Unschooling Is Personal

First and foremost, unschooling is not listening to other people telling you how to unschool your kids.
If you’re going to Peter, Paul, Sally, and Suzie and listening to them instead of your kids, that’s schoolishness. To think you need an authority other than your child to educate them is not unschooling.

Perspective

If you go to Danii, Akilah, Sue, Esther, Melissa, or Meghan, come not for your kids and unschooling.

Come for:

Deschooling — breaking the old programming that tells you anyone knows more than you and your child about their needs and interests.
Your own adult unschooling — reparenting yourself, building community, and nerdy connections we don’t get from co-workers.
- Co-workers are like snot-nosed minis who have to be told 7 days a week to brush their teeth, wipe their butts, and understand the importance of clean underwear.
- Ooh, can’t forget my favorite: shirts are not napkins, especially the ones we’re wearing.

Yes, my kids are wild and free, but they don’t need to remain beasts that drain my wallet for new clothing sooner than the budget allows. That’s just my 2 cents on my kids.

The 1 Cent Rule

What’s your 1 cent, your child’s 1 cent, and their other parent/guardian/guide’s 1 cent?
That’s the only narrative and negotiation that matters when asking: What is unschooling and what can it look like?

I’m on a mission to tell 1001 tales about unschooling and the lives of unschoolers, because every other book or show out there is stuck in:

Kindergarten → elementary → high school → college
Cookie-cutter marriage → kids → rinse and repeat

That’s not reality. In a world where Netflix is boss — yes, Netflix, please call me — we can open the gates of what life can truly be like, without shame, blame, bullies, the Joneses, or thinking our kids will suffer without the status quo blueprint.

Definitions

Unschooling is:
A way of life where your child’s interests, curiosity, and choices drive their learning. It’s less about “covering curriculum” and more about trusting the child as the expert on their own education. You provide resources, support, and guidance — but the path is theirs to create. It’s messy, unpredictable, joyful, and real.

Deschooling is:
The process of undoing old habits, societal programming, and expectations that tell us that adults, authorities, or institutions know better than our children. It’s rewiring both parent and child to let curiosity, intrinsic motivation, and natural rhythms lead. It’s slow, it’s challenging, and it’s essential before unschooling can truly take hold.

Worldschooling is:
Learning through real-world experience, travel, and cultural immersion. The world itself becomes the classroom — museums, markets, forests, cities, communities. Learning is hands-on, global, and integrated into life, not separated into subjects or schedules. The goal is perspective, adaptability, and meaningful context.

Homeschooling is:
A structured or semi-structured education at home. Parents choose curriculum, plan lessons, and often replicate the “school” model in a home setting. Learning is parent-directed, even if done with love and flexibility. Homeschooling can overlap with unschooling, but it usually retains the authority of an adult-designed framework.

Self-Directed Learning is:
The skill and habit of choosing what, when, and how you learn. It can apply to children, teens, and adults alike. This is the backbone of unschooling — learning driven by curiosity and purpose, not by mandates or external reward systems. It’s lifelong, portable, and infinitely adaptable.

Parents as Lifelong Learners

Parents can be unschoolers too — life-long learners applying their knowledge and embodied experiences into endeavors that are not jobs.

Jobs: Services and goods provided on someone else’s terms for your life.
Business, venture, endeavor, project: Services and goods provided on your own terms for your life.

One looks and feels like forced labor, with penalties and punishments dished out.
The other is hard work you can pick up and put down as you see fit, with the benefit of rest and mental health care.

You considered it. You chose it. You lived it.
Welcome to unschooling.