Anxiety: Battling The Impossible

Anxiety: Battling the Impossible, yellowreadis.com. Image: Tissue box, Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver

Some days I feel like I can do it all. And some days I can’t. This is one of these days. We’re now embarking on our third straight week of illness without a break, and our sixth week of ‘let’s catch something this week’. Though I know it’s the season for catching things. Melbourne spring weather loves to put on a good show and the constant radical changes in weather aren’t exactly great for us just recovering folks.

But it’s at times like this that all the ‘should haves’ back up. Alas it is rare that they go quiet just because our schedule has been (metaphorically, but I’m contemplating literally) chucked out the window. Continue reading “Anxiety: Battling The Impossible”

Unconventional Learning;

We’re a geeky kind of family. With me being a mathematician and my DH an engineer, it would be hard to not be geeky. We’re also not going to score high on the ‘doing things conventionally’ test, if one of those existed. But sometimes, just sometimes, the paths my kids take to learn are so unconventional that they leave me with a feeling of stunned awe (and a little bit of ‘where in the sweet unicorns on a pegasus did that come from‘?).

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Wrestling with Wisdom: Lessons I Have Learned About Dealing With Medical Issues

Wrestling With Wisdom: Lessons I have Learned About Dealing with Medical Issues, yellowreadis.com Image: Stethoscope and pen on medical file

As a parent who has spent, on average, a minimum of two days every week for the past 6 years going to hospitals, doctors and specialists, I have learned some harsh truths and had some amazing moments of pure serendipity. Somewhere along the way, I picked up a bit of wisdom, though it tends to get lost again pretty quickly. So while I wrestle wisdom to the ground in a head-lock, here are some hard-earned insights I have scraped together that I think are worth talking about.

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Unschooling Ain’t The Boogie Man

Unschooling Ain't The Boogie Man, yellowreadis.com Image: Kids lying on pier playing in water

Every now and then, usually when news is a little slow, prominent papers like to do little fluff pieces on the edges of the educational world. One week might be about lambasting ‘pushy parents,’. Another week an angry remonstrance on the horrors of alternative education.

Personally, I find it deeply amusing that, depending on the flavour of the month, our little family can be both academically pushing and overly restrictive tiger-parents, and laissez-faire, academically neglectful parents at the same time.

In July, it was Mamamia’s turn to have-a-go at the punch-the-alternative-education bandwagon.

The topic this time around? Unschooling.

So what is unschooling? And why does it raise so many hackles?
Continue reading “Unschooling Ain’t The Boogie Man”