A Bad Homeschooling/Parenting Day and a Field Trip

Let's be honest with each other shall we?

Homeschooling is awesome and I love it. Ninety percent of the time I am so glad that we made this choice for our family.

Then there is the other ten percent...

Yesterday morning was a ten percent kind of morning. I should have known it would go that way. We had a field trip scheduled and I knew we had to leave the house by eleven. Whenever we have to get up and get around in the morning it causes chaos. I had a certain number of things I wanted to get done yesterday morning and schooling was one of them. The fact that I was going to try to fit it all into a two hour time frame was another mistake I made. We chose this lifestyle of homeschooling so we don't have to live our lives in a rushed state.

Here comes the confession part....

My son didn't want to do his English. The schedule is Bible, spelling, and English, followed by math, history, and science. Usually he gets breaks between subjects and we work at a casual pace throughout the day. But, as I mentioned above, I was determined to put in a full day of schooling in a two hour time frame.

English is not his favorite subject and it's not unusual for him to give me resistance when doing it. He just doesn't always understand it, and I can't say I blame him. As you can tell from my writing, I don't exactly have the greatest grasp on the subject either. When I told him to get out his English book so we could do his lesson, and he also had a worksheet to go with it, he started whining. The whining turned into complaining, and the complaining turned into to arguing.

It's just and excuse, but the hubs and I have been under a bit of stress this week as we have been working on our finances, budgeting, and all that really fun stuff. I think my stress level was a little high yesterday and I just flipped out.

Yes, I flipped out.

Please don't pretend you haven't done it before and make me feel worse than I already do about it.

This 37-year-old, mature woman threw her child's English book across the room yesterday and went and shut herself in the laundry room and sat on the floor behind the washing machine crying.

I'm not kidding folks. Sounds mature and loving doesn't it?

I sat in that laundry room and cried and asked God why would I just act like that? I was embarrassed and ashamed. I was mostly ashamed after seeing the look on my son's face after I threw the book. A look of fear combined with shock. It wasn't my finest moment I can tell you that.

After cooling off in the laundry room, I came back out into the kitchen and he was standing there waiting for me. I proceeded to just go ahead and start washing the dishes and he went into his bedroom and shut the door. After being in there for a few minutes, he came out with a handmade picture for me. He sat it on the bar and went back in his bedroom.

I picked up the picture and went into his room to ask him if he had just made it and he told me had been working on it and it was a Christmas present for me. I sat next to him and hugged him and told him how sorry I was that I lost my temper. I cried, he cried, and we hugged. He said he was sorry but he just didn't want to do his English.

It's times like this when I feel lower than dirt. When my son's lower lip is trembling and he is trying not to cry and I am the cause of that...that's when I say to myself "Oh yeah, this is why God decided one child is all I can handle."

After we had hugged and cried I told him to put his books away and we would save it for another day. So that's what we did-we put the books away and got ready to go on our field trip. The rest of the day was great. We had so much fun at the science show and we had lunch with friends we haven't seen in awhile. My temper tantrum and tears were soon forgotten....by him anyway.

Little children are so forgiving. They just do it without strings attached. They don't say I will forgive you only if you do A, B, or C. When you act like a horses you-know-what and apologize, they just forgive. I am not naïve to believe this will always be the case with my son. Sooner or later you do too much damage and they stop forgiving. The older they get and the more you keep repeating the same mistakes, the less forgiving they become.

I am being honest with you friends. Honesty is a policy of mine. You can judge away if you want. Maybe someone out there had a day like mine yesterday? Apologizing and asking forgiveness is hard but it must be done. Some "stricter" folks would say he should just listen and I should have whipped his rear end. Really? Because if that's the case, there are a lot of adults that need whippings too. I hear the whining and complaining from their mouths daily. My son is person with feelings, opinions, and his own personality. He is also a really great kid. He is sensitive, compassionate, snuggly, and very loving.

God is working on me so much right now. He is revealing things to me that I need to deal with. In the end I must have my child's heart and I must help steer it toward God. I hope that someday he will realize that his mama is just a sinful, broken person in need of forgiveness and a Savior.

Jenn