“Unschooling is a Spiritual Journey. How can it be anything but?”
I was an elementary teacher in Toronto Canada for nearly 10 years when my life took a dramatic turn: I became a mother. As I practised the principles of Attachment Parenting and learned about natural child development, I began to ask questions about the defining role of school in a child’s life.
When I reflected on my days as a teacher, I became aware of two things:
1. Whenever anyone talks about their ‘favourite teacher’, it is always someone with whom they had made an emotional connection.
This was new for me! I had made very few emotional connections with my students and no one had ever suggested to me that it was even important!
2. There was never anything that I had ever taught in my role as a teacher that was even remotely important. Nothing. At all.
So if kids seem to learn best from people with whom they have an emotional connection and if they don’t learn much of importance at school, then maybe my children didn’t need to go there?
I dove into every book I could find on the topic of unschooling and I sat back and observed as my children learned in all their authenticity every day. I was humbled by their innate curiosity, passion and creativity. I discovered that I could trust them to learn all that they needed to know without imposing any outside curriculum on them.
As I learned more about trusting the authentic personhood of my children I discovered an important truth: to truly trust our children we must love ourselves. And so began my journey into self-awareness, forgiveness, personal fulfilment and spiritual connection. I discovered my negative core beliefs that were bringing more of exactly what I didn’t want in my life. I became familiar with my strengths, my weaknesses and my passions. I became comfortable with myself. I discovered my Soul and my Soul Purpose.
The more I opened up to a life of Freedom and Joy with my family, the more I wanted to share my experience with other families, especially families whose Freedom and Joy was being sucked away by constant conflicts, demands and frustrations caused by the intrusion of the public system of education in their lives. I began to offer my research and knowledge to bring an entirely new perspective to parents of schooled children to help them create stress-free learning for their children. And I began to coach unschooling families on how to get into their groove and let go of old, self-limiting beliefs.
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I coach parents to stop fighting with their kids about school and to stop fighting with the school about their kids. I help families define and live their authentic goals and values. I teach how to build your child’s Emotional Intelligence so that he or she can build strong relationships, reduce stress and succeed in knowledge and skill development.
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I begin every day with these words:
Every day that we wake up together, that’s a great day!
My family and I practise a little bit of urban homesteading, some radical homemaking and full-time unschooling. My children are Anna (8yrs), Holly (6yrs), Jasmine (4 years) and Julian (1.5 yrs). They are my inspiration and they hold me accountable for living according to my stated values and priorities. Because of them I chose to stop living a hurting, broken life and to instead choose a life of Freedom and Joy.
We thrive on long days on the beach, walks in the forest and a little mud and mayhem in our own backyard. We bake our own bread, raise chickens for eggs and we read, read and read some more. We love Barbies and barbeques, stuffed animals and stomping in puddles.
Every day is like a new chapter in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and it is always a great day!
