Let your children read when they’re ready

This is a guest post by Lehla Eldridge. Her blog is Unschooling the Kids. Lehla’s family lives in Italy. Lehla’s girls are in the photo. 

I read to our daughters till they were eleven. I sat up at night, read books, tantalized them with stories. There was always that nagging feeling, that school-like gremlin of mine that would tap me on the shoulder and say ‘Ha, they are a little old for you to be reading to them don’t you think?’ I would push it away. Like the fear witch this gremlin knows me well… Read more

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Pay kids to do stuff they don’t like

So many people tell me they want to get paid to do what they love. But if you need to be paid to do it, you probably don’t really love it. People do what they love whether or not they get paid, which is why highly rewarding jobs don’t have rewarding salaries. This makes sense. It would be a really sad world if we all had to get paid before we would do what we love. Read more

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Tactics for picking up tidbits of confidence

Once a week I have a moment of panic that unschooling is not working. But it’s not like I’m telling the kids, “I think you should go to school.” It’s more like I tell myself my kids will grow up to tell everyone how they wish their parents had emphasized math. Or schedules. Or socializing. Or I don’t know what. I just worry that I need to exert more control over something the kids are doing, but I’m not sure what. Read more

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Teaching kids self-discipline is overrated

I’ve been stressing about how I can teach my kids self-discipline. I have thought, for a long time, that self-discipline is the key to happiness. Because so many things that drive your happiness—what you eat, when you exercise, if you smoke—come down to self-discipline. Read more

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The terrible days are part of successful homeschooling

This is a guest post from Sarah Faulkner. She is a homeschooling mom in Washington state. She has five kids, ages 13, 11, 9, 5, and 2. 

I keep my children home because I have as many issues as my in-laws think I do.  Truly, I am a bit to the far left of sanity, but that’s because I am always bored. I think that’s why people don’t want to homeschool.  You have to be a bit crazy. Read more

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The best way to lift kids out of poverty (it’s NOT education)


Education does not lift kids out of poverty. In fact, education does nothing to overcome the close correlation between the parent’s earnings and a child’s earnings. Poverty persistence is nearly unbeatable. Read more

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