Why you should consider a schedule for your homeschool

If you know me or have followed my blog at all, you know that I have always tended toward a relaxed, unschool-ish, laissez-faire approach to my kids’ education. You probably also know that I have flirted with curriculum on and off, and that part of me has always longed for a more predictable routine and, yes, even schedule.

At the beginning of last year I had big plans. I made a really impressive Excel spreadsheet that laid out our week for us from 7am to 8pm each day. I scheduled 20 minutes for phonics, 20 minutes for math, etc. It all looked so nice on paper. And parts of it did go smoothly. The kids loved morning recess. Though I usually wanted to use that time to do a few chores.

We gave it the good college try for about a month before I threw in the towel and decided that our homeschool schedule now consisted of a math lesson and some handwriting. Eventually I just insisted on math. And then there was the day it took us two hours of screaming and crying to get through a Saxon math lesson. I should note that only my oldest was required to do school. The other two kids could do whatever they wanted. Which usually involved staring at a screen.

Despite my greatest hopes and desires, most days simply deteriorated into either tears or screens or both. I didn’t feel good about what we were doing, but I didn’t have the energy to change course. “You guys want to play a game? Or read a book? Or go for a walk?” was usually met with “Nah. I’m watching My Little Pony. Or Pokemon. Or Thomas the Train.” And so I spent a little more time scrolling through Facebook.

This isn’t how I imagined homeschooling would be. I imagined science experiments and read alouds and nature walks. And we did those things. We did a lot of great stuff and learned a lot. My kids even learned stuff from My Little Pony and Pokemon and Thomas the Train. I’m not saying they didn’t.

But on those days when we had no plan – no field trip, no co-op, no park days, no play-dates, no science club – we all felt at loose ends. I wanted, as my friend Clea wrote so eloquently, to put the “home” back in our homeschool.

And then a woman whom I like and admire on our local Catholic homeschooling board recommended the book Managers of Their Homes. She described her homeschooling days, and it sounded much closer to my dreams for my family. Now, I know we should keep our eyes on our own paper. I know that what works for her and her 7 girls won’t work for me and my motley crew, but the book promised to help me create a custom schedule for my family.

So with a bit of fear and trepidation, I bought it. And I read it. Slowly. And prayerfully. I watched my anxiety ebb and flow as I processed the lessons. And I began to see the wisdom and the peace of having a predictable daily routine.

What’s great about this book (and I’m not an affiliate so I’m not trying to sell you anything here) is that it really baby steps you through it. It has you think about all of the things you want to fit into your day for yourself and each of your children. It has you prioritize. And it asks you to be realistic about how much time there is in a day. It reminds you that God does not give you more to do than you can fit into the 24 hours in a day He gives you. So if you don’t have enough time, you’re not following God’s plan for you. That one was hard to stomach. My schedules hand’t worked in the past because I didn’t start in the right place – with God’s plan for my family and with respect for the limits on my time.

As I was reading Managers of Their Homes, I was also reading Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie (again, not an affiliate). There is much wisdom and gentleness in this book. One of major points was that each interruption to our schedules is a visit from Our Lord. Each time a child needs us to tie a shoe or wipe a bottom or “look at a really cool block tower I just built,” it is Jesus asking us to look up from our own agenda and meet Him in our day.

Reading these two books together really pushed me to think about finding the balance between having a predictable routine and schedule on the one hand, and being a slave to my planner and the clock on the other.

I confess that this is never a line I have walked well. I have some OCD tendencies, am prone to anxiety, like to have everything “under control,” and can become a cruel task master when trying to follow a plan. I tend to waffle between anal-retentive-Type-A-crazy-woman and it-can’t-be-perfect-so-I-give-up-anything-goes sloth.

It has been a constant spiritual battle for me to come to a place where I believe I have a reasonable chance – with much prayer and God’s continued out-pouring of grace – to approach a plan like this without making myself crazy or my family resentful.

If you’d like some help getting started with thinking about a schedule/routine that will work for you and your family, I’d love to walk you through the process and share what I’ve learned. Check out my Homeschool Consulting page for more information on working with me. It is always my goal to encourage and inspire you on your homeschooling journey.

You gotta laugh or you’ll cry

Did you ever have one of those days? I remember in college when “one of those days” involved a flat tire, or locking my keys in the car, or maybe running out of cigarettes. There was the day I locked my keys in the car and then got rear ended by a bus. That wasn’t a great day. But these days, one of “those days” is so much. . . grosser.

