Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 16
January 13, 2021
EU260: Unschooling Stories with Betsey Tufano
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, the role of technology in their unschooling lives, some of the challenges they’ve faced, and lots more!
Questions for Betsey
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?
How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
What has been one of the more challenging aspects of your unschooling journey so far? Can you share a bit about how you moved through it?
When we were prepping for this call you mentioned that you love how technology weaves through your family’s learning. Technology is a topic that many people find a challenge to navigate. I’d love to hear about your experience!
As we move deeper into unschooling, we find our relationships with our children becoming steeped in connection and trust, but it can sometimes be challenging to extend that to our partners. Can you share how unschooling has deepened your relationship with your spouse? What has that journey looked like?
What’s something fun you guys have done recently that you don’t think you’d have done before finding unschooling?
Things mentioned in the episode
Pam’s book, Free to Learn
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
January 6, 2021
EU259: Nuggets of Wisdom from Five Years of the Exploring Unschooling Podcast
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 I gathered and organized this lovely collection, and I ended up with four distinct sections:
ParentingSeeing Learning in ActionMaking Our World Bigger, andThe Question of College
I imagine it surprises no one at this point that the flow of these sections aligns pretty closely with our unschooling journey. Because that’s my jam.
I’ve really enjoyed spending these five years engaging in conversations with so many wonderful unschooling parents and grown unschoolers. I’m so grateful to them for sharing their stories, their experiences, and their sparkling nuggets of wisdom about unschooling!
Audio clips taken from these episodes, in order …
EU029: What Learning Looks Like with Meredith Novak
EU136: Our Unschooling Journey with Jessica Hughes
EU027: Ten Questions with Teresa Graham Brett
EU111: Ten Questions with Jan Fortune
EU257: Unschooling Instincts with Ali Walker
EU002: Ten Questions with Pam Sorooshian
EU036: Deschooling with Lauren Seaver
EU089: Ten Questions with Jan Hunt
EU071: Changes in Parents with Sandra Dodd
EU258: Seeing the Magic with Anna Brown
EU154: Unschooling Dads and Documentaries with Jeremy Stuart
EU241: Exploring Race, Racism, and Diversity in Unschooling with Erika Davis-Pitre
EU130: Dismantling Shame with Ronnie Maier
EU090: Growing Up Unschooling with Phoebe Wahl
EU141: Growing Up Unschooling with Alec Traaseth
EU166: Unschooling and the Teen Years with Sue Patterson, Part 2
EU163: Growing Up Unschooling with Adrian Peace-Williams
Episode transcript …
Consider becoming a patron …
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
December 30, 2020
EU258: Seeing the Magic with Anna Brown
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 ways to connect with our kids, what finding joy looks like in practice, and how joy relates to our self-care practices.
Our conversations in the Network have been beautiful this month, as members share the magic they’re noticing in their lives and support each other through the more challenging moments.
Discussion areas
Focusing on our connections with our kids helps us see the magic in our days.Instead of inviting our kids to join us, we can go to them.Let’s talk about joy.Connection, joy, and self-care weave together so beautifully as part of the magic of our days.Join us starting in the new year as we walk through the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit online workshop alongside participants.
Links to things mentioned in the episode
Check out the Living Joyfully Network
Learn more about the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit online workshop
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
December 23, 2020
EU257: Unschooling Instincts with Ali Walker
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 realizations she has made during her own journey as a mother, including the need to be present and available for Very Important Sitting, the importance of interdependence and connection, and how self care fits into her unschooling life. Her perspective is fascinating!
Questions for Ali
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?
How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
You worked as a primatologist before having kids. I’d love to hear some of the ways that experience has influenced your experiences with your children.
A few months ago in the Network you shared a really valuable idea, which you described as ‘Very Important Sitting.’ Can you share what that is?
With two young kids, some days can feel long and exhausting. I’d love to hear your thoughts around self-care and what that looks like for you right now.
What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days?
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
December 16, 2020
EU256: Deschooling with Marta Venturini
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 online unschooling community and the wealth of resources she was able to learn from along the way.
Questions for Marta
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?
How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
Deschooling is a wonderful window to exploring ourselves and the person and parent we want to be. It quickly expands beyond “replacing school” and becomes a story of personal growth, doesn’t it?
What has been one of the more challenging aspects of deschooling for you? Can you share a bit about your journey through it?
And then it goes even deeper. The unschooling journey, if you embrace it, becomes an exploration of being human. We see it unfolding so beautifully in our children, through their interests and passions and on their own timetable. Our urge to judge others slowly fades as we come to see them more clearly as being on their own journey. Has that been your experience? What has struck you about how unschooling grows from a style of learning to the story of being human?
What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now?
Things mentioned in the episode
Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff
Alex’s house tour – part 1, part 2
You can find Marta on Facebook and Instagram
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
December 9, 2020
EU255: Choices and Unschooling with Holly Clark
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 talked about fear about technology, when children want to quit an activity, and much more!
Questions for Holly
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?
How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
When we were arranging our call, I asked if there was an unschooling topic you were particularly passionate about and you answered: choices. I love that! It’s a seemingly simple answer, but so incredibly far-reaching. Everything really is a choice, isn’t it?
