Live Where You Are

Life can get messy.  I'm tired this morning after a night full of Chatterbox and Baby taking turns in waking me up.  As I cough up what feels like chunks of my lungs, I'm thinking it's waaaaay too long sinceI visited either my own grandmother, or my husband's grandmother.  But I shouldn't visit them while I'm sick...

And a hundred thoughts of what I would like to do if I could are swirling around in my head.  But I'm finally learning something which I wish I'd really understood a looooong time ago.  I need to accept today for what it is.  As long as I give brain space to all the coulda, shoulda, wanna thoughts, I'm wasting this day that I'm living in right now.

As a kid, I spent so many years waiting to be a grown up.  Then, as a uni student, I was killing time waiting for the love of my life to come along.  Well, not completely - I had other plans too, but it wasn't until I was into my second year of uni that I finally "clicked" that I was living life, not waiting for it to begin - that I needed to live where I was, rather than waiting to be somewhere else.  That I needed to choose to live with purpose now, rather than drift in a sea of what-ifs.

But it's easy to forget that while, yes, I need to make plans and have intentions, in the end I can only actually live where I am right now.  If I want to be somewhere else, then I need to actually go there, rather than just waiting to magically arrive.

In other words, instead of longing for the day when my kids are more independent, I need to actually equip them for independence today... or, if that's not an option, I need to switch off the pointless longings and work on something that I can actually do.  I need to live where I am.

Yes, there is a place for healthy grief when our dreams are blown out of the water.  I've been there more than once.  But if grief is threatening to swallow me alive, then something needs to change.  I need to accept today as it is and live where I am.  Not where I wish I was.

Today, for me, that means resting, praying, reading the Bible, eating well, getting out in the sun, sitting here writing... wedged in between the reality of being a mother of four still-young girls.  Instead of fighting that reality, I need to embrace it, accept it and do it with all of my might.

Nope, there's no glamour and glory in laundry and dishes and brushing hair and guiding four little people in a hundred mundane and barely-visible ways.  But that's where I live right now, so that's what I need to do with all my might.

So how about you join me today?  Live where you are.  Accept today for what it is and live it for the glory of God.

What Will We Write?

Day after day, we write messages to our children that they will carry into the future.  Some are in words, many more are in actions.

They won't necessarily live by what we write.  They won't necessarily remember with their minds, but somewhere in the people they become will be a memory of our daily messages.

My oldest isn't even ten yet, so how can I know this?  Because I see it in myself, and I see it in the people around me.  As adults, we choose our paths through life and our parents deserve neither the credit, nor the blame, for where we land.  But.  Childhood experiences can either smooth the journey or... "rough" it.

So what will we write?

Will they grow up knowing that anything good is worth working for?  Will they grow up believing that mistakes are opportunities? ... Or disasters?  Will they wonder why the world is out to get them? ... Or will they recognise that stupidity has a price tag and learn to make better choices next time?  Will life be all about them, or all about others?  Above all, will they be willing to grow? ...Or will they want to put down roots where they are, as they are, and stay there for the rest of their lives?

Our messages are everywhere.  In our expectations.  And in our lack of expectations.  In our tone of voice.  In our silence.  Written on our faces.  Even if we don't know what we are saying, our kids will.

Do we expect our children to rise to their potential?  Or are we happy for them to putter along in a state of mediocrity (for them) because they are "bright" (by the world's standards), content with their feeble efforts at maintaining the status quo.  Or, on the other hand, do we try to drag our children up to an impossible standard (for them) because they are "slow" (by the world's standards), never satisfied with their courage and persistence in reaching for an unreasonable goal?

What will we write?

Will we congratulate our children for merely not making trouble and not being "bad"?  Or will we teach them to strive for what is good and right?  By striving for what is good and right ourselves?

Will our children learn that saying sorry is to be avoided at all costs, because it is an admission of guilt and failure?  Or will they learn to own up and say sorry... time after time, if necessary?  Will they learn that it is enough that they "didn't mean to", or will they learn to "mean not to"?

We live in a world that will write messages to our children as well.

Will we let our children slide along with the culture and absorb their values from movies and social media because we really can't be bothered to be connected to them?  Because we just don't have the time and energy to spare from our own dreams and pursuits to truly plug into their lives?

Whoever we are, wherever we are, this parenting gig is hard, hard, hard work if we care about doing it right.  We will write messages to our children, by our presence, or our absence.  The question is, what will we write?

So You're Thinking About Homeschooling...

