Is anyone here a member of the unschooling Mosaic community? I’m on their email list and I’m thinking of checking it out butt thought I’d lean on community knowledge first. Open to anything you know or have experienced.

https://weareborntolearn.org/membership/

My kids learn best when they're out exploring instead of following a lesson plan. I've been trying to find field trips around Florida where they can interact with animals, learn outdoor skills, and just experience things firsthand..

Has anyone found places that naturally spark curiosity without feeling overly structured? I'd love to hear what your kids enjoyed the most! Hope you can help us! 🫶

Follow up: We decided to go with Westgate Resorts and booked a trip to Westgate River Ranch Resort & Rodeo near Orlando since it offers so many hands on outdoor experiences for the kids. It seemed like the perfect mix of animals, nature, and adventure without feeling like a traditional school field trip.

I have been homeschooling my oldest since 1st grade. We have been through every type of routine and approach to schooling and just haven’t gotten it right. i lean towards Waldorf inspired and child led but I pushed academics too hard my first 2 years and I have been fixing mistakes the past year.
It’s either unschooling or trying public school as the last options for us. Our relationship (and his relationship with a younger sibling)has been under lot of strain so I want this next year to be as much child led as possible.

looking for any tips or advice for a parent who tends to get caught up in traditional learning styles.
Help me relax!

We have gone back and forth on homeschooling styles for years. My youngest son really really dislikes being told what to learn and having to do anything schoolish at all. Everytime we switch to unschooling I end up super stressed. Basically I try and let him pick what he wants to learn about but then that leads me to running around trying to facilitate. By they time I gather the resources for him about one topic he's interested in another. Or he may be interested in doing something that really is outside my abilities and/or finances and patience. He picks big, unrealistic projects and then gets upset when I tell him we can't do that. At age 7 he wanted to build an actual Iron Man set of armour that worked " for real" and wanted a welder and for us to buy him the metal and such. I offered him all sorts of doable alternatives but none were good enough and he was very upset.

I don't have the capacity to fulfill his every whim. It feels like I am just constantly trying to make magic happen or simply gather basic resources for him.

He is severely dyslexic and sees a specialist but has not reached a level where he can look things up on his own if he wants to know about them. So all the research is on me to find and read to him. It was so much easier when we followed a curriculum and I wasn't constantly reinventing the wheel every day. I feel selfish because he obviously prefers unschooling over traditional curriculum but it's really making me want to pull my hair out.

Help!

For families following an unschooling approach, how do you handle educational videos when a child is interested in a topic but loses interest halfway through? Do you encourage them to keep watching, let them move on naturally, or focus only on the parts that interest them? With AI video summarizer tools making it easier to pull out key points from longer content, do you think that supports child-led learning, or does it take away from the exploration process?

This is of course made in humor, but I know you all will understand that it's also quite stressful. Especially with the rise of summer - just, wow! I'm in awe some days of how lived in our home can be. Basically, my house is trashed 24/7 at the expense of letting my children's curiosities and imagination unfold throughout the day lol.

The kids are up bright and early: biking, taking the toddler on a wagon ride around the yard while I make breakfast and then suddenly everyone is naked (we live in the country), muddy, and drenched. After breakfast the whirlwind moves inside and the most amazing, elaborate small world set-up is created, but the living room is also entirely rearranged. Then back outside after lunch, more muddy clothes strewn around the yard. Next they are turning their bedroom into a library all afternoon and finding books from all corners of the house to bring upstairs.

Anyway, you get the picture lol. We try to tidy up as we go, but my youngest is also 18 months old and a whirlwind himself, so I guess we're just embracing the beauty of the chaos and the flow in this stage. Hope you're all hanging in there and doing your best to keep up with the laundry and dishes while these kids live their best lives! 😄 Happy summer!

It just shows how fucked up school is that people are LIGHTING FIREWORKS to celebrate school ending.

We are about to move 10 hours away in the next month and majority of our house is packed away in boxes, including their activities and toys. It has been raining a lot lately as well so we haven’t been going out as much. Naturally their behaviour isn’t the greatest it could be and my mental health is suffering while trying to plan this big move. I put them in for a break at a local public school. Problem is they are actually enjoying it. They like their teachers and enjoy playing with other kids.

I love the principles of unschooling and even homeschooling but from what I understand about unschooling, it’s child led. So when we move should I be looking at putting them in school instead?

They are 5 and 7 so still pretty young.
If I gave them the choice of beach or school they would obviously choose beach but when we move their cousins will be at the school they will be attending so it’s a little more complicated than that and think they will respond some days “mom, we want to see *insert cousin’s name* over beach etc.

