers are working for me. I just find for me, I always need to go back and ask somebody because I haven’t learned the foundational stuff, gone underneath all that, where I can now think through something and help myself through it, et cetera. I don’t know if that makes sense.

ANNA: Okay, wait, just really quickly. I think this is making me, sorry, this is making me think about why it makes it faster is because, and maybe it’s personality driven too, but I’m experiencing to some extent all of the issues. We have a member that’s gone through like house flooding and having to move and all the things she’s navigating. Oh my gosh, I’m thinking of your thing with the fire extinguisher, Lucia.

I haven’t gone through those things physically and yet I was able to sit with it, hold the container, process it myself, think about what that would mean. So I think that’s what makes it faster because we only have so many experiences in our life but I don’t need all of those personally to learn more. There’s something interesting about that.

ERIKA: Yeah, I learned a lot about fire extinguishers from you, Lucia. I also, I wanted to pull back that other bit that I love that you said about intentional communities are often rule-based. I think that’s so interesting to think about.

Maybe other people that we meet that are very focused on growth and intention, they are trying to do things the right way though. And so our intention is totally different because it’s an intention about figuring out how people are different and being open and curious, An intention to be curious about things, which just, it feels very different.

LUCIA: Yeah, I mean, I wish it existed. I wish there was a beautiful room I could go to and be next to people and eat cookies and coffee afterwards. It’s like totally that part of it, but I realized it would be great if the world would be different.

You reminded me when you were talking about going through all of these things, even if they’re not your experience. I realized that a lot of what I used to do and still kind of do it out of habit, a fear-based habit, when I would hear about someone had this emergency and they were misdiagnosed and it turned out I would catalog, okay, if they have a rash on their palms, they check for Kawasaki disease. I was cataloging these, okay, if my kid’s not talking by this age, I have to demand whatever it was, some fear-based, okay, I’m going to arm myself with this practical knowledge that will fend off any bad eventuality.

And as we were talking, I realized that’s what we get, this real sort of other meta prevention, which is like we’re not going to prevent anything bad or practical happening, but what we have, we’re going to go through the same thing with it. If I’m feeling really strong about that, my priority is connection with the people involved, choosing out of love, being open and curious, all of the things that foundationally can feel like safety when so many things feel scary. Whether it’s that your kid’s playing video games or that they have an illness or that there’s a challenge. That there’s a different kind of safety, whereas I have always ascribed safety to rules and following best practices and figuring out the best way. So, this is something I’m still working on, but I like the concept.

ANNA: Me too. I do think, because I think our brain can be, you and I are very similar in that, and well, all four of us really, knowing the four of us as I do. I think we all want to, we have that brain that’s cataloging and thinking all the things. But for me, that deep breath into, there’s plenty of time, staying in this moment, being open and curious really is the thing that provides me the most peace and safety, because I think it was so stressful for me when I thought I was preparing for every eventuality, especially in my first pregnancy, and then everything went to hell in a hand basket. It’s like, but wait, I did everything the “right way”, and that got me stuck, right?

But I don’t get stuck there anymore, because I know things are going to happen, but what I know is that I can be present, I can have these connections, I can have these relationships, and that we’re going to figure it out. That feels more like real safety to me than what I was kind of chasing when I was younger with trying to do everything perfectly.

PAM: I love that.

ANNA: Okay, so I want to go to our next question, because I think it’s interesting. Something you’ve talked about on the network and reflected upon on calls is just observations about your kids and their relationship to themselves, and how you’ve seen them evolve as they’ve grown in this environment that you’ve created. How they move through the world, and so are there any little bits that you feel comfortable sharing just about your experience of that.

LUCIA: Yeah, I mean, it has been so interesting. This is an area where I can so directly see. Where I’m just practically learning from them, just by observing how someone else can be in the world, and being someone who is shaped totally differently by an experience of looking outside and adhering to outside standards to determine how I feel, when I need rest, what kind of food I’m eating. To see the opposite of that, of people who have such a strong basis in that type of self-knowledge, intuition, self-reflection, and all bolstered by, I don’t want to say extreme, but just actual autonomy of being.

And I don’t want to say I’ve given them autonomy, they’re not being prevented from being autonomous beings who have agency over so many areas of their lives, as much as possible. I believe that’s part of how they’ve developed this. Just watching how to do it. There’s no question, if they need to rest, they’re going to rest at this time, and if they they’re going to eat this kind of food, they’re going to eat this kind of food, and just this really strong conviction of anybody who gets in the way of that.

And they’re not rude people, but it’s about people who press back on that, are you really going to eat that? You’ve been in bed all day, etc. They have no tolerance for that type of external judgment, and they have sensitive humor about it. They function pretty well in the world, but things that I’m so uncomfortable with, I feel like this is the big personal project of my life to try and unravel the ideas of, have I done enough work to deserve rest? What should a person of my age, what am I capable of doing in a day?

Really having lost total touch with what I actually need to be resourced, and then living with people who are in total touch with what they need. And so, kind of going back to this idea of what are they going to do with their lives or major in, and also what we’ve been talking about as our process is in being open and curious, and all of these principles. That’s what they’re majoring in, right? You can do anything if you’re open and curious, you have a relationship with yourself that is grounded in trust or intuition. People see this, they will say, they’re so amazing, they’re such a pleasure to talk to, they just know who they are, but where are they going to go to college?

You just answered your own question, so it’s fine. But really, it’s just a total flip side of priorities of what starts to happen being steeped in something like this is where those priorities come up and change.

My oldest child was diagnosed with severe scoliosis a few years ago. A total S curve, and they deemed it surgical immediately. They would need surgery, and just in that room, they were just, I think they were 13 at the time, anyway, and just asked the surgeon questions, like, oh, what would happen if we wait? Do we need to do this now? The doctors started with when is your ballet break? When are we going to schedule the surgery? And then answered well, you should probably do this before you’re 22 or 23. They were like, okay, so let’s wait. What are the other options?

I’m using a little more confrontational tone than they did. But they said those things on their own. And then in the car later was said, they put their hands on my back without even asking. And I had to step back from not taking that as like, Oh, I really messed up. That’s my job. But I come from an era where doctors did all kinds of things without asking.

A lot of things, especially for a child, but that they would expect having very little experience with that for a doctor to say, Hey, can I touch your back? They’ve received no education about that. That’s just what they mean, well, they have by living in a world of the person who’s respected, autonomous.

So, that’s how they walked through that whole journey and ended up doing really intense physical therapy and loved their physical therapist. And it turned into this whole fascination with the body and how the body works and alignment and, learning that they were hyper mobile and reading books about this. And so they have a whole fascination with physical therapy and physiology now.

But ended up being deemed by that same doctor a year later, that their curve was corrected by like 14 degrees. And the doctor said, I would not recommend surgery anymore. They have no pain, a total success story for them. But again, there were all kinds of practical and sort of more emotional parts of how that is supported, right?

One is being willing to go out on a limb and run a ledge and be the outsider who’s not going to do the surgery, being willing to do that, right? You have to, again, step outside of this sort of echo chamber, everybody’s going, this is what you do, this is what you do, it’s going to be your fault if you don’t do this.

And just taking in all of the information, looking at the person in front of you asking all of the questions, getting all the information and going, Yes, let’s try this. And then being 100% willing to drive them to physical therapy four times a week, for a year, and them being willing to do it. And I’m having the time to do that in the middle of the day. And so many times I was more in it, in a practical sense. I think during that year, we didn’t have time for a lot of other things.

And they were getting older, we were doing just little, and that faltering that you have along the way. Is it enough? And Micah was like, look how much they’ve learned about themselves, their body, their relationship with their body, their relationship with all kinds of things this year, I realized, yes, wow. And seeing now a couple years later, what a big role that had in their life.

For some people, that story is different and also meaningful for them. They have a surgery, they have this long recovery, they have limited mobility, there’s an identity in that. And for my kiddo, they got this experience that fit their personality, which was to be in their body, get really in tune with, I mean, as a dancer, that’s how they relate to themselves. So it just expanded this vision for them of what is happening for them in their body, in their role, what it means, and the kind of relationship they can have with their body.

I think that really started to solidify for them, a core piece of the way they walk through the world, which I think could feel like an insignificant little side trail for some people. That was the year I had scoliosis and got the surgery or whatever, which is, again, the right path for some. It is not the right path for every 13 year old to do physical therapy every day on their own and in an office for two hours. But that’s what they wanted to do.

And there was a lot of support and scaffolding needed. And then a lot of trust to know when they got to a place where they didn’t need to do as much, and I was still in the like, well, have you done this today? Have you done that?

And they were like, no, I can feel it. I can feel my alignment, I can feel I’m doing okay. And I realized that they had integrated this into their whole, that’s the way they are, is that they’re constantly sort of being in that spiraling place of alignment in their body.

And I got to see it on an x-ray, which we don’t get to see when we’re talking about emotional things, right? There was this kind of parallel for me to get that level of trust with things that are not as evident or not physical around ways they’re thinking about things they want to explore, and to trust that all of that is just as valid, if not more than filling out the transcript, we would have filled out for a ninth grade year. Which is also challenging to come up against.

