I see so many mothers who are hard on themselves. So hard!
Just stop.
There isn’t anything wrong with you.
We all have quirks, things to learn, things to do differently, ways to grow. When did it become so difficult to do things less than “perfect” in parenting and whose idea of perfect is this? I don’t think any previous generations of parents lived under this amount of societal and self-imposed stress. We are all never done learning and developing and growing if we have enough self-awareness!
We also all have moments where we handle situations just right, where we know we really helped our partner or child navigate something, where we handled something difficult in love.
As women, we rarely extend the love and caring and encouragement we give to others to ourselves. Throughout the years, I have said the same things over and over – if you can feel kind and loving towards yourself and the other adults in your house, if you can really see your child as they are and do what you can to bring health and balance, if you understand human development, if you approach things with love, connection, and gratitude even in times of conflict, if you build a home life with healthy boundaries, if you connect to outside and nature – then there you go. I think those things go a long way to help ourselves and our family members thrive. I have so many back posts on childhood development and health!
You can use a rhythm to help give yourself the gift of time and space in order to take care of yourself, to have fun, and to do the things that are meaningful to you as a human being. Rhythm is a vital key and it is easy to lose with older children and teenagers. You may have to strive in this area in order to help yourself thrive!
You are just enough. You are what your children and family needs. There is nothing wrong with you. Let your love and your light shine!
To those of you who don’t know me, I am a homeschooling mom who has homeschooled one child essentially K-11th grade with some outside high classes (senior year all out), homeschooled a second child K-8 with high school out, and now am K-6 grade homeschooling (so far! We are finishing up sixth grade) for our third and last child. I have mainly Waldorf homeschooled with a lot of emphasis on movement and nature and with some modifications for our family.
I read Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on childhood development a long time ago, circa 2005. So this was before I even discovered Waldorf homeschooling and it struck me as very compatible with how I viewed childhood phases and development, right down to the different shifts and changes that Steiner noted. It sort of coincided a bit with Piaget, which I had studied as a pediatric physical therapist. I have since gone on to read more and more of Steiner’s work, and to earn a certification in The Arts and Anthroposophy. Although not all of Steiner’s ideas jive with my personal religious beliefs, I will say it is never dull and always makes me think! I also love Steiner’s lectures on bees, agriculture, handwork, health – so many areas!
So fast forward from when I began homeschooling with our oldest child’s five and six year old kindergarten years in 2006/2007 to now. I am still here and homeschooling! Our oldest is at a very competitive and well known university, our middle child is now a junior in high school and looking at colleges and different career paths, and our youngest is finishing sixth grade.
What has changed in this time has been amazing! Our oldest two children got really into horseback riding, and little by little we got sucked into the horse world and now have three horses. I went back and got my clinical doctorate and a specialty certificate and began working more. We bought a farm last year and have been taking care of horses, boarding horses, managing work on this property that needed everything from water pipes to heat to insulation to pasture management on up plus juggling work and homeschooling. My husband and I are coming up on 30 years of marriage, and we have changed a lot in thirty years!
So, I gave and give myself permission daily to modify what I need to in order to care for myself and my family. There is no Waldorf police in homeschooling, and I think this is what Rudolf Steiner would say is correct in the home environment without a group of teachers to shepherd a child through all main lessons and specialty classes. So while I do stick to what I feel goes best subject wise by development (often seen reflected in the curriculum of different Waldorf schools, but I also add my own blocks), this is what I do to modify the middle school years to help myself out in the midst of crazy life!
We live in an area where there are hybrid schools/classes just for homeschoolers. That is very fortunate for us! So our sixth grader is in a two day a week outdoor program for middle school boys where they do a ton of living history and do things like building catapults, blacksmithing, gardening, experience buoyancy by building boats, cooking, etc.
I do use a formal math program in addition to blocks. So I do the traditional math blocks for each grade found in Waldorf Schools, but also an outside program. This year I used Saxon, but I am not afraid to pull problems from a variety of game based and regular based supports. I do not have the time and energy to sit and make up daily math problems and I am not a math specialist. This isn’t my strong suit, even though I have had university level math, so I do what I need to.
I try to keep an emphasis on doing – art, building, cooking, etc and make that a cornerstone first and then think about the teacher presentation part next and the art and writing piece. So I sort of flip the traditional order of the main lesson on its head a lot. Middle schoolers have short attention spans and like to be doing (at least mine do!)