It's been four and a half years now since we first officially started our homeschooling journey.  I've learnt a lot in that time, and expect to keep on learning for the rest of my life.  Four plus years on, this post is for anyone thinking about taking that step into the unknown (although it will probably be most useful to parents of young children since my oldest is grade four level, so I have no experience in homeschooling older children).

Much of what I would like to suggest is not what we did from the start, but what I wish we did from the start.  Hopefully others might benefit from some of my stumbling-along-in-the-dark experiences.

First of all, I would encourage you to examine your reasons really carefully.  Ponder them, pray about them, talk about them to anyone who will listen, write them down...  Because, at some point, things will go pear-shaped.  Life is like that.  Stuff goes wrong.  If you send your kid(s) to school stuff will go wrong.  If you keep your kid(s) at home stuff will go wrong.  The difference is, that if you keep your kids home, homeschooling is much more likely to get the blame for things that go wrong and there is a high likelihood that someone (or everyone, as the case may be) will suggest school as the solution.  The reverse (those around you suggesting that school is the problem and homeschooling is the solution) may happen, but is far less common.

So.  Homeschooling goes against the status quo, and you can expect that there may be people in your life who will take every opportunity to pressure you to put your kids in school.  For that reason, it's best to have some clarity in your own mind about why you want to homeschool and about what the "deal-breakers" are for you.  Otherwise, you will vulnerable to every dissenting voice you hear - and if you're unlucky there may be many dissenting voices.  I've been fortunate to be surrounded by support, but it seems that my situation is very rare.

Are you considering homeschooling for academic reasons?  Are you willing to give up the hours of your day, five days a week to provide the mental stimulation or "head start" that may enhance your child's adult life?  Are you happy to give up the potential extra income or time pursuing your own interests, or time with younger children for that cause?

Are you concerned about bullying?  What if your kid gets bullied outside of school?  What if life is harder in the future because he or she doesn't know how to "fit in" with "normal" people?

I'm playing the devil's advocate here, because some parents start homeschooling with high hopes, unreachable ideals and unachievable expectations.  Only to be flattened by the reality that kids are still kids and don't always "pick up" bad behaviour from others. I'm an ardent advocate of homeschooling, but I'm also an ardent advocate of living in reality.

If you can, I would really encourage you to discuss homeschooling with those nearest and dearest to you.  If you are really willing to hear them and also respectfully share your perspective, they are much more likely to be "on your side", whatever you decide in the end.  Parents or close friends may bring up valid concerns that you hadn't considered - or they may surprise you with a more objective view of the school system as a whole (if they don't have kids themselves - if they have their own kids, then they will probably struggle to be completely objective - I know I do).  We did talk to our families about homeschooling before we took that step, and I'm glad we did.  We also asked some  teaching professionals (who we greatly respected, but weren't in our closest circle of friends) what they thought about homeschooling.

Everyone we spoke to brought a different perspective and helped us create a big picture that enabled us to decide that public school was not a landscape we wanted to paint our kids into at that time.  (Private school was out of the question financially.)

Above all, please, please go beyond the questions of academic and social considerations.  This is not a post about why you should homeschool your kids.  It's a post about why you should think about the decisions you make about your child(ren)'s future.  I respect those who weigh up their options and decide to send their kids to school.  I worry about kids whose parents just.... decide.

Find out what the school system is about.  (Don't just go on hearsay.) The education department has goals  for your children.  Are you happy with those goals?  If not, can you still come to a compromise?  How do you feel about your little girl or boy being under the authority of someone who may reject your dearest values?  What will you do if your little one is "sick" every school morning?  What will you do if your child starts telling you that she wants to marry her best friend (also a girl), because her best friend's Mummy married a girl (a valid question for homeschoolers as well as "schoolers")?  What will you do when your child gets in trouble for doing something that you think was right?

I'm not suggesting that I have a bunch of right answers for these questions - but that we all, as parents, need to get into the habit of pro-acting instead of reacting.

Although many of us enter homeschooling territory as a reaction - either to our own past, or that of our children - homeschooling as a reaction to all the bad stuff "out there" has a very limited shelf life.  At some point, to be truly successful, homeschooling has to start being proactive - it has to start being about all the great stuff we can give to our children beyond the school system (in the end, all parents are homeschoolers - just some choose to send their kids to school away from home during "business" hours).

If we are simply running away from school, then disillusionment is sure to strike at some point.  If we have a mission and a vision for our families, then it's a whole lot easier to make good decisions for our kid(s) based on whether a particular tool is going to take us where we're going - because we're actually following a predetemined path.  If we're running away, then the  myriad of possible paths leading away from our fear can be bewildering.