ANNA: It’s so interesting to think about that journey and how when we look at the threads, that piece of who they are with dance, that was there before. And so I think that’s the piece you trusted for them to be in dance six days a week for years, because it was that important to them. And now you see that they’re taking that experience into all these other pieces and all these other realms. And then their ability to be able to say, to know that I can ask my questions, I deserve for somebody to talk to me and answer my questions.

That’s just really powerful at 13 years old, and I know they’re both like that in different realms. That they have that experience. And I think that is one of the big things that we touch on. That’s a big difference that I see is, I feel like we were talking about it in the network not too long ago of just this kind of adults as authority or the enemy that we kind of structure it that way in our culture. And I think it’s so different when we can have that collaborative relationship between adults and children.

I think everybody’s better off. I feel like that surgeon learned a lot through that experience. And they still may value surgery, because that’s what they do. And they love it. But they learned something. I think having that collaboration just helps everybody involved, no matter what path is chosen.

PAM: I just wanted to bring it back, Lucia, I loved your point about how you could see the results on the x-ray. But it’s just beautiful to recognize that you had that moment, and you could see the intentionality that they were bringing to this whole process, and the choices that they were making, and how that was fitting with who they are as a person through their other choices and activities. But to understand, like you said, for other journeys, and emotional ones, just the different kinds of choices that a person, child or adult, makes in their life, that they are perfectly capable of bringing that same level of intentionality to it.

So that even if we don’t quite understand why they’re making those choices, we’re going to trust it the same as the one that we could more visually comprehend because of its particular circumstances. But to recognize that they are just so friggin capable of that, of being in the world and of choosing how intentional or how deep they want to go with a particular interest, or choice or, I’ve had enough of that. I don’t want to go any deeper, I don’t want to push any harder. I want to quit. That whole piece that is still with intention, that is a choice that they are making.

That is totally there, like you were saying, that authenticity, whatever word one wants to use. I just think that was such a great point. And to recognize the intentionality that they so often bring to things that we can’t see, often we can’t see the impact, again, looking back is easier as well. But yeah, I love that piece.

ERIKA: It’s such a beautiful example of that. And I feel like our kids who have grown up with this kind of autonomy and being more in touch with who they are as a different person than we are, I feel like that helps me remember, there’s not one right way. That’s literally what your child told the doctor’s, there’s not one right way, just telling the surgeon, there are going to be other ways to do this, and we’ll figure it out.

And I think it’s such a great reminder when my kids do that, because I think I was so schooled. So, you just get to a point where it feels like, oh, when this happens, you do this. And if this and this, this is the right way to do that. And that’s the right way to do this.

There’s just a lot of peeling back all those layers of expectations, or just feeling like, what are people gonna think? All of these different judgmental parts that we have. I remembered recently, I asked my youngest, are you interested in traveling?

Because in the past, that’s been something that we’ve talked about a lot and really enjoyed as a family. And it seemed like they really liked it too. And the answer was, not right now. And I was like, that is such a great answer that I would not have been able to give at that age. Because it just kind of leaves space to change. I’m not gonna say I’m not a traveler. But right now, I know I’m not in the season where I would enjoy that. And, I’m just like, wow, it just feels like such a more mature response. Your child at the surgeon is a much more mature response than I would have been able to have at that time. I would have been taken over by the authority feeling. So anyway, I think the kids are amazing.

ANNA: Yes. Two other things that came to mind about this whole piece, I’m going to try not to lose them. So one is, this is back to the x-ray and being able to see it, but not always being able to see it, whatever the journey for them is. And I think it’s just important to say out loud that we may never see it, we may never see the actual x-ray, right?

Sometimes we can look back and we can see the threads. And we can see how that really led into this developmental piece. But sometimes we’ll never see it because we’re different human beings, we’re never going to be inside of them. And I think that can, again, feel scary, or it can feel kind of exciting, to know there is this person on their own journey, and I trust their journey. But that can be tricky. So that stuck out for me.

And then the other piece you said about how people recognize, oh, they’re so self aware and easy to talk to. And then where are they going to school? Or what is their next step? It just reminded me, so you know, I work with a lot of adults and couples and I just wish people could understand that piece that you’re talking about. That’s the reason why they’re coming to seek help in their 40s and 50s. And 30s is because they don’t have it.

It’s not because they didn’t go to school, or they didn’t have the career, they did all those things that they were supposed to do. But they can’t figure out, who’s who am I? What is my voice? What matters to me?

And so for me, these kids that we see, because I mean, we’ve been at this for almost 30 years now, Pam, these kids that we see growing up in this lifestyle and moving on, that is the piece that they have, even through the bumps, and even through the maybe not figuring it out, or tough times, because it’s hard to become an adult and figure out all the things. It’s not that it’s without bumps.

But they do have that core sense of who they are, they do have this sense of, yeah, I can ask people for things, I deserve to have that collaboration. It is just such a different feel. Go ahead, Pam.

PAM: Yeah, so what bubble, they know who they are. And tying back to what Erika said, they know they can change. Yes, that they aren’t static. I know who I am. And this is static. And now everything that happens around me, I must measure against that vision of myself, and respond that way. No, that they have a sense of who they are, and a sense of how they can change, that that change isn’t bad, or wrong, or that who I was two years ago is now wrong, because I see things differently.

LUCIA: Without that, I feel like I was so oriented, like Erika, I was very well schooled in how I was being observed, how I was being interpreted, how I was being identified, and then identified with those identifications. I’m this, I’m that. And so really feeling this pressure to be that and always falling short of that.

And then seeing kids who just have no relationship to that. It’s like it doesn’t exist. It’s so weird. And I can feel it. I felt it. It’s so easy to see with the ballet piece, because you’re going to talk about something where you’re just looking at a mirror all day, right? How do you escape that? And it’s not that they’re not aware of the toxicity around ballet and dance. And that’s why they don’t want to do it professionally.

But they are an unbelievably gifted dancer, their musicality and technique, combined with the amount of hard work that they want to put into it is astounding. It’s hard to not go, but you could be that, everybody thinks you’re that. If it were me, that’s all I ever wanted was to actually be that good, right? And to realize, oh, wow, that’s what they don’t have, which is why they love it.

Why half the days they wake up and they’re like, I love my life. Instead of just what I remember is just the pain of being inadequate. And everybody’s going to experience that no matter what kind of life you grow up in.

But that’s not inadequacy is not the central driving force to overcome. It’s amazing to watch. It’s amazing to be around people who are not oriented to an external reflection of who they are, I guess. That’s what I would like to speed up for myself.

ERIKA: Well, this has been so much fun. And thank you so much, Lucia, for joining us. We hope everyone enjoyed the conversation and maybe had an aha moment or picked up some ideas to consider on your own unschooling journey.

And if you enjoy conversations like these, I really do think you would love the Living Joyfully Network. It’s such an amazing group of people connecting and having thoughtful conversations about all the different things we encounter in our unschooling lives. So we invite you to check it out and see if it fits with our free month offer. You can find the link in the show notes or you could just go to livingjoyfully.ca and the link is right on the homepage. So thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next time!

**EU406: Foundations: Open and Curious** Apr 09, 2026

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

Open and curious is a helpful mindset shift for navigating relationships and challenges. In this week’s episode, we dive into Pam’s mantra and some of the many ways that it has proven to be so valuable in our lives. Being open and curious takes us back to beginner’s mind and allows us to see possibilities and question limiting beliefs that no longer serve us.

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

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

We invite you to join us in the **Living Joyfully Network**, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

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!

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

EPISODE QUESTIONS

How does it feel to think about being open and curious about the people in your life? What do you discover through that lens?

Try being open and curious while navigating a conflict this week, rather than jumping right to the solution you have in mind. What felt different?

Think about something in your life that you’re feeling stuck around. What bubbles up when you approach it with openness and curiosity? What other possibilities exist?

Next time you’re judging something your partner or child is choosing to do as “bad,” play with the question “Who would I be without this perspective? What would I do instead? How would that feel?”

TRANSCRIPT

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

If you’re new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and have really enjoyed how they’ve been building upon one another. And if you’ve already been enjoying the podcast, we’d love it if you could leave a rating and a review. That definitely helps new people find us.

In today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about being open and curious. This is something you will hear us say a lot. I first heard about it from Pam and I find myself saying it daily at this point. When you think about the opposite, it’s being closed and disinterested, so it’s pretty easy to see why we both love it.

I don’t want to move through the world feeling closed and disinterested, and it definitely doesn’t help us solve problems or to connect with the people around us.

Being open and curious serves us in our relationships on a lot of different levels. When we’re open and curious about our partner, we want to understand them, what’s important to them, why they see things the way they do. We want to set aside any judgment and really lean into connecting with the person in front of us.

When I find myself not understanding something they did or said, I can remind myself to be open and curious about it, to not jump to conclusions, to not write a story, like we were talking about last week.

