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

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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

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Parenting - A Career Choice or the Only Choice...

© Beverley Paine

As a woman, I see parenting as a career choice. It's the career I chose before I turned 20. I think that had I been well enough I may have worked part time, and shared the parenting workload with Robin, but we tried that out when Roger (now 22) was a toddler and my health deteriorated - I don't survive sustained social settings very well!

We opted for a low income lifestyle that enabled shared parenting duties, rather than dividing them into traditional male/female roles. For the most part we were successful, but gender was definitely against us! And we're both pretty traditional, conservative folk so I ended up helping him build the house while he helped me cook the dinners...

The low income lifestyle was great when the children were young. Living in a shed was an adventure... The kids didn't eat much... Excursions into the garden were educationally satisfying... We didn't need a car that actually worked all the time... Living cheaply was an adventure and I'd recommend it - but only for what it teaches us in how to live simply to simply live. The stress and hassles and worry come time to pay the big bills - council rates, etc - that I could have done without!

Pulling together and sharing the parenting and educating workload was the best we could offer our children. This also meant getting involved in alternative school education, preschool and playgroup. Robin is a much better father for his experiences and I'm an enlightened mother (that is, I learned that dads can be exceptionally capapble mums in all but a few areas!)

When I was a teenager I thought long and hard about how to change the world, because I was deeply disturbed by all the garbage going on. I figured, at the age of 13, that education was the answer, and back then I knew that schools had failed, but didn't know why. I thought that perhaps we needed schools to teach the parents how to parent, because it seemed to me that parents weren't parenting properly. I had a lot to learn about parenting! But who would teach the parents - only a parent knows how to parent and most of them were making a mess of things...

So I figured that the only way to change the world was to educate the children, and the only way to do that was on the job training. We learn as we do, and the more we do, the more WE'RE ALLOWED TO FAIL, the better we get at what we're doing. No one likes falling on their faces over and over again. If they are picked up continuously by well meaning others they don't learn to support themselves. If they aren't allowed to trek the path unaided in the first place they haven't got a chance. I figured that the best way to change the world was to WALK BESIDE people as they seek to learn the lessons they need to...

I'm still learning how to walk beside people, without giving in to the urge to assist them before they've asked, with clarity, for help. And that's the job of parenting.

I truly believe there is only one job - career - for humans on this planet. And that is parenting. It's high time we all started parenting - our kids, your kids, each other.

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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

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I am convinced that your books are going to add
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at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
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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

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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
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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
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"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

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"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
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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.

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Home education is a legal alternative
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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.

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