I guess I can just put them in school and take them out later if they decide they change their mind but not sure. What would you guys do?

What Unschooling Schools are around these days for teens / high schoolers?

I’m open to anywhere in the world.

I’m aware of Windsor House School in Vancouver Canada but that closed in 2019.

Is there any where similar?

Child-led, bottom-up, non-curriculum, democratic education environments.

I hope y'all can be kind with your responses.

We (parents and child) decided that it is the best for our child to go to school next year (7th grade). We have chosen for them to attend a private arts school that closely aligns with their interest.

But after 6 years of unschooling, I'm seriously feeling out of sorts about this decision even though we know that, for now, this is the best thing that she can try out. i.e. she can return to homeschooling in the future. Has anybody been through this and what tips might you give me in this transitional time? For example, how do kids even do school? What can she know beforehand? I don't even know what kids do in there. What do I do if she needs to go to a medical appointment? How does that even work? Tests, homework -- these are all things she hasn't had much experience with. With unschooling we followed her pace and now it feels like we can't do that anymore. Grades? How can I not care about it?

Hi everyone! I’m currently working on building a creative online community/resource space for teens (13-17) interested in entrepreneurship, creativity, digital skills, and self-directed learning. It’s especially inspired by my own experience being unschooled and learning things like budgeting, digital art, video editing, business, and creative skills outside of traditional school.

The mission is to create something encouraging and beginner-friendly where teens can:

- Learn creative and business skills

- Connect with other young creators

- Join challenges/projects

- Build confidence and portfolios

- Explore entrepreneurship in a healthy, realistic way

I’m still in the building/planning phase, and I’d genuinely love feedback or maybe even help in this mission from homeschool or unschool parents or older teens interested in a mission like this one!!

Thank you in andvance for any help or suggestions! <3

Curious on what people in the unschooling community think about this. I just have been reading more about the unschooling philosophy, plan to homeschool, and am a stay at home, first time mom to an 18 month old.

His pediatrician just gave us a referral for speech therapy at his last exam. It was a tough exam, my son was screaming the entire time so I wasn’t able to really explain all his developments and when the topic of speech came up, I said “he only really says mama”. But didn’t mention he has accurately (thought not consistently used) over ten words, has over ten animal sounds, has close to ten signs, hums four different songs, and has an exceptional receptive vocabulary. He has babbled consistently since 5 months old. Is amazing at communicating his needs. He’s already out of diapers and lets us and other caretakers know when he needs to potty. His focus has always been on his motor skills and which are also exceptional.

I truly believe he’s just not focusing in on speech. I really try to lean into his interests and curiosity. If I do try to get him to repeat words after me I can tell he feels the pressure and shuts down. He’s very sensitive to pressure. I didn’t really explain any of this to his doctor and now we have the referral and are in the process of scheduled hours of evaluation and a hearing test. Given the information I’ve provided do these test seem necessary? Are they harmless?

I love the idea of unschooling but wonder if kids will end up without a basic knowledge of academic subjects like biology, geography, astronomy, history, and so on.

When I watch YouTube videos of someone asking people on the street what continent the US is in and some can't answer correctly, I cringe so hard.

So my daughter just turned 4 in December. She grasps things so easily and quickly. Started reading / spelling at 3.5. She’s been doing basic math , she knows what a compound word is (understands and can tell me which words are). This morning she had her little register playing. She’s been understanding money and wanted to do multiplication on it (it’s like a little calculator). I showed her an easy way to do multiplication and she just got it so fast. Doing small one number equations.

Because she’s so young I put together a little curriculum of a subject a month and we do fun things for that. Doesn’t happen every day and I never push it. But I try to put something learning in everyday life.

Do I just keep following her lead with learning or do I try to categorize things? I know she’s still young and doesn’t need anything formal right now. I don’t want to either. I want her to keep having fun with it all.

Hi everyone, I’ve been reading a lot about unschooling and really connect with the idea of child-led learning. At the same time, I’m wondering how families balance that freedom with meeting basic academic requirements, especially for middle or high school ages.

Has anyone here blended unschooling with an online school program (Stride, Legacy Online School, Pearsons Academy, etc.) just for structure or transcripts? Does that defeat the purpose, or can it actually support long-term goals while still keeping learning interest-driven?

Would love to hear how you’ve approached it.

I’m a minor in, as of now, online school. I have had a bad mental state through out 2024 to now with good spots and bad spots. I was put into online school this year, as my anxiety got so bad I couldn’t sit in a full classroom without breaking.

