At first I thought I would like this book. It had some ideas in it that weren't super original, but I agreed with. But as the book went on, I noticed more and more things I disagreed with. Perhaps it's just my type A personality. If you are a big believer in unschooling, give this book a try, it might be more for you.

I agree with some of the advice. Obviously if your child(ren) are whispering and poking each other and not listening while you drone on about the periodic table, something needs to change. The environment, the curriculum, the timing, the atmosphere, the learning style...but to completely give up on basically every curriculum and take on the attitude 'they will get it', just isn't okay with me.

The fact that her child didn't know how to read by age 8 (I understand, my son has a genetic deletion as well as speech apraxia, he very well may not be reading by age 8) and her solution wasn't to teach him, it was to trust that he would teach himself basically...and she could just point out words that he needed help with...well that made me lose all hope in this book. I am such a believer in phonics and especially with English, there are so many rules about letter combinations I think the approach to let them teach themselves does a huge disservice to those children.

It was a similar approach with math, stating multiple times that she's not a math wiz or math genius, and doing simple things like baking in the kitchen (again, an important and fun event, but not the be all end all the teaching math) will be enough.

I think we can look at our own lives and what skills we use and say we don't need x, y, and z but I strongly believe that's not our jobs as parents. It's to teach our children all the skills required for them to make their own choices in life. To limit them, is beyond sad.

Also noticed typos and repeated paragraphs in this book that bothered me. I get mistakes happen, but it just looked unprofessional.