This past year (more like the past two years if I’m totally honest) has been total survival, chaos, and a huge blur. I can list a ton of excuses like having gone through a miscarriage, pregnancy, having a baby, moving, home renovating, holidays, sicknesses, the list goes on and on. Some of these are perfectly understandable reasons why our homeschool had so many disruptions but the biggest reason why I struggled so much and majorly fell behind is because of ME!! I ruined our homeschool!!
I procrastinated, I was lazy, inconsistent, and impatient. These all lead us into a huge dark hole and feeling lost. My children were disobedient more than ever with no routine and constant complaining with any task that was given. I felt frustrated, anxiety and guilt from fear of totally failing my kids, disappointed that our homeschool was not that lovely picturesque image I had in my mind, and overwhelmed in trying to even find a solution.
While in a state of frantic desperation of finding how to fix our problems, I caught myself looking into several other curricula, co-ops, methods, etc. eagerly want to find something that would change everything. Then I realized I need to stop and take a breath and not make any hasty decisions out of fear. Here are the steps I took next:
- First I went to God. Jesus knows exactly what my children and I need so who better than to consult with? I also turned to our Blessed Mother Mary for her intercession and motherly guidance as well.
- Then I had to Remind myself what it is I want for my kids and what our goals are for our homeschool. I homeschool Not just academics. The saying “heaven before Harvard“ perfectly sums up my main mission as a homeschool mom. I also had to remind myself how I want our homeschool course of studies to look and remind myself to trust the method that I try to model our school around.
- Stop comparing!!! I mean I know that is obvious. All us moms know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to other people but more often than I want to admit to I do.
- I need consistency. One major thing, I need to develop a better routine. I am currently trying to implement a simple routine in our lives to ensure all the important things are getting things done.
- SLEEP!!! I need to make sure I am getting way more sleep than I allow myself. My mood is dramatically affected by my sleeping habits. If I am exhausted I am not the nicest, patient, nor most focused mommy that I need to be to teach. No sleep leads to a lot of “we’ll just do it later” attitude which ends up to the situation we’re in.
- Cultivate good habits in myself. If I want my children to improve in their school work and daily tasks I need to Be an example for my kids.
- Ask for grace from God. As I have talked about before, confession is a powerful tool for when you need guidance and grace with struggles in your life.
After doing the things listed above, I have been able to clear-mindedly make some changes with our current studies and come up with next years curriculum choices. The best part is I feel motivated and eager to move forward and ultimately at PEACE. Since we’re not where I would like us to be in our studies, we will be schooling during the summer.
How has your school year been going? Will you be taking a summer break or keep on schooling?