Today was already starting off on iffy footing. I didn’t get much sleep last night because Thomas was up coughing and Helen, who pukes anytime her temperature rises over 99.0, was up throwing up around midnight. And then at 4am we had giant, strange dogs in our back yard barking as if the world was coming to an end. It’s a little disconcerting to discover giant, strange dogs in your back yard at 4am.

So I finally get back to sleep only to be awoken by coughing and then fell back asleep again until finally waking for good at 7am. Which, two days ago, was 6am. So I’m tired.

But I had to go to the phone store, because the microphone on my new magic phone broke. Which means I can’t make phone calls. Which doesn’t feel particularly safe when I’m home with three kids.

So even though I know they’re not in tip top shape, I head to the phone store and hope and pray for the best.  We left just minutes after cleaning up a poopy potty training accident, so I figured the timing was good. With any luck, we could get there and back without a bodily fluid incident.

I already had my new phone, I just didn’t have the tricksy little device I needed to pop out the old SIM card so I could activate my new phone. Oh Verizon, the trouble that could have been saved if you’d simply included this tiny piece of metal with my new phone.

So I pack up the three kids and tell them to try not to cough too much in public because it makes people uncomfortable. Helen is wimpering because, God bless her, she really doesn’t feel well. Thomas is provoking Henry into playing Batman, and Henry, who really, really should know better, is playing along.

Then Thomas gets worked up and starts coughing. Okay, settle down, dude. And coughing. No, really, take a deep breath. And coughing. And, oh crap, gagging, and oh, oh no, oh, vomit. Crap. Catch it in his shirt. Wait there’s more. Okay. Oh shit. Okay Helen, Henry, you stay here. Don’t move. Carry Thomas to the car, catching as much as I can in his shirt. Oh good. Now it’s on my shirt. Oh and my jeans. Yay!

Out in the parking lot I get Thomas’s shirt off of him, without getting too much puke in his hair. I pull out the frozen diaper wipes to wipe us both up as best I can and thank God that, thanks to the joys of potty training, I have an extra shirt for Thomas in the car (no pants, we’ve used up all of those). All the while I’m laughing just a bit hysterically because, well, it’s better to be the crazy lady laughing with a half naked preschooler in the strip mall parking lot than the crazy lady sobbing with a half naked preschooler in the strip mall parking lot.

So we head back in wreaking of vomit to collect my two older children and my phone. As I walk through the door the nice man hands me the tricksy little device I need to pop out the old SIM card and tells me I can go ahead and do that and someone will be right with me to activate the phone. Oh that poor someone.

I really felt like I had to explain to the nice young employee why I smelled so bad. I’m trying to laugh and make the situation as natural as possible, but we smell horrible and there’s still vomit in my kid’s hair.

To his credit, this guy was really, really nice and didn’t act disgusted at all. I joked that not only was this not the first time I’ve been puked on in public, it’s not even the first time I’ve been puked on in public by this kid.* He said, “And I thought my job was hard!” I said, “Well, you have to deal with  crazy people like us, so yeah, it is hard.” He then told me, that we aren’t the crazy people. So now I feel really sorry for the guy.

The activation process was mercifully fast and we were free to take our odious insanity home for the day. Why, God, did I think I could pull off such an advanced parenting feat as taking three sick kids to the Verizon store? Kids. They’ll keep you humble.

 

Thomas the Public Puker
Thomas the Public Puker

 

*A short list of the places Thomas has puked outside of our home: the front porch of our house, Safe Splash Swim School – in the pool, the “dining room” at Wendy’s, Chili’s, the parking lot of the grocery store. I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two.

 

 

February Burn Out

It’s that time of year. Christmas is behind us, spring seems so close and yet so far away. The winter doldrums have set in and we all feel restless. We want to shake things up. We want to breathe some life into the dreary surroundings. We want things to feel fresh and new rather than bleak and stagnant.

There are two things I always do this time of year – not intentionally, just as a result of a natural internal prompting. The first is to makeover my house. In the last couple of weeks I’ve bought a new (to me) couch, a new (to me) ottoman, a new rug, new (to me) lamps, a new shower curtain, and I’ve picked out paint colors and fabric swatches and on and on to spruce up my space. I love home makeovers on the cheap. The process revives me, and I always seem to go at it full force in January and February.

The other thing I always do in February, and I know I am not alone here, is rethink my home school. My oldest is in third grade now, and this is the first year this rethinking has not included the process of browsing local school websites.

I know lots of homeschooling moms come to February and start to think, “What am I doing? I am totally screwing this up. There is no way I’m teaching him everything he needs to know. We fight all the time. How do I know he’s learning what he needs to? I’m so tired of the daily battles! This isn’t what I thought homeschooling would be!”

