Wonderful Day

We had the most wonderful day yesterday.  I don’t know if it was people praying for me, or some new changes we made, or just the grace given for that day, but it was a good day.

As we have reached the typical homeschooling slump last month, that comes every October, I’ve been trying to brainstorm some ways to make our day work better.  Our day looks fantastic on paper.  The schedule I printed out and laminated at the beginning of the year looked great.  What I have found is that some subjects, usually the kids favorite electives, get dropped nearly every day as I just burnout around afternoon nap time.

This made me feel like a failure, and frustrated the kids to no end.  By supper time the kids are clingy, and I’m just done.  The days were like that on repeat.

I think as I spent many mornings getting up early and praying about this, that the answer came in the form of 2 different blog posts I came across last week.  One was 6 Simple Strategies for Homeschooling a Houseful, and Self-Care for the Highly Sensitive Parent.  These 2 posts were a jumping off point for making some adjustments to our school day.

What struck me about the first article was the idea of starting the school day with the littlest kids first, and filling their cup with that full attention.  That way as the day goes on they don’t start getting more clingy because they just need some time when your energy drains.  A big lightbulb went off for me, and it made sense.

The other article pushed me to brainstorm ways to ensure that nap time for the little kids isn’t spent doing the “fun subjects” that get messy and need a lot of work from me.  That should be my down time.  As my mom said, every teacher needs a prep hour.  So I spent some time last week rearranging our schedule to put time with the little girls, and doing kindergarten subjects with Elias first, while the older kids start having personal quiet time with God.  They’re old enough to read their Bible and pray in their rooms by themselves, but I have not made a priority of it.

After that, we do the “fun subjects” that the kids love and require a lot of involvement from me: science, art, history.  Then in the afternoon during nap time , they do their lessons and worksheets that they either do on the computer, or need little help from me.  I’ve been instructing them that if they have a question, they need to wait until 2:30 to ask me.  1:30-2:30 is my quiet hour while the little ones are sleeping.

We also changed our chore system.  Our old one was great, but taking a cue from my spectacularly organized sister, she switches up their chore system every 6 months or so just to keep it fresh and interesting.  We’ve been using this system for over a year and the kids were really starting to drag their feet through each chore.

So I took their chores that they usually do after breakfast and lunch, and spread them out so they will be thinned out to after each meal, instead of just the first two.  The “chore” sessions we do as a family are a lot shorter, but happen more often.  I turned our “chore board” into a “service opportunity board.”  We are talking about the “theology” of serving one another.

It’s not colorful or catchy, but the kids really latched onto it.  They liked the chores getting done so fast, and thought it was a good exchange for doing them more often.  I liked that when the kids went to sleep at night, my house was actually clean, kitchen and all.  Instead of having regular chores that rotate every week, I make up the list every night, the night before, and write down the chores that are a priority for the next day.  I was worried that  the constant change of chores would be bad, but each one of the kids thought it was exciting.

Also, I’ve found this amazing tea that has helped me enormously with my anxiety that I have been dealing with the last year and a half.  I have gotten to the point to reach out and search for more answers, but with my medical history, going the route of medication terrifies me.  I found this herbal tea that has been so amazing, I cannot recommend it enough.  It should be noted there are herbs in here that will interact with other medications, and is not to be taken by pregnant women, so read the label.  I have found it’s not patience in a cup, or the magic ticket to no frustrations.  However, it does relieve the pain I get in my chest when anxiety rises up, and calms me down so that I can focus.  This happens so quickly that I’ve checked the ingredients several times just to make sure all the ingredients are legal.  Ha!  It’s a joke.  Seriously, it’s impact is immediate, and has become a regular afternoon routine for me.

So, thank you for your support yesterday.  This week is going 100 times better than last week.  We’re still learning and growing every day.