When Brian and I first decided to listen to God’s call to homeschool our children I was paralyzed with fear. Fear that somehow I would miss one crucial thing--or worse an entire subject. I worried that somehow my children would grow up unable to diagram a sentence, or not knowing how to find the area of a triangle. So I obsessed over the various curriculum choices, and concluded that I had to order it all from the same company and I had to have one of everything. That way, I reasoned, I would be sure not to miss some critical component like I was certain to do if I mix and matched from various publishers. I was so excited to get all of our new books that first year. With great intensity, I poured myself into the teacher’s manuals, convinced I had to do every single thing. It didn’t matter that Gavin could count by tens eight weeks ago, or that he was bored with the repetitive way I hammered those ‘special sounds’ into his head. Less than six months into it I was burned out--totally exhausted. He was learning, yes--how could he not? But he wasn’t enjoying it and neither was I. At some point I realized that the teacher’s manual was written to help a teacher teach the ‘average’ student. Average means that someone learned it faster, and someone took longer. This revelation was a real eye-opener for me and finally allowed me to give myself permission to skip some of the assignments. I’ve often referred to my first-born as a guinea pig in this homeschooling venture, and he has such a good nature and an incredible desire to learn that he’s allowed me to learn from my mistakes with him. I have stated more than once that he has learned so much, not always from me or because of me, but often in spite of me. He prepared me, though, for my second son who presents me with challenges every single day. My second-born son is an adorable bundle of energy and excitement who views the world with a sense of adventure, but he often can’t sit still for more than five minutes. If my first son hadn’t made me realize I didn’t have to do it all, then surely this one would have!
Currently, I am learning to apply this same philosophy --about doing it all-- to our external activities. Our local homeschooling group has new leadership this year and she is doing a fantastic job of providing numerous opportunities for our kids to learn and interact together. New this year are co-op classes, art classes, monthly birthday parties, twice monthly park days, and Mom’s night out. In addition, this year we have been participating in a twice-weekly homeschool PE class and of course are continuing guitar lessons for Gavin. In my usual all-or-nothing fashion, I jumped head-first into everything. Most weeks this leaves only one day a week that we don’t have somewhere to be. And since most of our outings are a 30 minute drive one way, this means spending a minimum of one hour a day on the road. Four days of this is, at minimum, four hours of our precious school days gone. The most obvious and extremely visible effect of this is that the housework is put aside. But the more troublesome effects are on school work and on our life in general. We are much more hurried and stressed than ever before and the kids complain that they never even have time to play with their friends. We don’t have time to enjoy school, follow the rabbit trails, and to incorporate games and fun stuff into our day. The boys both agree we are doing to much and they agree we need to make choices about what to participate in. This week and the next many of our fall activities will be drawing to a close in anticipation of the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays. They will all be kicking back off again in January, however many of them will be doing it without us! The activities are great and there is much to be attained from participating in a homeschool group that provides activities. But there has to be a balance present... a balance between the homeschool life and the home life. Homeschooling families, mine included, have to make choices about which external activities are most useful and which ones will just be adding an unnecessary amount of stress to the day. And you know, this isn’t just true of homeschooling families, I think. Working parents who have their kids in traditional schools must still be cautious about how many activities they choose to participate in. At some point activities cross the line from fun and ‘good for you’ and begin to steal valuable family time. And today, family time is about the most valuable thing we can give our kids!
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