That gives us the best chance to avoid a misunderstanding. And part of being curious is asking questions and listening.

PAM: Yeah. I love this so much. I have found open and curious to be such a helpful lens to bring to my relationships. For me, it’s a quick way to get to beginner’s mind, which is a place where I don’t feel like I have to know the answers, and I’m just curious to learn more. I often feel a sense of wonder and a childlike energy when I can get there. And it’s not childish. Childlike. There’s a big distinction.

So, when I’m open and curious, I’m attentive and I’m interested in hearing new ideas and new perspectives. I want to learn how the other person is seeing things. I want to learn what they’re interested in and why it lights them up. And, of course, that doesn’t mean forgetting about who I am.

To me, beginner’s mind is about understanding that the world is richer than just my story. My story, the one I tell about myself, is definitely a vibrant thread, but it also weaves alongside the stories of the other important people in my life. And it reminds me that their story is theirs to tell and I want to listen. I want to know them, not my version of them.

And to take that metaphor just one step deeper, being open and curious reminds me to explore the tapestry of my life, which includes the people I love and care about, not just the thread of my story, thinking it’s the one right way to move through the world. It’s a tapestry of unique people and stories that weave together to create the bigger picture of my life, which leads us nicely into the next aspect that we wanted to talk about, doesn’t it?

ANNA: It does. Because being open and curious also really serves us when there’s a conflict. So often, when we find ourselves in a conflict, we have in our mind the right answer, how this needs to resolve for me to be satisfied. And unfortunately, It just rarely works out the way we plan.

If we come into the conflict pushing our agenda as the only way, we put the other person on the defensive and we end up spending a lot of time defending ideas back and forth, really rarely hearing the other person’s perspective at all. And if we come into the disagreement with this open, curious mindset that we’re talking about, we aren’t abandoning our ideas, like you said, we’re just remaining open to hearing the other person’s perspective.

That energy is felt by the other person, and then they are so much more likely to join us on the journey to understand and figure out options. We’re going to be committed to finding something that works. We’re going to get there faster by remaining open and not tunneling in on our one perspective or idea or what the fix should be.

PAM: I know, for me, when I first heard the advice years ago to listen to my partner, it made so much sense. So, when we were navigating a conflict, I listened. But eventually I realized I was still holding tightly to my right answer, and my listening was mostly focused on picking up the pieces that aligned with my solution, right? Everything else just kind of flew by. I truly wasn’t hearing their perspective. I wasn’t hearing their story. I was only taking in what I thought I could use to support my agenda or my solution, that tunnel vision that you mentioned.

And unsurprisingly, we often ended up at an impasse that way. Each person trying their best to defend and convince the other that their interpretation of the situation and their proposed solution is a right one. Our conversations were energetically draining and steeped in a power dynamic that definitely strained our relationship.

So, once I came to recognize what was happening, I chose to instead try to bring an open and curious mindset with me into our conversations. How are they seeing the situation? What parts of it feel important to them? What parts feel especially challenging to them? Does that make sense alongside what I know about them as a person, all the things we talked about way back in episode three that make them the unique person they are, their personality, their strengths, their weaknesses, sensitivities, all those pieces?

And in these more open conversations, with defensiveness down and curiosity up, there was space for me to share my thoughts and perspectives, not with the energy that this was the solution, but as more information to consider. And without that grasping and no longer feeling like the only choices we have are their initial solution or mine, we could often find a third or a fourth or a fifth path forward right through the situation that took each of our perspectives and needs into consideration.

So, it turns out that open and curious mindset not only gave me the space to learn more about what was going on, it also gave me more space to get creative in finding a solution that worked for everyone involved.

The process is like a muscle that gets stronger with practice. With each experience, where shifting to being open and curious helped us creatively navigate a challenge or a conflict, it became a bit easier to shift the next time, and then the next. Over time, I found myself shifting more quickly from defending myself to trusting that we could find a way through together. Being open and curious just helps me in so many ways, in so many situations with so many people.

ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. I see it in so many different ways and I feel like it’s one of those tools we can cultivate that gives us something to do instead of taking things personally when we’re in a conflict. And that is so key when we want to navigate those conflicts with more ease and connection.

And this idea is also really important if we find ourselves stuck or with some limiting beliefs. Often this involves outside voices or some cultural constructs that maybe aren’t serving us. And if we bring that open and curious mindset to it, we can start asking questions. Where are these ideas coming from? Are they serving me? Who would I be without them? What other options can I find?

But we can only get there if we open up our minds beyond the parameters that are being applied to us by forces that don’t know who we are or what’s important to us. This allows us to start questioning these societal constructs. So, if I’m in a job that I don’t love, why am I still here? What’s stopping me from leaving? What would life look like if I made a different choice? How would that feel?

And also things we view as “have tos”. We talked about this a few episodes ago as well. We can start to question those have tos. And being open and curious allows that exploration to move us away from things that aren’t serving us, the things we’ve just accepted even if we don’t like the way they feel. “Relationships should be this,” you know, “School looks like this,” “Being successful looks like that.”

All these ideas are worth questioning, especially if we’re wanting to live our best life, a life where we can truly thrive.

PAM: Yeah. When we realize that we can question everything, that we can be open and curious about all the possibilities, I swear it just feels like the whole world opens up. I feel so much lighter. And it’s fun that you mentioned that. One of my favorite thought experiments is to play with the opposite perspective to see how it feels, particularly when I’m feeling stuck or frustrated.

So, say the story I’m telling myself is, I hate that my kid wants to play video games all the time. In my head, it’s fascinating to explore the question, “Well, what if I was a person that loved that my child is excited to play video games all the time?” So, being open and curious means letting the likely immediate reaction of listing all the reasons I think that’s a silly perspective just float on pass, because that’s definitely not being open and curious, and then just noticing what comes up next. How would I feel in those circumstances when I saw my child happily playing?

Well, I think I’d be happy too, because I like this. I’d probably have a big smile on my face.

And then I was like, okay, so then what would I do? If this was something I loved and I was excited about, I’d probably join them, sitting with them, and watching them play. I’d listen attentively to what they shared. And they’d probably be really happy that I’m showing an interest in something that they really enjoy. I’d cheer with them when they beat the boss or finished the level or solved a vexing puzzle, and we’d celebrate together.

So, I have that vision in my head, and then maybe it would occur to me to ask myself, so what’s wrong with that? It sounds like I’d be seeing their game playing through their eyes, which definitely helps me better understand who they are. And it sounds like a very connecting thing to do, which is something that I want to do. So, when I play with that thought experiment, so often I discover that things aren’t as bad as I imagined them to be on the other side. And I can ask myself, why was I holding on so tightly to my fear and judgment of the thing?

It’s just a great tool for me when I’m feeling stuck around what often turns out to be a conventional message that I’ve absorbed, that once I take some time to play with it and dig a bit deeper into it, I discover it really doesn’t make so much sense to me in my life in this moment.

ANNA: Exactly. And I think it’s so interesting that we can find ourselves defending and enforcing ideas because we think we’re supposed to, yet, when we choose to examine them, we find they don’t serve us or our relationships at all. And that open and curious mindset allows us to tune into ourselves and evaluate ideas related to who we are and how we want to move through the world.

Another time I use this idea a lot is when something bad happens, especially something that I might initially label as bad. Instead I can say, hmm, I wonder what’s going to happen here. I wonder what’s coming next. I don’t have to have all the answers. I don’t know all the things.

So, being curious allows me to look for new directions around things that might first be considered roadblocks. I don’t want to be shut down by what happens to me and around me. And the fastest way for me to avoid a spiral is to start asking questions and look at the issue with a wider lens, not jump into the judgment about it.

PAM: Yeah, that makes such a big difference. When you can just know that there are other possibilities. We talked about that tunnel vision, and we can especially feel that when something is going wrong or bad around us and we can get really fixated and pulled into that. But when we can take a step back to start asking questions around it and just looking a little bit bigger picture, that really keeps the possibilities bubbling.

ANNA: Right, and I think it’s related to the things we’ve talked about with time. There’s plenty of time. Because that’s the other thing. You feel the expansiveness of that open curious mindset. So, when something happens, instead of locking in and the judgment, you can feel that expansiveness of, hey, I can take a few minutes to kind of look at this from the wider perspective. So, I like those inner things that we can find energy shifts, because that’s what can help us move through any of these challenges, bumps, conflicts, whatever, with a little bit more ease.

PAM: Exactly. The energy is the whole thing, because the energy is, is ours, but it’s also the energy that we’re bringing to our interactions with everybody around us. It’s so helpful.

ANNA: So, here are some questions you might want to ponder as you explore the idea of being open and curious this week. How does it feel to think about being open and curious about the people in your life? What do you discover through that lens?

Number two, try being open and curious while navigating a conflict this week, rather than jumping right to the solution you have in mind, and then look at what felt different. How did that change how that conflict played out?

Think about something in your life that you’re feeling stuck around. What bubbles up when you approach it with openness and curiosity? What other possibilities exist that maybe you didn’t see at first?

