Claim OwnershipThe Unschool Space
Subscribed: 119Played: 2,241
Subscribe
© 2025 The Unschool Space
Description
Unschooling isn't just about education, it's a life choice! For most parents, embracing unschooling requires some serious unravelling of old paradigms around parenting, learning and childhood, and that can be both challenging and exhilarating.
Join me, Esther Jones, a mindful parenting coach and unschooling mother-of-three, as I take a look at the many opportunities for reflection that naturally arise in an unschooling home. Each episode, I chat with other parents about their family’s experiences.
From self-care, neurodiversity and mindfulness, to how to live consensually and trust our children, this podcast is here to help parents navigate the everyday challenges so they're free to create a healthy, nourishing and enriching space for themselves and their family.
Thanks for listening!
Join my mailing for regular offerings and updates at: www.esther-jones.com
or get in touch with me at:
contact@esther-jones.com.
Instagram: @_esther.jones
Facebook:@theunschoolspace
96 Episodes
Reverse
Today I am chatting with Ash Winton. Ash has lived in Queensland, Australia for the last 12 years, but is originally from Alaska, and is of the indigenous Tlingit people. She and her husband, who run a trail building company, have a four and half year old son, who they unschool and plan to continue doing so. Among lots of things, we talk about what natural learning looks like, how social norms can often be in direct opposition to our intuition, and the importance in all this of being in touch...
I’m really happy to be talking today with Holly from South Wales, who I first spoke to two years ago. We talk in depth about Holly’s experiences of accompanying her children through burnout and emotional distress. We talk about how unschooling can offer us the time and space to do this in a far more compassionate way than our society preaches, and how as adults we are often programmed to just keep rushing and pushing through. Holly shares how her own recent experiences also offered her a deep...
I’m delighted to welcome back Claire Gillespie, who was a guest on the podcast almost two years ago. Claire lives in the UK with her husband and two sons, who are 15 and 17, and who left the school system around six years ago. Claire now works as a coach and also runs a creative business called The Cardboard Shed. Today we talk about why it takes so much courage to leave mainstream school, even when it isn’t working, and how taking that step caused such a huge shift in her own life. We also t...
My guest today is Makeba Garraway. Originally from the UK, Makeba moved to Silicon Valley with her husband and two children who are now 12 and 9, seven years ago. They came to unschooling after realising that mainstream school did not feel like a good fit for their eldest and not finding any alternative either. Makeba worked as a doctor in the UK and we talk about that shift to no longer working, and what it meant to take a new look at an education system that she had outwardly thrived in. An...
My guest in this episode is Nicola Leyland. Nicola has two children who are now 19 and 17. Her journey to unschooling began when her son was just eight years old and had an accident that resulted in a brain injury. Nicola talks about her experience of seeing everything fall apart, and her son’s traumatic return to school, and the consequences of following what others said she should do rather than what she felt was right. And she shares the journey of taking her children out of school and slo...
Today I am chatting with Esther Grimes, who lives in Australia with her husband, and three sons, who are 1, 4 and 8. Although Esther and her husband were already looking at less conventional ways to live as a family, they hadn’t questioned school. It wasn’t until it became very clear that their oldest son couldn’t cope with school that they started to figure out another way. We talk about their journey to unschooling, how hard it can be to step away from the well trodden path and how life loo...
My guest today is Irene Genelin from Minnesota. Irene and her husband used to have an organic fruit farm, but sold that a few years ago to travel almost full time with their daughter, who is now 10. We talk about how they came to that decision, how they organise their travels and what community looks like on the road. As well as what learning looks like for their daughter and the kinds of things that come up that still require some unravelling. Here's a link to the episode of Irene's po...
My guest this episode is Erin Cummings. Erin grew up in Ottawa and now lives with her husband who is of the indigenous Métis community and their three young sons, in the boreal forest in Treaty 3 Territory of Northwest Ontario. Here they live on a 200-acre piece of land where they farm, own livestock and are building their family home. Erin talks about their choice of living an intentionally simple life which centres on their relationships with each other and with the land, and of her experie...
Today, I am with Dana Huraimi. Dana is Palestinian and grew up in Kuwait and Jordan. She now lives in Dubai with her husband and two sons who are almost 10 and 13. Today we talk about Dana’s deschooling journey, how she is letting go of her conditioning around education, learning and what success looks like. We talk about how she sees natural learning unfold in such different ways in her two children, and why compliance is not what we need to be cultivating for a better world. And we talk abo...
