Archive for the ‘Homeschool Advice’ Category

Are you a Type A mom?

People First

Do you find it difficult to operate without a checklist? Do you find yourself worried about getting it all done?

On the flip side, do you wish you could be more relaxed, but each time you try, the anxiety rises and you don’t quite relax?

It’s difficult to battle who you are—how you naturally interact with the world. Messy people buy the manuals of the naturally organized thinking they can change if they just have a system. Type A parents want to find a way to relax without feeling like they are lazy.

I say: Work with whatchu got! It’s too hard to do a personality-ectomy! Better to suit your aims to your style.

For instance, if you want to be a more relaxed mom—one who puts the warm fuzzies ahead of the workbooks, change the checklist. See if that helps.

Self-awareness is the first step. Each time you are tempted to push your kids toward what feels like work rather than delight, breathe. Feel your face. Are you smiling? Are your brows furrowing? Get back to connection with your children. Measure your day (checklist) with a new “Type A” criteria.

Check these off as you do them:

__ Hugged each kid

__ Made eye contact with one and had a conversation for 3 minutes

__ Asked questions of my quiet child to find out more about her process, not her work completed.

__ Played a game.

__ Took a walk.

__ Cultivated silliness (silly voice, body, jokes, puns, dance moves).

__ Put on music.

__ Smiled at my children, each one, at least once.

__ Gave 5 compliments.

__ Ate tasty foods and noticed the flavors.

__ Let everyone stop “working” sooner than they expected.

__ Did someone’s task for them.

__ Sat next to my child during her hardest subject until she finished it, offering encouragements.

__ Gave myself and kids permission to NOT do a boring chapter of the workbook.

__ Left a mess so my children could return to it later to finish the art project or the Lego build or the play fort.

What if you had a check list like that? Would that help you be a Type A mom who is also more fun?

Try that for a couple of days and see if you find a new groove for your careful personality—one that measures and values connection, over work completed. (You are likely to still get all the work done – that’s who you are! But now you’ll make room for the other stuff you wish you would do more spontaneously.)

Good luck!

A Gracious Space

Image by Betsy Weber (cc)

Posted in Homeschool Advice, On Being a Mother | 1 Comment »

That elusive thing called happiness

HappinessImage by Caleb Roenigk

I read a blog the other day that reminded me: Happiness is not a completed puzzle with all the pieces glued into place, varnished, framed, and then hung on the wall—as though once you find that last piece and arrange it in the missing space, completing the puzzle “just so,” you will have achieved happiness and that quest will be finished.

What a great image! As though happiness could be contained in a still, framed, lifeless image.

I liked it. I liked it a lot. It’s so easy to think that if I pad my cell with the right set of philosophical bumpers, I will avoid sharp objects and intrusive voices that wreck my peace.

I thought about it more.

Happiness is not just “joy in the journey” of hunting for puzzle pieces either. The hunt implies that there is some key, some magical understanding that puts everything together in such a way that you know you’ve arrived. So the quest for the pieces is part of that vision that you might find the end point. It’s hard to have joy in a journey without a destination (who wants to just drive around all day without arriving somewhere?).

So that’s the problem with “joy in the journey” thinking. We still try to get somewhere so that we’ll finally feel justified in having that feeling of joy or happy.

What if “happiness” is utterly different than we’ve been led to believe by advertisers, experts, and advice-givers?

Happiness in homeschool, as I’ve observed it, and as I’ve lived it at times, is the experience of being okay with my homeschool exactly the way it is today—unfinished, messy, incompleteness spilling out of the sides, and running down my legs, and busting through the neat graphed lines of my schedule.

Happiness in my homeschool looks like slathering a big thick layer of yummy love across my imperfect self and my silly, sometimes struggling, sometimes thriving bunch of little rascals that live their own version of happy in the middle of the mess.

It’s forgiving myself for my lacks and inadequacies and recognizing that I don’t have all that it takes to homeschool. Some days I don’t even have half of what it takes.

Happiness comes when I’m least expecting it—when a moment stirs me or catches me off guard, like a hug and kiss, or a brand new word read, or a note pinned to my pillow, or a pair of kids playing without arguing for ten whole minutes.