Like all homeschoolers, we try to tie in field trips or different experiences to what we are studying.
I am not afraid to meet my child. I have children with dyslexia and dyscalculia, attention deficit challenges, etc and they need support and I will get them what they need. This might be outside tutoring, programs that cater to that, etc. No apologies.
I am not great at handwork, and we no longer have a community handwork class, so I prioritize farm life and nature, cooking, gardening, fine arts (the things I can do). Your homeschool may look very different from mine and that is ok! We used community resources for choir and instrumental playing up until Covid hit, so that is also on the back burner until I see what is coming back!
In the midst of modifying I try to remember the hallmarks of our educational philosophy – to see and observe the child, to understand development and what that truly means to be human, to bring balance to the child and the family, to move from whole to parts in teaching, to tie every subject back to man/humanity, to keep sharpening myself, to keep an order and rhythm in the chaos the best I can as we go through renovations or animal care that takes a whole day or whatever is happening.
I prioritize love and connecting with each other. That’s what keeps kids who were homeschooled from not looking back and hating the experience. If you hate homeschooling and it’s a big yelling time, email me! You want your children to look back and be glad they were homeschooled!
I try to foster community as best we can, but it isn’t really a Waldorf community. I find not many people homeschool middle schoolers and high schoolers this way, at least where we live. So, we love 4H, horseback riding, and this summer our little person is going to try his hand at sailing. Find where you fit and where you are welcomed and loved.
What are ways that you make homeschooling work for your child and family?
March has had that strange weather – hot temperatures, freezing cold (even when we were in Florida it got down to 30 degrees one night!), rain, sunshine. March has a little bit of sunshine and a little bit of wild, much like all of us. Maybe March is the ultimate human experience personified in weather!
The daffodils and tulips are blooming where I live, and things are greening up. In farm life, we are busy seeding pastures, getting garden beds ready, thinking about other house projects (it’s such a long journey there! So much of what we have done no one can see – things like plumbing, roofing, heat, hot water heater, A/C, so the cosmetics are still not quite there! Getting new insulation in our attic soon which is going to be wonderful.)
Most of all though, spring is a time of renewal. I find myself drawn to the spring greens to eat, the ideas of new beginnings and fresh starts, and craving the sunshine. My mood is one of checking in with my word of the year (#abundant) and seeing where my intentions lie. I have tried hard to make some intentional strides in the areas that I think will lead to abundance. Have you checked in with your word of the year? How are things coming?
Child #1 – is a sophomore at an out of state university. No more homeschooling, but intentionally forging close bonds with our adult child – new facets and new discoveries to our relationship. All the connection and understanding your child’s temperament and personality really pays off when they are in their 20s!
Child #2 – is technically and legally a homeschool student but is enrolled at a four day a week hybrid program for this 11th grade year. We are now in the land of looking at colleges, and every child is such a different process in regards to that journey.
Child #3 – homeschooled sixth grader! We are finishing up Rome and moving into the Middle Ages. This has been a year of physics, of math, and starting the beginning process of writing. We also moving into geography and cultures of the world, which is a subject Rudolf Steiner suggested and usually is seen in seventh grade. I figure it will take us that long to move through it! We will be homeschooling through the summer, probably the first time I have ever done that in my 18 years of homeschooling. This is mainly because of my work schedule, and the need to keep moving forward in math and spelling, and because our guy does much better with a schedule that doesn’t change too much.
One thing I often think about is that original idea of Waldorf Education – goodness, beauty, truth (and yes, I put it that way because it corresponds to ages 0-7, 7-14, and 14-21) or to think about hands, heart, and head (yes, put in that order on purpose). Ralph Waldo Emerson is probably the best American representative for this model with his ideas of imagination, inspiration, and intellect. These simple, aligned ideas can help guide so much of the way we educate and parent our children. There are times and seasons for all things.
Planning ahead for homeschooling: In the fall, we will have 12th grader and a 7th grader. I love 7th-9th grade; these grades are my favorites so I am super excited!
Fun Around the Home
Spring is the time of letting go of the material objects in our home that don’t serve us any longer, and for spring cleaner and eating in accordance with that impulse of spring with lighter and brighter foods. I am hopeful we may be in the middle of a kitchen remodel by fall and am using spring to pick out some of the things for our new space!
Springtime Renewal –
Some ideas for Renewal! I hope you enjoy reading back through these as much as I did!
