Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

HomeAbout Blog Articles Curriculum Resource Directory Shop Facebook

Download our FREE The Educating Parent Resource Directories today! Plus... more FREE resources!

Free download a quick guide to getting started with homeschooling and unschooling by Beverley Paine The Educating Parent in this excellent Resource Directory

 

Free directory of Australian homeschooling and unschooling support groups organised by national, state and territories

 
Plan, record and report all in the one document! Always Learning Books planners available in each year level to suit your homeschooling needs, includes curriculum checklists
Let Beverley and friends help you design and write your own curriculum to suit your child's individual learning needs, learn how to prepare lessons, unit studies and more, record and evaluate your children's learning in this series of 3 parent workbooks developed on Beverley's popular homeschool manual Getting Started with Home School Practical Considerations
this Always Learning Year 7 Plan is everything you need to get started a comprehensive collection of curriculum aligned resources and links to activities, lesson plans and unit studies for your year 7 homeschooling student
Introduction to
Home Education
  National and State
Support Groups
  Yearly Planner, Diary & Report Series of How To
Parent Workbooks
Homeschool Learning Plans

Support Groups: National SA VIC NSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information?
Join Beverley's The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook online group.

 

Learning not to judge how others parent and educate their children

by Beverley Paine, 2013

When my youngest was about six I studied university by distance ed and one of the subjects challenged my biases, made me realise how my own cultural upbringing and values coloured how I perceived and judged what other people do and why.

It is hard to be objective and sympathetic when it comes to the way other people chose to parent their children. I realised that caused a lot of grief in my personal life (judging my parents' parenting, my sister-in-law's parenting, the way friends' parent, etc).

Letting go of the need to be 'right', to judge that one method is better than others, was an important lesson. My motto now is "what works, what doesn't work, in this situation, at this particular point of time, with these people". Open-mindedness, flexibility, adaptability, honesty guide me and help to moderate my natural tendency towards intolerance and arrogance.

What works for an Ethiopian mother living an agricultural subsistence life, or a mother in China juggling full time work in a crowded competitive city, or a homeschooling single parent living in Australia works for them: I trust that if it stopped working for them they'd adjust, adapt, change, grow, learn and find ways to make life and learning work again. That's what mothers everywhere do.

And that's what I did. I was an atrocious young parent, full of ideas, knew it all, was going to bring up kids the way they should be brought up. The practice of parenting brought me down to earth very quickly! I was lost, really lost, for a very long time. 

Little by little my wonderfully stubborn, spirited, independent, strong-willed children taught me (ever so patiently and with great forgiveness of my ignorance and slowness to learn) how I needed to parent them. I am happy with what I've learned, it seems to work for me and for lots of my friends. But not all of my friends - and because of that I'm always learning about other ways of parenting, as well as being an educating parent, and that's awesome.

There are things we can learn from everyone and everything if we open our minds to the learning opportunities embedded in every moment. 
The things I feel most passionate about, that arouse my emotions, seem to be the things I need to learn something about. My emotion tells me there is a need to grow in some direction. I get excited when that happens, even if the emotional intensity is unpleasant and I'd rather not go there right now... Being challenged by difference is exciting, as well as scary and confusing and annoying.

For a long time my tendency was to be critical and tear things down, break them apart, find the fault or problem. I was brought up like that. I think our culture and our educational system encourages that kind of thinking. 

I am working hard now to build, construct, put things together in ways that they work: aiming for mutually beneficial relationships and connections.

It's too easy to pick someone's life apart and point out where they are going wrong or making mistakes (in our opinion, view, perspective, values), but it distracts us from learning what we need to learn from that situation, what it can give us. I stop myself as often as I can now when I catch myself thinking and operating from that old paradigm.

Was this article helpful? Was it worth $1.00 to you? Your gift of $1 or more helps to keep this site operating offering encouragement and reassurance to families wanting better outcomes for their children.

Thank you for your gift contribution!

Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.