It comes when I give up and give in and let today be what it is and trust that tomorrow will be okay too and I look back at yesterday and think, “That wasn’t all bad. It looks even better in hindsight. I can build a memory from that one thing—that little breakthrough or that joke or the way we all teared up at the end of the read aloud. That’s enough to take from yesterday.”

Happiness is a state of being not a goal achieved or a mindset created or a philosophy rigidly followed. It comes when you let go and float and let the waves of your life ride.

Think of labor—yielding, trusting, crests, and valleys. But oh so good, and leading to the oh so right, and messy too.

If you’re in that space of self-recrimination, where you can’t figure it out, can’t identify what’s going wrong, if you wish you were better at being a mom or teaching math or having big juicy conversations… stop. Go inside and let yourself fall a part a little bit.

While you do, be your own best friend for a moment. Notice your limits and love them. Let them be. Blow them kisses. They are part of what make you, you… to yourself, and to your children.

You don’t have to solve it. You can keep going, you can embrace the uniqueness that is your life…. trusting that over time, everyone will find their way when you stop pushing so hard to make it all fit into that framed puzzle.

Be good to you. Accept who you are—hug yourself, wrap that hurting self in a pair of big strong arms. You’re okay. I know you want to grow and change and be better. We all do. One way to get there is to stop trying to fix it. Simply be where you are, as you are, living with the magical people entrusted to your care.

Happiness may find you yet.

Posted in Homeschool Advice | 1 Comment »

It really is enough

The tricky part of homeschooling, and particularly writing, is that you can’t see the growth as it happens. Looking back shows you the growth. But looking back happens when they head off to college… or Europe, or get married. That feels a teensy bit late.

In other words, the very thing you need to reassure you that you are doing a good job with your kids is invisible to you as you do that “good job with your kids.” You’re required to put your faith in the process, rather than confidence in observable results. (Or, alternatively, you have to change how you measure what you see.)

  • It’s enough to read aloud to your kids, to have your children copy some of those words into a little notebook, to have them take a stab at writing some of those words without looking while you dictate them aloud. It’s enough if this happens once a week or 20 times in a year, and some years even fewer times.
  • It’s enough to catch a few of their brilliant thoughts or quirky ideas in writing for them, once in a while, so they know that what’s inside them deserves to be on paper too.
  • It’s enough to linger at dinner, discussing some topic like the puns in Seinfeld or why Pocahontas the Disney movie is both so good you want to keep watching it but so bad (if you compare it to history) that you feel guilty for loving it.
  • It’s enough to sing to your kids at bedtime once in a while or listen to their stories or to tell them some ridiculous saga you made up that goes on and on and stops making sense after a few weeks but you both love just the same.
  • It’s enough if your kids read and read and read the same book series over and over again and it seems like they will never discover another author as wonderful as JK Rowling or Brian Jacques or Suzanne Collins or Ian Fleming or Jeff Kinney. One day you’ll notice… oh hey! She’s reading another book by someone else.
  • It’s enough if you listen to what your kids say, if you have big juicy conversations about the stuff that interests them, if you laugh at funny sounding words and use absurdly big ones around them just to trick them and tickle their linguistic imaginations.
  • It’s enough if they read a little poetry, look up a few song lyrics, memorize a couple tongue twisters, learn to tell a few really funny jokes, and figure out the delicious humor of Will Shakespeare in one of his comedies (in a movie of course).
  • It’s enough if they cast their thoughts onto a page, freely, attending only to the ideas or the sound of the words, and know they have a receptive audience in you.
  • It’s enough if they play with other writing forms, if they learn how to mop up their own mechanics, if they attempt half a dozen essays in high school, figuring out what it means to have a point of view that they assert and then how to back it up because it matters to them.

We make it so difficult. We expect our kids to match some other agenda than the one that delivers them happily into an authentic writing life.

Less is more—less hand-wringing, fewer assignments, less control, less nagging, fewer criteria.

More is more—more conversations, more reading, more delight, more time, more space, more passion for language, more opportunities to play with words, language.

I’m here to help when you lose your nerve or your way.

Posted in Brave Writer Lifestyle, Homeschool Advice, Writing about Writing | 2 Comments »

Anger can be liberating

Evil JoannaImage by Javier Ignacio Acuña Ditzel

In the context of mutual respect, the healthy discharge of anger has a place:

Anger says, “This far, and no further.”

Anger says, “Step off” or “Step back.”

