Thriving In The Midst of It All

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Life can be downright busy, no matter how simple we want it to be. No matter how simple we try to make it, the more people one has in a household, the more pets one has, the more community and obligations one has, the busier it can become.

And you can still love every minute of it and thrive in it.

My life, as many of you who personally know me, can get rather busy.  Sometimes it is my life that needs to be de-cluttered, not my things!  I fully admit to having a hard time saying no to things at church, or to friends who need something, or to my neighbors.  But the older I get, the more I realize how much I love community, how much I enjoy gathering those I love together and connecting those who I think really ought to meet each other for this reason or that.  And, the older I get, I get better at setting limits and seeing how things balance out.

It all can’t be perfect.  One cannot homeschool well, have the house be spotless, cook every single thing perfectly, have all the errands done, have a social life, have the children do things, and all the other things on the list. It just can’t happen, and I think we could all end up having nervous breakdowns trying to do it all…

So, I try to remind myself about seasons, in both the literal and more symbolic sense.  Continue reading →

9/11 And The Atmosphere of Homeschooling

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I think one thing that a mother brand new to homeschooling can hear, but not really wrap their arms around until they do it themselves, is that homeschooling is not school and that in homeschooling, the family life provides learning all the time.  Everything is an opportunity, and learning continues to happen during “school time” or not school time.

Much is being made around the Internet right now regarding the atmosphere of homeschooling – should it be an environment of learning opportunities?  grace? prayer?  Probably all of the above, correct?

But I have another idea rarely mentioned: I  suggest it be an atmosphere of love.  Love for your child and your family. Love for your Creator and a willingness to give the life of your family back to Him.    Love for your neighbors and your community.  Love for the way you homeschool and your way of living. Continue reading →

Helping A Child Learn To Rule Over Himself

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“Second only to learning how to bond, to form strong attachments, the most important thing parents can give children is a sense of responsibility – knowing what they are responsible for and knowing what they aren’t responsible for, knowing how to say no and knowing how to accept no.  Responsibility is a gift of enormous value….We’ve all been around middle-aged people who have the boundaries of an eighteen-month old.  They have tantrums or sulk when others set limits on them, or they simply fold and comply with others just to keep the peace.  Remember that these adult people started off as little people.  They learned long, long ago to either fear or hate boundaries.  The relearning process for adults is laborious.” – page177-178,   “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

“Sad at heart, the King stepped from behind the screen, took the Prince by the hand, and led him away from the school.  When they reached the royal palace, the King spoke thus to his son: “Anyone who has to be King someday and to rule over other people must first learn to rule over himself.” – From the short story “The Prince Who Could Not Read” in the book “Verses and Poems and Stories to Tell” by Dorothy Harrer

Helping a child learn to take responsibility for themselves is one of the hardest and most challenging tasks in parenting and also one of the most necessary. Continue reading →

Fearless Parenting

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Fearless parenting means seeing that the world is a good place and being able to unequivocally transmit this to our children.  Things may happen in life, things may happen in parenting, and yet things work out.  Life moves and the Creator is in the eddies and tidepools of the Cosmos.

If you think you are a fearless parent yet constantly have a barrage of how things “have” to be, if you think your child needs a perfect childhood with no stress in  order to achieve being an optimal adult, if things are so carefully orchestrated and everything has to be just so,  then  I would still say you are parenting out of fear and not being fearless.

Being fearless in parenting does not mean that we don’t protect our children, or that we throw our small children out to the wolves.  No  We do our best..  But this does mean that we establish communities of trust, that we trust and have an inherent sense that new experiences for our children will be good.  We also trust that our children will do the right thing as they grow into independence.  We are there to help, to encourage, to support, that we guide, but we cannot walk this journey for our children.  They have come here with their own gifts, their own talents from God, and He has a plan for their lives in His infinite wisdom that shall be good.

This sense of goodness is based upon reverence.  Reverence is well-established not only through a religious life, but  through the way we play out our own feelings of gratitude and our own feelings of awe and wonder at the world.  Continue reading →

The Kiss of Death In Homeschooling

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I referred to this in my last post about homeschooling struggles, but I wanted to expand on this a bit here:  the homeschooling kiss of death.  Actually, I think there are three possible kisses of death in our homeschooling experience. Continue reading →

Struggles With Homeschooling And Help!

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It is that time of year where I live!  School is beginning for many homeschooling families, and some of the most common struggles and pitfalls of homeschooling come to light yet again.  I thought it would be fun to tackle some of these struggles and questions straight-on…

Here are the most common things I hear mothers mention regarding some of the difficulties in homeschooling: Continue reading →

A Beautiful Back To School Ceremony

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On Friday, we celebrated a beautiful back to school ceremony with our homeschool group.  It had a different mood than in the past, because whilst we have many small under-7 children in our group, we now have a large crop of first through fourth graders, and some of things our group is doing reflects that a large portion of our children are in the grades.

 

We met at a member’s house for some wet on wet painting done outside, free play, and a delicious potluck lunch.  The ceremony itself began with all of us gathering together outside near a simple arched stairway. Continue reading →

Feeling Grateful and Gracious

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What a year, and what a summer!  Overwhelming, muddled at times, yet still with so much joy and so many blessings; so many opportunities for discernment.  You may have caught part of my musings of all this  in the post “Gaining Clarity”, but something I kept coming back to again and again this summer is this idea of feeling grateful and being gracious no matter where we find ourselves.  What an important and challenging thing to work on for ourselves,and for our children to see.

 

It can be easy to feel grateful when things are going well, and so much easier to be kind and gracious in those circumstances. However, how much more important is it for us to be able to see our times of more turbulence, whether outward or inward, as opportunities to express our gratitude and to show others how gracious we can be? Continue reading →

Our Final Post of “Growing Into Motherhood”–Cathy’s Story

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This is the very last story in our series of long-time readers’ journeys into motherhood.  They have really been wonderful to read and ponder, and this last story is no exception.  I love this idea of “conscious incompetence” that Cathy writes about.  Please do read and enjoy!  Here is her story for your inspiration: Continue reading →

“Growing Into Motherhood”–Sarah’s Story

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This is one of the final two stories in this series:   a different Sarah than the last post, and another wonderful journey!   Here is Sarah’s story for your inspiration, consideration and thought:

 

Growing into Young Motherhood

 

Almost nine years ago I began my journey through motherhood. I was 21 years old, still in university and had been married for two whole weeks when I found out I was expecting an unexpected honeymoon baby.

 

I was shocked and scared and really stressed out and remained that way for the next nine months. I tried to convince myself that nothing much would change….I’d always wanted children and even if this was a lot earlier than I’d planned and since I was under a lot of pressure from family and friends to “get my life back on track” after the baby was born I figured that is what I’d have to do.

 

Deep down I didn’t think it was going to be that simple. I had always wanted to be home with my children when they were little and the thought of signing a baby up for daycare at 3 months old while I went back to school felt wrong to me.

 

It turns out my daughter Sophia, now 8, agreed. A stressful pregnancy and a difficult birth had led to a little baby who had a very, very hard time adjusting to the life in the outside world. We used to joke that she had only come with two settings…nursing and screaming…only it didn’t feel like a joke. My husband and I got a crash course in attachment parenting from our newborn even though we had never heard of it. We held her all the time. She would only sleep more than 20 minutes if she was on one of us and all our attempts at bottles and soothers and the crib were for nought. My plan to nurse for two weeks went out the window….it was the only thing that went right it seemed. Soon my plan for full time school changed to part time, then to one course then to maybe next year. Continue reading →