So I'm encouraging you to think about where you're going and why.  Have a direction, have goals, have a purpose, choose a path.  It's a lot easier to fill in the details if you really know why you're doing what you're doing.  Advanced calculus doesn't seem quite so important when you put it into the context that you are teaching a very creative, artistic child to be a good steward with her talents.  You can relax when she hits a brick wall with fractions, remembering that she is unlikely to choose engineering as a profession... and that's OK.  On the other hand, maybe you'll push her through the fractions for the sake of the character that comes from doing something hard and unpleasant.  Either way, it's all about the mission and the vision - as long as those are uppermost, you'll experience a lot less (of your own) tears and frustration.

Whether you homeschool or send your kids to school, there will be days when you will question yourself and your decisions.  You will experience guilt - it is the inheritance of motherhood (sorry dads, if you're reading this). BUT.  If you have laid the foundations of purposeful parenting, then you can either put the guilt where it belongs (in the bin) ... or reconsider your circumstances and determine whether it's time for a new approach to how you are going to achieve your mission.  Hopefully we start with a mission and a vision to last a lifetime, but hopefully we also have the humility to revisit our very reasons for being if necessary.

The Things We Don't Say

As our girls get older, homeschooling gets scarier.  Easier in some ways, yes, but still scarier.

There's more at stake now, you see.  If a six-year-old can't read, it's easy enough to shrug it off and diagnose time, that fabulous cure-all.  If a seven-year-old can't read, the anxiety begins to build.  Will time be enough, or are more drastic measures called for?  If an eight-year-old is still struggling to decipher a sentence, there is a definite tightness in the chest...  Well, at least, that's how I'm imagining it would be.  Thankfully my oldest two are reading and Chatterbox is well on her way.  At least there I can breathe a sigh of relief.

But homeschooling a fourth-grader is starting to step up the pressure - albeit internal pressure.  Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed by life.  I find myself wondering each day: "what should I be doing?"  "Am I doing the right thing?" and the eternal question of the homeschooler: "Am I doing enough?"

What if I miss teaching something really important?  Will my kids complain to me as adults about how horribly embarrassing it is to be the only people in their workplace who know absolutely nothing about AFL?  And what about friendships?  We seem to know and spend time with loads of people with kids of Chatterbox's age, but Miss Curie is the one who is starting to really crave friendships and we just don't seem to come across many people around her age who she really "clicks" with.  OK, we just don't seem to come across many people her age at all lately.

Who do I talk to about these challenges?  I don't want to talk to our friends with kids at school, because I know that dreaded question will come up - even if it's unspoken, I'll read it in their eyes - "why don't you just send them to school?"  And then what would I say?  What I think is: I don't have a choice. Which, of course, is ridiculous, because I do have a choice.  But to me it's like a choice between right and wrong - home is right, school is wrong.  I can hardly say that to a friend with kids at school, can I? Because that would be saying "I am right and you are wrong".  Which is not what I mean or what I think... well, not exactly.

The further I get from the school world, the more wrong it seems.  Appealing sometimes, yes.  Tempting, definitely.  But wrong.  And yet, I have no doubt that other parents give very careful consideration, and very often prayer and study, just like me, to the question... and come up with school as the answer.  And so... what can I say about these challenges to my schooly friends?  I could hardly blame them for thinking "you made your bed, you lie in it."  I think that myself.  I chose to do this the hard way, so I shouldn't complain.

AND, there's that quiet worry that any admission of hardness or - gulp - failure - will reflect badly on the homeschooling community.  I've learned to value that fragile freedom to choose our own educational path.  I dare not jeopardize the opportunity for others to walk that path by admitting that homeschoolers aren't always entirely competent (gasp!).

BUT if I don't admit to the hard times - to the insecurity and fear of failure, to the feeling that "if one more person touches me today I think I'll explode", to the actual explosions that do happen - then I'm in danger of creating a universe of false expectations among those who walk with us and those who come after us.

BUT if I start talking about these scary moments, I might get so intense that we frighten others off the incredible blessing of this magnificent journey with our children.

And so, if you're like me, with all these opposing thoughts bouncing back and forth, you get trapped in your own head.  Silent.  Overflowing with all the things we don't say.

THEN maybe after a while I get past a scary bit and a bunch of things come together (hoping for this to happen soon!) and life and homeschooling all start running together like a well-oiled machine.  And then of course, in our joy and exuberance I go and tell...