Anger alerts the room: “Something’s not right. Someone’s not happy. Something needs to change.”

Anger clocks your own immobilizing depression to the floor while the secret you-that-has-needs shows up, ready to handle what must be done.

Anger sends a power surge—suddenly you are your own advocate, standing for your point of view, come what may!

Anger lets the people who take you for granted know that you are, in fact, here—”You show up” when angry.

My kids have a word to describe me when I hit that wall—when my tolerance and goodwill, my empathy and earnestness are depleted. They say, “Mom is pa-dunk-ah-dunking.” It’s their signal to each other: Back up and help Mom.

What they mean is that my eyes go a little crazy-cross-eyed, my tone of voice ratchets up an octave, and my desperation to be heard leads me to shout and stride all over the room, pointing at what must be done RIGHT NOW.

In those moments, I’m not my “best self.” Or at least, I’m not my ideal self.

But I’ve come to see that if I don’t notice the build up of resentment or the fact that I had given so much, I ran out of stuff to give, it is inevitable that a mini pa-dunk-ah-dunk chain reaction is on its way.

Sometimes I’m in the middle before I know I’m in at all! The outburst shocks me as much as the kids.

What I’ve come to understand about anger:

You rarely discharge anger carefully or correctly. The books that tell you how to do it “the right way” assume that in your moment of anger, you have the wherewithal to remember the right words! If you’re good at that, my hat is off to you! For me, I don’t call my kids names and I don’t abuse them, but I do get mad sometimes, and I say it the way it comes because anger is like that—it’s a fire that sweeps through. It’s the last straw—I don’t have other straws to offer.

Anger is a sign to me that I forgot I’m part of the equation in this family. I give, and give, and give, and try to understand and care and support and create space… and then all of the sudden, I discover no one has done that for me, not even me. And bam! Out it rolls. Translating my anger, you would hear this subtext: “Make room for me! Notice my needs! Help me feel respected!”

Anger enables you to set a boundary as a last resort. When you set a boundary, you can’t also take care of someone else’s feelings at the same time so anger helps you to care more about the boundary than the reaction of the people you love. Anger in this context is self-care.

Occasional anger is NOT the same as a habit of anger. If you use anger every day, if you resort to anger any time you feel misunderstood or the external world doesn’t match how you need it to be in order to feel peaceful, it’s possible that your anger will become cruel (or in some cases abusive). Anger cannot be the go to emotion for coping with frustration. No one else is responsible to make your life good. Anger is not the emotion to use to get other people to manage your life for you. You must do that for yourself.

Finally, anger doesn’t have to involve yelling. If you notice the creeping signs of “I’m frustrated,” or “I feel disrespected,” or “I’m needy,” a straight forward declaration can be far more effective in resetting the dial in your home. “I’m getting resentful that no one has heard my need to be ready to go in 10 minutes. I need to see some evidence of that now. I can feel my jaw tightening and I don’t want to yell. Help me.”

I’ve spent most of my life terrified of anger. Truly. The thought of someone yelling at me can cause me to tremble, even now. Psychologists say that depression is anger turned inward. Women have a greater tendency to do this than men.

Anger can be liberating, and it can take away that powerlessness that goes with depression.

I’ve had to learn that:

Anger directed at me isn’t always personal.

Rage is not the same as anger (rage is the uncontrolled violence of anger that is intended to damage/harm/destroy the object in its path).

The rising feeling of anger is a sign to me that something is not right.

Our kids use anger in much the same ways we do, but with less reflection and sometimes less self-control. It helps to know that they are experiencing exasperation, frustration, a sense of violation, or a loss of self when they shout or scream or kick or throw tantrums. We can teach them to express it without abusive language.

The bottom line is that all parents get angry at their kids, at each other. Homeschoolers have more opportunities to create the friction that leads to anger simply because we’re all together so much and so much has to get done.

See if you can identify what kind of anger you are feeling. Notice it. Take a moment to let the feelings ride through you before discharging it (if you can). Get familiar with your triggers. Practice meeting your own needs. Always ask for help.

If anger is a problem for you, do get help. The professional kind. You and your family deserve it.

