Over the course of the 9 years I've been teaching my children, I've learned a lot. I'm still learning more, but we'll go with what we've got so far.
1. I'm not big on reading aloud.
Wait. What??? Isn't that what homeschooling is all about??? Aren't I a huge advocate of reading??? Collector of books extraordinaire???
I'm just not a big fan of reading aloud to my kids. I'm just not. Absolutely nothing wrong with reading aloud tons to your kids! I'm a huge advocate of that! I often wish I did love reading aloud more. But I just don't.
Now, before you get all worried on me - my kids are huge bookworms. From the 14yo who doesn't get her work done because she's got her nose stuck in a book, to the kids fresh home from an Eastern European orphanage, to the toddler - they all LOVE books. Sometimes they think we have too many...
So it has no effect at all on what or how often or how much at a time they're reading. I'm not worried.
But not all families can be read-aloud families. And that's my family. My husband, too, has tried to read to the kids, and it's fun - but it just doesn't stick, because we're not that kind of a family.
While I do sometimes still feel bad about not liking to read to my kids, I also know my limitations. I have learned that it's OK not to join Sarah Mackenzie's Read-Aloud Revival, for example. It's just another thing on my plate, and I'll feel bad and put myself down and stress myself out trying to do it "right."
Now this doesn't mean I never read to them. I read to the toddler several mornings a week. I read to other kids randomly. I also read several books for school. So it's not like we never read out loud. It's just that I don't like it, and we don't do it as often as many other families seem to.
If you are a read-aloud family, that is awesome, and I commend you! And if you're not, breathe a sigh of relief, Mama, and know that you are not alone in this homeschooling world.
2. I'm not a scheduler.
I tried. I tried so hard. For years. And I failed every time. Or I felt stuffed in, or stressed and anxious all day. I had timers going off all the time (well, I still do, but that's so I get to gymnastics, church, and Confirmation classes on time 😄). All my life I'd been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of person. Type B. And I thought all homeschoolers had to be Type A, especially as I had more and more kids schooling.
It got to the point, though, that I was never, ever going to get everything done. Ever. And I almost had a nervous breakdown over it. We scrapped everything and unschooled for months - almost a whole year.
Wow. That felt good.
I'm starting to get my bearings again, and I'm learning that if I'm going to attempt a schedule again, it has to be a loop, it has to have ultimate flexibility, and I can't feel locked into it.
What I have begun this year with writing our daily schedule on the white board, doing theme days with loops, and leaving it much more loosely planned has helped our family so much. We are enjoying school again - more than I think we ever have before. We are having fun, and that's what I had always envisioned for our family. A routine with a few set times in the day - and that's all I ever really needed.
3. I hate math.
Not really. I'd always loved it throughout my school years. I took geometry (bane of my existence!), trigonometry, and calculus in high school. I took calculus again in college just because I needed some credits, and my (then future) hubby had to take it. I'm kind of a glutton for punishment like that. 😊
But the point is, I loved math! A lot!
And then I had kids to teach. And I couldn't. I didn't know how. Apparently, I'm just really good at memorizing formulas. I had no idea what to do or why or when.
So I've tried so many math programs. I'd like to kick math to the curb and never see it again. They can learn their own stinkin' math. 😡
At the moment we're doing our Math Mania Mondays, Horizons for the younger 4, and Teaching Textbooks for the oldest 2. We'll see how that goes for awhile yet.
4. There is nothing worse than feeling like you're failing your kids.
Like in math. Or writing. Or reading. Or social studies, history, science, art, music, etc, etc. And we homeschooling moms feel like we're failing A LOT. At pretty much everything. We already have that heavy burden on our plates. It is not helpful when the eyes of the world are on you, and if you don't do it "right" or to someone else's standard, they accuse you of failing your kids - outright or not. Way to kick us while we're down, right? That self-doubt comes back. "Maybe they're right. Maybe a dedicated teacher at a traditional school would do a better job than me. Maybe I am failing my kids. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I'm going to ruin my kids forever."
I know we all know our limitations and failings. We don't need to hear, "I told you so," "Why did you even try to homeschool at all?" or "Why don't you just send them to school?" We need encouragement. We need someone to come alongside us and help us. We need support. So here I am to try to be that for you. YOU CAN DO THIS, MAMA!
Kick those thoughts to the curb! It's a mighty weight to bear. Rest assured - Christ has taken that burden off our shoulders! If He has called you to homeschool, you CAN do this, and you ARE doing the best you can, and you ARE doing it the way your family needs you to do it. If you're worried, you care way more about your kids than any teacher possibly could. And that makes you a great Mama and a great teacher!
5. No two families are the same.
They don't look the same, they don't act the same, they don't talk the same, they don't eat the same - so why would they all educate the same way?
Of course they can't! Each family is unique. Each child within each family is unique. You cannot do the same things with every single child and every single family and have them all turn out exactly the same.
