The Organized Unschooler

A middle school mom, Ann Wentworth of Fon du Lac Wisconsin wants these books banned from her daughter’s school district. She’s petitioned the school (at the expense of local taxpayers) and lost the first request for censorship. She keeps adding books to her list. I imagine every time she reads one it ends up going [...]

Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!” By Alfie Kohn Hang out at a playground, visit a school, or show up at a child’s birthday party, and there’s one phrase you can count on hearing repeatedly: “Good job!” Even tiny infants are praised for smacking their hands together (“Good clapping!”). Many of us blurt out [...]

After close observation of their own children, with a combined age of 61 years, observations of many other children in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Israel, Greece, Italy, Swiss, France, Holland, Belgium, England, Scotland, and the Bahamas, and numerous reports throughout recorded history, the authors have determined that a widely-distributed behavioral disorder has somehow been overlooked [...]

Thoughts on Punishment by Sidney Craig, Ph.D. The most commonly used and socially acceptable parental response to a display of “irrational” behavior (a temper tantrum, for example) is to punish the child for it. Most parents operate according to the widely held belief that the child will not repeat a form of behavior for which [...]

The Case Against Time-out by Peter Haiman, Ph.D. For generations, parents have sought a reliable and dependable way to handle childhood misbehavior. The most recent and popular discipline technique is time-out. Although time-out is better than spanking, it is not an appropriate way for parents to cope with the misbehavior of their children. Moreover, the [...]

Children Don’t Really Misbehave by Thomas Gordon, Ph.D. Most parents and teachers think of children as either “behaving” or misbehaving. ” This labeling of behavior as “good” and “bad” begins when the child is quite young. In our [P.E.T. and T.E.T.] training programs we try to help parents see that children don’t really misbehave. Interestingly [...]

Check this magazine out, sign up for the free issue. it’s brand new from Sarah Parent from Clan of parents and Barb Lundgren of Rethinking Education, the annual Texas Unschooling Convention. In the first issue, there were stories from people of all walks of life, from a teenage girl to a 60 yr old lady, [...]

The Uncle Eric books are praised for teaching financial literacy. As an unschooling mom, I know that my financial knowledge leaves a lot to be desired, so instead of waiting until my kids are old enough and then forcing them to read these books, I am working through them myself. The workbooks, I am finding, [...]

I think by now every unschooler knows of Dayna Martin’s YouTube video series, but there are a lot more videos by and about unschoolers that you can enjoy online. Check out this article with Unschooling videos by parents, kids and educators. Also, check out these Unschooling Playlists for hours and hours of unschooling videos on [...]

What is Unschooling? I know there are different “types” of unschooling. Maybe the question should really be, what isn’t unschooling? Answer #1- byB- A child learns best about the world through first-hand experience Answer #2 – by C- Hmmm. “A child learns best about the world through first-hand experience.” What if their first-hand experience takes [...]