Attitude Check! Celebrating Kids Who are "Getting It"

There’s Nothing Like Kids with a Good Attitude

This is a post of thankfulness. After a month of entertaining and Christmas celebrating, we are back after the New Year. Reflecting on the past, there have been times in our homeschooling journey when my kids just acted like everything I asked them to do was an injustice to them. “It’s time to do math,” could result in a facial expression on my children that sends me to a place of complete discouragement. I persevered, even when it didn’t seem to work - planting seeds and praying. We read Proverbs on laziness “He who will not work shall not eat.” and “diligent hands will rule but laziness ends in slave labor”. We talked and prayed about honoring God in all we think and do, focusing on what is excellent and praiseworthy... and nothing else! Sometimes it feels like that’s what I’M doing was the slave labor. No, it’s all meaningful, life-changing mission work, this homeschooling daily drama. We’ve been asking God to speak to us in a few moments of silence when we pray. Yesterday I head the words, “lead them gently.” How appropriate, I thought. I normally am a bit of a drill sergeant, so I took that as a revelation of advice.

Well, today I am overflowing with thankfulness, that my children are thankful for their existence in a home that doesn’t involve a bus, where they don’t know that you could get an F, only that if it’s not right, you do it again. They are doing their work cheerfully and without complaining! Yeah! All that time of planning their own days with minimal requirements has led them to appreciate my productive schedule. They are enjoying watching their brains work! Yahoo!!

In all this entertaining and serving, we’ve been talking about usefulness. If they want to be useful and serve God in a useful way, then they have to learn to persevere. Last night my 10-year-old was eager to help with salad prep for a mission dinner at church. After his job was done, I was still working on cookies and bars. The salad looked great, washed, spun and included little carrot shavings, but the floor was covered in lettuce and the counter was still full of mess. Have you ever thought you just couldn’t have another discussion about how to do a job right? I seem to think it daily, but the converse is that you will have to do it yourself FOREVER! One of my visions for homeschooling is that I will be able to send my kids to serve in local or foreign missions and that they will be able to KNOW how to do a job right, so they can be counted on. Of course, this would help them stay employed as well.

Over in Mom-world, I have a new Mac. My HP laptop continued to freeze and I couldn’t connect with the world. Oh NO! In the new year, I’ve abandoned my time consuming computerized homeschool tracking programs. The Mac has a great calendar feature iCal that allows me to overlay each kid’s schedule, and mine at will. I can block time for each activity and link any documents or websites to that day’s appointment. So, if I want to add details of the day I can, but sometimes, less is more. Our books lay out the agenda, why should I track it all too.

Happy New Year to you as I am enjoying the “peace that surpasses all understanding.”