Just Add Light and Stir

Writing to real people for real purposes improves writing in real ways. There are some people who haven’t been born yet who will, ...

Question: Could you give some examples of family games ? Answer: Don't look for "games." Look for play. Looking first ...

Allow children to reject food they don’t like, or that doesn’t smell like something they should eat, or doesn’t look good to them. Don’t ext...

Your children are not works in progress. They are whole people, now and from the day they were born. If you can try to see that, rather t...

When we stop looking at our kids and what they do through schooly glasses, we're no longer concerned about how long they've been ...

Health is much more than input/output. You cannot, by a dietary chart, create a whole, happy human. It is possible, by dietary restricti...

Deborah D. shared a laundry story: My 10 year old daughter was frustrated yesterday because I hadn't done her laundry yet. When I o...

Gwen (willow_selene) wrote: When Megan was between two and three she would pick an avocado at the beginning of most shopping trips. Then...

Joyce Fetteroll , to someone fearful about not having started sooner: How could doing better be worse? You won't help yoursel...

Creativity and courage are useful for unschooling, and they are traits that an unschooling environment nurtures, in both kids and adul...

People with collections have collections of stories. Objects have origins, and connections. If you ask people about their things, they wil...

Holly gets her firewood from our house. Her dad splits wood for fun and for exercise. He enjoys organizing his woodpile as a hobby. In...

Within that little library box are books. Each book is like a box of stories and ideas. Each scene within could be a gift to one reader o...

Deb Lewis wrote, of Scooby Doo: Freddy, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scoob genuinely care about each other, trust each ...

Bird portraits (or something birdish) More birds photo by Jo Isaac (a link to more of Jo Isaac's words or images )

For fun, or for practice, be flexible enough to use items for things other than their "intended purpose." In the 1970s, I was told...

Sometimes deschooling works best when there are surprising (maybe even shocking) surprises, or stark refutations of what the mom has “g...

People who cling to their right to hate things will have hatred in their lives. It's worth rephrasing, rethinking, turning away, mov...

There were days not long ago when we did things that now seem problematical. Running in a bubble another kid would run in next. Hugging an...

If you dwell in the empty half of your glass, life will feel empty. If you dwell in the full half of your glass, life will feel full. —Joyc...