by Lehla Eldridge in

Ten Things I Tell Myself to Remember Around Parenting

How do kids learn things that connect with their souls and set their imagination on fire?How do the fireflies of inspiration spark their spirits? Can I help keep those iridescent lights of creativity shining?I ask myself these questions...they are big questions.I know that for me putting the kids in a schooling environment stopped being an option when I saw them shrinking and the sparkle diminishing from their eyes.I also know that this may not be easy to read, especially if in your heart you feel through my words that there is

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Unschooling vs. Homeschooling: What’s the Real Difference?

This is a question I get asked a lot and there is a very big difference between the two. Have a look below as here is an excerpt from our book that breaks it down from our persepective. Home schoolingHome schooling is teaching school subjects and following a curriculum outside of a learning institution such as a school, usually at home. Home schooling parents may collaborate with other home-schooling families. A home-schooling family can have widely varying approaches to learning but the core principle is the teaching of children to a

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Tis the season not to be triggered.

A loving reminder/question for all of you entering in to the Christmas season with family and friends. Can you stay in your truth and not get triggered? Can you be aware when you are getting stressed?This can be a time of year when tensions rise. So for any of you out there who are mixing with the button pressers remember this, breathe through any awkward questions. Remember to lovingly keep your boundaries and be gentle with others and yourself. Sometimes people can be curious about different ways of raising kids and

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Unschooling and the art of letting go of fear.

It is so easy to be gripped by fear. Fear is like a witch casting spells over everything. I can excel in hooking on to her skirt of anxious thoughts, I can fly with her but, in the land of unschooling or homeschooling, she is not welcome as she is so destructive. She is the angry teacher in the room who is handing out bad marks. She is the law that is going to close us down. She is the voice that tells me the kids are going nowhere and

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Why we didn’t bring traditional schooling in to our home

We didn't have curriculums, piles of books, exams etc because traditional schooling did not work in our household.(But when they were older two of our girls did want to take exams, see below!) We chose another route and the route we chose was completely different to bringing school in to our kitchen. There were no piles of exercise books that they had to get through by a certain date. I did not pace up and down behind them checking the clock and waiting for them to finish things by a certain

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Are you a competitive homeschooling/unschooling parent?

 We as of yet have no self-sustaining organic garden, our kids don’t know quite how to fashion wooden spoons out of a tree nor how to stick then roast an organically farmed pig. They are not musical geniuses that we know of, yet, and they have not started their own companies at the age of eight, which they are now floating on the stock market. These are not our kids, our kids may end up doing all those things who knows but right now, they don’t. Now this is such

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Learning to step in to the boy’s world…

There is so much about being a mother of a boy that I don’t understand, that is not inherently in my bones, that I sometimes have to turn to my husband and ask ‘what is this boy thing all about?’ I so thought I would have all the knowledge but of course I don’t, I understand my daughter’s world much better than my son’s because I have been there and I recognize the stages that they are going through. The things I am learning about this 8 year old boy

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by Lehla Eldridge in

How do you teach your daughters to be powerful?

What does that mean anyway? To have power? Power can be a bit of a scary word. Wars have been fought over power. Maybe for me it means that our girls will be able to stand in their power when they are not being treated fairly. To have voices, to be strong women? Yes I want them to be all of that, to be strong and standing tall and equal. How do I do that? I am talking about inner strength and confidence, about the inner drive about that unexstinguishable

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Empowering Your Child: Why You Should Encourage Them to Have a Voice

Here is an excerpt from Parenting the Future. The other day we had another friend here (she is 12 and also an unschooler) and it was the kids turn to make lunch. The friend didn’t want to make lunch, so neither did the kids. I was all hooked and triggered and so was Anthony, so he bounded in saying ‘Well, if your friend doesn’t want to make lunch she can go home’ then I bounded in and talk to her and said ‘ I love having you here but if

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by Lehla Eldridge in

Overwhelm an Over Flowing Toilet and the Beauty of Bollywood.

It has been a week where quite frankly packing the kids off to school may well have been a lovely thing. Getting out them out of the house at 7am getting them back around 2pm. Having the time to figure out the bills, the website, the laptop, the crowd funding project. Today has not been that day. There are days when it all seems to go wrong, even pairs of days..or weeks. We are having a pair of those weeks. I can’t even blame the moon. Last night as we

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