Middle of the year question marks

I met a mom yesterday at the library who put her two little girls in school in January (she had homeschooled the first half of the year).  We had a great conversation about homeschooling and I enjoyed meeting her.

Where I live it can be hard to get connected to other homeschoolers, but once you do make a few friends you'll be off and running.  But, that first few connections can be really tough sometimes because I live in a very homegrown community.  I remember this well.

This morning I remembered a book that I wished I'd recommended to her.  It's one that I love.  When I read it, I remember thinking--that's exactly what I would have said--and I wish I'd had this the year I taught kindergarten to my oldest daughter.

The book is called When Homeschooling Gets Tough by Diana Johnson.  It's out of print, but there's lots of used copies out there on Amazon.  I thought I'd mention this in case anyone happens to read this post and want a little homeschooling encouragement.  The author is very down to earth and realistic about homeschooling--that's what I liked most about the book.  She's also refers to the Bible and encourages moms from the Word.

Bloggers

I had a funny encounter two weeks ago in Goodwill.  I was looking with my little boy for Christmas presents for our family.  There was a woman who was an army staff sargeant also looking in the same area.  I struck up a conversation with her about the pan she was looking at.  Somehow we ended up talking about garage sales.  I mentioned that there are websites that will tell you where the garage sales are (and do the searching for you).  I never remember things like that off the top of my head, so I gave her a card with my blog address on it and said that I'd posted about the sites.  Her response was funny.  She said she was so glad to meet me and know that I was a blogger.  She explained that she had a very different impression of bloggers and then she asked me for a second card.  I chuckled.  Here I was with Eli in my tennis shoes, jeans, and a long sleeve shirt--carrying my "outdoorsy" style purse that doesn't like to stay shut.  That's me.  My hair may even have been wet as it often is because I never have time to dry it!  As I write that, I realize that my description may give a strange picture of me.  Please don't think I'm a slob--I just do things as quickly as I can and wear comfortable clothes that I can do things in.  

Her reaction was interesting to me in light of a blog post I scanned last week.  During my perusal, I was struck (as I often am) by how idyllic the post made life sound.  It's a natural thing to highlight the best parts of life.  But, life isn't all easy.  The reality of life is day to day frustrations and struggles--with joys all mixed in together!  Or at least that's how my life is.  Today we had a fun visit with a friend and her kids.  But, this afternoon was a scattered mess!  I was trying to do December's budget and figure out how it went.  My kids kept interrupting with arguing or different needs.  I also interrupted my task to do a piano lesson with my oldest daughter.  Then, my mom also interrupted asking about the plastic container on the counter---so I went and dried it off and put it under Autumn's bed.  Then, I remembered a phone call that I meant to make last week and didn't want to forget again, so that took another 10 minutes.  Now, my son is asleep on the couch (yes, it's 6:30 p.m.) because he's exhausted and cranky.  I'm going to let him sleep about 15 more minutes.  One daughter is working on her cross stitch and the other is somewhere around here.  Dinner is beckoning me and I'm typing these words out because I have this impulse to write.

I guess my point of writing all that is that no one has it all together.  I think it's easy to read someone's book or a blog and think to myself, "Why can't my life be like that?"  or "Why can't I do that?"  or "I'm just not good enough."  some other such question or statement.  It's so easy to get caught in this trap--or at least it is for me.

This is what I find reality is.  We each have our own load to carry--our own responsibilities, joys, and challenges.  In the world we live in, we are faced with innumerable images of "the perfect life".  But, that's not life.  The trap I find is the temptation to think that my life is supposed to be "perfect".  This leads to one of two situations:  1) being disappointed in my life or 2) feeling horrible about myself.

