Pressing Forward

This has been a tough summer. I was literally burned up and out. There have been months of financial struggles, close friends divorces, illness with family members and a chaotic home life. So I finally just stopped the roller coaster that is our fast paced lives and just shut down for a couple of months. Not that a mother can ever completely shut down, but we are operating on the bare basics without outside activities, classes, field trips and entertaining visitors. We needed to bring the laughter and joy back into our home and homeschool.

Most people don't understand how much energy, planning and creativity that is required to mother as well as educate a high energy, curriculum absorbing and strong willed male child. It has been a great challenge and I have loved every minute of it. So much in fact that I think we were overextended and my expectation of myself were to high. We all longed for the last day of school and did not look forward to starting up again.

It has been a season of praying, debating and doubting. There are so many changes happening in our live, community and small homeschool group. A lot of days are spent without friends and that has been my biggest concern. My prayer has always been “Am I doing what is right for him? Can I keep up the pace? Where can we find Godly friends?”

This year for the first time of our almost four year journey we seriously considered public education. At first my prayer was not directed at what was best for our child, I admit that. It was the fear of not measuring up in some way...him being that weird socially awkward kid that gets bullied .....or the kid that never had the school experience or overprotected child who later can not cope. Fear that he would be lonely and would not have friends. FEAR!

It manifested itself physically with sleepless nights, stress headaches and depression. Through it all a fellow homeschooler, my spiritual sistah kept reminding me:

2 Timothy 1:7...
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Every place I went I kept hearing this message in church and on the radio. Faith that is what was missing. Faith!

So I started to pray again. Asking for the faith to follow what God's plan for us. Because God does not want us to live in fear. It brings him no glory or joy. So we started anew with a spirit of faith. We sat down wrote out a pros and cons list and prayed over it. God began to work, not in large flashy ways but on my heart, in still quiet moments. Everyday showing me where I needed to work, labor and rejoice.

So again this year with step out on faith and move forward.

Knowing Faithful Is Our God lyrics

What is Mom going to learn this year?

We always have great goals and plans for our children for the school year, rightly so because this is our job. However we often forget to stop and say what will we learn this year? What are our goals? Is the homeschool plan or curriculum supporting the family goals for the year?

My friend Faith (that shall be her internet name) and I took the challenge this year to plan our homeschool year in advance. What we did not want for ourselves or our children is a mother who is burnt out and tired before November. We spent days planning and outlining what we wanted to do for the school year. We prayerfully made daily and monthly schedules to share with each other. It was wonderful and energizing but most importantly flaw revealing.

First where were we on the schedule? What are we going to learn this year? When are we taking care of ourselves? What are our goals? I am not speaking of the vague "going to get in shape" goal. We are looking for scheduled self care time and learning opportunities outside of home education. What new skill will you have at the end of the year?

I challenge you look over your photos from last school year. How many times are you actually in the picture? How many events are there where it is just you and your friends? Homeschool conference only counts as a half a point. :-) If you are in the photos only with your children and less than 20% of the time maybe it is time to schedule so "me" time.

I know what of I speak because I am the chief offender in this offense. My goal is not to separate from my family but to cherish who I am as a person, mother, wife and loved child of the most High.

Secondly there was way too much outside activities going on and not enough education time. I know sounds really strange coming from the women who was freaking out earlier this year about her only child not being around other children, but it is true there was very little time for quality schooling on the schedule.

Take a look at the schedule before adjustments. All the green areas are home education blocks. If you look at my curriculum plan for 2010 they don't seem to match up right?

How in the world was I going to do all of that learning with less than 8 hours a week with a real life child with emotions, meltdowns, good days and bad days? Plus we all know how much learning actually happens after you leave the house for the day, none. Because you are tired (If you have ever driven on the beltway in DC you understand this.), the kid is drained and oh that little aliment called "Do I have to?" kicks in after lunch.

Finally we realized that we had planned out days excluding our husbands. Where is Dad in the schedule? What is he doing? How can we include him in our day?

So as we gear up for another year I am looking at the whole home while planning not just the school. It may mean school starts a little bit later this year but it will mean a more focused year.