When parents say that they can't home school or that we must be "special" to do it, they really aren't talking about the school work. They are talking about the nitty gritty of being with their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week with potentially very few breaks. Don't get me wrong. The school work can be a challenge. I am learning things everyday that I never learned in school. It stretches me and challenges me as much as the kids some days. Okay, some days more then them. But as I explained to my DYS yesterday, I do have the answer key! It is not the demands of school work that scare these moms off, it is the relational aspects that they do not think that they can deal with. The relationship between the husband and wife, the relationship between the parents and the children and the relationships between the various children have to be right in order for school to happen. The majority of mothers all across this country breathed a sigh of relief last week when their kids headed back to school. They managed to survive the summer and that was about it. Their kids fought with each other, demanded constant entertainment, and wore mom out. Several families we know dealt with this by sending their kids to one camp after another, week after week. The day to day challenges have nothing to do with school work and everything to do with discipline and attitudes. I am not talking solely about the discipline and attitudes of your children. As moms we set the tone for our homes. Everyone is familiar with the saying, if momma ain't happy, nobody is happy! Even on our best days, putting our best foot forward, not everyone is going to cooperate. It is not the outright defiance it is instead the little slump of the shoulders, the down turned mouth, the silent yet clear message they send that articulates better than words that my children are not happy with the decision I made for them. Day in and day out this attitude is wearing. It is pretty easy to discipline when a child tells you no to your face, or throws a schoolbook, or has some out and out physical or verbal reaction to you. The sutleness is both what makes it easy to ignore and hard to discipline. Surliness is a bad habit, an attitude of the heart that must be dealt with.
The answer to this is not to send the kids out the door to school. When my kids were little and began fighting with each other it was always because they had spent to much time with other friends. They no longer "needed" the relationship with their siblings and took less care of the their feelings than if they were depending on them. Fighting was always my cue that they needed to spend more time together not less. There is a great article on this very subject at www.heartofthematteronline.com/absence-makes-the-heart-grow .
