Image by flattop341
How do you define contentment?
New to freewriting? Check out our online guide.
Archive for July, 2013
When the Tears Come
Who can do anything well while crying?
Can you type while crying? Cook dinner? Play board games? Not well.
Tears are an indication that something is wrong. Really wrong. They signal pain: emotional or physical. In writing, emotional pain may be writer’s block or fear of making a mistake. Physical pain may be that the hand hurts from squeezing the pencil too tightly, or eye strain, or physical exhaustion from a poor night’s sleep.
Crying is not a sign of laziness or lack of character. Crying is the last release, the final “giving up” and admission of failure.
Crying signals: I need comfort.
When the tears come, the writing’s done.
Take a break.
Acknowledge your child’s feelings. “I see that you’re unhappy. Let’s talk about this project later.”
Offer a hug.
Later, when your child has regained equilibrium, come back to find out what went wrong.
Ask:
- Are you afraid of making a mistake?
- Is it too hard to grip the pencil for ten minutes straight?
- Are you having a hard time spelling?
- Do you wish you could play outside in the sunshine rather than sit at a table?
- Does it feel like you have nothing to say?
- Are you sleepy? Hungry?
- Do you feel pressured by me?
Be an investigator and a comforter. A cup of tea and eye contact will go a long way toward soothing the hurting writer. Remember, writer’s block is the usual reason for writing paralysis (not strong wills).
Writer’s block means the child doesn’t have access to the words inside. The words are hidden behind anxiety, fear of failure, or a vague sense of the topic (not enough depth in the subject area to be able to write about it meaningfully).
Writer’s block is experienced by everyone (pros, professors, and prodigies) and at its most acute, produces tears.
Give oodles of empathy and hugs. Offer a snack (with protein in it). Talk about how to make writing less painful. Take some time to remind yourself of the goal – a free, brave writer who is at ease when writing, not gripped with anxiety and fear.
Take a look at Growing Brave Writers, if you need strategies for unblocking your chronically blocked writers.
Don’t take it to heart
Don’t take it to heart when your efforts are under appreciated. Your investment is long term. The results will come in spurts or show themselves after years go by.
Don’t take it to heart when your children are bored or tell you they hate homeschooling. It’s a feeling, in the moment, shared with you because you are the safe place and the one in charge. Hold space for the feeling. But also hold space for homeschool. Sometimes the expression of frustration will subside as they feel heard and supported. Don’t make big changes after single outbursts. Stick with your plan, but offer compassion, support, and breaks.
Don’t take it to heart when you try your best to apply principles that “work for everyone else” but aren’t working for you. It’s not you. Or rather, it is you—you matter. What works for you? Those principles and practices that ensure peace, progress, and passion. Check in with yourself and look for signs of life. Don’t expect cookie cutter results applying someone else’s practices and principles. Always find your own, or your version of the ones you admire.
Don’t take it to heart when you have a bad day or a bad week or a bad month. We all go through dips and swings into the muddy places. Be good to you. Slow down, take a breath, regroup, start again. If the dips and slides last longer than a month, pay attention. Discover the cause, but do so free of self-loathing or judgment. Solve the puzzle; not the crime. You aren’t bad or wrong, just depleted and banged up.
Don’t take it to heart when the email or forum post stings and zings, pops your bubble and misses the spirit of who you are. Online communication lacks emotional cues and gives too much permission to the expression of harsh feeling. Sip tea, read the comment, delete it or click out. Move on. You have too much to do and too many people to love to give that one invisible person power to disrupt your harmony.
Don’t take it to heart when the progress you counted on doesn’t emerge. You have time. There is always time—time for everything you’ve ever needed to do under the sun. You can’t live as though there is no time. That posture squeezes the joy from living and hurries little people who can’t be hurried and robs learning of its incubation and saturation stages. Be picky. Choose one thing at a time and trust it to teach everything.
Don’t take it to heart when things go wrong, when you feel inadequate, when you are misunderstood, when you can’t find your way. That’s just today, just a moment. It will pass.
The kind of person who takes all these things to heart? A really good person, with a big heart. That’s you.
Be good to you.
Cross-posted on facebook.
Image by Sean and Lauren
Poetry Teatime: Perfect combination
Image by JaimeMorrow
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ~C.S. Lewis
Visit our Poetry Teatime website!
It’s the Relationship, Sweetheart
When you’re tempted to get worked up about algebra,
breathe.
Remind yourself: My daughter and I can tackle algebra more easily if we like each other.
When he spills the Cheerios right after you told him to wait for you,
hold back.
Let the lava flow of irritation run through you, but don’t spill it onto his little head. Remember: He won’t always spill Cheerios, but he will be grateful that I’m not the type to lose my cool.
When you can’t squeeze another chapter into the end of the year, and you’re disappointed in yourself for not being more disciplined,
let go.
Notice: My children like me. I like them. I can let that be enough, because it is.
When heartbreak threatens to steal your memories, when you don’t know how to get to the next space because it’s unfamiliar and riddled with loss, hold on. Tell yourself: It will be okay because I love and am loved. I’ll get to the other side by loving, not by fearing.
When one of your children doesn’t like you right now,
trust.
This too shall pass: My love and like are big enough for the both of us. I can let my natural devotion and affection lead me, not my resentment, nor my anxiety, nor my anger.
When you imagine your children in the future, what do you see? Inside jokes, vacations at the beach, memories of outings taken and books read, big hugging reunions, foods to share, games to play?
Pay attention:
These start now. I can do them now. I will value them now.
In the end, the book learning will come (sometimes quickly and ahead of schedule, sometimes in college, sometimes not until one your children decides to home educate his or her offspring).
What can never be scheduled or studied, crammed or tested is love.
Homeschooling is a performance of love between family members over a sustained, daily, intimate period of years, led by a parent who puts relationship ahead of books.
Check in with yourself today.
Be present to your children.
Love one another.
