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Are You Feeling Inadequate at Homeschooling Your Child?
8/27/2004
Gertrude’s Musings
Are you occasionally plagued with feelings of inadequacy? Do you occasionally feel others are doing a much better job of homeschooling then you are?
In the course of a week I speak to many homeschoolers. By and large, people tell me they feel good about what they are doing, as if they think that’s what I’m expecting them to say. But it is not unusual, as we talk a bit longer, that I sense the homeschooler I am speaking with feels inadequate to the task. It is almost as if they are ashamed to admit that their homeschooling efforts aren’t always going smoothly.
Feel ashamed no longer. I think that most of us feel good about what we are doing when we look at the big picture. When we are at conferences or homeschool gatherings we’re enthusiastic and make it sound as if things always run smoothly in our homes. We have stories to tell about neat things our children have made or said. We make it seem that at our place things are just great. But catch us on Thursday morning, week five of the homeschooling year or during the February doldrums and, well, things don’t look so rosy. One child doesn’t understand his math and we haven’t a clue as how to make it clear to him, another child is upset because she has to write in her journal – and she hates journal writing. But she’s in grade 3, we say to ourself, “everyone else’s children are writing in their journals everyday. I only make them do it twice a week”, we reason, “and then only if I remember to tell them. Surely, we aren’t doing nearly enough writing!” And all of a sudden we feel like a failure. We wonder (very briefly) if our children would be better off in school.
Do you want to know something? We all struggle from time to time. Some years just seem to be a struggle from beginning to end. We share the successes of our children with others and we tell how our children made this neat castle or won at the music festival or wrote an interesting story. But we don’t necessarily mention that most of the days were rather ho-hum. Things just cannot be exciting all the time and it is unrealistic to expect that teaching and training will always go smoothly.
Be careful as home schooling moms not to compare ourselves with other homeschooling families or what we perceive other families are doing. It’s neither fair to us nor our families. Rather, if we feel inadequate, we should take time to focus on the bigger picture. It is important to be honest with oneself and admit where things are going well and to give credit where credit is due. If some things aren’t working well, even if “everyone” we know is doing it, we need to re-evaluate our approach. It could be we aren’t giving our child enough “space” or freedom in a subject. It may be that your expectations are unrealistic or you may need to work on attitudes, either your own or your children’s. Quite possibly it is just a matter of taking a break from a certain subject for a week or more. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can truly “make it fit our needs”.
And, the next time you are really having a bad morning – provided this isn’t happening everyday - take a good book off the shelf, make everyone a cup of tea or cocoa and sit down together and enjoy a good time reading together. You will be building vocabulary, sentence structure and sharing a good story. You can laugh or cry, ponder and discuss, or just plain read and enjoy. And think about it, your friend down the street might be doing the very same thing you are! You’re not as alone as you think.
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