Lent begins on Wednesday, March 2nd this year. It is a time of the quietest joy in sorrow. The time to make amends, think anew, find the sacred beauty in the ordinary and a time to prepare our hearts for kindness, joy, encouragement. This is the time to strengthen connections between ourselves, our children, our partners, and those friends that are chosen family.
Life is short. Let us make one another glad.
Let’s stand together in times of adversity and help one another.
Let’s cheer each other on.
Let’s love one another and find the best in each other.
Perhaps one of the most central questions in Lent is how do we become our whole, authentic self? How do we stop distancing ourselves from others and from the spiritual world? I think this is the true impulse of this time of year, no matter what spiritual background you have. It’s the question that surrounds new beginnings. Without this, we cannot grow close to others. And if we are so wounded that we cannot grow close to others, how do we heal that?
I think the most basic healing during Lent can come from the arts. Setting up a Lenten sacred time for yourself to paint, draw, create music, write, journal, create handwork, sculpt, be in nature, read, contemplate, can help you find and breathe your authentic self inward.
For your children, less is more in Lent. It’s the little lack of flowers on the table, the introspective mood, the listening rather than the speaking, the noticing the beautiful in the ordinary and the gratitude in the daily.
Fasting or eating less in general is appropriate within many cultures and religions this time of year, as is giving to others. I also usually love the Carbon Fast for Lent from Green Anglicans. I think this is less about punishment, but rather about strengthening our own will – what can we strengthen within ourselves? Can I find habits to change? Can I decrease the things that weigh on me? We all have those things! Someone recently shared with me that they quit drinking during “Sober October” but soon discovered that they felt so great after one month that they extended it 60 days, and then 90 days and are still going and feel fantastic! What is the thing you could give up and feel fantastic?
Self-talk can be a real challenge for many parents. Many parents really feel as if they are somehow the worst parents in the whole world and they believe that every other family is so much better and doing better than they are! This is rubbish, and largely fueled by people posting their highlight reels on social media, or the general silence that surrounds raising teenagers and young adults. Perhaps a wonderful Lenten project would be to improve your self-talk and replace negativity with positivity.
Going through the depths of Lent is a powerful experience. May this year find your Lenten time to be fruitful for your soul.
Happy festivals! Feast of St. Brigid, Imbolc, Lunar New Year, and Candlemas – beautiful celebrations for February!
Candlemas is one of my favorite festivals. In some traditions this time is considered the beginning of spring. It is my understanding that this day is also halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. This festival began in pre-Christian times as a Celebration of Lights and of the Celtic goddess Brigit (February 1st). It is a welcome herald to spring in the Northern Hemisphere; the days are staying lighter longer, some things will start to bloom soon (snowdrops are appearing for some of you!). I can almost feel the stirring and awakening in the land where I live. This can be a true time of awakening your inner will and your inner self – how to bring that inner self to light in the world? How do I grow into the world?
I am working with my word of the year very intensively now about putting that word into ACTION. This is a time of growing and changing. Where do you want to be by St. John’s Tide in June? I encourage you to set some time aside daily to focus on your word of the year, on your goals, and to schedule the time to actually accomplish something that you want to do, even if the steps are small. Small steps are the foundation!
Candlemas is traditionally the day that celebrates the ritual cleansing of Mary after the birth of Jesus and also when Mary presented the infant Jesus in the temple as according to Jewish tradition. Simeon called Jesus a light, thus tying Him to this day. There are some stories that say Mary was uncomfortable about presenting Jesus in the temple and the attention that this would bring, and Saint Brigid walked ahead of Mary with a crown of lighted candles in order to divert attention from Mary and Jesus. Some sources also say that Brigid wore a crown of candles in order to divert attention from Jesus when Herod’s soldiers were hunting Him. Therefore, Candlemas is celebrated as a festival of lights and also is seen as a day to celebrate the lights of Saint Brigid and her role in helping Mary and Jesus.
The book All Year Round always has such a nice way of putting things. The authors write here: “At the beginning of February, when the infant light of spring is greeted thankfully by the hoary winter earth, it seems fitting we should celebrate a candle Festival to remember that moment when the Light of the World was received into the Temple, when the old yielded to the new.” Indeed, this day in Eastern churches is “The Meeting” – the festival of the old meeting the new.
Candlemas is the day the Church officially blesses the candles for the year. People used to also put candles around the beehives that they had on this day.
