Tag: homeschool encouragement

Embracing Imperfection (and realizing it’s enough)

Tracy

homeschool imperfection | imperfect motherhood | embracing imperfection

I had a bizarre dream the other night. My husband was being forced to walk the plank, and I was responsible for his rescue. Me alone. Just me. As in Pirates of the Caribbean style, with me starring as Elizabeth. Everything was ready for the rescue to take place when suddenly my four year old showed up. “Hello, momma!” he chirped cheerfully, just as I was supposed to swing in and save the day. And right before I woke up, I remember thinking, “Great! Now, how am I going to pull this off?” (Think Elizabeth with a four year old on her hip.)

I woke up, and thankfully my husband’s life did not depend upon me. But the reality of the dream made me chuckle. Is this not our life? Here we are in the midst of life’s demands, juggling multiple worthy tasks, maybe even attempting heroic rescues, with our kids riding piggy-back. 

It’s the storyline of every day:

  • I’m making dinner (or trying to eat dinner) with three kids and a dog all over me.
  • I’m trying to give my Oldest instructions while my Littlest is interrupting every 30 seconds to ask me for a piece of paper, his yellow crayon, and am I listening to his art show.
  • I’m completing a project for our church while Littlest begs for every snack in the pantry.
  • I’m on the phone with my mom making holiday plans and stop in the middle to tell “someone” to please stop playing in the dishwasher soap; no, you can’t squeeze the bottle; please don’t wipe that on your jammies because it has bleach in it—Agh!

I’m confident you get the picture, and could add another 1,000 “you know you’re a mom if” scenarios. And honestly, in the grind of it all, the whole “oh, you’ll miss it one day” comments only go so far. I need perspective. I need hope. I need to know that my husband will not be executed and the world will not fall apart because someone CAN’T FIND THEIR SHOES. (Oh, my poor husband.)

The answer is that we cannot operate as a One Mom Show. We can’t do it all, and we can’t do it alone. There is no guilt in admitting our imperfection. There is no shame in asking for help and calling in reinforcements, even if you think you don’t have any. The truth is that most of us usually do have someone, but we are too busy ruling them out. “Oh, no—I couldn’t ask her; she’d think this about me. And not her, I can’t bear to think of what she’d say about the house if she saw it right now. And So-and-So, do you know what he fed the kids last time? And I can’t ask her; she’s just getting over the sniffles. And I couldn’t possibly ask So-and-So, knowing how busy they’ve been. And she probably wouldn’t be free anyway. I wouldn’t want to impose…” On down the list we go until we’ve convinced ourselves there’s no one left. It’s time to reach out, even if the situation is less than perfect.

Because, my friends, we can survive and even thrive on far less than perfect. Ugly meals still get the kids fed. Dirty socks that have to be re-worn are not the end of the world (there, I said it.) And running a few minutes late all the time to everything says more about my stage in life than it does about my character. Embracing imperfection is about keeping it real.

All that before I’ve even added God to the equation, ‘cause we know He can still make the world go round while we take a 15 second record-breaking potty break. He doesn’t need my perfection, and all He asks for is my willingness (Some days, I don’t have much more than that to offer.)

Bless him, when it comes down to it, my husband is cunning and resourceful enough to save himself or to at least force a delay, until I can extricate myself from my four year old’s peanut-butter hug.  Though dear hubby has said that he does appreciate my intent.

Bottom line, our lives will be so much easier when we accept that interruptions will make some things in life impossible, that children do limit us and rearrange our life and that’s not a bad thing, that we will need other adults in our life to do this parenting thing, and that an imperfect solution may be exactly the solution God is offering to us. So let’s be honest about our imperfection and even embrace it, and then let’s shout praise to a God who regularly delivers His perfect amazing grace through imperfect vessels.

Need more encouragement? Read about welcoming life’s mess and inviting grace home.

A Successful Lesson in Failure

Tracy

“By allowing my child to fail, I was teaching him about success.”

I actually confronted the issue of failure recently with my kindergartener. In our second year of homeschooling, he hadn’t really had to face any degree of failure before.

Then, we started to struggle with addition, and my default-plan of letting my son choose his best papers to show his father wasn’t giving my husband a complete picture of how we were really doing. As I talked over our struggles with my husband, he was a little confused; after all, he saw only success and mastery. I decided I’d better make some changes to my default-plan. And that’s what led to my discovery that I was failing to truly teach about failure.

The next day, my son worked a math sheet and missed several addition problems. Together we talked through the right answers to the problems that I had checked. He reworked the problems with me and then I broke the news to him: “We’re going to show Daddy this page, because he needs to know what we have trouble with as well as what we’re doing well in.” Immediately my son burst into tears. Suddenly, I understood the unintentional lesson I was teaching my son.

Inadvertently, I was teaching him that only success brought reward, that only perfection brought the attention that he wanted. I wasn’t giving my husband the opportunity to praise my son for determination or perseverance; my son was only receiving his daddy’s praise for perfect papers. It wasn’t a lesson either my husband or I had planned to teach, and it definitely wasn’t our view of success. But regardless, my son had already shaped the idea in his head that approval was gained through perfection.

Daddy came home that day, and my son sheepishly showed him the marked-up paper. And the most beautiful lesson unfolded: a lesson of love despite imperfection, a lesson of approval for a best effort, and a lesson of praise for character rather than performance. As I watched my husband and my son interact, I couldn’t help but wonder at how close I came to missing out on this moment.