When it comes to unschooling, one important aspect is choosing to actively support our kids as they explore their interests and learn about the world. That’s not so hard to do when we feel like their interests have “value.” But eventually they choose something we’re not so comfortable with and that’s when our real work starts. Can you share what that process has looked like for you?
Another aspect of choice that comes into play is around parenting. We are surrounded by so much conventional parenting advice that it can be hard to wade through it all to discover the person and parent we want to be for our kids. Sometimes it feels scary to embrace that choice, but it’s also so freeing, isn’t it?
What has surprised you most so far about your unschooling journey?
Things mentioned in the episode
Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff
Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life by Rue Kream
Holly is on Instagram as @holly_blossoming
Holly’s Facebook page, One family, Unschooling
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
December 2, 2020
EU254: Finding Unschooling with Daniela Bramwell
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 PhD in the field. And then, as a mother, she found unschooling. We talked about her varied experiences in education, what she’s figured out along the way, and the joy she’s finding now, living and learning with her family.
Questions for Daniela
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?
Your journey to finding unschooling is really interesting and I’d love to walk through some of the pieces with you. To start, you went to an alternative Montessori free school growing up. Can you share a bit about your experience?
Then you went to university and became very interested in studying education, completing your Masters, teaching courses, and now working on your PhD. What have been your big takeaways so far from that experience?
How did all that—your alternative ed experience growing up and your post grad education studies—weave together into you finding and choosing unschooling for your family? What pieces did unschooling bring that you felt were missing?
You mentioned to me earlier that your deschooling journey around “screens” was a big one because you grew up with so many negative messages around them. Can you share what that process looked like for you?
What’s something fun you guys have done recently that you don’t think you’d have done before finding unschooling?
Things mentioned in the episode
Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen
Bernie De K oven’s work on play
No Contest by Alfie Kohn
Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn
Rachel Rainbolt’s podcast, Sage Family
Lucy AitkenRead’s article, 10 Things that are Worse for Your Child than Playing on the iPad
Pam Sorooshian’s article, Economics of Restricting TV Watching of Children
Holly Johnson’s podcast episode
Akilah Richard’s podcast episode
Zakiyya Ismail’s podcast episode
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
November 25, 2020
EU253: Navigating Family Gatherings with Anna Brown
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 to weddings to family reunions.
Anna and I talk about making choices about how our gatherings will look over time, the fun work of preparing for events, and the joyful presence with which we can show up. We also discuss how these extended family gatherings can bring up difficult conversations and strong emotions, and offer some tools and ideas to navigate those. I hope you find our conversation helpful!
Discussion areas
Attending family gatherings is truly a choice.It’s fun to play with traditions!Ideas to help set the stage for an enjoyable gathering.The value of showing up with a joyful, fun, and grounded presence.What if things go sideways?
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the podcast archive growing and freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out Exploring Unschooling on Patreon.
November 18, 2020
EU252: Unschooling Stories with Eva Witsel
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 lots more!
Questions for Eva
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?
Your children are young teens now. Do you find that your unschooling days look different now that they’re older?
You mentioned that you and your husband are involved in tech. I’d love to hear how different aspects of technology weave their way through your lives!
You live in the Netherlands, and you have been involved with government discussions around homeschooling legislation. Can you share a bit about your experience and what unschooling looks like in the Netherlands?
What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now?
Things mentioned in the episode
Documentary about Ancient Greece: The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization
Eva’s Dutch-language homeschooling blog and math website
Pam Sorooshian’s collection of math-related posts on her blog, and her podcast episode where we talk about overcoming math phobia
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
November 11, 2020
EU251: Unschooling as a Lifestyle with Lucia Silva
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 with our families become so much more fun and interesting when we drop the agenda. Lucia shared some amazing a-ha moments she experienced while having conversations with her children, as well as her realization that every unschooling family’s life will be completely unique!
Questions for Lucia
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?
How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s initial move to unschooling look like?
For many families, the first big milestone on their unschooling journey is choosing to not send their kids to school. It’s an educational choice and the focus is on how their kids are going to learn instead. But so often, it doesn’t stop there. Unschooling grows beyond academics into a lifestyle. Can you share what that process has looked like for you?
As we come to more fully understand the foundations of unschooling and get more comfortable with how they weave into our days, there is another paradigm shift that happens. And that’s a shift away from feeling like there are unschooling “rules” we should follow and toward exploring the right choices for our unique family. Which is why unschooling can look so different in different families, can’t it?
As we embrace unschooling as a lifestyle ever more deeply and our self-awareness grows, many of us discover how often we go into conversations with our kids with an agenda—a plan in our mind of how we want things to go. Even if we don’t state it out loud, it comes across in our energy. When we can shift away from that to showing up with an open and curious mindset, it makes a world of difference, doesn’t it?
What has surprised you most so far about your unschooling journey?
Things mentioned in the episode
Lucia mentioned the Living Joyfully Network and the Childhood Redefined Unschooling Summit
The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Haley
Lucia is on Instagram as IciclesandBirthdayClothes
Transcript
Consider becoming a patron
I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.