This episode I am with Fiona Sim who is from Scotland. Fiona lives with her husband who is from Lithuania, and their two daughters who are 3 and 6. This is their first official year of home education since their older daughter would have started school last September. We talk about how easy it is to overplan the days, and how good it can feel to let go of the busyness and just embrace the gift of time. And we talk about that other big learning edge of working out when we should step in and w...
Today I’m with Leila from Melbourne, Australia. Leila has three children who are now 9, 7 and 4, and their journey to unschooling began when they decided not to continue with school for her eldest child after the Covid lockdown. Leila describes how her interest in conscious parenting and centering the relationship with her children helped her move away from trying to force the learning and to see instead how the natural learning unfolded. We talk about how hard it is to get beyond our own con...
This episode, I’m chatting with Cyrielle who is originally from France but now lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and their eight year old daughter (this conversation takes place while they are on a long road trip through the US). Cyrielle used to be a teacher and realised early on that she wanted something different for her child. Amongst other things we talk today about neurodivergence, friendships and community and in particular how important it is that as the parent we explore what...
And today I am with Nora McDonald. Nora is originally from the UK but now lives in Costa Rica with her husband and two children who are 10 and 7. They felt that school just wasn’t going to be a good fit for their eldest child, and so originally began home educating in Cambridge in the UK. Nora talks about her move toward unschooling and how her family’s relationship with technology was the catalyst for that. We talk about what it looks like when your child doesn’t particularly like groups and...
I am very happy to be chatting in this episode with Shannon Stolz from Texas. Shannon has four children who are now all in their 20s. Shannon describes how in their early years, as their dad wasn’t yet onboard with unschooling, they would have some days that were more traditional school at home, and others that were self-directed. Shannon could see how different these experiences were for all of them, and finally, when her oldest daughter was 13, they just embraced unschooling. Among lots of ...
INTRO I'm chatting in this episode with Pat Farenga from Massachusetts. Pat is the father of three now adult unschooled daughters, and he worked with the late John Holt—the New York Educator who coined the term unschooling and wrote several books about learning. Pat worked with him on his magazine Growing Without Schooling and continued the magazine for many years after John Holt passed. We chat about his experiences with John Holt, how unschooling looked back in the '70s and '80s and how thi...
In this episode, I'm chatting with Rose from Oxfordshire in the UK. Rose lives with her husband and her six-year-old son who is Autistic PDA. They chose not to send him to school, realising that it was just not an environment that could work for him. Rose talks about how life unfolds for them at home and what socialising and learning look like, the value of being able to go at their own rhythms, and the huge importance of placing connection at the centre of everything. And, Rose describes how...
My guest today is Coralie who lives in Cambridgeshire with her partner and two children who are 9 and 5. Coralie’s own experiences of school made her realise that life and learning need to feel meaningful and driven by our own unique passions and interests not by external requirements. That, coupled with her son’s diagnosis of Autism and PDA, led her family first to a Steiner school and then to unschooling. Coralie describes what unschooling looks like for her family, how they work together a...
My guest today is April Scully. April is a former teacher, who is originally from Toronto but now lives in South Carolina with her husband and two children who are 6 and 9. We talk about how doing well at school doesn’t necessarily help us know who we are or what we want to do, and what it is to have the time and space to explore our passions. And we chat about what that means for us and the impact that unschooling has on our own lives, from taking better care of ourselves to following our ow...
Today I’m chatting with Helen Stuart of Rochdale in the UK. Helen lives with her husband and between them have six children. Although the older five children had challenges at school, it wasn’t until their 7-year-old daughter who is Autistic PDA was born, that they considered taking a different path. We talk about how essential it is for children to feel safe and regulated in order to engage freely with life, what learning looks like when we take a low-demand approach to life, and why co-regu...
My guest today is Alice Bramhill, a psychotherapist from Nottingham in the UK, who lives with her husband and two sons who are ten and 13. They went to mainstream school until six years ago, then after trying a Steiner school for six months, finally left the school system altogether. We talk today about how unravelling our own stories is an essential part in all of this. And, about how, if we want our children to be free to live into their whole selves, then we have to allow them to have agen...
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States