This trap hits homeschooling moms in ways that are different than when children are attending public or private school.  In a school setting, children receive grades/report cards and have parent/teacher conferences.  There's a measuring stick (standardized tests and class average) that helps us to know whether a child is keeping up with his or her peers.  At home, there's no such stick.  All we have is our experience and that of our friends.  And on top of that, we are aware of how different the academic needs are of each of our children--in ways that classroom teachers cannot be due to time and situational constraints.  One of my friends has been reviewed by the county for her year end report the past two years.  On multiple occasions, the reviewer has informed her of modifications she needed to make so that--- her homeschool classroom would be like that of a public school classroom.  I laughed outloud when my friend told me what the reviewer asked her to do.  The reality of homeschooling is that it is not like a formal classroom.   Our year is flexible--we take days off when our family needs us to whether because of sickness, the birth of a child, moving, vacations...  I do believe that we need to make sure our children are learning and growing.  We need to be consistent as much as possible about schooling--because I believe it's good for them and us.  But, we also need to have a huge dose of flexibility mixed into that and adjust our expectations accordingly.

Life and homeschooling is not a formula.  If you put in x, you won't get y.  It's more like you start with x and then add y and then take away w and then multiply by z and then divide by a and then you find out what you get at the end.  

Still, there is a goal in mind.  In life, my goal is to glorify God and raise my children in His ways that they might also know and love Him.  In schooling, my goal is for my children to progress each year and grow--to gain the academic and practical skills they will need to someday get a job and contribute to the world we live in.  I do probably have other goals as well, but those are the two that come to my mind first.  I believe that it is important to have a goal in mind in all that we do.  Where are we going?  Where are we headed?  It is too easy to fall prey and simply begin drifting around.  I always find that the middle of the school year is a good time for me to sit down and reset my goals with my kids.  What has worked?  What hasn't?  Where are we going?  

For us, that means that I am going to become my girls' piano teacher for the rest of the school year.  It means that I have not been diligent about my morning devotions with them.  It means that I need to get off this computer and go parent!  It means a lot of things.  

I need to fight the emotional traps that creep into my head and steal my thinking time.  I need to get my eyes back on where we're going...  And this is what I intend to do starting right now.

Dealing with Distractions

Distractions are a constant struggle with homeschooling.  I deal with them very imperfectly, but I have come to realize that there will always be distractions.  We hold ourselves often to an ideal--our house should be clean and picked up, meals always made on time, shopping done, kids happy and quiet.  But, I don't think that is the way life really is.  One friend once told me that she had come to realize that at different phases of her life she needed to accept a different level of cleanliness in her house as well as modifying her own expectations of her cooking.  

When we became moms, I think that most of us realized it would be difficult to wash clothes and linens as often as we did before we had kids.  And meals, well, they went from several dishes to one main dish and maybe a side dish for a while if not forever.  If you are like me, you've tried to be supermom and do everything.  It's very hard at times to balance our expectations, our husband's expectations of us, and our children's needs and their expectations.  I haven't quite figured this part out yet and I am definitely a work in progress so I don't feel that I can adequately address it.  But, I bring it up, just to say that if you're in this boat--so am I.  In my mind I know that I cannot do it all.  But, there is a battle going on in my mind that tells me I have to or else I won't be good enough.  Lies.  My worth is not in how perfectly I do things.  It is not in what I do or don't get done.  My worth lies only in Christ.  That is the truth that I often lose sight of.  This morning our pastor spoke of the difference between promises and expectations.  Promises are kept and are not about us.  They are made to others.  Expectations on the other hands are almost entirely self centered.  They are about us and what we want--what we expect.  I'm realizing that's an important distinction.  We have promised to love and honor our husbands and take care of our families (though that one is unspoken).  We do our best to do that.  Sometimes we will fall short of others expectations and we have to trust that to God and trust His love for us over the love of others who are imperfect just as we are.  

This idea that we have to be supermoms only becomes intensified when we begin to homeschool.  More on our plates and less time to do it.  I remember reading in one of Cynthia Heald's studies that God knew her heart and that she needed to have 3 children in 3 years.  It was God's best for her because it drew her to Him.  Homeschooling is one of the most humbling things for me.  I realized when I became a middle school teacher that God had for me to become a teacher because it brought out all of my weaknesses.  I had to depend on him.  Homeschooling is very similar for me.  I wish I could say that every day is a step forward for me.  Sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back and sometimes two steps forward, and one step back.  

