Transitioning a Family from School to Home Education – Tips from the Rearview Mirror

Transitioning a Family from School to Home Education – Tips from the Rearview Mirror
I wrote this article last year, but as it is getting to the end of the "school year" I thought I would repost it for those families who are new to my blog and making this transition over the summer months.

Transitioning a Family from School to Home Education – Tips from the Rearview Mirror

When I made the decision to remove my daughter from public school, I delved into research mode. Learning all that I could about curricula, educational philosphies, "socialization", standard courses of studies, how to get into college without a diploma and anything else that came to mind.  While there are many articles out there that go over the “hows” of taking a child out of school and where to begin home educating, I had a very hard time finding any that went much beyond the standard “be sure to allow the child to deschool.” and many were written by people who have never actually gone through the process themselves.  I am not an expert, but hindsight is priceless.  It is my hope that you will find these inside tips helpful to you, as you begin your Home Ed journey.

Decompressing vs. Deschooling

While deschooling of the child is very important, deschooling the parents should really be the first step in the process.  When you are raised to believe that only accredited teachers can help someone learn, you have to build yourself up and realize that no one is more qualified than you are to teach your child.  Parent's need to break away from the thoughts of what “school” looks like and begin to realize that “education” and “schooling” are not one in the same and often, detrimental to the other.  Most sources will advise that one month of deschooling is needed for each year a child has been in a school system, however for the parents I would, at the very least, double that amount of time.

I like to think of this process more as a decompressing of the learner within – the learner that generally gets squashed away in order to conform and fit in within classroom settings.  Both the parent and child need to be allowed freedom to discover what being educated means to them.  What is truly important for your child to know? This is a question that only the parents and the child can answer.  Often the answer is very different from one family to another and even from one child to the next within the same family. Children who have been schooled need the chance to remember that learning is fun and begin to enjoy learning again. When you take away rote memorization drills and allow a child to explore what they find interesting, or what is needed to solve a real problem, they rediscover the curiosity and enthusiasm that is frequently surpressed by a system that needs everyone to remember the same information in order to pass the test.

A common misconception that the word deschooling brings to mind is that the child is allowed to just “do nothing” which can make a lot of parents uncomfortable.  It is better to think of this time as allowing the family to discover how they learn, what their interests are and what they want their lives to be like.   The child should be allowed freedom to discover what interests them and how they best absorb information. Parents can encourage this discovery by providing a multitude of resources, from traditional workbooks, to living books, to field trips, to television series, to co-op classes and anything else that might pique their interest in a subject.  Learning styles can vary greatly and often a child will enjoy math through hands on manipulation of blocks, but enjoy reading a great historical fiction series to learn about the revolutionary war. This time will allow you and your learner a chance to see what fits for them.

It should also be a time when the child's circadian rhythms are allowed to return to a natural state.  Often a child who is used to being told what to do with every second of their day, has no idea when they are hungry, thirsty, tired or even need to go to the bathroom. They have become trained to sleep when told, eat when told, and hold “IT” for extended amounts of time when necessary.  This causes circadian rhythms to become nearly dormant in a child's body.  When given the chance, these natural feelings will return and a child will have control of their bodies again, often leading to children who had discipline and attention issues to become far more content and attentive.  This is a factor that is very often overlooked by behaviorists within a school environment, but has been noted time and time again from parents who have removed their children from the system.

Swiss Cheese Knowledge Base

The most frequent question I see on home education forums from parents who are thinking of taking this step is some variation of “What curriculum should I use?” For the person asking this seems like such a simple question and they believe it should be fairly easy to get an answer to. Surely, my 4^th grader in Wyoming should be learning the exact same information as the 4^th grader in Dakota. This could not be further from the truth.  Not only do different states teach different things at different ages, different counties and even different schools within the same town teach things differently.  No matter what standard base is being used, not all 4^th graders in any system are going to learn the same information.  For most home educators this is even more of a widespread question because they tend to realize the individual needs of each child and therefore can't tell you what curriculum to use without having any idea what type of child would be using it.  When you take a child out of a system where they are being taught from one set of principles or standards, it is not possible to pick up a catalog and order the 4^th grade school in a box set because you have no idea if that system is going to be aligned with the previous one.

