This can be a tough time of year for homeschooling mothers; serious burn-out and lack of motivation seems to prevail. Our minds sometimes are more on our seed catalogs and what to get for next year’s curriculum than the here and now.
I think this a great time of year to stop and take stock of where you are in your homeschooling, where your children are, and what are the essential things to get done before the end of the school year. I also think it can be a nice time of year to plan some things for outside once your weather cooperates and to think of the DOING and the experiences one could create with your grades children, and how to bring awe and reverence to the younger children.
I think every year it is also wise to look at each child, to look at their homeschooling adventure this year and to decide with fresh eyes to homeschool again. To really commit to that with a new heart, a new love. Do you have a mission statement for your homeschool? Are you happy overall with the way things have progressed in your homeschool this year? What needs to be different?
If you are not homeschooling, perhaps this is a wonderful time to re-commit yourself to your family. Write that family mission statement or update it. Commit to that date at home with your spouse after your children go to bed. Commit to that Family Game Night with the kids! Connect with each other and love each other!
And dig deep within yourself; replenish that well. Spend time in creativity, and with good friends and build yourself up. Think about what your dreams are, and whilst this season of child-rearing is busy, perhaps there are ways to work toward your dreams in small increments. I just signed up for an Internet course that I am very excited about, for example. It is a small, do-able step toward my eventual goals.
What are your dreams? Journal, draw, write it all down.
Happy Spring Cleaning!
Blessings,
Carrie
The Parenting Passageway 
Great Points & Reminders -thanks.
My wife and I are reading Simplicity Parenting, by Kim John Payne, together out-loud to each other…it makes for wonderful conversation and stretches our thinking about how we’re parenting/schooling….so much more than what the tv can offer. Not to mention our Children catch us from time to time and my sense is that it sets a really good example of how a couple can spend time together doing something other than cleaning, taxes, discussing the next days plan, etc.
On a more personal note i spend time each morning reading and reflecting for my own growth….for me, this is key, like exercise if i miss it my day just isn’t the same.
Appreciate your blog!
Brad
here’s an excellent blog for daily consideration – http://gregghake.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/keep-it-simple/
Thanks so much, Carrie! More inspiration to work with! I need to write down what needs to be different and commit with a fresh heart again!
Carrie, I think you could do a whole post on moms working towards their dreams. Sometimes I get too busy and tired to remember that I have dreams outside of my mothering, and I think I’m (again) too busy and too tired to do anything about them at this point in my life. But that’s not true, really. I think doing a bit now would actually energize me. Maybe setting up a plan and seeing what little do-able thing I could do now. Just a suggestion.
Just what I needed to hear! It is a time of fighting against the urge to look forward and to become easily distracted by those seed catalogs, spring cleaning, housewifery and social life. Just spent some time pondering these things after reading Mitten Strings for God and can’t wait to spend some more time thinking about what you wrote here…