I have so been there. And I will be there again, no doubt.  But since I’m not in that space at this exact moment, I want to share some encouragement for those who are – and for myself when I return there in the future!

So here are my words of encouragement to you, and to future me.

  1. You’re doing awesome. The sacrifices you are making for your children right now are huge and important and good. Homeschooling is an amazing gift you give your child even when it’s not perfect.
  2. School won’t fix it. Whatever “it” is, if your true desire is to homeschool, you can find a way to fix “it” at home. You may need to find more social opportunities – or cut back on social stuff for awhile. You may need to “buckle down” a little more with formal work – or you may need to take a break from the formal book learning and try a more relaxed, less schooly approach for awhile. You may need more discipline, or more fun, or more outside help, or to tune others out and listen just to your own voice for a bit.
  3. Sending your kid to school will not end the battles over learning. It will simply transform them into battles over homework. Do you have friends with kids in school? Do you know how much homework they have? Do you know how many projects they have? Do you know how many parent/teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights and socials and fundraisers and etc., etc., etc., you will have to attend?
  4. Even if you’re a bad teacher (and I promise you, you’re not, because if you were, you would never even have tried this whole experiment because you just wouldn’t have cared enough to suffer the headaches and heartaches), but even if you are a bad teacher, your kid is getting the benefit of one-to-one instruction. Do not underestimate the value of this! Do you ever feel torn because your’e trying to meet the need of 3 different kids? Imagine a teacher who has to meet the needs of 30 different kids. And then, in an hour, gets a whole new batch of 30 kids she has to teach. Think it’s easier because they’re all supposed to be learning the same thing? It’s not, because every single kid is different. And nobody knows your kid like you do.

If you want to homeschool, you can. You can. If you don’t want to homeschool, that’s fine. There are great schools out there! I’m not one to tell you that your kid will be forever damaged if you send them to school. I know school works for a lot of families. But you chose homeschooling for a reason. Probably for lots of reasons. If those reasons haven’t changed, and you still want to homeschool, don’t give up because you don’t think you’re good enough! You are good enough! You may need to change something, maybe just your thinking or your expectations, but maybe a new curriculum will help.

Almost certainly you need to be kinder and gentler to yourself and step back and realize that you’re doing an amazing job. Take a few minutes to write down everything you do with your kids and everything they’re learning. You’ll be amazed. Because you are doing an amazing job. I’m going to say it one more time. You are amazing. Because if you weren’t, you would never have even tried this insane experiment.

You are precious

I find Facebook is a nice representation of the cultural zeitgeist. I find it reflects the shortness of the American attention span and the ease with which we can be turned from focusing on those issues we passionately embrace one moment and then cast aside when the next shiny object is dangled in front of us.
On Friday, July 20, 2012, a gunman opened fire in a movie theater and killed 12 people. Fifty-eight others were injured. The next day, Facebook was shocked and horrified, deeply saddened, and, once the obligatory condolences were offered, alive with rallying cries to stop the horror. “Gun control!” “2nd Amendment Rights!” “When will the madness end?” “Don’t Tread on Me!” Lots of noise, lots of emotion, but virtually zero conversation.
Then, not two weeks after this unspeakable horror was visited on our community, something interesting happened. A private business owner expressed his unpopular opinion about gay marriage. Suddenly, the whole world, or at least all of Facebook, had forgotten the horror of the Aurora killings. Now Facebook erupted with rainbow flags and shouts about the 1st amendment and love versus hate. Half my feed was planning to eat crappy chicken sandwiches on Wednesday, August 1 and the other half was trying to drum up a same-sex friend to make out with them outside of a fast food restaurant two days later. 
But I’ll hand it to Facebook. The gay marriage issue did remain in my feed for the next several months. It was joined by heated sloganeering about women’s health “rights.”Because if there’s anything more important than keeping our children from being slaughtered in movie theaters, it’s making sure that everyone has access to free birth control. 
Not once during the campaigning leading up to the election did I hear anyone raise the issue of gun control. Not once did I hear anyone demanding to know how the candidates were going to address the issue of crazed gunmen mowing down our children in schools.  
The irony here is that it seems like this is an issue that people should be able to agree on. At least to an extent. While people may never come to an agreement as to whether or not we want to provide free birth control for all, it seems that we should at least be able to agree that we don’t want people murdering people en masse in public places. 
After Aurora, people cried, “How many more are going to have to die before we do something about this?” The answer, apparently, is “at least 26 more.” 
In the face of this most recent school shooting, I find my Facebook page is once again alive with gun control “debates.” I place debates in quotes because the reality is there is no debate. There is no discussion. There is wild emotionalism on both sides with no one listening to anyone with an opinion that differs from his own. There are a few speaking reasonably, but I fear no one is listening. True, mind changing dialogue rarely occurs on Facebook. 

