The Golden Days of Homeschooling: Not What You'd Think!

I am in love with homeschooling. Truly. There are so many wonderful and amazing days that make my heart so full it could burst. But there are hard days, too.

And the hard days are hard.

So. Very. Hard.

The reality of homeschooling is there is no “escape.” All the quirks of all of our personalities are ever-present. All. Day. Long.

It’s always been interesting to me how the days can have such different “feels.” You can just sense the energy on a bad day. Maybe someone didn’t get enough sleep (ahem… me!) or someone is grumpy. The energy is just “off.” Do you have days like that?

In the classroom we had days like this, too, but there wasn’t much to do about it. Things had to get done, the calendar was finite, and we just muddled through.

But here, at home, it just doesn’t work that way.

Yes, I could try to force us to do schoolwork through the tantrums and frustrations, but that is definitely not the goal. In fact, the “academic” part of our day is my very LAST priority.

Because whether they remember the names for each phase of the moon or not, my boys will be in real relationships outside of our home someday and knowing how to navigate the ebbs and flows of being a sinful human in a fallen world is much more important.

When we fight, when I lose my temper and yell, when they just can’t be in the same room without bickering, the baby won’t stop crying and everyone is frustrated, THESE are the real “golden” days of homeschooling.

On these hard days (like today), we remember why we need a savior. We are selfish, impatient, immature and in need of humbling. We are far from perfect. We are all in need of grace and forgiveness.

In Ephesians 4:2, Paul advises, “Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

The new living translation says it slightly differently: “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”

That’s the lesson.

Bear with each other. Make allowance for each other's faults. Forgive.

As hard as it is to remember and live out, that’s the goal. And that is such a more worthy goal to strive for than anything academic.

So on these hard days I have to remember to thank God for these immense blessings, for these opportunities to humble myself, forgive my kids and hope that they can forgive me. We make repairs, give lots of hugs and kisses, and have some wonderful conversations about Jesus.

And we remember to pray to the God who continues to pour out his grace to us even when we know we don’t deserve it.

See what I mean?

Golden days for sure.

Have you had any of these golden days lately?

P.S. - I wrote this this morning when things went south. I put on a movie, finally got Colton to sleep, and we all cooled down. We had some good snuggle time and salvaged the afternoon. We even got our lessons in. Miracles do happen!

Also- we don't live in a box. We have lots of social interaction with friends, so we aren't together all day every day. Just felt the need to point that out! 😉