This year as I've transitioned to two full-time homeschooling students and one 2 1/2 year old to keep an eye on, I've been adjusting my own expectations and what I get done.  I've broken down my responsibilities to the basics that I have to get done now:  laundry and cooking, floors cleaned.  All other cleaning has been cut down a lot.  And I'm really working on having the kids learn to pick up after themselves.  But, we don't have the same expectations of Eli, our youngest.  As my pastor's wife has told me--these years when they're all so young are hard!  There really is more work on us because they can't help us with it!  So, we have to try and make things as simple as we can and not expect ourselves to be perfect.  Sometimes we have to adjust our expectations even of how much schooling we can get done as well.  Choose simpler curriculums and not do a lot of extras.  There will be time for such things, I believe.  This year is much easier than last year as Eli has grown even one year older.  

Homeschooling does take time and I am often distracted.  But, I have seen over time that this is God working in me as much as he is in my kids.  I need to grow in my patience and my focus and my self discipline.  But, it's important that I not condemn myself.  Some days I do well and other days I don't. 

With all of our struggles with distractions, it's easy for me to conclude sometimes that our children might be better off in school.  But, there are a lot of reasons I believe that they wouldn't be.  The biggest one for me is that my children wouldn't get to be kids--they have to grow up so fast in school (one of the preschoolers in Sami's public PK class liked Michael from the Halloween movies on Halloween ?!).  Autumn and Sami are so sensitive and I realize how much they would probably get bullied.  Young girls do need to learn to stand up for themselves, but they can do that when they're strong enough.  The wounds from K have stayed with me all my life.  The school would be teaching her what's right and wrong, not me.  I wouldn't always even know what had been taught.  And as for the friends they'd have--that's as much a blessing as a curse so to speak.  My girls are learning to include everyone and play with children of different ages.  And I'd also have to juggle getting them to and from school and doing extracurricular after school and on weekends (whether public or private) which would really steal from our family time and from the time that my husband gets with our kids since he works a lot.  

Private school has different challenges than public school.  Often the academics aren't as strong (even at the strongest ones here).  And grades aren't always fairly given--parents expect A's.  Children are expected to be cushioned and the students I taught expected A's and also didn't know what to do when they were faced with a challenge.  And you have the other extreme of being around kids who can afford a lot of things when your own family can't.  That can be hard.  That's how I grew up.  The people around me were a lot more well of than we were and made comments about my clothes--I wish we'd had uniforms at my public school growing up ;).

No schooling option is perfect and I believe that every family makes the best choices they can for their children and for their families.  Homeschooling is not always the best answer for families.  For ours it is for this time.  If God laid it on our hearts to put our children in school, then we would do it.  I have friends whose children are in public and in private school and they are doing well!  I rejoice that they are!  And at the same time, I believe that homeschooling is right for my children. I hesitate to say "for now" because I hope that it will be for a long time, but as I've listened to my older and wiser friends who've gone before me, I've learned that there may be a time when God directs us otherwise.  

I think distractions are a part of this life.  Whether you are homeschooling or not.  The decisions we have are when to ignore them, how to cope with them, and when to deal with them.  But, I think they're here to stay, so we can't let them defeat us!

Homeschooling Encouragement

Recently I shared some thoughts about homeschooling with my sister in law and she suggested that I might post some of my response to her questions here on my blog.  Before I share, let me explain who I am and where I'm coming from.

I've been on all sides--public school, private school (to a lesser degree), and homeschooling.  I have a master's degree in education and taught both Elementary and Middle School, have tutored high school math, taught math in a community college GED program, taught unsuccessfully at a private Christian school, and have now been homeschooling for five years (if you count the two years that we formally homeschooled for preschool).  The unsuccessful jaunt is a story in and of itself which I learned a lot from.  But, I think I'll save that for another time...