Which is fine. I’m not asking anyone to give up whatever it is they get out of participating in these “discussions.” What I am asking is that you stop pretending it’s some sort of meaningful activism. If you want to effect change, do so. Stop talking at people who aren’t listening. Stop collecting “likes” from people who already agree with you, and find out who you need to talk to in order to make change. 
My plea to all, whether you’re shouting “Gun Control!” or “Right to Keep and Bear Arms!”, is to put your energy to work where it will actually make a difference. Don’t squander it by engaging in exhausting exchanges that have no power to effect change. 
You’re time and energy are too precious. You are too precious. 
Which brings me to my final point. Until each and everyone of us realizes that each and every one of us is too precious, we will not see an end to senseless displays of violence. Hateful words on Facebook are born of the same malice that opens fire on school children. 
“You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council. And whosoever shall say, Thou Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Matthew 5:21-22)
However you choose to respond to this deep sickness in our culture, whether you choose to lobby for gun control or fund mental health research or to fast and pray, remember that every single person you encounter is infinitely precious. That includes you. Until we can begin to see the tiniest glimmer of worth in ourselves and in each other, the tiniest reflection of the value and dignity that Our Father sees in us, until we can begin to see that each life truly is sacred and worthy of our love and protection and reverence, nothing will change. 
Though it’s quoted often enough to be cliche, you must go forth and be the  change you wish to see in the world. Change doesn’t happen “out there.” It happens in every interaction you have with another human being. Make sure your interactions reflect the love you want to see in the world. 

Challenge: Month of Love

 

One of the articles in this month’s Colorado Parent magazine is a 7 Day Challenge to Show Show your Child More Love. It offers 7 ideas for for showing your child just a little extra love. For example, one day you’re supposed to do one of your child’s chores for her. Just because you love her. Another day, you’re supposed to focus on responding immediately to his requests for your attention, as opposed to, say, shouting “just a minute I’m trying to finish this blog post!”

I love this! I feel like so much of the parenting advice I come across is focused on controlling children rather than on recognizing them as actual little people that we are living in relationship with. I love to see articles that say, you know what, it’s okay to be a softy sometimes. It’s okay to bend the rules or do something nice for your kid without trying to teach them any other lesson than “I think you’re an amazing human being, I’m glad you’re in my life, and I love you!”

So I thought it would be fun, for the month of February, to take a minute each day to think about an extra little way to show our children we love them that day. If you “Like” Razzbelly on Facebook, I’ll offer an idea there each day. And I’d love to have you share your own ideas and how you executed your love challenge for the day.

So who’s in?

Six years of motherhood

Watching your children grow up is a strange thing. Just six years ago I became a mother when I gave birth to this beautiful bundle of baby boy. I was terrified and elated. And six years later I still experience those conflicting emotions on a daily basis.

He’s no longer a beautiful bundle of baby boy. He’s up to my chest and long and lean. Though he is still breathtakingly beautiful.

When he was a tiny baby his inner workings were a mystery to me. I did my best to guess when he was hungry or tired. Looking back through the lens of experience I now realize that as often as he was hungry or tired he might have been frustrated or bored.

He’s always been a very curious boy. And a very thoughtful boy. Strangers commented on his pensive gaze, what was often labeled “seriousness,” almost as often as they commented on his striking beauty. One friendly soul remarked that once he started talking I’d be in for it. “He’s storing up all the questions he can’t yet ask.” I believe she was right.

When he started talking at a year old he did so with a perfection not often seen in such tiny children. By the time he was three, he sounded like a 10 year old. The only two words that he has ever mispronounced were “cholocolate” and “dubya-lu.” He still says “dubya-lu” and it melts my heart every time.

He spoke clearly and often. He still has a lot to say. But what is sometimes maddening is that, just as when he was a tiny baby, I still don’t always know what he’s thinking. He’s still a deep thinker. But he doesn’t always choose to share those thoughts with me.

It’s tough as a mother. I want to know all that goes on inside his little brain. I want to know his hopes and fears, his dreams and worries. It is distressing to me that he doesn’t pour his heart out to me. If something is bothering him, he wants me close. He wants my physical presence, but he doesn’t want to talk. Maybe this is a Mars/Venus thing. Maybe it’s an introvert thing. I don’t know. But I have to stop myself at times from bullying him into telling me what he’s thinking.

