This week Anna Brown and I talk about our theme in the Living Joyfully Network this month, Supporting Our Partners. We chose the word “partners” to represent any important adults in our family’s lives who have active relationships with our children—spouses, co-parents, significant others, grandparents, and so on. Our partners are an important part of our unschooling lives and taking the time to focus on and nurture those relationships benefits the whole family.

It was fun to see that so many of the tools and ideas we talk about are the same ones we have used to strengthen our relationships with our children. We can connect with our partner through their interests, intentionally seeing who they are as a person outside of their family “role.” We talk about developing trust in them and nurturing their trust in us, which in turn helps them build strong relationships with the kids and feel like a valuable part of the family. The ripples that emerge from supporting our partners bring even more joy to our family’s days!

Discussion areas

• The first step in supporting our partner is strengthening our connection with them. We want them to feel truly seen and heard by us. Let’s talk about some tools for doing that.
• Ways we approach challenging moments or conversations that keep our connection at the forefront.
• As our connection with our partner strengthens, we can take the next step: extending trust.
• Ways we can support our partner as they develop their own relationships with the kids.
• Ways we can support our partner as they learn more about unschooling.

Links to things mentioned in the episode

Check out the Living Joyfully Network

The 5 Love Languages

The Not Back to School episode of the podcast

Transcript

Read the transcript

Video

Watch the YouTube video

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