Yes, You Do Have to Do School, Even If You Don't Feel Like It
It's Spring Break here in our neck of the woods, so my kids who do some classes outside of our home and my little public school kiddo are home all week. It's great! We'll be going to the city ("The City" = San Francisco) and working on our home that's going on the market and watching movies in the middle of the day just because we can. Maybe we'll have ice cream for breakfast, too.
I don't feel like doing school. Truth be told, there are a lot of days when I don't feel like teaching/overseeing/homeschooling. I love summertime when I can focus on the homemaking and the relationships and the writing and the speaking. Homeschooling gets in the way of the stuff I'd rather do.
Maybe that's not you. Maybe homeschooling is the stuff you'd rather do and it would be better for me to write about having to fold laundry or make dinner or drive kids to karate even when you don't feel like it. Yeah, you have to get that stuff done, too. Clean clothes and food are kind of essential (the karate is totally negotiable).
But if, like me, you have days/weeks/months/years when you don't feel like doing school, here's what I have to tell you: you still need to do school, even if you don't feel like it. It's just part of being a real homeschooling family.
When all else fails, wear a lei.
You don't have to be absolutely miserable, though. Here are ways I've learned to make homeschooling doable on the days when I'd rather be poolside:
1. Do the subject they love first. If we start with an art project, they are very happy, and their lack of resistance means I'm happy. They tend to move into the less exciting subjects with a smidgen of joy leftover.
2. Ditch the curriculum for the day. If instead of reading about JFK we look at the cute pictures of John John under his dad's desk in the Oval Office, that subject is suddenly more interesting. We can get back to the reading tomorrow.
Image online, courtesy the whitehousemuseum.org website.
3. Go ahead and ignore school. Read a book. Watch Discovery Channel. Go get Slurpees. Breathe deeply. Just know that you do have to get back to the schoolwork as soon as possible (like tomorrow).
4. Pray and ask for the grace to get through what needs to be done. Because really, that's the only way we conquer the stuff we don't want to do anyway. I'm always surprised by what I can endure or even enjoy when I've asked God to give me the grace to make it through.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
