One of the major ideas of peaceful parenting is that what we often term “misbehavior” is actually an expression of an underlying need. In the past several decades, parents have gotten pretty good at applying this idea to babies. Most of us are on board with the idea that a crying baby is a baby […]
Discipline
Saying Sorry in Silence
Earlier this week, I had the remarkable experience of seeing how powerfully my own “inner story” affected my daughter, Katy. Yesterday, I had yet another amazing experience: witnessing the power of a silent “I’m sorry”. These days, my son Thomas tends to be the most mellow of my bunch. But yesterday, I could tell something […]
Unschooling: A Man of Few Words
My husband Ted did not come to the unschooling life as quickly or as easily as I did. It was kind of a long road for him, with some serious doubts and struggles along the way. So it’s been very cool to watch as he has become increasingly confident in the unschooling philosophy and his […]
Radical Unschooling: Works in Progress
My daughter Katy has been the subject of many of my radical unschooling posts. That’s because she’s given me plenty of much-needed opportunities to practice my peaceful parenting approach! But make no mistake – by no means is she the only highly spirited child in this family. So today’s post is about a recent struggle […]
How Punishments Backfire: An Unschooling Perspective
The day after Hurricane Irene hit we had no electricity (we had no electricity for days, actually, but we shall not speak of that). It turned out that a downed transformer just around the corner was culprit. Other than that, there was minimal damage to our neighborhood, and since school was not yet in session, […]