EU411: On the Journey with Sam

We’re back with another On the Journey episode! Pam, Anna, and Erika had a powerful conversation with Living Joyfully Network member and unschooling dad Sam. Sam shared deeply about his journey with his daughter through autistic burnout. We talked about Sam’s experiences in both PDA and unschooling parent communities, the depth of the inner work that this journey involves, and some of the major paradigm shifts that Sam has made along the way. It was a really meaningful conversation and we hope it resonates with you! Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube. THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE We invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family. We offer a free month trial so you can see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us. Sign up to our mailing list on Substack to receive our email newsletters as well as new articles about learning, parenting, and so much more! Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about exploring unschooling and navigating relationships. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT ANNA: Hello, everyone. I’m Anna Brown from Living Joyfully and today I’m joined by my co-hosts Erika Ellis and Pam Laricchia, as well as our special guest today, Sam. Hello to you all.  I really appreciate Sam joining us today. He’s a member of the Living Joyfully Network and it’s been really nice getting to know his story and watch how things have unfolded. He brings that thoughtful, intentional energy that I love about the Network. That energy helps fuel my own personal growth and create a beautiful, supportive environment where we can dig deeper and question the prevailing narratives. So, Sam, to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about you and your family and what everybody’s interested in right now?  SAM: Sure, yeah. Well, I live in Minneapolis with my wife Kate and my daughter. I recently retired from work early. I did the early retirement thing. I had been working part time for the year previous to that. And so, I guess I can start a little bit with what my daughter’s into. I mentioned to her that this was going to be one of the questions and she said interior design and interior decorating and games. And then I would add a few things to that, too. Right now, she’s super into making slime, large amounts of slime in many different permutations. There’s lots of experimentation happening with different ingredients and add-ins and colors and that kind of thing. So, that’s kind of fun and messy. She has a wide doll collection and she’s been really into making her own rooms. She calls them mini rooms and they’re essentially like dollhouse rooms, like a kitchen or a bedroom.  She makes one room at a time and adds them on to each other and buys these little, tiny little Mini Brand versions of real life products that she stocks in the doll refrigerator really intricately. And I guess that ties into her interior design interest, as well. She’s super creative. She really likes to do drawing. She makes videos and she actually, I’m kind of amazed at some of the videos that she makes because she’s, I don’t even think I said she’s nine. And so she uses her iPad to make videos and she has her own YouTube channel. She has two YouTube channels, which are not updated too frequently. It’s something she’ll get really into and then completely abandon and then six months later be really into it again. And so, that’s fun. And then she likes building forts. She likes pla