Episodes

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 parents mention and talk about how we can move through challenges or fears while still staying connected to our kids. This was a really fun conver...

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 many possibilities to help us face the situations in front of us. Play is also the natural way that children process their lives. So, bringing a playful energy into our d...

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 hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey and in your relationships! Watch the video of our conversa...

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 over to meeting all of our children’s needs as the priority and let ours fall by the wayside. But eventually, ignoring our own needs is a recipe for burnout and resentment. We can...

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 are curious about their opinions and letting them know that they know best about themselves can lead to increased self awareness and stronger relationships. We hope ...

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 relationships. We dive into an updated version, “Treat others how they would like to be treated,” which really means learning more about the people we care about. Using this phrase as a guide can serve to d...

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 you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey and in your relationships! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. THINGS WE MENTION IN T...

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 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 Liv...

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, big kid to preteens, teenage years, and moving into young adulthood. Brain development, body growth, and personality changes can sometimes leave us fe...

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. This mindset shift to “there’s plenty of time” can help can help bring clarity and calm and shift us out of fear-based tunnel vision. We had a lot of fun talking about...

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 priorities, their brains, their interests, the way they express themselves, their likes and dislikes, their bodies, their personalities, and so on—it becomes ...

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 how we’ve seen curiosity at play in our families. We hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey! Watch the video ...

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 to dive into that even more deeply with their own children through unschooling does seem like a rather natural next step to take. But whatever the reason behind this pretty common ques...

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 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 everyone...

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 anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for everyone. Instead, our f...

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 giving anyone the “right” answer. That’s because there isn’t a universal “right” answer for any given situation that will work for everyone. Instead, our focus ...

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 everyone. Instead, our focus is on exploring different aspects of the situation and playing with the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves...

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 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...

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, enthusiastic, willing, unwilling, and coerced, and Sara shared some stories that illustrated these different types. We also explored some strategies and tools that have been helpful with ou...

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 people really are, define the terms independence and autonomy, explore how it’s the “agenda” part of the independence agenda that is the problem, and...

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 avoid dysregulation and melt downs, and results in so much learning for everyone in the family. Being a part of making important decisions now gives chi...

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 that happen during deschooling, and how deschooling is something that we revisit over time as we reach new seasons in our children’s lives. We hope you find our conversati...

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 teachers’ college. Her experiences allowed her to really come to home education for her own children with confidence. From there, her path to unschooling was reall...

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 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...