After years of bloody poop and projectile vomiting in ice cream stores I decided to have my son tested for gluten and lactose intolerance. It’s not a small test. He had to be put to sleep with anesthesia, and just as I got everything scheduled, Joan Rivers died having the operation he was scheduled to have, so I canceled it. Read more
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 am a control(ish) person by nature. Mostly I have grand ideas, and I schedule these ideas, only to have reality step in and dash them all away. Or rather—what really happens—I drag my kids out on some adventure rather than being responsible at home. Read more
According to the most recent statistics, the share of school-age kids who were homeschooled doubled between 1999 and 2012, from 1.7 to 3.4 percent. Read more
I’m not teaching my kids to write. It seems like this would be shocking, since I’m a writer. But actually, I’ve taught enough writing to know that you can’t teach people to write well. This is because good writing comes from practice and from a lot of reading. So I’m not teaching them anything because we are all good writers if we keep the teacher voice out of our heads. Read more
Taiwan just made it illegal to give kids too much screen time. The most notable thing about the law is that it fails to differentiate types of screen time. For example, watching a Disney movie is a lot less likely to be educational than, say, watching a video that describes photosynthesis. Read more
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 like to hear about other homeschoolers. If you talk to my father, I am a complete failure. If you just look at test scores, and talk to my kids I am doing just fine. I have been homeschooling for 8 years. I am an ENTP and have five kids. My fourth has Autism/ADHD, and I think my third does as well (for ADD).
Honestly my life is hell, and I really don’t like homeschooling at the moment, but I feel public school is a long waste of 12 years. Also, none of my kids wants to go to school.
Every time I get annoyed and find a reason to stop homeschooling, the kids step up so they can stay home. They want to stay home because, “We don’t have enough time to go to school. How would we get everything else done?” My children highly value playing.
If your child is enrolled in school, it is illegal to take your child out of school to do family events, educational trips, etc. I know this because I when I had my son in first grade I ended up having to go to the truancy officer in my little Wisconsin town. Read more
A large percentage of the emails I get from this blog are from teachers. Some teach in a classroom but keep their kids out of school. Some don’t have kids but they read this blog because they are sure they won’t put their kids through what they see their students going through. Many teachers who read this blog feel stuck. So this post is for them. Read more
This is a guest post by Lehla Eldridge. Her blog is Unschooling the Kids. She lives with her husband and three kids in Italy.
What does “to be powerful” mean anyway? To have power? Power can be a bit of a scary word. Wars have been fought over power. Maybe for me it means that our girls will be able to stand in their power when they are not being treated fairly. Read more
If there’s a reason I’m crazy, it’s not because of sharing too much on my blog, or taking my kids out of school. It’s not even for jeopardizing my finances way too often with way too many startups. The reason I’m crazy, if I’m crazy, is that I spend the majority of my waking hours dealing with music lessons. Read more