This week is going to be one crazy roller coaster ride because we officially start back up with school. We aren’t new to homeschooling but we are not experts either. This will be my third year teaching my older two and the second year teaching all three boys. Last year was incredibly hard. We started off well. We had lofty goals set but we fell very short of them. It was like every single thing that could possibly go wrong did. Teaching isn’t something that I ever saw myself doing. I especially would not have thought I’d be teaching my three sons at home. Long ago, I thought that homeschooling was for weirdos that were well just weird. Just like with everything else that I have ended up doing since I became a mother – a choice here, a situation there and another choice led me to doing something I never even thought I could, would or should do.
For the next 180 days I will be juggling three different boys in three different grade levels with three different learning styles for eight to nine hours. Yes, it takes me that long to finish school with all three. My oldest is too smart for his own good so he doesn’t want to do half the work because he “gets” the lessons so quickly. I struggle with him because in some subjects like Math and Language there is a need to do what seems like repetitive work so that he can master it. This year, I will use a reward system that pays him (new books, Legos or cash) for not bitching and doing a great job on his written assignments. My middle son absolutely hates reading which absolutely frustrates me. He can read but he reads so slowly that I wonder if he has a learning disability. I am very close to speaking to his teacher about getting him tested but I know that he plays possum. Yes, he plays possum so that he can get out of doing work or so that he frustrates me to the point where I lower his expectations. This year, I will not lower his bar but instead help him raise it by being patient with him during his lessons. My youngest is a bossy little something or other. The challenge with teaching him is that he wants to read everything on his own even things beyond his reading level and when he can’t he tells me it isn’t important because “he already knows that”. This year, I will remind him that I am the one in charge and that sometimes he needs to sit back and listen but I will also help him remain a fiercely independent learner. These boys are such a challenge! I am trying my very best to create every opportunity that I can for them to develop their individual talents and get the most out of their learning styles and abilities.
Being mom and teacher isn’t easy! You want to give your children the best of everything and that is often why parents choose to homeschool. Giving them the best of everything requires a huge time and emotional commitment from you as the parent that is their learning coach. When you are a mom that is a woman with several unresolved issues of your own plus unfulfilled dreams often you wonder if you can balance the life you want to give your children with the life you want for yourself. Balancing motherhood with womanhood that is the lesson the Celestial Planning Committee wants me to master. For now my dreams have to fit around the needs of my children. I find myself waking up at 4am as often as I can to write, read, learn, plan and work in the hours before the boys wake up; that is my only “me” time.
Today, as I think of the challenge of this new school year in a new house with new teachers supporting me as the learning coach I am so very thankful. All these new beginnings are blessings they give me us the perfect opportunity to leave pain, failure and disappointment in the past. Within new beginnings there is room for dreaming. My dreams as a woman aren’t all centered around my children but fulfilling those womanly dreams will help me be a better mother. I do dream that this year will be when I finally stop being a novice woman and mother and I am sure that this dream will come true!
