Home Education: Taking Stock of the ‘Off-Key’ Days
For the newbie home educator, an off-key day is simply confirmation that home education is a bad idea. What could be a clearer sign that our children belong in the school system than a day (or two) where children cry over their lessons, the house looks as though it has been turned upside down and given a good shake, dinner is burnt and the whole household is bearing the brunt of mum’s frustration?
It might encourage you to know that while the above day was not uncommon when we started out, it has become much more uncommon over the years. I honestly cannot remember the last time we had an utterly disastrous day. You see, I have become far more rational and calculated about the off-key days. A little reflection reassured me that bad days happen to every teacher, doctor, postman, sales assistant, dentist, plumber and bus driver. In fact, I even had bad days before I became a mum and started my home educating career. Bad days are not the prerogative of home educators; they are pretty much universal.
Whilst bad days are not a sign from God that we need to abandon the home ed ship, they may well be an indicator that we need to up our game somewhere along the line. If we are growing in the Lord and in spiritual maturity, we need to get to a point where we can reflect on the not-so-good days and be able to ask ourselves some honest questions, regroup and come back stronger tomorrow. As Christian mothers, let’s avoid becoming static in our abilities to teach, care and manage. Rather, we are always learning, always reflecting and always striving to attain a little higher.
Perhaps these questions will give you some food for thought.
1. Am I Spending Some Time With the Lord?
It is absolutely impossible to give our children a Christian education at home in our own strength. I am not joking. Please do NOT try this at home!! In his book ‘Christian in Complete Armour’, William Gurnall writes:
‘Perhaps you are a parent with a family under your wing. They fare much as you do. If your heart is feasting on Christ, you will never find yourself in short supply when caring for their spiritual needs. On the other hand, if your own heart is malnourished, they will go hungry for spiritual food. In the same way that a mother eats more while she is nursing her infant, you should, for the sake of those under your roof, be more careful to nourish your own graces and cherish them.’ (p79-80)
2. Could I be Better Organised?
Ouch! Organisation is possibly a slightly sensitive subject. However, organisation is also the difference between running around putting out fires all day, and actually feeling as though we are making some progress. Organisation means that everybody knows more or less what they are meant to be doing at a particular time. It means books are on hand (as opposed to down the back of a radiator!), pencils, rubbers and rulers are available and the house is in some sort of state that is conducive to learning.
Organisation is built up and learnt over time. It normally begins with fixing something in place in the day (perhaps a daily ‘start’ time), intentionally insisting on this point of order until it becomes a habit, and then adding something else on top. It means a little decluttering every now and again. It means making sure we have systems in place to help our household run as smoothly as it can do (allowing the fact that we have children under our feet all the time!). If every single day is a disaster, we do not blame everybody else, we ask ourselves whether we can make a practical change that will aid things running a little more smoothly and ensure that tomorrow is not a repeat.
3. Do My Children Need a Little Training?
I have about 30-45 minutes in the morning to teach my five-year old twins phonics, maths and writing. Every minute counts. The trouble is that half-way through our time together, my other five children finish their lesson with my husband and decide now is a good time to interrupt me for cuddles, drinks, books they cannot be bothered to find for themselves, sharpened pencils, a quick look at what the twins are doing and the odd argument that needs mitigating. Although each of these interruptions is pretty innocuous in itself, combined they can act as a severe hindrance to me accomplishing anything with the twins.
The only way of dealing with this little bit of the morning is to be intentional about training my children. We use a bit of maths (5 children multiplied by 2 interruptions each equals TEN INTERRUPTIONS!). We talk about how their demand for my attention at this point in the morning is actually stealing the few minutes I have to work with the twins and I repeat the mantra that has been exiting my mouth for the past seven years, ‘If you need my help, go onto the next question!!’. Slowly, the message is being driven home. ‘If nobody is bleeding, it has to wait until I am finished with the twins!’
4. How is my Heart?
Generally, children do not have their day ruined by a missing book. In one sense, they have very short-term memories. Hand-to-hand combat with a sibling at 11:00 is forgotten by lunchtime. The event that puts a real downer on a day is when mum is walking around like a bear with a sore head. Grumpy mothers are a sure-fire way of making everybody’s day miserable.
If the mouth speaks out of the overflow of our heart, if words can either tear down or build up and if ‘the wisest of women builds her house’ (Proverbs 14:1), then we need to be playing close attention to the state of our hearts. A little unforgiveness has a far wider impact than a hardening of our own heart. It can affect the way with treat our children. Fretting over a situation that does not concern us may well have implications on the quality of the education that our children receive. Worry about a future event that we have no control over can result in us continually batting our children away rather than encouraging their nearness. I write from the well of my own walk.
We would do well to imbibe this Proverb:
‘Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.
Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.’ (Proverbs 17:27-28)
Finally…
It is far easier to abandon a course when it starts to get tough, to assume that the Lord would not have us walk this particular path, than to honestly take stock of a situation and prayerfully ask whether we can do anything to make it a little smoother.
If you have had a run of off-key days, could I encourage you to hold in there a little bit longer. Perhaps now is the time for a little honest assessment. After all, we are commanded to:
‘…throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.’ (Hebrews 12:1)
