EU317: Unschooling in Context with Anna Brown

Anna Brown joins me for another Unschooling in Context episode! This time, we explore unschooling in the context of boundaries, comfort zones, and capacity. This topic came up as we were diving into cultivating self-awareness in the Living Joyfully Network last month and we wanted to talk about it here too!

Setting boundaries is a popular topic in parenting and self-development circles, but the energy of that term can feel confrontational or rigid when we think about our relationships with our children. We talk about how the term “comfort zone” has a different feel and how capacity may be a good lens to look through when facing challenging times. This conversation is a deep dive into how our word choices and the stories we tell ourselves impact our relationships. It’s so much fun to explore!

Discussion Points

• Boundaries are popular in conventional self-care circles but setting boundaries can lead to disconnection in our relationships with our children.
• Shifting from boundaries to comfort zones, advocating for our needs without drawing a line in the sand.
• We can choose to stretch our comfort zones or to operate outside our comfort zones.
• When we are faced with limitations, capacity can be a helpful description. Capacity changes depending on the context and doesn’t feel as rigid as a boundary, while still being communicative.

Things Mentioned in the episode

The Living Joyfully Network

EU249: Unschooling in Context – Consent

EU275: Stories with Anna Brown

Transcript

Read the transcript

Video

Watch the YouTube video

The Living Joyfully Network community

The Network is a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. Our shared goals are to embrace lifelong learning, develop strong and connected relationships with our children, and cultivate a thriving unschooling lifestyle in our families.

This month, our theme is Four Pillars of Unschooling, loosely based on my book, Free to Learn. We’re focusing on one pillar each week: redefining learning, following their interests, making choices, and “Why not yes?”

If you’re curious to learn more, click here!

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I deeply appreciate all my patrons! Your generous support helps pay for the hosting and transcription, as well as my time spent creating new episodes each week. It’s instrumental in keeping the growing podcast archive freely available to anyone who’s curious and wants to explore the fascinating world of unschooling. If you’d like to join my community of patrons and scoop up some great rewards along the way, check out the Exploring Unschooling page on Patreon.