And of course, Candlemas is also Groundhog’s Day in the United States, and there is much weather lore surrounding that event. There is also lore surrounding weather and Candlemas in general.
So here are a few ways to celebrate Candlemas and mark this season:
Make candles, of course. Earth Candles are lovely if your ground is not frozen – essentially you dig holes, put in a weighted wick and melted beeswax and help give light to the coming Spring.
Making floating candles are nice (there are instructions in “All Year Round”) and dipping candles is a lovely way to spend the afternoon of Candlemas. Dipping candles is not difficult. We set up the melted beeswax at one end of a table and a tall container of cool water at the other. Once the child dips their wick in the wax and walks around the table to dip the candle in the cool water, then it is time to dip again. Over a period of time of rounding these two stations a beautiful candle is born! We work to keep the candle straight as we go and also to make the base bigger than the top so they can stand freely without falling over.
This is also a great day to make your Nature Table look more toward Spring. The first flowers, pussywillows, or catkins; all of those things bring us toward the season of Lent. This is also a great time to make some small flower fairies for your Nature Table and put them out. There are instructions in “All Year Round” and also in “The Nature Corner”.
“Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions” suggests enjoying a candlelit dinner and reading a short story after dinner by candlelight.
Crepes or pancakes are traditional for breakfast. Sometimes I will make a soup with saffron or turmeric yellow colored rolls for dinner.
We can also offer simply made stories and poems about our friends the bees and work with beeswax and honey in some way during this festival.
If you can picture it, think of the most beautiful bubble of light that could surround you and your family. Think of everyone in your family as being happy, healthy, and smiling. This, to me, is the essence of February. It’s a month that is often in the Northern Hemisphere is dark and cold, but if we can imagine a brillance and radiance into it, it can become a beautiful glimmering light. After all, we begin the month with Candlemas, a celebration of light. We think of the first beginnings of light, and a beautiful candle festival helps mark this occasion. There are so many ways to make candles, including rolling beeswax sheets, dipping candles, pouring beeswax into half of a walnut shell (and you can push in a little candle in order to have little floating lights, which are always fun for children), and you can make earth candles where you pour a candle and place a wick directly into a hole into the earth.
More than the visible signs of light, where is the light in your heart and home? Where are your connections with the people you love? Sometimes on the weekends, we have one or two people over just to have a glass of wine and play games. It’s a good way to mark the days in winter. Some of our friends have needed help this year, and we try to be good stewards of our time and resources and help out. It’s just part of being part of community. If you are searching for community, I would love to hear about your journey! Please leave me a comment in the comment box below.
This is a wonderful time to change over your nature table if you have one to mark the seasons. Flower fairies, branches in water that are budding, a single candle, perhaps leading up to the markings of St. Valentine’s Day and then a little Lenten dish Garden to begin the beginning of March, as Lent begins on March 2 this year, are all appropriate. All winter greenery is taken down.
This month in 2022 we are celebrating:
Black History Month – Of course Black History IS World history and American history and should be in every subject we teach EVERY month, but it’s also wonderful to take a renewed look at wonderful books and biographies this month.
February 1 – Lunar New Year for those celebrating and also the Festival of St. Brigid
February – Mardi Gras! (until Lent, of course) Fat Tuesday is on March 1 this year with Lent beginning on March 2.
Make Valentine’s Day cards ; plan little treats and crafts for Valentine’s Day; make window transparencies; dip candles; roll candles; play board games or card games with your children; draw, paint, model; whittle wood; make popcorn together; bake together; play in the snow – build snow forts; have snowball fights; snowshoe; downhill or cross country ski; ice skate on a pond; read and tell stories; build forts inside; take a walk outside in the cold – look for animal tracks or berries or birds or all of the above; knit, crochet, cross stitch, finger knit, spin, sew; sing and make music together – learn some new songs; clean, scrub, dust, work around the house – rearrange furniture; go bowling or find an indoor swimming pool to swim in; write letters to family and friends; write stories together; snuggle on the coach with hot chocolate and marshmellows; cook for a neighbor; find a place of worship to attend and get involved; throw a party; clicker train your dog, cat, or other animal; take care of plants; start seeds indoors when it it is time, grow sprouts in the kitchen or a little microgarden.
If you are looking for a little re-boot to your rhythm, please do try the above back post! There are so many wonderful posts about rhythm to look at. So, whilst February is a month in which many homeschoolers can feel in a rut and ready to just give up, try instead to think what would be the perfect reset and recharge for you and your family? Maybe it is a great month for a book study, a project that the whole family can be involved in or something else!
