Ellen from Fun Learning has invited me to join her new Homeschool Hi-Lights, a Monday meme for homeschoolers. It’s a great opportunity for me to share our experiences with ‘home learning’ by highlighting some of the ‘ah ha’ moments of the past week. Thanks Ellen!
I have been receiving the hard copy of Family Times for several years now (I used it quite frequently as a topic resource for the workshops I developed for my previous business Navigating Motherhood ). However, it’s only been recently (since becoming a home educator) that I have found many of the articles being a source of much needed ’support’ and ‘encouragement’. The most recent being an article by Diane Flynn Keith titled A Recovery Program for Homeschool Split Personality Disorder.
Do you vacillate between child-led developmentally appropriate, interest-initiated unschooling on one hand, and traditional, structured, academic-based education on the other? These mood-altering swings in methodology creep up unexpectedly on homeschooling parents and are often exacerbated by events beyond their control.
Diane Flynn Keith
As the events of life seemed to spiral our everyday routines totally out of control this past week, I found myself flip flopping between interest-led learning and structured ‘this is what I need to document today’ learning. It was driving me crazy to the degree that by Tuesday I was having a ‘I am a failure as a homeschool mom’ meltdown.
Then Wednesday rolled around and Miss Sam and I collapsed on the couch and loosely watched Disney’s Robin Hood. I say ‘loosely’ because it was that time spent on the couch ‘vegging’ that the most valuable homeschool lesson of the week was ‘taught’.
We talked more during that movie than we had the previous few days. Our conversation wrapped itself around the psychology of human behaviors:
- we talked about why people react to certain stressors (like coping with Homeschool Split Personality Disorder) differently
- we talked about how the past effects the present
- we talked about how we can change and grow emotionally
- we talked about how we can increase our communication skills to where our reactions to stress will have less fallout
We missed much of the movie, but we captured the essence of why I chose to homeschool in the first place. That my friends was the highlight and the ‘ah ha’ moment of my week as a homeschool mom.
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I loved your post. I too have learned that some of our best schooling comes in the form of the unexpected learning moments. Sometimes my lesson plans prove to be futile and then life will teach us the most valuable lessons that we can learn.
Thanks for sharing.
Oh my goodness. I have struggled with this disorder for 10 years. It must be so confusing to my children. I’m going to check out the article. It sounds like that conversation with your daughter was wonderful. I love it when those happen.
Thanks so much for participating in the first edition of this meme. I’m going to keep it going right through summer, too. We don’t officially homeschool during the summer. But there is still a lot of learning going on.
Hi Danielle,
Are you still watching Big Brother? I finally got over here to your site and was expecting a BB post or something. I am so torn…I wanted Adam to win, but I think he has been making Sheila do a bunch of dirty work and is a bit of a sneak, so I now want Sheila to win the whole thing. She is older than the rest and has worked her butt of staying in the house, so, in my opinion, she should win.
I will be so glad for BB to be over with so I can finally do something else during those hours it is on.
Hope you are well.
Ellie
Danielle Says: I wrote a post just for you Ellie!! Will be emailing you shortly
I think we all go back and forth and question if we’re doing it right. There is no one way to homeschool. I enjoyed this thoughtful post.
Woohooo!!!! GO you!!! Those are my favorite sorts of times–and why I started walking with each child individually.
I love those kind of moments too. That just ‘being’ is the lesson. Good job, Mom!
I am so glad you shared this with me! You sound like an awesome mom who is letting go of not only what they say school ’should’ be, but also even letting go of what ‘homeschoolers’ say school should be. Which is huge! Your out of the box Danielle! You are now freely moving to the beat you and even more importantly your daughter needs to move to. I am so excited for you and Sam on this new journey. You only have her at your arms length for what 6 more years?? Enjoy the journey, find the path God has designed specifically for you and Sam and her education. Just keep bringing it to Him, He will not mislead you. No matter what others might say is right or wrong. You will know.
And thats all that matters!