I’d like you to meet the mom at A Homegrown Life. She’s an unschooler with three boys. I love her blog name: Crunchy Christian Mom.

Tell us the ages of your kids and how long you’ve been homeschooling.

My boys are 2.5, 6.5 and almost 8 — which is killing me. I can’t believe my firstborn is almost 8 years old!! This means I’ve been a mom twice as long as I was a paid professional. Kinda crazy.  And we’ve been unschooling from the beginning. We started reading John Holt after hearing about unschooling when our oldest was a toddler, and it just made sense.

Describe your homeschool.

For us, homeschooling is just our life. Our routine changes with the seasons and with our interests. We’re a very social family, so we have a lot of homeschooling friends we do things with — field trips, parties, themed co-ops.  Whatever sounds fun. My oldest is a blue belt in kung fu and practices two days per week. He and my second son take swim lessons right now, and when that’s finished they’ll take rockclimbing. They are very active boys!  We can get pretty busy, so I’m constantly trying to find a balance between outside activities and time to just be at home.  We have a garden we’re trying to expand this year, and the boys are starting to read, so I want to make sure we have time for those things right now. And time to clean the bathroom!

Tell us why you homeschool this way (philosophy stuff).

Well, my husband is a teacher, so he sees firsthand the limitations of coerced “learning.” So many of the kids he works with don’t know how to think and don’t value learning for its own sake. We were both early readers, and did fine in school, but felt like a lot of our childhood was wasted sitting in a classroom. Unschooling makes sense to us because it values the child’s own ability to think and learn, and gives them the time and freedom to do it at their own pace, and in their own way. It’s been a learning process for us, certainly, and there’s been some doubt along the way, but ultimately we trust that God has led us to teach our children through example, relationship, and real life. And it seems to be working!

Have you ever had to defend your homeschooling style? What did you say?

I think I was more defensive of our parenting style at the beginning than anything else. We’re very close to my parents, and getting through the toddler years without punishment was a stretch for them. But we did get through it, and they see the positive results now. We have AWESOME kids.    Fortunately, my family has always been supportive of our homeschooling, even if they’ve had questions along the way.  As far as anyone else goes, I only explain as much as I think they’re really interested in understanding.  I don’t feel like I owe anyone an explanation of why we do what we do.  But I do enjoy evangelizing to parents of pre-schoolers!  LOL.

What’s the most challenging part of homeschooling?

The hardest part for me is just keeping my priorities straight.  This lifestyle allows so much freedom that it’s easy to get pulled in a million different directions — or even just a couple big distracting ones. And then I realize we’re getting sick because we haven’t had enough downtime. You know, time to get the housework done and then crash on the couch with a good book. I have to make sure I’m really listening to God about what’s important, focusing on what my kids need most from me, and letting the other stuff wait its turn.

What’s the most fun about homeschooling?

What isn’t fun about homeschooling?!  Seriously, I can’t think of anything. (Except maybe cleaning glitter out of the grooves in my dining table. But even that was a reminder of the fun we’d had.) Definitely all the opportunities we have to hang out together, doing cool stuff with our friends and exploring the world together.  It just doesn’t get better than that. Well, it could if my hubby didn’t have to go to school. We wish he could be with us all day, too. Thankfully, he gets lots of time off in the summer!

Do you have a favorite/guiding verse or passage of the Bible that keeps you going?

God’s always leading me to new ones just when I need them! But this one sticks with me and brings me back to Him when I start to wander: “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deut. 31:8

Thanks for answering all these questions. I feel like I know you a whole lot better now. Is there anything else you’d like to say?

It’s really such a blessing to be able to connect with other homeschooling moms online. I love seeing what everyone else is doing — not just to get ideas, but to know that our lives are so full of similar experiences and abundant possibilities!

Jena is a homeschooling mom of three teenagers (one off to college and one checking out public school this year). She has been relaxed/unschooling for most of her home school career. She writes at www.yarnsoftheheart.com, runs http://www.dailylearners.com, and writes at http://lifewithoutschool.typepad.com/.