I’ve fallen into the trap. I’m a little over a month in and I’ve caught myself making it more and more traditional-school style. Yikes!!
We started off fun and hands-on and have somehow slid into sitting-at-desk-reading-out-of-textbooks schooling. No, no, no, no, no! Adhd + sit-at-desk-textbook-reading = my son feeling tortured.
Then–
We had a rough week. We didn’t get anything done– that sent me into overdrive trying to catch up. Every day I added more to what we needed to cram in.
He and I started bickering.
I started getting crabby.
I coulda stopped the train in it’s tracks the first day I noticed it was going so very wrong and avoided the inevitable chain reaction. I shoulda nixed that day altogether and just read aloud together snuggled on the couch to reinforce the nature of our education and our emotional bond. I woulda, except we would have then fallen behind.
I coulda corrected my attitude to avoid hurt feelings, a lower self-esteem, and an overall feeling of unhappiness in our school in both of us to stop the bickering in its tracks. I shoulda made it a point to have special alone time to read my Bible and center my chi because I let the task become more urgent than my source of strength. I woulda, except I had to go to work every night and that would have taken even more time away from studying.
Parenting Fail.
I coulda wallowed in my guilt and self-pity, which would guarantee that the next week was just as rotten and the Enemy could get a good laugh knowing he was tearing down our school from the inside out. I sure did use the opportunity to discuss Grace, accepting responsibility (both of us), and regain a mutual perspective of our overall mission. I woulda pretended it just never happened and gone on next week as if it had no consequences, but hey, that’s not my style. 😉
I would value any feedback from all my dear family in Christ out there about how to prevent such a downhill slide in the future!!
(Side note: I feel like I know most of you personally!)