The hardest part is knowing that the older he gets, the less I will know him. For now I have ways of getting information from others. But I won’t always be able to ask his friend’s mom to get the story from her child. I will have to trust in our relationship enough to know that he will open up to me if and when he needs to. That he will know that I am always there and willing to listen.

That Kid’s Mom

Quirky. Gifted. Highly Gifted. Twice Exceptional. A Handful. Hyper.  Distractible. Bright. High Energy. Intense. Funny. Sensory Integration Disorder. Sensory Processing Disorder. Highly Sensitive. Fine Motor Delay.

Some combination of the above labels would likely be used by the public education system in order to classify and process my oldest son. He’s kind of hard to pin down, but you know him when you see him. Most classes have a kid like him. He’s the one that can’t sit still. He’s the one pretending his markers are rockets and creating an elaborate story with sound effects while the rest of the class is drawing shapes like they’re supposed to. He’s the one that won’t paint because 1) he can’t do the representational drawings at the level of his classmates and he doesn’t want to fail and 2) he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty.

And he’s the kid that eats his shirt during the holiday concert.

Though we homeschool, we send Henry to a one-day-a-week homeschool enrichment program so that he gets to participate in things like choir and school concerts.

Last week we packed up the family, including one week old baby Thomas, and headed over to see Henry’s choir debut. His music teacher had emailed me a few days earlier to let me know that Henry hadn’t seemed to want to participate in the concert during the dress rehearsal. Henry and I had been talking about it. He seemed excited, and so I continued to talk it up as something that was going to be great.

When I arrived at the school with his white concert shirt, he, predictably, refused to wear it. That was fine with everyone. He could wear his favorite “blue stripey” shirt – the one shirt he’ll wear even if we’re at home. (Generally, at home he wears jammies.) We all just wanted him to perform.

Henry insisted that I sit with him and his class while he waited for his turn on stage. I sat holding his hand. We talked about the butterflies in his tummy. We talked about how the big kids were nervous too. We talked about how much fun the party would be after he performed. We talked about how awesome he was going to feel after he did something hard.

He told me he was going to “screw up all the courage” he could and go up there on stage. And he did. Because he was one of the smaller kids, and because he insisted on standing with his best friends (naturally), he ended up front and center on the stage. A blue-shirted kid in a sea of white shirts.

The concert began with his little friend waving a prop in his face. He konked her on the head. Then, during most of the first song, he stared blankly into space. But then he came to life – singing his little heart out and toying with his blue stripey shirt. Then he was chewing on his blue stripey shirt.

And then, somehow, he managed to work the stretched out, saliva soaked collar of that blue stripey shirt down over both shoulders. For a few suspenseful seconds I sat laughing but terrified of what would come next. His music teacher turned to me with a big smile and big “oh my God!” eyes. I just sat laughing.

I sat there thinking, “That’s my son. I’m ‘that kid’s’ mom.” It made me smile. It made me feel tremendously blessed. It came to me that God has given me this particular child to raise. It was no accident. I am meant to be his mom. He is meant to be my kid. We are meant to learn from each other things that we could not learn from anyone else.

As I sat pondering what, precisely, I was supposed to be learning from this particular incident, Henry’s shirt returned to it’s proper location and the kids began singing that ridiculous “skidamarink a dink a dink” song. When they got to the “IIIIIII Loooooove You!” line, my little boy turned his entire body to where I was sitting, looked me right in the eye, and pointed right at me. If you are a mother, or you know me at all, I don’t have to tell you that I cried. At that moment, I was the proudest, happiest momma on the planet. Yes sir, that’s my baby! He eats his shirt, he undresses during concerts, and he. loves. me.

I was so proud of him for screwing up his courage and doing something so hard. I was so proud of me for finding the humor in the shirt-eating strip-tease, rather than being embarrassed by it. I was proud of my husband for also rolling with it rather than cringing at a public reminder of his own childhood awkwardness. And I was so happy to know that my son loves me. That he loved me in that moment because I was there to support him through something hard. Loved me because I helped him do something he was proud of doing.

And he was quite proud of himself. He talked about how much he loved singing and how he’s going to do lots of concerts. He asked his dad to be in a choir with him so they could do concerts together.

It was a great day for our family. One that drove home the rewards of doing something hard and of loving each other unconditionally. It’s not always easy being “that kid’s” mom, but the joy that comes in the good moments is worth all the struggle.

A touch of whimsy

I was sitting at a stoplight today when I noticed bubbles. “Bubbles?” I thought, “Where are they coming from?” The car on the other side of the intersection. Though the driver of the car was grim faced and apparently unaware of the whimsical delight surrounding her car, the two young girls in the back seat were smiling joyfully as they blew bubbles out of the car windows. And it made my day.

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