Our homeschooling this month: We are still in Rome and moving slowly! We have used this year to intensively practice on skills including multiplication and division, decimals and fractions, spelling, writing, grammar and more. It’s been a year of progress and improvement in many areas, which is exciting, although I feel like some of our creative endeavors have taken a bit of a backseat in this process . Our sixth grader has learned a lot! So far this year we have covered Ancient Greece and Greek History, Rome, physics, geometry in our blocks.
Our high school junior is at a four day a week high school and we are planning to visit a few colleges this last half of the school year. She made her own list and is driving that process. Our college sophomore is doing well at university and has made the Dean’s or President’s List every semester of college so far, and is still having fun.
I am already thinking about next year and homeschooling seventh grade and I am making a plan. It’s my favorite grade to teach, so more about that in future posts.
Farm Life: Farm life is about mud management of the pastures, thinking of spring seed sowing for the pastures, getting through the winter and keeping weight on the horses, gathering equipment for more bees in the spring, and some seeds. We will be re-doing the outside of our barn in the spring and hopefully some more fencing. There are many projects still to be done in our house, but the outside takes the priority right now for the horses.
Work Life: It’s been a busy season and I have been busy working 3-4 days a week so we have been doing homeschooling on the weekends and during the week. It’s been busy! I have made some lists as for continuing education this year and am projecting abundance. My colleague and I moved into a new office space today and we are excited about that.
#Abundant2022 – it’s real, and I am working with my word of the year. Did you decide on a word this year? How is that going?
I would love to hear from you! If you need any help with parenting or planning, I do consults via phone or Zoom- you can email me at admin@theparentingpassageway.com for your spot!
Many parents tell me the hardest part of parenting is watching their young adults ages 19-25 launch out into the world.
You can’t really talk about what’s going on because they are adults and it is not yours to tell. This is also true of younger children that there comes a point to stop sharing as well, and becomes our work to turn inward and garner support there.
This is a hard time to be launching into the world, but other times in history were also hard. Challenges also exist, and we do our best to prepare our children as they head into adulthood. We can guide them, but only to the extent the young adult wants to hear and act on what would be helpful – and sometimes we honestly don’t have the right answer, because the parent and the now young adult are two different people in situations we never had to deal with!
You worry about them. Many parents tell me they worry for their children’s safety, whether from gun violence or because they are different than other young adults. Bullying can occur even in college, which is disheartening and sad. Parents worry their child won’t be able to find stable employment or a stable healthy relationship.
One mother told me, “And if you even want to complain or worry aloud about how your children are doing – don’t – because then someone will inevitably tell you that you obviously did “it” wrong and how great their children are doing!” Ha. Competition amongst parents can still exist, even at this age. Who is finishing university? Who has a great job? Who is in a solid relationship with someone wonderful? These may be conventional standards, but perhaps asked amongst the elders and extended family and general community. They may be the wrong questions, but ones people think will lead to a happy life.
So, today I say set those worries or niggling fears aside for a moment. There is no worrying that can change the outcome in someone else’s life. They are their own person on their own journey. There will be good and bad along the way and they will make the choices. We did too! We must always remember that our now young adult has their own path to walk and fulfill. We have prepared them the best that we could and we can send them the power of our love and support. We can be in their corner, always and forever.
If you have to help your child longer and more intensely than others because things aren’t so typical, then so be that as well. I know parents who have done things above and beyond for their adult children who have struggled with neurologic, physical, or mental health challenges and it helped the parents sleep better at night and worry less. So be it. Everyone’s path is not the same and we do what we need to do to help with their stability and to help the health of our children sometimes. These situations can be complex, and easy for others to try to judge from the outside, but honestly, don’t we all wish we had people like that in our corner!
So…..
To those of you with young adults that you are worried about, I see you. Please know there are so many paths and ways to become independent adults and the early 20s can be a time of trying to pull all those pieces together. It really doesn’t matter what you were doing at that age; this is their journey. Support them in love.
To those of you with children that are seen as “atypical” in some way and you are worried about their safety and things that others may judge and deem very basic, I see that and hold that in my heart. We all want our children to be safe and accepted and loved.
To those of you whose children are in college and dealing with things you didn’t think they would have to deal with or discovering that this path is not what they thought, I see you.