And next time you’re judging something your partner or child is choosing to do as bad, play with that question. Who would I be without this perspective? What would I do instead? How would that feel?

So, hopefully you’ll take some time to think about those questions and about what an open and curious mindset could bring to your life. And we really appreciate you listening and being here with us today, and we will see you next time.

PAM: Yes! Bye.

EU405: A Field Guide: Choosing Unschooling Mar 26, 2026

Welcome to a new series on the podcast that we’re calling A Field Guide, in which we’re working our way through Pam’s book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. We’re using the chapters of the book as monthly themes in the Living Joyfully Network, which is bringing everything top of mind for us, and got […]

EU404: Foundations: Stories Mar 12, 2026

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Stories. Humans are storytellers. We choose the stories we tell about our lives. In every situation, we can come up with a number of ways to tell the story of it, and they’re all a version […]

The Unschooling Summit, 2026 Mar 02, 2026

Join other parents from around the world for three days of inspiration and community at The Unschooling Summit. This free virtual event will feature 90+ unschooling experts and advocates.

EU403: On the Journey with Erin Rosemond Feb 26, 2026

Pam, Anna, and Erika talk with Erin Rosemond about her unschooling journey.

EU402: 10 Years: What Still Matters (Part 3) Feb 19, 2026

The Exploring Unschooling Podcast has now been around for over 10 years and 400 episodes! This month, we’re celebrating these huge milestones by looking back and reflecting on three big questions. In Part 3 of our celebration, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the question of what still matters over the course of the past 10 […]

EU401: 10 Years: What’s Changed (Part 2) Feb 12, 2026

The Exploring Unschooling Podcast has now been around for over 10 years and 400 episodes! This month, we're celebrating these huge milestones by looking back and reflecting on three big questions.

EU400: 10 Years: What We’ve Learned (Part 1) Feb 05, 2026

The Exploring Unschooling Podcast began at the beginning of 2016 when Pam released episode EU001: What is Unschooling? 10 Years! And 400 Episodes! To celebrate these huge milestones, we are looking back and reflecting this month. In Part 1 of our celebration, Pam, Anna, and Erika explore the question of what we’ve learned on our […]

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

This week, we have a wonderful conversation with Living Joyfully Network member Jenna-Gaye 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.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

EU391: Foundations: Boundaries, Comfort Zones, and Capacity Sep 11, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Boundaries, Comfort Zones, and Capacity. The idea of boundaries comes up pretty often in conventional circles, often through the lens of self-care, encouraging people to set boundaries with their kids, their partners, their parents, and so […]

EU390: When School Isn’t Working Aug 28, 2025

We talk about changes you might notice in your child, about the choices that we have when it comes to living and learning, and about the value of community during that big transition away from mainstream schooling.

EU110FB: Unschooling Dads and Music with Alan Marshall Aug 14, 2025

In this episode, we’re sharing a conversation that Pam had with unschooling dad Alan Marshall in 2018. At the time, Alan was a professional musician and a university music professor with three kids at home. Pam and Alan talked about his family’s journey to unschooling, his eldest’s transition to junior high, ways to approach music […]

EU389: Foundations: Consent and Consensual Living Jul 31, 2025

For this week’s episode, we’re sharing the next Foundations episode of the Living Joyfully Podcast with Pam and Anna, Consent and Consensual Living. Consent is really the backbone of everything we talk about. Everyone, regardless of age, wants agency. When we can shift away from control, because we truly can’t control other people, we move […]

EU388: Bids for Connection Jul 17, 2025

Join Pam, Anna, and Erika to talk about bids for connection. John and Julie Gottman from the Gottman Institute coined the term “bids for connection” to describe many moments through our days when people in our lives try to connect with us. In our conversation, we talked about what those bids can look like (sometimes […]

EU286 Flashback: Connect with Courage with Roya Dedeaux Jul 03, 2025

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: Then I talk about […]

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 […]

EU135: Ten Questions with Anna Brown Aug 02, 2018

Anna Brown is back! We have so much fun diving into her family’s move to unschooling, how she developed trust in the process, what she found to be the most challenging aspect, tips for moving from conventional parenting to consensual living, stretching our comfort zones, and lots more. Ten Questions for Anna 1. Can you share […]

EU134: How Unschooling Grows with Virginia Warren Jul 26, 2018

Virginia Warren’s two daughters have never been to school. We have great fun diving into their journey to unschooling, her biggest stumbling block along the way, her perspective as a gamer mom, what’s surprised her most so far, what her favourite thing about unschooling is right now, and lots more! Questions for Virginia Can you share […]

EU133: The Twists and Turns of Unschooling with Bea Mantovani Jul 19, 2018

Béa Mantovani is an unschooling mom with two children. I’ve known Béa online in unschooling circles for quite a few years—she’s even translated some of my blog posts into French. We have a really interesting conversation as we dive into the twists and turns of their unschooling lives, including how she found unschooling, her biggest […]

EU132: Deschooling Two Cultures with Iris Chen Jul 12, 2018

Iris Chen is a Chinese American unschooling mom who was born in the US, grew up in the US and Canada, and now lives with her husband and two boys in China. She’s been unschooling for about a year and began sharing her experiences on her blog at untigering.com. I’ve really enjoyed reading her posts, […]

EU131: Deschooling with Maria Randolph Jul 05, 2018

Maria Randolph’s unschooled daughter is now twenty, which gives her a great perspective to look back on her own deschooling, It was a fascinating journey! We talk about what she found to be one of the most challenging areas to deschool, regret and how it can get in the way, her journey through the question, […]

EU130: Dismantling Shame with Ronnie Maier Jun 28, 2018

Ronnie Maier has two daughters now in their twenties, who unschooled after leaving school in the early grades—plus a niece who has stayed with them part-time over the years. In a fun twist, Ronnie was the working parent while her husband Frank was the at-home unschooling parent. Ronnie has shared her family’s unschooling experience for […]

EU129: Starting Unschooling as a Teen with Noah Tetzner Jun 21, 2018

Noah Tetzner is seventeen, left school last fall, and it was not long before he was passionately unschooling. We talk about his transition from school to unschooling, what excites him about unschooling, the podcast he’s now had time to start, his advice for new unschooling parents and lots more. Questions for Noah Can you share […]

EU128: Reluctant Spouse to Unschooling Advocate with Zach & Heather Lake Jun 14, 2018

Zach and Heather Lake join me this week to talk about Zach’s journey from reluctant spouse to unschooling advocate. Heather has been on the podcast before taking about her deschooling journey, and after the episode she mentioned that her husband has had quite the journey as well. It occurred to me that it would be interesting to […]

EU127: The Magic of Unschooling with Ann Rousseau Jun 07, 2018

Ann Rousseau and her partner Tim have been unschooling their three boys for about six years. Ann and I have a fascinating conversation, digging into how her family came to unschooling, moving through fear and discomfort, the many ways curiosity drives their days, her documentary about her experience of alopecia, and lots more. Questions for […]

EU126: Q&A Round Table May 31, 2018

This month, Anna Brown and I treat you to an extra long Q&A episode as we finish up the remaining questions! We dive into questions around the challenge of deschooling while holding tight to your fears, engaging with the unschooling community before having kids of your own, the decision to unschool, the transformational impact of shifting […]

EU125: Challenges on the Unschooling Journey May 24, 2018

This week on the podcast, we have the first compilation episode! 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?” I think it’s fascinating to hear them side by side, but I’d love to know […]

EU124: Unschooling the Early Years with Jen Kobrick May 17, 2018

Jen Kobrick connected with me recently and suggested an episode about the idea of unschooling in the early years—before kids reach school age. Her son is almost three and she so beautifully explained why she thought it was a valuable topic that I asked if she’d be interested in talking about it with me. I […]

EU123: Unschooling and Food Round Table May 10, 2018

This week on the podcast I’m trying something new: a round table discussion on a single topic. Questions around food are very common as people are deschooling and contemplating releasing control over their children’s food choices and Sylvia Woodman, Jo Isaac, and Meredith Novak join me to talk all things food. I hope you find […]

EU122: Unschooling Passions with Robin Bentley May 03, 2018

Robin Bentley is an unschooling mom who loves dancing hula, playing the yukelele, and supporting her daughter’s exploration of her interests and passions. We have a wonderful conversation about unschooling passions, including how supporting our child’s interests often ends up being a positive experience for us as well, healing our own childhood, tips and ideas […]

EU121: Q&A Round Table Apr 26, 2018

Anna Brown joins Pam to answer listener questions. This month we dive into questions around managing the environment when a parent works at home, when we’re not a “perfect mom,” helping our kids learn about diversity, when you’re not into your child’s passion, and helping your children process their emotions without taking them on yourself. […]

EU120: Unschooling and Autism with Erin Human Apr 19, 2018

Erin Human is an unschooling mom of two and she joins me this week to talk about her experiences with unschooling and autism. Erin has an autistic son, and was diagnosed with autism herself as an adult. She’s also a wonderful artist and is the art director for Autism Women’s Network, as well as co-founding director […]