"You've been an inspiration to me, I love the way
you really listen to people."
Vanessa

"Whenever I read your writing I always come away
with increased confidence in my ability to provide and
share a wonderful learning journey with my family!"
Davina

"Your guidance, understanding, support and words of
wisdom changed our lives. We now offer support and
organise many homeschooling events for others."
Lesley

"Thank you once again for your prompt and friendly service.
I am convinced that your books are going to add
quality and peace of mind to my journey of teaching my kids
at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
2am in the morning, I 've been encouraged!"
Louisa

"Thank you for all your many,many reassuring words
over many, many years. You probably don't know exactly how valuable you are to the Australian Home Education community. I've been reading your stuff for maybe 8 years or more now. And I'm very grateful."
Gythaa

image is 3 workbooks for parents set on a background showing bushland, DIY home ed curriculum planning, recording, evaluating, write your own curriculum
Want to learn how to write your own education plans
to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

Or you are looking for quality curriculum and teaching tips...

Comprehensive 3 workbook 'how to home ed' course
covering the essential skills you need
successfully home educate your children


 

 

Welcome to the World of Home Education
and Learning without School!

We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine

3 ESSENTIAL STEP BY STEP GUIDES

Getting Started with
Home Educating Series of

PARENT WORKBOOKS

#1 Create Your
Own Curriculum

#2 DIY Lesson Plans
& Unit Studies

#3 Recording and Evaluation Made Simple

$10.00 each (includes postage)

let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration with part 1 of this getting started with home educating serioes of parent workbooks, Create Your Own Curriculum!
Let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration!

To see the full range of Beverley Paine's books on homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning visit Always Learning Books

Tap into Beverley's experience
through her books

"Your books, your blogs helped me beyond words... they helped me to find comfort in knowing it is ok to choose exactly what is best for my family." Nisha

"Your books and information are mind blowing and already I am feeling good about this new experience." Diane

"Your guidance, understanding, support & words of wisdom changed our lives." Leslie

"I feel specially inspired by Beverley's words and, the more I read her comments, the more inspired I feel, since my need for support, respect for different parenting styles, and information are fully met." Marijo
purchase Beverley's practical and common sense books on homeschooling and unschooling
Connect with Beverley and ask questions
through her online The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook support group
.

click here to become a Fearless Homeschool member giving you access to all past summit workshops as well as exciting new content and webinars, online discussion platform, and more

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.

Advertise on this site.

say goodbye to home education registration stress with this ultimate rego bundle from Fearless Homeschool

make homeschooling a lot easier, zero to homeschool's excellent course is here to help

Australia's best home education consultant, let Tamara Kidd guide and help you prepare your home education registration application or review

Twinkl downloadable Home education resources helping you teach confidently at home

Online science lessons for primary school aged home educating children

Home education is a legal alternative
to school education in Australia.
State and Territory governments are responsible
for regulating home education and have different
requirements, however home educating families
are able to develop curriculum and learning programs
to suit the individual needs of their children.

animated Australian flag

Without revenue from advertising
by educational suppliers and Google Ads
we could not continue to provide information
to home educators. Please support us by letting
our advertisers know that you found them on
The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Support Centre
Contact Us | Join a Support Group | Beverley's Books | Resource Directory | Blog | Donate

About The Educating Parent
Beverley Paine | April Jermey and Always Learning Books | Advertise with us

Sitemap

What is Home Education Why Home Educate Getting Started & Registering Different Ways to Home Educate
Life as a Home Educator Resources & Support Teens and Beyond Curriculum and Teaching Tips
Unschooling & Natural Learning Travelling & Home Educating Record Keeping Children's Pages

animated smiling face Thank you for visiting!

The opinions and articles included on this website are not necessarily those of Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent, nor do they endorse or recommend products listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements on pages within this website.
Disclosure: Affiliate links are used on this site that take you to products or services outside of this site.  Please review products and services completely prior to purchasing through these links. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question before purchasing or signing up. Always Learning Books, April Jermey assume no responsibility for those purchases or returns of products or services as a result of using these affiliate links.

If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions about this site, please feel free to contact us.


Text and images on this site © All Rights Reserved 1999-2024.