Balance...

...it seems to be the one thing that I am on a never-ending quest to obtain! In every aspect of my life, I really need to find more balance. Most importantly I feel that we need to find a good balance in our lessons vs. playtime. I really am having some trouble in this area and I think a lot of it is the huge amount of guilt that I feel about having sent my daughter to PS for over 5 years. I feel like she needs to be given time to get some of what she had taken from her back. At the same time however I have this tape playing in the back of my head - I am sure many of you know the one I speak of - it sounds a bit like this "she should be doing work, she should be writing reports, she should be producing physical evidence of what she is accomplishing, it is the middle of the day how can I let her run around outside" and it goes on and on and on. How do you make that tape stop? How do you truly balance what needs to be done, what could get done and what can wait?

Honestly if she were younger, I would have no qualms of saying let her play,- in fact you will often hear me state this to lots of moms who start asking about Kindergarten curriculum as soon as their child turns 5,- but all her friends are starting Middle School next year and I am torn between feeling like I should be preparing her more for High School courses and feeling like she should be allowed to be young and truly "PLAY" while she still can or will for that matter.

As I think back to my college experience I remember that many classes started out right from the beginning of things. It was never assumed that you knew anything about the subject - unless of course there were prerequisites for the class. This is to cover any gaps in core information and to ensure that everyone gets an even playing field.

Science is my arch nemesis, but I am also thinking that for the most part the home school science curriculum for high school are pretty intense and cover A LOT! Why do things over and over and over again. So maybe if I do pull back a bit on certain things over the next year and allow a bit more room for interest-led activities and time for play it would be the perfect time to do it! She is young for her grade level and this could be a bit of a break time. Especially with the new baby on the way VERY shortly - just to clarify I mean another niece of course! I think that I will pull the reins back a bit and maybe try to focus on some of the areas that really need some work - such as writing - and let some of the other areas that she is very strong in -such as math- have a bit more of a break.