EU119: Gaming and Growing Up Unschooling with Xander MacSwan Apr 12, 2018

Xander MacSwan left school in the 5th grade when his parents—both professors in the University of Maryland’s College of Education—decided the best thing they could do was pull their kids out of school and start unschooling. We dive deep into Xander’s passion for video games, including the difference between gaming as part of deschooling and […]

EU118: Everything’s Connected with Nikole Verde Apr 05, 2018

Nikole Verde and I have a great conversation about how, with unschooling, everything’s connected. Nikole is the home ed columnist at JUNO Magazine and she’s been doing a fun series where she looks at how different topics—or subjects, from a more school-ish mindset—can weave into our unschooling lives. Eventually, we notice that all of those […]

EU117: Q&A Round Table Mar 29, 2018

Anne Ohman joins Pam to answer listener questions (Anna wasn’t able to join us). This month we dive into questions around meeting the needs of multiple children with diverse personalities and needs, shifting and reconnecting with the children after challenging times, shifting away from control as a parenting tool, and what to do about children […]

EU116: Growing Up Unschooling with Summer Jean Mar 22, 2018

Summer Jean and I have a wonderful conversation about her experience growing up unschooling. We chat about how her mom came to unschooling, dealing with disapproval from extended family members, how her passion for glass art has unfolded, some of the common questions she gets when people learn she didn’t go to school and lots […]

EU115: The Unschooling Journey with Hema Bharadwaj, Part 2 Mar 15, 2018

Hema Bharawaj is an unschooling mom with two children and an amazing artist. Hema and I talk about her illustrations for my new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. She talks about the inspiration behind the images and shares wonderful stories about her own unschooling journey. Our conversation spanned almost two hours so I decided to […]

EU114: The Unschooling Journey with Hema Bharadwaj, Part 1 Mar 08, 2018

Hema Bharawaj is an unschooling mom with two children and an amazing artist. Hema and I talk about her illustrations for my new book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide. She talks about the inspiration behind the images and shares wonderful stories about her own unschooling journey. Our conversation spanned almost two hours so I decided […]

EU113: Deschooling with Megan Valnes Mar 01, 2018

Megan Valnes is an unschooling mom with five children and we have so much fun diving deep into her deschooling experience. We talk about finding helpful unschooling information and groups online, the parenting paradigm shifts we make as we embrace unschooling, her experience managing the diverse needs of five children, her husband’s experience as they […]

EU112: Q&A Round Table Feb 22, 2018

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join Pam to answer listener questions. This month we dig into questions around helping a child who feels powerless and defeated, how to support a child who left school six months ago, personal hygiene choices, and the challenge of different personalities and meeting their needs. Click here to submit your own […]

EU111: Ten Questions with Jan Fortune Feb 15, 2018

Jan Fortune home educated her four now adult children in the UK and wrote many articles and five books on unschooling and parenting. Her last book on the topic, Winning Parent, Winning Child, focuses on living with children in ways that respect their autonomy. Jan is also a novelist, poet, editor, and runs Cinnamon Press, now […]

EU110: Unschooling Dads & Music with Alan Marshall Feb 08, 2018

Alan Marshall is an unschooling dad, a professional musician, and a university professor in the music department. We dive into his family’s journey to unschooling, his eldest’s transition to junior high, ways to approach music lessons, advice for dads just starting out with unschooling, and lots more. Quote of the Week “Actually, I would discourage, […]

EU109: Unschooling Stories with Sylvia Woodman Feb 01, 2018

Sylvia Woodman joins me on the podcast this week, sharing some of her wonderful unschooling stories. Her children, ages thirteen and eleven, have never been to school. We chat about how she discovered unschooling, ways to create an environment in which natural learning thrives, how unschooling has been healing and liberating, technology, and lots more. […]

EU108: Q&A Round Table Jan 25, 2018

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join Pam to answer listener questions. This month we dig into questions around the challenge of meeting the needs of everyone in the family, the conventional idea that you shouldn’t do things for your children that they can do for themselves, the interplay of releasing control over food and the […]

EU107: Alternative Schools to Unschooling with Jessica Jan 18, 2018

My guest this week is Jessica, an unschooling mom living in Germany. Unschooling is illegal in Germany, so we’ve kept everything on a first-name basis to protect her anonymity. Jessica decided even before her son was born that her child wouldn’t attend conventional schools, but she had no idea that the alternative schools that sounded […]

EU106: Unschooling Connections with Kelly Callahan Jan 11, 2018

My guest this week is Kelly Callahan, unschooling mom of two. Kelly is now four years into her unschooling journey, and I was excited to explore how unschooling has been weaving ever more deeply into their lives. We chat about how they began unschooling, her deschooling challenges, the connections she’s seen between unschooling and her work as a homeopathic […]

EU105: Unschooling Dads with Nick Hess Jan 04, 2018

My guest this week is Nick Hess, also known online as The Unschool Dad. He and his wife unschool their five children. We chat about about his family’s move to unschooling, what it was about unschooling that resonated with him, what he’s found challenging, and surprising, about unschooling as it has unfolded in their lives, […]

EU104: Q&A Round Table Dec 28, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join Pam to answer listener questions. This month we dig into questions around when parents are at odds over parenting choices, ways to share information with more conventional parents, teens making connections and considering school, and ways to handle when a child calls themself “stupid.” Click here to submit your own […]

EU103: The Gift of Time with Milva McDonald Dec 21, 2017

Milva McDonald unschooled her four now-adult children starting back in 1991 and this year she published a book of essays about their experience, Slow Homeschooling. We have a great conversation, diving into her family’s unschooling journey, how music has woven its way through their lives, unschooling’s gift of time, college, and lots more! Quote of […]

EU102: The Value of Relationships with Rachel Rainbolt Dec 14, 2017

Rachel Rainbolt is an unschooling mom of three and author of the book, Sage Homeschooling. We have such a fun conversation, diving into her family’s move to unschooling, how connection and relationships are at the core of learning, technology, micro-adventures, and lots more! Quote of the Week “If you are filling in all that space […]

EU101: Deschooling with Heather Lake Dec 07, 2017

Heather Lake and her family began unschooling in January of this year, 2017, and she has been blogging about the experience. I really enjoyed chatting with her about how the journey has been unfolding so far. We talk about what prompted their move to unschooling, how her relationships with her children have changed since they […]

EU100: Q&A Round Table Nov 30, 2017

I take a few minutes to reflect on 100 episodes and my unschooling work, then Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join me to answer listener questions. This month we answer questions about when to share our perspectives on stereotypes etc, supporting a young adult while moving to unschooling, anxiety around technology, and helping a partner […]

EU099: Book Chat with Emma Marie Forde Nov 23, 2017

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and to choose unschooling. In this episode, Emma and I have a great chat about the […]

EU098: My Five Most Popular Blog Posts Nov 16, 2017

I haven’t had an episode focused on my own reflections about unschooling in a while, so I thought I’d do that this week. I decided to share five of my blog posts that have really resonated with readers over the years. Here are descriptions and links to the blog posts: Who Am I and What […]

EU097: Unschooling and Diversity with Erika Davis-Pitre Nov 09, 2017

Erika Davis-Pitre joins me to talk about unschooling and diversity. She and her husband, Michael, have four now-adult children and they enjoyed unschooling for many years. Erika continues to speak at unschooling conferences all over the US, her favourite topics being unschooling teens, the joy of unschooling, and celebrating diversity through unschooling. We dive into the […]

EU096: Ordinary Unschooling with Anna Brown and Pat Robinson Nov 02, 2017

Anna Brown and Pat Robinson join me to chat about ordinary unschooling. They have both always unschooled their children—Anna’s daughters are about to turn 18 and 20, and Pat’s son is 16 years old. We talk about the idea of “unschooling success stories,” the impact of the conventional “independence agenda” which starts very young in […]

EU095: Q&A Round Table Oct 26, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join me to answer listener questions. This month we answer questions about radical validation—and what’s so radical about it, sibling conflicts, unhappy temperaments, and how the three of us have worked through challenges to get to epiphanies and personal growth. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Listener […]

EU094: A Muddy Life with Ellen Rowland Oct 19, 2017

Ellen Rowland is an unschooling mom of two children, ages 12 and 13. Back in 2008, Ellen and her husband Richard decided to leave the US and move to Senegal, West Africa with their two children, ages 3 and 4 at the time. Eight years later, they moved to small island off the Turkish coast of […]

EU093: Unschooling Dads with Robert Gottlieb Oct 12, 2017

Robert Gottlieb is an unschooling dad with two children, ages 11 and 19. He shares that they actually discovered unschooling a few times and, after a variety of school and school-at-home settings, he’s the one who eventually brought it into the family. We chat about that transition, going against societal expectations, stretching comfort zones, what […]

EU092: Crazy Family Adventure with Bryanna Royal Oct 05, 2017

Bryanna Royal is an unschooling mom with four children. And as if choosing unschooling wasn’t crazy enough, she and her husband chose to sell their home and everything in it and hit the road in an RV to travel full-time. We have a wonderful chat diving into why they chose unschooling, why they chose to move […]