To those of you with children on paths seen as not as standard as heading off to university, I see you.
For those of you dealing with judgment surrounding your young adults in some way, I see you. Life and maturing, in the 19-25 age bracket is not often linear.
Parenting is hard and launching young adults is hard, but it can also be a pleasure. The moments of joy and success can radiate, and the parenting at this age, like all ages, can be fun and wonderful. It is exciting to create a relationship with your young adult that is different than it was when they were younger. It can be a bittersweet time to watch them grow, stretch, fail, learn but such a wonderful time to extend our love and support even more as we see them for who they are and who they will become.
The days of parenting may seem long and the years may seem short, but I am telling you that you will never, ever regret the time and everything you have invested in having good communication and an open relationship with your child. This helps immensely. It is especially a good reminder for those of us that still have younger children at home while we watch our other children who have launched and are navigating the world. It gives clarity to parenting path, decisions, ideals.
Thinking of all of you with young adults today with love,
I mentioned on social media yesterday that when I feel overwhelmed or like life is just one big to do list, I like to go back to my word of the year or vision board and re-align my priorities. The other things I like to think about in general besides going back to the very essentials include planning ahead, requesting help and delegating to other people in the household, and using rest and relaxation as a foundation (life is too short! We don’t have to be productive every minute!)
The word of the year is very helpful to me. This year my word is #abundant so I have a document in my phone that I can review daily. I took my word and found some teachings from my religious tradition, so that is there for me to remind myself what this word means to me. Then I made a list of the areas in which I want abundance this year, which includes abdundant peace, abundant parenting, abundant finances, abundant health, abundant faith, abdundant professional life, etc. So you could brainstorm categories under your word, or you could make a vision board representing categories under your word. What would your life look like in different areas if your word was your reality for the year?
Then I went and brainstormed under each of those categories – how would I have abduncant peace? what would it look like to have abundant finances? What would abundant health be like? I wrote down a number of ideas, strategies, or just the things that are keeping me from abundant peace or abundant health, etc. This is the document on my phone so I can pull it up.
When stressors, challenges, or decisions come up, I can pull up this document and brainstorm about it with my word and the ideas I had in different areas. Will this decision bring me abdundant peace? Can I change this stressor in some way or mitigate it so I can have abundant health, etc?
So, just to give you examples of some of my very personal things under different categories..
Abundant Parenting – strategies to connect with each child and to connect as a family; meditations and prayers for each child, listing the big things each child needs my help with or big things that need to happen this year (ie, high schoolers and deadlines for things)
Abundant Finances – strategies of how to increase our income and decrease output including ideas for no spend weeks and months
Abundant Peace – setting boundaries with specific situations/people written down, setting time for rest and relaxation including scheduling naps and Friday nights where I just go to bed early, scheduling time with my husband and the close friends that I love who I always know have my back and best interests at heart (small circle friends!)
Abundant Faith – finally getting to join something during the week at my church because it is on Zoom! So grateful! But also ideas about how to share our faith with our children better.
Abundant Professional Life – so ideas for courses I want to take, but also ideas for minimizing burnout as I absorb people’s energy and circumstances, setting boundaries.
Abundant Health – about a million thoughts under this one! But mainly to schedule those thoughts or they won’t happen in reality!
I would love to hear how you work with your word of the year.
Homeschooling is a fine and balanced art of being a teacher, being a parent, being the caretaker of the family, often being the holder of the family emotional life; the family climate so to speak. We often begin homeschooling for our children and for the successes we know homeschooling will bring them as we strive to meet a child’s physical, academic, or emotional level, but yet it is often us who end up stretched in varying ways that we never guessed or knew was possible.
We learn to be strong within our own convictions of why we are doing what we are doing. I think too many people spend an awful lot of time on the “how” of homeschooling, perhaps rightfully so, but perhaps we need to be in connection with our why’s in order to carry us through. And since there is often more than one way in which to accomplish a goal, vision, or task, we need to be really connected into this why. Why is homeschooling the right answer for our family, for this child, for us as a unit? What will we gain? What will be challenging? Then we can worry about the how.
We are often stretched with the juxtaposition of the mundane – the daily meals, going over spelling for the twentieth time or that math concept for the millionth time, the soothing of emotions day after day- and the challenging. How do I teach subjects that I didn’t learn about? How do I make an inner life for myself within this? After years of homeschooling, who AM I?