What if I had chosen to show the paper to my husband without my son’s knowledge? What if I had caved to my son’s tears and decided not to show that paper at all? What if I had continued with our trend of only showing off the best?

My son would probably not have been scarred for life had we not addressed the issue of failure in this way; but then again, he might very well have developed an attitude of success vs. failure that would begin to shape his future.

By allowing my child to fail, I was teaching him about success. (<Tweet This)
It was a valuable lesson for all of us, and not one I would have ever thought to pencil into the curriculum or schedule into my lesson planner.

Room for Improvement

Tracy2 Comments on Room for Improvement
Our start to homeschooling last year began with a rocky start, a long break for re-evaluation, and then a much more successful second attempt.
And this year—well, it hasn’t been without it’s own adjustments. It seems that everyday, I’m tweaking our schedule, our system, and our material. And everyday, I’m closer to where I’d like to be. Of course, there are those days when success comes to a screeching halt and triumph throws a tantrum in my school room floor. But then, I call it a day, re-evalutate (again), and tweak a little bit more.
It’s been in the midst of all that tweaking that I’ve come to appreciate a few of the opportunities that come from the fine-tuning:
1. Involving others in the solution. Sometimes a situation is more than I can handle on my own. That’s a tough reality to accept. But I can’t educate my children by myself. And yet that humbling reality leads to a much richer discovery in the help I receive from others.
My husband has been one of those heroes, coming in to save my day. Discussing the school day with my husband and including any frustrations or challenges I’ve faced allows him to stay connected with the family. And his objective advice on those situations has, on many occasions, been exactly what we all needed.
My mom has also been a huge contributor. Having homeschooled me and my two siblings, she has the perspective and retrospection that I often lack. From her, I get to hear what she found helpful and what she would have done differently.

Other homeschoolers also offer a wealth of wisdom. I interact with internet homeschool groups and even occasionally send questions to my favorite bloggers. Their perspectives and advice have often been revolutionary for me. And the beauty of the internet is that it doesn’t matter that they are homeschooling all the way across the country; they can instantly become my cyber-neighbors.
2. Realizing my own short-comings. I’m not perfect. And facing that fact, that I could be the one at fault and not my student, is extremely helpful in a couple of ways. First, it allows me to be more patient with my children’s short-comings (especially when I see that they’ve inherited those faults from me). Second, it forces me to depend on a Strength outside of myself. For when I am weak, then is God’s strength most evident. Both my children and myself are able to see the Lord answer prayer and become a vital part of our homeschooling day.
 
3. Learning and understanding more than ever before. I’ve heard many times that you learn a subject best when you begin to teach it. Whether that subject is phonics and reading or modern art and poetry, teaching forces you to learn. Like the mother bird digesting the food for her chicks, I must digest every fact before I present it. And that is one thing I want my children to see: that you never outgrow learning.

 
4. Discovering who my children really are. I’ve learned more about my children and their personalities in the last several months of schooling them than ever before, in spite of hours of playing blocks and capturing imaginary bad guys. I see how they react to challenges. I see their response to success. I see what does and does not motivate them. And I see every time their eyes light up with understanding. I’m a part of nearly every moment of discovery, and that does more than just create a special bond. It also prepares me for my role as a parent.
Taking my lessons from the school room, I better understand what will provoke my child to wrath and frustration. I have keener understanding of what motivates and inspires my child. And with that knowledge comes a higher accountability to make the most of the opportunities I have with each child to nurture and admonish in the Lord.
5. Recognizing that homeschooling is not a place or state of being but a process and a journey. It’s not about where we are educating; it’s about how we are educating. It’s about having the opportunity to make those adjustments rather than to helplessly look on while a child stumbles through learning. It’s about the privilege of taking a breather together and facing the challenge once more, united rather than at odds. It’s about having the means to administer the changes that are necessary.
Heading into our second year now, I’m certain we will constantly be making adjustments. But I want to see those adjustments as more than just rescheduling recess or pulling out a new activity. The changes do help my child to learn better, but they also provide an opportunity for me to learn as well.

False Starts and Failures

Tracy3 Comments on False Starts and Failures

I began our homeschool journey last fall with lots of enthusiasm and a lot of confidence. After all, I’d been homeschooled from the end of first grade all the way through to graduation. I’d even written and edited for a Christian textbook company. I knew the ins and outs and ups and downs.

What I didn’t count on was a four-year-old attention span and a two-year-old distraction. My beautiful school room, shiny new workbooks, carefully laid out teaching plans, and creative displays could not prevent our homeschool days from crumbling into disarray. After four grueling weeks, we took a breather—and Mommy regrouped.
The research suddenly took priority. I read a number of books and searched blogs like crazy to get ideas. Then, a few months after our first failure, we took another stab at it—with much greater success. Homeschooling became all I had ever hoped it would be. After we finished off K4 (just this last week), my son came to me with this announcement: “Mom, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s do school through the summer.” And so we are.

We are in our groove now, but I learned a very valuable lesson from our rough start. It takes the failures to find success. And there might be a few false starts along the way to the finish line. For us, everyday is an experiment, and even when the experiment goes awry—I’ve learned something. Like the great inventor Thomas Edison, I’ve simply discovered one more way it can’t be done.
My encouragement to you would be this: don’t be afraid of the mistakes you might make. It’s a natural part of the process.
As you do your research and cruise those beautiful blogs with all those wonderful ideas, keep in mind many of them started with the same fears (and perhaps even failures) that you are facing. Learn from their wisdom, but remember—we’re all on a journey of discovery.