Posted in Homeschool Advice, Julie's Life | Comments Off on Anger can be liberating

In the Middle of the Muddle

In the middle of the muddle

I had a conversation with Joanna in private message after I posted about my dislike of the word “obedience” in parenting. It was fruitful. I told her that I like hearing from mothers who are “in the middle of the muddle,” because it’s too easy for mothers with older kids (like me) removed from those toddler years to get a bit glassy-eyed about those struggles.

Here’s one of her comments:

“You’re right, I am in the “middle of the muddle” (I like that) — I have five kids, 3-14 (straddling preschool to 8th grade). I think you do an amazing job “remembering” motherhood, but yes… perhaps the earliest years are pleasantly fuzzy, those years when any mom will tell you that a battle of wills is just par for the course. It’s being patient and empathetic in the midst of it that makes the difference, I think. Tonight, in our house, it was “I want to go bed without brushing my teeth.” Well, it’s not a matter of impossibility, danger or hurting someone else… but the answer is still “no” and I didn’t feel badly about that. There was a short melt-down before he came around (this time the tactic was distraction… Blueberries for Sal awaits, hurry!).

“This is the thing… if I thought that his meltdown was evidence that I hadn’t adequately built a bridge of trust, I would feel condemned — just as condemned as if I felt it was due to my unfaithfulness with “the rod.” I think part of sensible little-kid parenting is just embracing that sometimes (lots of times, because preschoolers excel at making requests/demands) you have to say no, that sometimes your sweetheart will be angry/devastated as a result, that sometimes your wills will clash, but that at the end of the day, love can win and you can come out friends. I love the vision you communicate of coming alongside, of coaching, of understanding and empathizing and saying “yes.” I think it works with older kids and I think it works with schooling. I’m just concerned that it has the potential to create more condemnation when applied (without qualification) to little ones — and I know that’s the farthest thing from your heart.”

I responded to her and want to develop those thoughts.

The key is being mindful and attentive.

I don’t know what you’re like in your home, but what you share here is careful and kind. I agree about the love covering the “no’s.”

One of the things I had to learn (as a highly empathetic mother) was how to support a child in taking greater and greater responsibility. What happens for less empathetic parents is they have to learn how to let go of more and more control.

These are the two axes of mothering—either too much “control” or too much “understanding.”

One of the tricky parts of reading about parenting is the tendency of all the advocates of any one style to act as though a “pure” system will cover all personalities and family dynamics. That turns out not to be true.

What works is to be attentive, to be willing to be wrong, to trust your hunches, to at times let things go (after a day at Disneyland with a burnt out child, skipping the toothbrushing is not a big deal one night), to support consistent practice to develop a habit (expecting toothbrushing most every night and finding a way to help that happen)… Parents offer strength (the backbone of good practices) and tenderness (the compassion for childishness and the perspective of maturity).

That balance is one that gets tweaked throughout childhood.

I like to recommend that everyone start with compassion—getting behind the eyes of the child to see the world as that child is currently seeing it. This takes a pause – you have to stop your own racing thoughts to enter into that empty space of observation, without prejudgment.

Once you are there, it’s easier to see what the child needs and what your role should be. If your heart is pounding and you feel anger rising, you are not there yet.

But even when you are being the backbone on behalf of a child who is struggling to take ownership of his responsibilities (no matter how big or small these are), you can be kind.

“We’re going to register for the ACT test now. I’m standing here until you open the browser and I see you logging in.”

That’s different than anger shouted from another room:

“Hey I told you six times to register for the ACT. The deadline is today. I’m not paying for that late fee. It will come out of your paycheck. Now stop that darned game and register!”

Empathy helps you to keep your attitude in check—to realize that childishness (even in big kids!) runs against emerging personal responsibility. You can remember this feeling, if you tap into it. That helps you determine how you will support the growth necessary without caving (“Here, I’ll do it for you”) versus punishment (“You can’t have the car this weekend if you don’t do it”).

Even small children benefit from this kind of empathy + backbone strategy.

“Toothbrushing happens every night. Sometimes we’re going to go into the bathroom singing and laughing and sometimes I may have to carry you in. But I promise to be gentle with your teeth and as soon as you get the hang of it, you can do it all by yourself.”

These ideas all factor heavily into both homeschooling and the teaching of writing, by the way.

The Homeschool Alliance
Image by Nori (cc tinted, text added)

Posted in Homeschool Advice, Julie's Life, On Being a Mother | 1 Comment »