We learn to build our families in ways that take into account everyone’s strengths and weaknesses and to really see our children for who they are – and help them become who they will be in life. Building is an important task of the inner work of homeschooling.
Inner work varies person to person. If you follow Waldorf homeschooling, you may find ideas amongst Rudolf Steiner’s regarding inner work. If you follow a specific religious path, you will find ideas there. Many people create their own path. Your path itself may look different depending upon if you are focused upon your children, you yourself as the teacher or you yourself as the human being. Perhaps we cannot separate ourselves as teacher and self so easily, but I often find what often needs to be nurtured in times of homeschooling burnout is not more ideas for me as a teacher, but ideas for me as a human being who is separate and distinct from the children and the family.
I love January. Although it may be colder where I live with an occasion of ice and snow (and now tornado threats sometimes!), it is that idea of an entire year laid out before us with shiny new possibilities and opportunities. A time to create and shape things anew. Since I am building my year of abundance on rest and relaxation and balance, the introverted vibe of this season feels just right.
I made a calendar the other day the way I have for so many years of homeschooling – take a larger piece of paper and divide it by folding into six squares on the front and six squares on the back. This provides one month for each box and in each box I write down days we celebrate, ideas for the month, and when the children were small and under aged 7 I included what tale I would tell for the entirety of the month. Repetition and daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms are soul nourishing for all of us, but especially for the life of small children. Even without small children in the house, I felt a need to return to these roots. For January I wrote down the days we are celebrating, and then a few catch phrases of things I associate with this month: water, birds, soup, snowflakes, outside, hiking, organizing, rest, date nights (on the farm at this point), reading, creating.
This month, we are celebrating:
1- New Year’s Day
6- Epiphany/Three Kings Day
17- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
These are a few of the things we are enjoying this month:
Daily walks, hikes, or horseback rides rain or shine
Puzzles and board games. We have been playing a lot of Scrabble and got the board game Azure for Christmas.
Green smoothies and juicing
Opting outside daily
Playing with our horses and dreaming of the show season to start again
Indoor microgardening! So fun!
Decluttering the entire house. This somehow feels like it must be done this year.
For those of you trying to figure out what to do with children in inclement weather (besides dressing well and going outside!), I always say that a good rhythm of work is the foundation of everything else. So meaningful work is the most important thing you can do. Slow things down, and involve your children. Children need long-simmering doses of time. Chop vegetables for soup, bake something, teach your older children to cook, let your littles help you with laundry, deep clean. Meaningful work is a strong key to family life. Those of us with land, animals, etc may take it up a notch with the amount of daily care required, but even in the city you have work to do and your children need to see that and be a part of that work. Even toddlers can participate.
If you are looking for fun things to do with children: Cut out paper snowflakes, including really cool 3-D snowflakes; dip candles; roll candles; play board games or card games with your children; draw, paint, model; whittle wood; make popcorn together; bake together; play in the snow – build snow forts; have snowball fights; snowshoe; downhill or cross country ski; ice skate on a pond; read and tell stories; build forts inside; take a walk outside in the cold – look for animal tracks or berries or birds or all of the above; knit, crochet, cross stitch, finger knit, spin, sew; sing and make music together – learn some new songs; clean, scrub, dust, work around the house – rearrange furniture; go bowling or find an indoor swimming pool to swim in; write letters to family and friends; write stories together; snuggle on the coach with hot chocolate and marshmallows; cook for a neighbor; find a place of worship to attend and get involved; throw a party; clicker train your dog, cat, or other animal; take care of plants; start seeds indoors when it it is time.
We are beginning Week 18 of sixth grade homeschooling this week! Our sixth grader and I will be looking at Roman History, along with a good amount of math, spelling, handwriting, and drawing. Our oldest is off snowboarding in Colorado, (and our middle child who is a junior in a four day a week high school) will be starting back this week. They truly do grow up and make their own lives. Sometimes parents bemoan when things change as their children become young adults, but I think instead watching it all unfold is rather exciting and precious in its own way and gives us as parents a chance to re-create ourselves in new ways as well as we answer the question of who we are at this juncture in our own biography.
January blows in with a plea for balance and re-evaluation. I am currently taking phone consults for parenting and homeschooling should you want to sort some things out. Please send me an email at admin@theparentingpassageway.com if you are interested.
I would love to hear how your January is unfolding! Drop me a comment or reach out on social media.
The Parenting Passageway 