EU091: Q&A Round Table Sep 28, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join me to answer listener questions. This month we dive into the the bigger picture of buying toys, negotiating boundaries, highly sensitive children and therapy, and feeling stuck around food and health concerns. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “My priority is the connection, […]

EU090: Growing Up Unschooling with Phoebe Wahl Sep 21, 2017

Phoebe Wahl is an artist whose beautiful work focuses on the themes of comfort, nostalgia, and intimacy. She left school entirely after first grade and dove into unschooling. Eventually she chose to go to college, graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 with a BFA in Illustration. We have a lot of fun talking […]

EU089: Ten Questions with Jan Hunt Sep 14, 2017

Jan is the founder of The Natural Child Project, a website that houses a wonderful collection of unschooling and parenting articles. She also has two unschooling books out, The Natural Child and The Unschooling Unmanual, plus a children’s book, A Gift for Baby. Her unschooled son, Jason, is now in his thirties. Jan graciously agreed to answer […]

EU088: Deschooling – A Year Later, with Jennie Gomes Sep 07, 2017

Jennie Gomes is an unschooling mom to three young children and we thought we’d do something interesting. Jennie was on the podcast just over a year ago, episode 25, and we chatted about her deschooling journey. She graciously agreed to come back on the show to answer the same questions, but now with another year […]

EU087: Q&A Round Table Aug 31, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join me to answer listener questions. We dive into the seeming transition from following their interests to earning a living, how passionate kids engage with the world, partnering with our children around chores, and helping a child learn something that’s challenging for us. Click here to submit your own question to the […]

EU086: Unschooling an Only Child with Deb Rossing and Pat Robinson Aug 24, 2017

Deb Rossing and Pat Robinson are unschooling moms I’ve known online for many years and have also met in person at unschooling conferences. This episode came about because I’ve had a few listeners suggest the topic of unschooling an only child, but since I have three kids I don’t have much experience to share on […]

EU085: Deschooling with Lucy AitkenRead Aug 17, 2017

Lucy AitkenRead is an unschooling mom of two that you may know her from her blog, Lulastic and the Hippyshake. Or her YouTube channel. We have a wonderful chat, diving deep into what her family’s move to unschooling has looked like, what’s been the hardest part of the journey so far, what’s been the most […]

EU084: Enjoy Parenting with Scott Noelle Aug 10, 2017

Scott Noelle is an unschooling dad of two, an author, and a life coach dedicated to supporting parents who want to move away from control-based parenting methods. He’s the founder of the website, DailyGroove.com, where he shares his practical parenting insights. We have a wonderful conversation diving into his wonderful PATH parenting framework, the value of […]

EU083: Unschooling Around the World with Tami Stroud Aug 03, 2017

Tami Stroud is an unschooling mom of six kids, ages four to thirteen. We have a great chat about her family’s move to unschooling, their journey to becoming a nomadic, sometimes expat, family, the threads that weave through the ideas of hard work, grit, entitlement, and rewards and punishment, and last, but not least, she […]

EU082: Q&A Round Table Jul 27, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “It’s in following your child’s light and joy and questions and interests and curiosities and conversations where the learning happens.” ~ Anne Ohman Listener Questions Anonymous Question [TIME: 3:36] My son just […]

EU081: Book Chat with Emma Marie Forde Jul 20, 2017

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and which eventually led her and her husband John to choose unschooling for their family. In […]

EU080: Growing Up Unschooling with Kelly Nicole Jul 13, 2017

Kelly Nicole went to school until 6th grade, when both she and her sister left for greener pastures. Her family eventually settled into unschooling and she’s now 22 and has been a professional actress for nine years. She also teaches acting and improv to kids, as well as directing children’s theatre. We have a really […]

EU079: Unschooling Dads with Dan Cadzow Jul 06, 2017

Dan Cadzow is an archaeologist who chose to leave his PhD program and become a stay-at-home unschooling dad of four kids. We have a great conversation that covers his path to unschooling, how he’s developed trust in the process, what the most challenging aspect has been so far, his advice for dads who are just starting […]

EU078: Q&A Round Table Jun 29, 2017

Anna Brown joins me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “I think if we can just be aware that we don’t have to hold all of this weight ourself, that we can have conversations, that we can include our children, that that just helps […]

EU077: Girls Unschooled with Jo Watt Jun 22, 2017

Jo Watt is an ex-teacher and now stay-at-home mom of two unschooling girls, ages four and six. She blogs at girlsunschooled.co.uk and about six months ago she, her husband Kriss, and the girls moved from the UK to the US Pacific Northwest. We have a wonderful conversation, digging into learning to read, when people want […]

EU076: Choosing Home with Kerry McDonald Jun 15, 2017

Kerry McDonald lives and learns together with her husband and four never-been-schooled children in Massachusetts, US. She blogs on her website, wholefamilylearning.com, is a founding member of alternativestoschool.com, and is on the board of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education. We have fun digging into all sorts of things, including what it really means to learn naturally, the […]

EU075: Learning Reimagined with Zakiyya Ismail Jun 08, 2017

Zakiyya Ismail is an unschooling mom of three kids, ages 10 to 19. Earlier this year, she hosted the first Learning Reimagined Family Conference in South Africa. She also shares her wonderful insights into the unschooling lifestyle on her website, growingminds.co.za. Our conversation spans from her journey to unschooling, through the idea of deschooling parents […]

EU074: Ten Questions with Robyn Coburn Jun 01, 2017

Robyn Coburn is an unschooling mom and her 17 year-old daughter has never been to school. I’ve known Robyn for many years online and have always enjoyed her perspective. We dive into deschooling fears, sleeping patterns, tips for handling meltdowns, the differing needs of kids and teens, unschooling conferences, and much more. Quote of the Week […]

EU073: Q&A Round Table May 25, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “The thing about thinking unschooling is about releasing parental controls, is this: I feel there is no release at all unless the parent believes they have the power to release control.” […]

EU072: Unschooled Master of Arts with Sophie Christophy May 18, 2017

Sophie Christophy lives in the UK and is unschooling with her husband and two children. She is a self-directed scholar and she joins Pam to chat about her personal Unschooled Master of Arts project: to explore the theory that the key to transformative social change is found via shifting parent-child education/child dynamics to a human rights model. […]

EU071: Changes in Parents with Sandra Dodd May 11, 2017

Sandra Dodd is a long-time unschooling mom of three—Kirby, Marty, and Holly—who are now all adults. She’s also the creator of the awesome unschooling resource, sandradodd.com, and I’m thrilled to have her back on the podcast. In this episode, we talk about the changes that we go through as parents as we live this unschooling lifestyle […]

EU070: Book Chat with Emma Marie Forde May 04, 2017

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and which eventually led her and her husband John to choose unschooling for their family. […]

EU069: Q&A Round Table Apr 27, 2017

Anna Brown and Anne Ohman join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “Unschooling is about seeing, honoring, and living in the flow of a child’s life.” ~ Anne Ohman Listener Questions Shelsy’s Question (from Florida, USA) [TIME: 3:04] I’m new to unschooling (since […]

EU068: Unschooling and Technology with Teri DeMarco Apr 20, 2017

Teri DeMarco is an unschooling mom of three: twin 10-year-old sons and an 8-year-old daughter. I met her in person last year and when I decided to do a technology-focused episode I knew she’d be a great person to chat with! Quote of the Week “If you have a lens of ‘What is the educational value? […]

EU067: Deschooling with Anna Black Apr 13, 2017

Anna Black is a former Montessori student and teacher, now an unschooling mom to two lovely daughters in Australia. We have a wonderful conversation, digging into conventional wisdom like, “kids need to do things for themselves,” and “fewer toys is better.” We also have a great chat about how unschooling children develop their own moral compass. […]

EU066: Ten Questions with Pushpa Ramachandran Apr 06, 2017

Pushpa is an unschooling mom of two in India. I have been reading her wonderful unschooling insights for a number of years and I love the glimpses into their unschooling lives that she shares. She’s also an experienced speech pathologist, working part-time from home. Quote of the Week “I can eloquently talk about it but […]

EU065: Q&A Round Table Mar 30, 2017

Anna Brown joins me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “I like to peel back the layers, I don’t focus on addressing the behaviour, because it’s just a clue. Look at the clues for the underlying need. It’s typically things like needing food, too […]

EU064: Grandparents! with Sheila Baranoski Mar 23, 2017

Sheila is an unschooling mom of three, grandmother to two, and author of Dear Grandma: Your Grandkids Are Unschoolers. Sheila and I really enjoyed speaking specifically to grandparents this week. We dive into some of the questions that they may understandably have when they find out their grandchildren aren’t going to school, like how they’ll […]

EU063: Gentle Parenting with Shannon Loucks Mar 16, 2017

Shannon is an unschooling mom to two great kids, and they are a Canadian family transplanted in California for seven years now—an interesting adventure all on its own! She shares her perspective on unschooling and gentle parenting on her website, breakingdaylight.org, because “happy childhoods are built on peaceful parents.” Quote of the Week “Turning toward parenting […]