I remember the middle of PK3 and my husband doubted whether or not I could commit to homeschooling.  We were two of those parents who couldn't wait for our kids to start learning, not realizing that it would all come in time.  There is no need to rush.  But, now I see both sides and I can genuinely encourage other moms to not worry about rushing as I did with our first daughter.  My husband and I conflicted and I became more resolved to homeschool and prove that I could do it.  He became more concerned so I set about finding ways that I could show him our daughter was doing fine.  I found the World Book Scope and Sequence and went through the list of what she could and couldn't do.  I used this as an evaluation every 6 months for PK3 and PK4.  I also found other evaluations which I added on to show how much Autumn learned during her PK4 year.  What I realized the next year when we began kindergarten was that as much as I thought I'd gotten the hang of homeschooling, I really hadn't!  I did have assessments in place and I'd started on my journey, but I realized that each year is a new adventure.

In the middle of Kindergarten, I began to fall apart and doubt myself.  I questioned whether or not I could really do it.  I hadn't sought out any homeschool networks (as a way to save money) and so I was very isolated since there were no other homeschooling families at our church.  Autumn and I survived the second half of kindergarten with me learning as much as she did.  Maybe I learned even more.

The first thing I learned was that we all have these times (and they aren't just during kindergarten) when we get discouraged and think we can't do this homeschooling thing!

Here is the story I shared with my sister in law about that time during Autumn's kindergarten year...

    I remember breaking down several times the year Autumn was doing Kindergarten (which was only 2 years ago!).  She is a very compliant child, but she struggles with procrastination and I just can't do the work for her.  Sami is my strong willed one and with that comes determination, but different challenges.   I remember days when I would get so upset.  One day I even explained and asked Autumn if she wanted to go to school and for me to go back to work (since that's the only way we'd be able to afford it).  I even worked out in my head that I would need to make $50k per year to put two children in day care and one in private school.  Then last year, Autumn was mourning that she can't play all day anymore and then I explained to her that her friend Abby gets on a bus at 8:30 a.m. and then gets home at 4:30 p.m.  She realized that the only reason she'd want to go to school is for recess.  I've watched her come to terms with being home and realize that she wouldn't want to be away from me all day--and just as much I wouldn't want to miss out on seeing her all day.

We often take these struggles and turn them inward towards ourselves.  I compared myself to other homeschooling moms and fell short in my own eyes.  In time I would meet a group of other homeschooling moms who helped me see that we are all different--and those differences are on purpose.  

At the core of it all is finding peace with God, I believe.  Peace with trusting that He made us the way He wanted to--imperfections and all.  Trusting that there is good in us--this is a bit tricky theologically, but there is good in us that is the reflection of Him.  But, at the same time, coming to a place where we like ourselves and who God made us to be.  I was reading about the Amish and their beliefs because of a book I just read and I realized that they shun all individual ideas.  They see all of it as vanity.  I would differ with them on this one. God created us all differently--we are not carbon copies of one another.  Logically, if God had wanted us to be, he would have made us that way ;)    I actually think it's a good thing to like ourselves--to enjoy the things we do well.  We don't have to be better than everyone else at things in order to feel good about what we can do--that's a conclusion that is still working its way into my heart.

Here's my list of things I like about myself and the way God made me:  I am a good cook (I like my cooking), I like my handwriting, I like my voice and singing, I love people and care about them a lot, I like being able to take something that's ready to be thrown away and fix it up, I like saving money and doing math in my head (I'm glad I can do it).  Most of all, I am thankful that I am a Christian and that I love God--I wouldn't want to go through this life without Him!  Anyways, those are random things that came to my mind.  

It is easy to lose ourselves in being moms and lose sight of who God made us to be.  Being moms is part of that, but we need to make efforts not to lose our interests and personalities.  It is these things that shape us and that we give to our children and share with our husbands.

I don't do this perfectly at all.  I am on this journey with all other homeschooling moms.  I think our identities and our confidence that we can do what we have set out to do is often shaken.  Honestly, my kids and I have had a crazy January!  Our days have been different every week.  I long to get back to a Monday through Friday schedule and I'm hoping to next week.  But, that is the life of homeschooling.  We do need to be committed to sticking it out, but we also need to allow ourselves grace and take break days when we need to whether it be for sickness, holidays, or family crises.  

I do believe we need to stand firm in the knowledge that we have sought God before starting out this homeschooling journey and that we are trusting Him with our lives and the lives of our children.