by Kelly Sherwood One of the major reasons people give for not being comfortable with homeschooling is that the kids won’t get a chance to be around all those other kids at school and get “socialized.” When we first decided to homeschool the kids, we agreed that this was the biggest drawback. Now we’re not […]

by Kelly Sherwood I think parenting requires flexibility more than any other trait. I’ve heard my friends without kids confidently remark about this or that thing that they’ll do with their kids, and I think to myself, “you’re making the classic new/non-parent mistake of assuming that your kids will want all the things that you […]

by Kelly Sherwood I frequently visit a website called Better Explained where the creator of the site explains various math and computer science concepts. His approach to the whole site is to explain things in a way that people develop an intuition about the concepts. This is in contrast to the way that we learn […]

by Kelly Sherwood Every year there are tens of articles across the internet about the hottest careers. The only problem with these lists is that they are in industries that need work done now. Our own children won’t be entering the workforce for at least 10 years, probably more like 15. The careers that are […]

by Kelly Sherwood A major reason that parents choose homeschooling and especially unschooling for their children is that they don’t like the way formal schooling puts kids into boxes and turns learning into something that is rote and disconnected from the real world. We all want our kids to know what a full life is […]

by Kelly Sherwood A major part of parenting is getting kids to do certain things. When they don’t naturally do those things, or they don’t want to do those things, we have to figure out how to get them to do those things. Google provides this definition of discipline – “train (someone) to obey rules […]

by Kelly Sherwood There are a whole bunch of books out there about epistemology and I haven’t really read any of them. This post isn’t scientific, but it’s my attempt to explain the way I think about learning new stuff, and I think it has pretty general applicability, especially when you’re thinking about trying to […]

by Kelly Sherwood I remember when I graduated from high school, I was very nervous to go to college. When I graduated college, I was very nervous to go to law school.  When I graduated from law school, I was very nervous to get a real job as a real lawyer. And then I met […]

by Kelly Sherwood I often hear the phrase “put her (or his) life on hold to take care of the kids.” This phrase is most often used in the context of a couple of high-earners, one of whom decides to take time off work to become a stay-at-home parent. I take issue with this phrase, […]

by Kelly Sherwood It’s become cliche for unfulfilled professionals to ditch the suits and skyscrapers for a farm. Livin’ off the land holds a lot of appeal to a lot of people. It’s also become a cliche for people to spend a lot of time and money to find out that farming isn’t as fulfilling […]