EU062: Being and Becoming film review with Anne Boie Mar 09, 2017

Anne Boie is an unschooling mom of four who is actively engaged in supporting the unschooling community as a producer of Lainie Liberti’s For the Love of Learning web show, the US distribution coordinator for the film, Being and Becoming, and the producer of a new online show, Youth on Subjects of the World. Anne […]

EU061: Book Chat with Emma Marie Forde Mar 02, 2017

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and which eventually led her and her husband John to choose unschooling for their family. […]

EU060: Q&A Round Table Feb 23, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “When we really hear one another and work toward understanding each other’s needs, finding the solutions that are win-win, life is just easier and more joyful.” ~ […]

EU059: Unschooling Dads with Rocco Laricchia Feb 16, 2017

Rocco Laricchia is an unschooling dad of three young adult children and is married to the show host, Pam! In this episode we talk about how he answered the typical kid questions at work, what he found challenging and what he enjoyed about unschooling, and what he appreciates most about unschooling our children. Quote of […]

EU058: Unschooling as a Single Parent with Melissa Feb 09, 2017

Melissa is unschooling mom to a lively eight-year-old and, being a single parent, also works as a nanny to support them. In our conversation, she shares how they weave unschooling and her work as a nanny together, why she began an online community for single unschooling parents like her, and why her son chooses unschooling. Quote of […]

EU057: Ten Questions with Akilah S. Richards Feb 02, 2017

Akilah S. Richards is an unschooling mom to two lovely daughters. She’s also an author, a podcast showrunner and host, and on the organizing team of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education. She answers my ten questions about her unschooling experience with candor and enthusiasm, and I hope you too enjoy our conversation! Quote of the […]

EU056: Q&A Round Table Jan 26, 2017

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “Today I will connect with my child, expand his world, bring joy into his life and nurture and encourage what he loves to do.” ~ Anne Ohman […]

EU055: Living Unschooling with James and Taylor Davis Jan 19, 2017

James and Taylor Davis both originally went to college to become teachers. Taylor did teach in an elementary school for a number of years, while James ended up playing poker professionally. Eventually, they settled in New Jersey and started down a pretty traditional path—until their first son was born. He has been their greatest teacher […]

EU054: From Teaching to Unschooling with Grace Koelma Jan 12, 2017

Grace Koelma studied primary school teaching at university, but after a year of teaching in Australia she became disillusioned with the mainstream schooling system and left. She began working as a journalist, following her passion for writing, eventually finding a way to weave together her passions for education, unschooling, and writing and starting Mulberry Magazine […]

EU053: Book Chat with Emma Marie Forde Jan 05, 2017

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and which eventually led her and her husband John to choose unschooling for their family. […]

EU052: Q&A Round Table Dec 29, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “[There is] so much you can do to support and honor their game playing by showing an interest in all of it, even if you don’t like […]

EU051: Deschooling with Luminara King Dec 22, 2016

Luminara King is a former Steiner-Waldorf teacher turned unschooling mom. She’s also the author of Unschooling – 7 Steps to Beginning the Journey and blogs at Living the Education Revolution. This week we have a great chat about her deschooling journey. Quote of the Week “I think that, as parents, we have to be very […]

EU050: Choosing Unschooling with Roberto and Emily Lujano Dec 15, 2016

Roberto and Emily Lujano are unschooling their three children. Roberto approached me earlier this year about translating my book, Free to Learn, into Spanish. I really enjoyed working with him and wanted to learn more about his family’s unschooling experience. Quote of the Week “You are not trusting the process and you are not trusting […]

EU049: Unschooling and Travel with Stuart Norman Dec 08, 2016

Stuart Norman, his wife Sue, and their daughter Annabel were unschooling in the UK when they first had the idea to travel. They let it evolve in its own way—as he describes it, we “just pointed ourselves in that direction of travel and nothing else came along that got in the way of that.” They […]

EU048: A Family of Individuals, Pam’s Conference Talk Dec 01, 2016

I’m happy to share the last of my HSC Adventures in Homeschooling conference talks with you, A Family of Individuals. In this talk, I focus on family relationships. In our society family harmony is a prized goal, promising an easygoing peace. It can be elusive, but we see some experienced unschooling families in action and […]

EU047: Q&A Round Table Nov 24, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “Unfortunately most people are convinced that when control fails it’s because they didn’t control enough.” ~ Joyce Fetteroll Listener Questions Aparajita’s Question Hi, I have an almost 3 […]

EU046: Growing Up Unschooling with Brenna McBroom Nov 17, 2016

Brenna McBroom is a 27yo grown unschooler. We had a fun conversation and touch on her transition from school, to homeschooling, and eventually to unschooling; finding connections as a teen; how her passion for ceramic art developed; her experience at Not Back to School Camp as both a teen and as staff; her new blog, […]

EU045: Unschooling on a Budget with Glenna McAulay Nov 10, 2016

Glenna McAulay is an unschooling mom of two daughters, and both she and her husband have a wonderful perspective on living the unschooling lifestyle within their means. We talk about the perspective shifts around money and choices that have helped us over the years, as well as share some ideas for low-cost unschooling. Quote of […]

EU044: Ten Questions with Jennifer Andersen Nov 03, 2016

Jennifer Andersen is an unschooling mom of two and the founder of ourmuddyboots.com and it’s related Facebook page. I had so much fun chatting with her! We talk about how we keep learning, over and over, that learning happens everywhere; triggers that can sneak up on us; the difference between natural and contrived consequences; how […]

EU043: Q&A Round Table Oct 27, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “As we focus on this Mind Movie—the story playing in our heads—we become attached to it and want it to be real, somehow. The problem is that […]

EU042: Curious and Engaged, Pam’s Conference Talk Oct 20, 2016

I’m excited to share another one of my conference talks, Curious and Engaged, with you! It may have been through an unfortunate series of events that it happens to be this week, but after all the work I put into developing conference talks, I’m happy to have a way to share the audio version, as it […]

EU041: Unschooling Dads & Board Games with Jamie Maltman Oct 13, 2016

Jamie Maltman is an unschooling dad and avid board gamer. And in this episode, he shares with us what he loves about both these passions. We talk about how he built trust in process of unschooling, ways to stay connected as the working parent, learning through board games, and some great suggestions for new board […]

EU040: Paradigm Shifts with Cindy Gaddis Oct 06, 2016

Cindy Gaddis is an unschooling mom to seven kids—and one son-in law! She’s also the author of The Right Side of Normal, a book about understanding and honouring the natural learning path for right-brained children. In this episode, we talk about helicopter parenting and control, cultural expectations, society’s focus on being busy, family relationships, and what unschooling […]

EU039: Q&A Round Table Sep 29, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “All I am saying … can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children […]

EU038: Time to Think, Pam’s conference talk Sep 22, 2016

This week I thought I’d try something different! I want to share one of my conference talks, Time to Think, with you. With a few months of Q&A episodes under our belt, one of the threads we’ve seen running through many of the questions is the fear that bubbles up when we project our current […]

EU037: Ten Questions with Carol Black Sep 15, 2016

Carol Black unschooled her two daughters, now 22 and 26. Years ago she was in a teacher education program, but when she read John Holt’s How Children Fail the light bulb went off and she dropped out. Since then she has written some wonderfully insightful essays about unschooling, which you can read on her website, carolblack.org, […]

EU036: Deschooling with Lauren Seaver Sep 08, 2016

Lauren Seaver is 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 turns, but a year (and three months!) ago, the opportunity to try out unschooling arose and they haven’t looked back. I met Lauren at the Childhood Redefined […]

EU035: Redefining Success with Jo Isaac Sep 01, 2016

Jo Isaac is a zoologist turned science writer and unschooling mom to Kai. She, ten-year-old Kai, and her husband Brett, live and learn in Melbourne, Australia. Her path of learning and unschooling has taken a number of interesting twists and turns and I really enjoyed hearing about some of them as we chat about ways we […]

EU034: Q&A Round Table Aug 25, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question to the Q&A Round Table! Quote of the Week “Worrying about the future takes us out of this moment.” ~ Anna Brown Listener Questions 1. I have been unschooling for a year and am loving it. Though […]

EU033: Meeting Everyone’s Needs with Gwen Montoya Aug 18, 2016

Gwen Montoya is an unschooling, single mom to Jamie and Zoe. She is pretty adept at weaving her work as a digital marketing consultant. I enjoy reading snippets of their lives on Facebook, so I was excited when she agreed to chat with me about relationships and the creative ways we can find to meet everyone’s needs […]

EU032: Choosing School with Alex Polikowsky Aug 11, 2016

Alex Polikowsky is an unschooling mom to Daniel and Gigi. Her family runs a dairy farm in Minnesota, which adds an interesting dimension to their days! I met Alex when I spoke at the Always Learning Live symposium she hosted in Minneapolis a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed the brief glimpse of life […]