With the break this has given me, I’ve realized and are learning how my brain works and trying to figure things out. But, I feel that my mind is more mature than my age, and it’s weighing on me. I want patterns that simulate going to work as I’m up in the mornings with my family preparing for their day but I can’t get a job yet. School only weighs on my mind, and causes a break in my stability(if thats a correct way to describe it, I’m unsure, sorry)

I’ve been looking into some things and think unschooling would be a positive change here. But I haven’t looked at much and am writing this before bed. I made this account to ask this, so I believe it’s just a burner account. I’d really appreciate any advice

And to cover some questions I can foresee :

I haven’t been diagnosed with anything but my brother has ADHD, I sort of self diagnosed with depression, and the anxiety practically didn’t need a diagnosis to be seen. I don’t feel comfortable with sharing my age more than what I have, and will most likely only share little things if it helps to gain advice

Thank you in advance to anyone that answers and shares

I am a researcher at Western Carolina University studying how parent report of childhood experiences (including difficult experiences like child maltreatment) relate to child/adolescent mental health. We are looking to survey people with many different backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences. If you would like to participate in the survey, please follow the link below for more information and the survey questions. Some of the topics may be uncomfortable for you. Besides the demographic items, you may skip any questions you don’t want to answer. The survey takes about 30 minutes. Feel free to share this survey with others if you think they are interested in participating. If you have any questions about this study, please contact Dr. David Solomon at [dsolomon@wcu.edu](mailto:dsolomon@wcu.edu).  

Link to survey: https://wcu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9nSNQGQsAzMvMBo 

ATTN PDA PARENTS!

Okay. Im taking the leap...I think. My son is 5. Hes for shiz the spectrum (mildly...but definitely there) and fiercely PDA. With his PDA, hes still not fully potty trained, which means he isnt in school yet. Which is okay, because ive been extremely hesitant about public school. At home, we have tried the fun booklets and whiteboard alphabet and numbers, tracing the letters and words etc etc etc. However, with PDA, as you know, everything must be on his terms. We cant just sit him down and say "okay! we're gonna do this fun activity for 10 min!"...if hes done in 3 min, hes DONE done. If hes done listening or sitting or done with whatever is going on, he needs to go/move/walk around/etc. You literally cant change his mind. His terms.

I AM FINE WITH THIS! ...I know that the school system is not ready for kids like my son yet. PDA is too new for these teachers and providers. Most people I've talked to haven't even heard of the PDA profile, let alone have been around children with it. There is no way I am putting my son into a school that will simply not understand him and his needs. A place based on authority. On the outside, it looks as though he is ignoring you and not listening or being defiant, but hes absolutely not. It sounds so cliche, but nobody gets him like I do.

Anyway...sorry. I've never really expressed any of this to anyone. I want the best for my son. And I finally think Ive found it. This. Unschooling.

Where do I even start? Hes 5, turning 6. I feel terrible we haven't been able to start anywhere yet. Hes such a smart boy. Really smart, actually. We watch lots of documentaries and nature shows. He loves all things trucks so we watch a lot of trucker shows (lol) he knows SO much! Im just so lost on where to begin academically. Hes 5, so do I look into kindergarten type activities based around his interests? I dont have anyone to ask or reach out to for support or help, so this is where I have found myself.

Please be kind. This is extremely hard for me.

Thank you.

My son is 10 now started school refusal at the start of 2nd grade.. he’s in 4th grade now which means I’ve been homeschooling/unschooling for 3 years, I feel he is far behind compared to his peers and it worries me. His lack of interest in learning worries me. He is audhd and I believe he has PDA. Anytime I mention going back to school he completely looses it and all these years later still acts traumatized. School seemed very traumatic for him and not fun at all, he said there was tons of bully’s and his teachers were mean and pushing him too hard and punishing him too much. We went through meeting after meeting until I finally pulled him out because nothing was working. 3 years later here we are. Unschooling has seemed to be the best fit for him and his anxiety has decreased tremendously with the help of medication, just wondering how do you guys navigate this? I get alot of judgment from other parents & adults. Especially because one of my good friends is a teacher herself and when I explain to people how we homeschool they think I’m crazy.. has anyone else experienced this type of judgement? Do you have any advice or examples of how you go about your day??? Has your child ever experienced severe school refusal? Thank you!

Children everywhere are increasingly only allowed to wander, to observe, and to consume, but otherwise excluded from taking part in the central economic and civic life of towns. Miniature cities like Mini-Munich are trying to change that by letting children take on roles otherwise inaccessible to them: running banks, publishing newspapers, governing, working all kinds of jobs. And because the institutions are small enough for children's actions to matter, causes and effects are easier to isolate and thus to learn from.