Hang on.  If I start sharing the wonderful things we're learning and doing with schooly friends, they might start to feel defensive.  It could well - probably will - come across as putting down conventional schooling.  It would be like bragging.  Oh.

SO, maybe I can share those great moments with homeschool friends.

EXCEPT a few have just had babies and are in survival mode and I know what that's like.  Better not to say anything to them, because it might hurt them.  And some others used to send their kids to school - they probably don't need me to rub their face in the regret of the difficult couple of years their kids just had at school .  And... And, and, and...

Once again, the silence, overflowing with all the things I don't say.

Is it just me?  Or is it all of us?  Not just homeschoolers - all mothers?  Are there a bazillion things we don't say because we just don't know how to say them right?  Are we afraid of looking bad, or stupid, or obnoxious?  Are we afraid of hurting each other?

I truly believe that I should be actively seeking not only not to hurt others, but to build up and encourage.  How do I do that?  That's the bit I'm still working on, but I'm pretty sure that there are some things that should be said, and I just need to work out how to say them.

Our New "System" of Homeschooling

I like things to be organized, but I'm not a great organizer.  I appreciate having a routine, but I struggle to stick to a timetable.  For the last couple of years I've been trying to wrap my mind around creating a routine with enough flexibility to account for the many surprises life has in store for a young family of six.

A couple of months ago, I finally worked out a way to have a routine that isn't tied to the clock and empowers my older girls to be more independent.  It's still a work in progress, but I feel like it's well on the way to getting order into our lives.

I started off by writing out a weekly schedule for each of the two older girls.  It wasn't arranged by times, but by subjects and chores - e.g. Maths, English, Chickens (feeding and watering), Prayer, etc.  For each day of the week, I added some specifications for each subject.  Some subjects/chores were left blank for certain days of the week - e.g. we don't do Science every day and the girls alternate days looking after the chickens and watering the garden (although the watering hasn't happened for months because we've had plenty of rain).

The schedule definitely helped, but there was a lack of accountability, and so the girls were leaving out whole chunks of their schedule because they either didn't know what to do for a subject like Science (and they didn't want to come and ask me because that would be work!), or they really didn't want to be bothered with cleaning their room on a Wednesday.

So then I got a bunch of index cards, wrote a child's name, day of the week, and the month on each one, and wrote a list of things that were to be covered for that day down the left hand side.  I then ruled four (or five) columns for the weeks of the month (so five columns for Wednesday if there are five Wednesdays in a particular month) and labelled them W1, W2, W3, W4.  The idea is, each day they get out the card for that day of the week, and then tick the tasks as they do them (they can refer to their schedule if they need more detail - e.g. the card says "Maths", but some days "Maths" is to be mental maths, and other days they have the option of playing a thinking game).  For each day that they tick off all their expected tasks, they can put a sticker on the calendar (some days I tell them to cross off particular tasks because we have other commitments or something can't be done that day). Of course, all this could be done on the computer, but I actually like doing it by hand... And at the end of the month I turn the card over and use the other side for the next month.

Lots of stickers on the calendar means some kind of reward at the end of the month.  Last month went great.  This month has had some interruptions and they've kind of dropped the ball, but that's OK, because now there's some kind of accountability and it gives me a visual representation of their general behaviour.  I was finding before I put this system into place that I would often feel like we hadn't really had a good day, but couldn't put into words why, but now I can point out to them - "you got as far as making your bed, and then went off and did your own thing without asking me.  I want you to work on your responsibilities without me nagging you every step of the way."  And of course, on the other hand, it helps me to recognize and appreciate the really good days and to separate the two older girls rather than get upset with both when just one of them has been slacking off, but the other has been diligent.

Now I'm doing some more tweaking and working on defining the "projects" more clearly for them, so they can start to work independently on a long-term project.  I'm also thinking of dropping "English" off the list altogether and incorporating it into the other subjects - teaching spelling and writing through the things that write for those other subjects.  I may consider incorporating "Maths" more into other subjects as well and perhaps only covering it a couple of days a week as its own subject.

I have so much more to grow in - above all, maintaining my priorities in the right order!  On these cards, I've tried to write the tasks in priority/chronological order, although sometimes I've forgotten an important task until I got to the end of the list. :)

Anyway, I'm sharing this in the hopes that it might be helpful to other homeschool Mums (or Moms!) in developing their own unique systems.  Feel free to ask any questions :)