Pages

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Too Much Of A Good Thing

I don't know about you when it comes to homeschooling, but I am one of those mothers who tries to cram to much into one day. I use a schedule and if we miss a day, I try to throw two days into one. Can you say


Photo courtesy of Google Images

Yep...that is exactly how I feel when I do that. In fact, I noticed yesterday as we began our "Thanksgiving" study, I had done it yet AGAIN! The look on my kids faces did not match the excitement I had seen on Sunday when I had shared with them what all we would be doing for school. In fact, Robert mentioned that he *thought* we were going to be doing fun stuff. This was just all the same stuff we usually do everyday, so it was time for me to take another good look at what I was doing wrong.

I sat down and started trying to make a lighter school schedule, but it still seemed full of "school stuff". So I prayed for the Lord to show me something, to give me some direction of what to do. That was yesterday afternoon.

I woke up this morning, opened my email and The Homeschool Minute was there. I can honestly say it was the Lord speaking to me at that moment through Nancy, Deborah, Todd, and Ruth. One of  Todd's statements really stood out at me. He said  "And don't try to add it to your already-busy school schedule . . . do it instead of your busy school schedule . . . and don't feel guilty, because you shouldn't."

 I felt a total release in my spirit as the Lord said to me, "It's okay to let go and have fun". I always worry that they are not learning enough. I think that is my pride getting in the way because I am always wondering when someone is going to walk up to my kids and ask them to quote the periodic table, or give them a really hard math problem. I don't want people looking at me wondering why in the world I am teaching my kids. 

So today as we really begin to have fun with Thanksgiving, here is a bit of what we will be doing. This week, we will continue Bible, Math, and English, but aside from that we are just gonna have fun baking goodies for neighbors, doing community service with our church, cleaning our house for Christmas and Thanksgiving and preparing for the holidays.  

What about you? Do you deal with those same kind of feelings and issues? How do you get past them and what have you learned in the process?

2 comments:

Journaling Gina said...

I deal with a lot of guilt....is she getting enough, am I doing a good job, is she at her grade level....Goodness! It's enough to send me over the edge sometimes! Then just like you, God sends me a gentle reminder to let go and let HIM order my days...and hers. Flexibility is the name of the game....one of the very reasons I wanted to homeschool in the first place. Why do I pressure myself to be so scheduled when learning is so much fun when we take advantage of unscheduled moments! Thanks for the reminder. Hope you and yours have a FUN day!

Cheesemakin' Mamma said...

Wonderful post and a great reminder to us all. The common theme I hear from veteran homeschoolers is to relax, relax, relax! I'm glad I heard this message loud and clear before I even started my son in Kindergarten. It has done me much good.