EU031: Ten Questions with Emma Marie Forde Aug 04, 2016

Emma Marie Forde is unschooling mom to two girls, Lily and Rosa. She’s also the founder of the website, rethinkingparenting.co.uk. Before having children, Emma was a clinical psychologist, a career that informed her choice to stay home with her own children and which eventually led her and her husband John to choose unschooling for their […]

EU030: Q&A Round Table Jul 28, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question for the Q&A Round Table episodes! Quote of the Week “Whenever we are faced with particularly challenging problems, and we’ve certainly had them, I’m SO grateful for unschooling because I feel like it gives us […]

EU029: What Learning Looks Like with Meredith Novak Jul 21, 2016

Meredith is unschooling mom to Morgan and stepmom to Ray. Meredith has been active online in unschooling groups for years and I’ve enjoyed reading her writing for many of those. In this episode, we chat about what learning looks like with unschooling. It’s a big topic, and big episode. I hope you enjoy it! Quote […]

EU028: Unschooling Worries with Jen Armstrong Jul 14, 2016

Jen is unschooling mom to Joseph, soon to be sixteen. She’s also recently returned to the world of work as a Child Life Specialist. I’ve know Jen for years, having first met her online, and then in person at various unschooling gatherings. I’ve always loved her perspective on the unschooling lifestyle and I had a […]

EU027: Ten Questions with Teresa Graham Brett Jul 07, 2016

Teresa Graham Brett is an unschooling mom to two boys, Martel and Greyson. She’s also author of the book, Parenting for Social Change. Teresa’s background as a social justice educator brings a unique and interesting slant to her journey to unschooling. In this episode, she shares some great stories and the fascinating insights she has […]

EU026: Q&A Round Table Jun 30, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question for the Q&A Round Table episodes! Quote of the Week “Shift out of the fear by going to your child and connecting with her over what makes her light up right now in this moment.” […]

EU025: Deschooling with Jennie Gomes Jun 23, 2016

Jennie is mom to three children, ages 6 and under, and they’ve been unschooling for a couple of years now—or more specifically, deschooling. Jennie and I have chatted on and off over that time, and she is actively working to shed the control and punishment she grew up with and not pass it on to […]

EU024: Growing Up Unschooling with Roya Dedeaux Jun 16, 2016

Roya Dedeaux left school at age ten and her family began unschooling. Now an adult, she has a Master’s degree in Counseling and is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, as well as a lecturer at California State University. She’s also married with a wonderful child of her own, and a busy life of fun […]

EU023: Learning to Read in Their Own Time with Anne Ohman Jun 09, 2016

Anne Ohman is a long-time unschooling mom and Library Director at a small, rural library in New York state. She has been writing about unschooling since 1998, and has a been student of her children since they were born. She is the founder of the Shine with Unschooling community, and co-host (with me!) of the […]

EU022: Ten Questions with Lainie Liberti Jun 02, 2016

Lainie Liberti is mom to 16 year-old Miro. They backed into unschooling in 2009 through what was meant to be a one-year mother-and-son backpacking trip. Now in their seventh year of travelling, Lainie is co-producer and host of the weekly online show, For the Love of Learning: Voices of the Alternative Education Movement, and she […]

EU021: Q&A Round Table May 26, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question for the Q&A Round Table episodes! Quote of the Week “How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?” ~ Henry David Thoreau Summary of Listener Questions […]

EU020: Unschooling as Alternative Education with Carlo Ricci May 19, 2016

Dr. Carlo Ricci is a graduate studies professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University in Ontario Canada and dad to two daughters, ages 11 and 13, who have both unschooled and chosen to go to school over the years. His research focus and teaching includes unschooling, self-directed learning, reading, free schooling, and […]

EU019: Playing with Our Children with Jody Lilley May 12, 2016

Jody Lilley is an unschooling mom to three children, ages five to eleven. I’ve known Jody for years through unschooling conferences, and I reached out to her to chat about play because the pictures she posts online of her children at play always make me smile so big. It’s not so much that they’re busy doing […]

EU018: Ten Questions with Jennifer McGrail May 05, 2016

Jennifer McGrail is a long-time unschooling mom to four lovely children, blogger at The Path Less Taken, and host of the Free to Be unschooling conference. This week I had a wonderful conversation with her, touching on the topics of burnout and self-care, the disconnect between how adults treat other adults and how they treat children, […]

EU017: Q&A Round Table Apr 28, 2016

Anna Brown joins me to answer listener questions! Thanks to everyone who has shared their questions, I’m sure many listeners have gotten so much out of it. Click to submit your own question for the Q&A Round Table episodes! Quote of the Week “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful […]

EU016: Supporting Unschooling Teens with Jenny Cyphers Apr 21, 2016

Jenny Cyphers is a long-time unschooling mom of two daughters, ages 14 and 22. After reading her answers to unschooling questions online for years, I was delighted to get a chance to chat with Jenny about the teen years. We talk about trust, rebellion, patience, comfort zones, honesty, communication, and just how much we love our […]

EU015: From School to Unschooling with Heather Newman Apr 14, 2016

Heather Newman is a long-time unschooling mom. She and her husband have three children, and I really enjoyed speaking with her about our shared experience of bringing our children home after they’d started school, and from there, moving to unschooling. We talk about what their days looked like when the kids first came home, how […]

EU014: Ten Questions with Joyce Fetteroll Apr 07, 2016

Joyce is a long-time unschooling mom, and creator of the wonderful unschooling website, joyfullyrejoycing.com. She has been answering unschooling questions online for many years, in fact, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t looking forward to reading her responses! Quote of the Week “Radical unschooling is about understanding human needs and getting to know […]

EU013: Q&A Round Table Mar 31, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question for the Q&A Round Table episodes! Quote of the Week “Real, natural learning is in the living. It’s in the observing, the questioning, the examining, the pondering, the breathing, the choosing, the reading, the […]

EU012: Growing up Unschooling with Idzie Desmarais Mar 24, 2016

Idzie Desmarais is a 25 year old grown unschooler and author of the blog, I’m Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write. I’ve know Idzie’s mom online for many years, and watched from a distance as Idzie became interested in the process of unschooling itself and started her blog, way back in 2008. In 2010, I was hosting […]

EU011: Unschooling a Child With a Chronic Illness with Brie Jontry Mar 17, 2016

Brie Jontry is an unschooling mom I’ve connected with a few times over the years because we share the experience of having a child who is living with a chronic illness. At first glance, it might seem like you’d need to drop some unschooling principles when your child’s health is in question, so I was […]

EU010: Unschooling Dads with Rick Rossing Mar 10, 2016

Rick Rossing is a stay-at-home unschooling dad. He and his wife, Deb, have one child, Joshua. I’ve known him and his family for years through unschooling circles and we’ve met a few times at conferences and gatherings. In today’s episode, Rick and I talk about his unschooling experience. Quote of the Week “Do not ask that your […]

EU009: Ten Questions with Amy Childs Mar 03, 2016

Amy Childs is an unschooling mom to three lovable, and now adult, children. She’s also the producer of The Unschooling Life Podcast and a happiness consultant. In today’s episode, I ask her ten questions about her unschooling experience. Quote of the Week “Raising children with an emphasis on intrinsic rewards is not a technique, a method […]

EU008: Q&A Round Table Feb 25, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question for the Q&A Round Table episodes! Quote of the Week “We live in a world awash with information, but we seem to face a growing scarcity of wisdom. And what’s worse, we confuse the […]

EU007: Diving into Parenting with Anna Brown Feb 18, 2016

Anna Brown is a long-time unschooling mom to two lovely daughters, ages 16 and 18. I met her online years ago through the Shine with Unschooling email list and have loved connecting with her more deeply over the years. She gave a talk a couple of years ago at an unschooling conference that I loved and […]

EU006: Unschooling Dads with Skyler Collins Feb 11, 2016

Skyler is an unschooling dad of three children and is the editor of Unschooling Dads: Twenty-two Testimonials on Their Unconventional Approach to Education. It’s not often that we get to hear about unschooling from the dad’s perspective, and I love that you took the time and effort to pull this book together. I really enjoyed […]

EU005: Ten Questions with Sandra Dodd Feb 04, 2016

Sandra is a long-time unschooling mom of three—Kirby, Marty, and Holly—who are now adults. She’s also the creator of the awesome unschooling resource, sandradodd.com. In today’s episode, I ask her ten questions about her unschooling experience. Quote of the Week “If your child is more important than your vision of your child, life becomes easier.” […]

EU004: Q&A Round Table Jan 28, 2016

Anne Ohman and Anna Brown, both veteran unschooling parents, join me to answer listener questions. Click here to submit your own question for the Q&A episodes! Quote of the Week “I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear […]

EU003: Unschooling Teens with Sue Patterson Jan 24, 2016

Sue Patterson is a long-time unschooling mom of three grown children. She recently released a book, Homeschooled Teens, where she shares her own insights from unschooling three teens plus what she discovered when she sent out a survey about being homeschooled through adolescence and 75 teens and young adults replied in detail. In this episode, Sue shares […]