The Tough Parts of Homeschooling...

No one could have prepared me for how difficult it is to teach your children while also managing the rest of life in the house. But the juggling of cooking, reading, training, teaching, cleaning, organizing, researching, etc. isn't what I'm finding to be the toughest part of teaching my children.

So far, I've found that getting them through their own frustration or learning blocks is so.very.hard. 

For example, when I sit to teach Reagan how to add 2-digit numbers for the fourth time and she starts crying the instant that she can't throw me an answer - this is when I struggle.  I think right away of how a 'professional' educator would know what to do - how to make her see the numbers more clearly.  I think of how if I could just keep my tone of voice more even it wouldn't trigger her emotions.  I think of how I shouldn't be, but truly am, irritated that another lesson is brought to a crawl by tears.  I wonder at how she got to thinking in the first place that my expectation is so sky high!  So many times, I've told her (as I see her tensing up or heading toward frustration) that school is about repetition, practice, learning by doing - and not about right answers....

And yet we sit.  Me staring out the opposite window and biting my lip and praying.  She crying and rubbing her eyes. Both of us waiting until her brain is functional again ("Crying shuts your brain down Rae. It just doesn't work right when you get upset") so we can salvage the lesson.  In the background, I hear a timer for something cooking/burning and/or the younger ones either screaming at each other or screaming in play or screaming about a boo-boo.  The phone rings and I hope that the message tells me that's it's not a pressing call of any sort so that it doesn't add to my mind's diversion.  I can not seem to help but feel the pressure of time, since there are so many other things as well as other little people that need my attention.

But...
I am thankful that I am her mother.  That I know her heart and mind well.  That I don't have to believe the lies my enemy tells me about my own teaching ability.  I am thankful that this is not every day every lesson at Heritage Academy. I am thankful that I know her heart will be softer when she is finished crying.  I am thankful that I don't have to meet anyone's else's goal for her - only that of her own growth rate. I am thankful that I can tell when she's ready.

And as I sit and think on all that I'm thankful for, it seems but a moment when I feel tug on my sleeve and we hug and we start again with "I don't expect perfection, Reagan, only that you try and that you accept it when I correct you.  You don't need to cry - that makes lessons no fun.  Let's try again, okay?"

I am not always patient - definitely not.  But I know that Someone is trying to make me so with the tough parts of homeschooling...



[Monica over at Shine Again understands the tough parts as well - she practically wrote the words from my head in her latest post so I had to share it.]