This is a huge reason I strongly dislike
Like me, for example. I find her philosophy beautiful. Strong. And I agree with so very much of it.
But.
Her methods work better for a school setting (like my Sunday school class) than my homeschool. Especially with 7 children vying for my attention, I just couldn't do it. Again, I almost had a nervous breakdown trying to do it for 4. Add in 3 more, and I thought I was going to die. (And this isn't to say that no homeschool could possibly do it. I know many families - even large ones - who are doing it successfully. It just wasn't working for our family.)
Finding other ways of doing things, and ultimately, what I can do with all the kids together is what is helping us move on and find what is unique about our family.
6. Even though schedules don't work for me, I must have bedtimes and evening routines in place.
Staying up until 11pm or even midnight kills me. I can't get enough rest before the next day when I do that. I need some down time from the kids. I'm an introvert. I need quiet - peace - and to get to bed on time myself! Time to spend with just my husband without the kids listening in or interrupting every 2 minutes.
So bedtimes it is for our family.
7. Clutter makes me anxious.
I did not know this about myself until very, very recently. While I've decluttered a lot in the past, it never registered in my brain what anxiety is until I had kids who have differing degrees of anxiety. I put 2 and 2 together and figured out my own anxiety triggers. Mood swings ensue and I begin to lose my sanity when I am anxious.
So we are going minimalist. More on that in another post.
8. This goes for emails, too. And Facebook.
Ah, Facebook... Another bane of my existence. And spam emails. "Buy this! Buy that! Don't miss out on this latest deal that will put you in debt but will make you happy for about 5 minutes!"
I deleted myself off of tons of groups on Facebook, I hid most people from my timeline (sorry, guys - but I do check up on most of you regularly!), I took myself off of many email lists, I created a Coupon folder in my email so that all sales emails go directly there (I don't even see them - if I'm heading out, I look through my Coupon folder to see if there's anything I can use).
9. My kids are all different.
How did I not know this from the start? Duh! They are all unique.
Angel, for example, is a seamstress and artist and bookworm. Give her a worksheet, and she'll cry through the whole thing - but she'll get it done.
Give Piglet a worksheet, and her hand will hurt because writing causes physical pain for her. She won't finish it without a huge fight.
Peanut? She's a late bloomer and reading and writing but finally making great strides. Worksheets have to be dictated to me so I can write for her.
I have 2 who love worksheets. I have 1 who could care less if he does a worksheet or listens to a story or builds towers all day. 😍
Math. Ugh. Angel can't do math to save her life, unless it's in real life application. Then she learns it quickly and thoroughly. Piglet can do it, but she doesn't really like to. And she has a math brain! Peanut?
Point being? They're all different! Use what works for each of them. Don't standardize your family. Guilty as charged....
I'll warrant you're wondering how in the world I keep all this in mind while doing most everything together? Well, when it's time for Free Writes, 2 or 3 kids prefer to type. One just mostly draws and adds some letters. One copies words from a book or just writes random letters. One prefers to go off on her own to a quiet place and write. Some like to write with a suggestion. Others just want to do their own thing. Trouble prefers to turn everything into Star Wars. Piglet is an animal lover and turns everything into a story. She writes whole books and appreciates the time to just write.
Everyone takes what they can from everything we do. Today we did a project learning about latitude and longitude and figuring out the circumference of the earth. There is no way the 2 youngest got much out of that, but they got a taste of it. They got to see how to multiply on the board, even if they didn't get what was happening. Exposure is a great hook for later learning. The oldest 2 were slightly confused, but as we talked it out and used the globe to show what the book & I were talking about, they started to get it. And hey, they got to play with play dough and dental floss! 😎
10. I can't do everything.
I can't teach everything to everyone all of the time and be everything to everyone all of the time.
I can't do Poetry Tea Time plus read-alouds plus individual math programs one-on-one plus narrations for every single book from every single child plus foreign language plus run a co-op plus teach Sunday school plus direct the Christmas program plus keep up with the house plus make healthy meals plus read my own books, plus, plus, plus, plus.
I just can't.
No one can.
We all choose what is most important to us, and we go with it. That's how it should be. Time must be divided into priorities, just like your budget. You will spend time on the things that are most important to you.
And if you look at what you're spending time on, and it doesn't add up to what you know you want to be priorities - well, then, you change what you're spending time on. You get your priorities straight.
And then you only do what you can and leave the rest to God.
Which brings me to...
11. God's grace is sufficient for you.
Yes, it is. He will see you through. He will be sure your kids are ready for the "real world" upon graduation. And He loves them even more than you do. He died for them. He died for you. And because of that, He's got your back. Go to work, Mama, relaxed and refreshed. You've got this.
It's OK to learn, it's OK to grieve and regret - but don't dwell on it. Learn from it, and move on, and just rely on Him to help you raise your kids to be the best they can be - who they were meant to be - designed by God Himself.
That's the most important in all of this, anyway.
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