Shannon Loucks joins me to talk about unschooling, parenting, and her new book, Love More: 50+ ways to build joy into childhood. Shannon’s an unschooling mom with two boys and she believes in the power of play and partnership as a way to bring more joy and love into our children’s lives. We dive into the story behind the book, the value of patience in our relationships, the deschooling shift to seeing the child rather than the behaviour, what she loves most about their unschooling lives right now, and lots more!

Questions for Shannon

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family and how long
you’ve been unschooling?

My imprint, Forever Curious Press, recently published your book, Love More: 50+ ways to build joy into childhood. I love the book, and I’d love to hear the story behind your choice to write it. How did that come about?

I thought we’d dive into a couple of the ideas in the book. It’s divided into two sections, so let’s do one from each. The first section is Love in Action, and I thought we could talk about your suggestion to ‘Smell the Roses.’ Can you share your thoughts around it?

The second section is, Love in Presence. To me, the distinction between the two sections feels like ‘things to do’ and ‘ways to be.’ From this section, I’d love to talk about the idea to ‘See the Child, Not the Behavior.’ As you mention, this is so much easier said than done. But it’s such a valuable shift, isn’t it?

Your book is full of inspiration and ideas about how to bring more fun, more love, and more joy into your days. Why does that aspect of parenting feel important to you? So important that you chose to write a book about it to share with the world.

What do you love most about your unschooling lives right now?

Things mentioned in the episode

Check out Shannon’s book, Love More: 50+ ways to build joy into childhood

And here’s the book trailer!

Shannon’s earlier podcast episode, EU063: Gentle Parenting with Shannon Loucks 

You can read more of Shannon’s writing and connect with her on her blog, on her Facebook page, and on Instagram.

Episode Transcript

Read the episode transcript