We are homeschoolers. Better even: we are unschoolers. Unschooling means that children learn at their own pace, things that interest them, right at that moment. And for the parents, it means to trust that even though sometimes it seems like they are not learning, they always are. Lately, I've decided that we lean even more towards the radical unschooling method, rather than the 'normal' way. What this means is that we're all unschooling, the kids and I. But also that we're learning what interests us, but also live the way we want. Trust me: I haven't got this down to 100% just yet, but we'll get there.
The thing with radical unschooling is that children will make their own choices in pretty much everything, with my guidance of course and more or less depending on the child. In our house, if I don't send my kids to bed, they will be around me 20 hours a day, especially the youngest. So even though we don't really have set bedtimes, there is a time when I need them to be out of my hair, and I will tell them this. It works both ways this radical unschooling. It's all about setting examples, but also healthy limits in my opinion.

If I feel that it's 'too much', I should be able to express this, with respect, just like they have the freedom to do.
When it comes to food, I tweaked the way my parents did it: you need to try everything, and if you really don't like it, you don't have to eat it. Unfortunately, in our house, this meant you were limited to 2-3 things, and the rest, you'd just have to eat. I remember those long evenings at the table, pushing the food back and forth because I wasn't allowed to leave the table till it was done (the dog LOVED me). I hated it. So I changed this to: try everything, but if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it.
This was fine with my eldest, and then the other two. However, my youngest changed this a bit. He will try it when he wants to, and won't when he doesn't want to. Now, this changes because it could be that he likes to try something today, that he didn't yesterday. Some people might say that he won't eat a thing this way, but I don't have any concerns. The thing is, throughout the day, he'll eat apples, oranges, bananas and he has no issues eating half a raw broccoli while he's looking through his books. So to me, there is really no urgency to 'make' him eat anything he doesn't want to eat because he eats healthy naturally. He's also the forager among the kids: he'll try to eat anything outdoors (unless we know it's poisonous of course) and loves most of the things he picks.

The worry of (not) learning

I've been homeschooling the kids for a while now. My eldest since she was 13, for 2.5 years.
She went back to school, but she is still unschooled at heart. She's 17.5 now and even tells me that she learned more in those 2.5 years at home than what she learns now.
My two middle children only went to resp. one and two years of kindergarten, or pre-school. And my youngest never went to school. Altogether, it's been a little more than 5 years.

There have always been doubts. Sometimes less, other times overwhelming.
Nowadays, they are barely present. I know we're on the right track...most of the time.
We got rid of curriculums. At first, I kept doing maths and reading and writing on a regular basis, but even that has changed. They read and write enough, no point making it into a lesson. And maths? Well, they use it all day long, and if they need to know something new, they pick it up in no time.

But still, I felt like I needed to teach my youngest son how to read. He's going to be 5 in June, and I thought he should at least know how to spell his name. But these were only the lies that are still present in my brain. He doesn't NEED to DO ANYTHING!
I still spoke to him about it. Would he like to learn how to read? He answered with an abrupt: 'no.'
When I told him that he'd be able to read stories, and about his dinosaurs in his books, he got a little more interested, but still not enough to say he wanted to learn how to read. My eldest son taught himself how to read, and with my youngest, I would just love it if I were the one to teach him. And another lie my brain is plagued with. It's MY wish to teach him but maybe he has something else in mind.

S for Spiderman

source

He showed me that there's nothing to worry about in regards to his reading. He's already learning it and I didn't have a clue!
Last year, he already knew the sign for Bitcoin. He pointed at the logo and said BITCOIN.
Well, now if I ask what B stands for, he replies: B is for Bitcoin.
And the S? Simple: Spiderman. (yeah, he knows Steem, but prefers to use Spiderman)
The X for X-men. Sure, he doesn't know the whole alphabet yet, but that's OK. He'll work his way through A for Avengers, C for Captain America, H for Hulk, and M for Marvel. He loves dinosaurs and the other day he said: 'Mommy, I want to be a digger when I grow up.' So I told him: 'That sounds great! And what will you be digging for?' 'Well, dinosaur bones of course', was the answer. Of course, dinosaurs. I told him that there is actually a name for people who dig up dinosaurs for a living, and his eyes got big when he realized that he could actually make a living with his favorite past-time. And eventually... he'll read. He's only 5. Let's see where we're at next year around this time.

And my eldest son? He is able to name a lot of the countries by looking at their flags. How? Because he likes to watch videos of gamers and sometimes they will show the person's country flag in the videos. To be honest, he knows more than me!

My daughter, 11 in two weeks, will just randomly pick up a book and read it from front to back. The other day she was telling me about the Egyptians and Tutankhamon. When I asked where she learned that, she replied: 'Oh, the history book on the shelf. I read the whole thing...' She's now making little videos with characters she makes in a game. I never told her to, she just came up with it herself.

No worries

I am not a (radical) unschooling expert. Not even close. The only thing I can go by is what I observe in my kids and in what they do. I don't force them to learn, because they want to learn. One may be quicker to learn how to read, while the other takes his time, but meanwhile takes in everything he sees around him and learns from that.
I have a mini-coder/gamer, a little film-maker/dancer/sports-woman, and a miniature archeologist who can find his own food if he needs to and an almost grown teenager who doesn't quite know what she wants to do but has a good time figuring it out for herself.

Not bad...not bad at all.