Another thing that is often not discussed in regards to where to begin is the concept of a “Swiss cheese knowledge base.” Children who have been in schools have often been taught a lot of information in a very disconnected manner because the focus of so many schools is to teach to the test – CAT, FCAT, MCAS, SAT, ACT or whatever acronym your state has chosen to best “measure” output. This causes many children to have blocks of information scattered with all kinds of holes where the information is missing or has not been connected to anything to make it permanent in the child's memory. In order to truly learn something it must be digested and connected with a real world application or situation. This is why so many children learn from movies, activities and games – they are using multiple senses and therefore can more easily retain the information. I highly recommend approaching each topic as though the child has never encountered it before. This allows you to set the pace at which you move through things, skimming through content that seems to be coming easily to the child, focusing on areas of great interest for as long as the child wants, or slowing down and going deeper on something that needs more time to be fully understood.

What about socialization?

Inevitably the “S” word is always brought up during a transition from a school system to home learning. For families who have been traditionally educated it is hard to fathom how their children could possibly make friends or learn to be productive citizens when they spend every day at home with only their family to interact with. It may be hard for many parents to believe, but although they may not be as “socialized” as their public school counterparts, home educated children are generally more social and outgoing.  "Socialization" is manufactured, living and learning is natural.

A very important thing to keep in mind is also this, kids feed off of the fears of their parents so it is important for the parents to assure their children that they are not the only ones on the planet that have made the choice to learn at home.  Join online communities and local support groups to connect with other home educators in your area. You may need to put yourselves out there, even if it is outside of your comfort zone.  By getting involved with a wide variety of classes, hangouts, park days, co-ops, field trips etc. you widen your chances of finding families with common interests and outlooks. It can be difficult at times for kids to feel connected so try to not feel discouraged if after your first attempt you don't meet anyone that your child hits it off with. If you just keep trying you are likely to build friendships that are based more on common interests, than on what class you randomly got placed into.  Many families find that their children develop bonds with people in the community – local shop keepers, librarians, museum workers – because the kids have a true and honest interest in obtaining knowledge from experienced adults, rather than textbooks.

Just Live!

Once a family has their feet under them in this new world, they tend to come to the realization that learning and life go hand in hand. You will begin to see that kids absorb information when it is presented in a format that resonates within them. I have heard story upon story of parents being astounded at the accuracy of knowledge that flows from their child's mouths, often on topics the parents themselves know nothing about.

When given a chance to follow their own interests, children learn more quickly and deeply than is comprehendable by traditionally schooled parents. The greatest gift given to anyone is life and the chance to just live it!

Weekly Update - Two for One

Last week was so hectic that I didn't get a chance to write up our weekly update. Really not a big deal since we sort of had a two for one week around here as well. This week was our local school systems vacation week so DN opted to double up on his work that he is doing here and at his house. He was really productive from the moment that he got here so it worked out well and he got all his work here done and they worked together to get the things they do cooperatively completed as well, so KM had a lighter week as well. This was very fortunate for her as she began her novel study skype class. She is working through Wuthering Heights and is feeling a bit nervous about the workload, but I think she will do just fine.

We have had lots of activities going on over the last two weeks, from free skate to library activities. KM is really enjoying working with the Teen Advisory Group at the library. She also had a great time at the comic workshop with Andy and Veronica Fish this week and the Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament. KM had lots of fun at youth group where they made really cute headbands. We also took advantage of our INCREDIBLY WARM weather, it was in the 50s most days this week, to get out and do some hiking.

We only have a few more weeks left of our winter session, so I also spent quite a bit of time trying to finalize our lesson plans for spring and I will be sure to post about those soon!


Some pics from the camera over the last two weeks -

KM's valentine's present since she LOVES bacon!

We are learning a lot from our ant hill!

Babies eating are just TOOOO CUTE!!!

SUCH FABULOUS WEATHER FOR A HIKE!!!

KM's character sketch of Young Cathy -

Weekly Update - Midpoint of Winter

We are halfway through our winter session and for the most part things are going smoothly for KM. She is really enjoying the choices that she has made in her lessons. Her skype poetry class is finishing up next week and although she is really anxious about her critical analysis essay, she is fully enjoying the class. She is working hard to complete her French by the end of the session, as she would like to move on to Japanese, but wants to finish this book first. She has also started researching cosmetology schools and what it will take to become a cosmetologist. We have started in on the "animal" section in biology and have started our ant observations - check out the page where we are chronicling our discoveries! She is also practicing for the World Education Games and can't wait until the Science practice opens next week.

DN on the other hand - not quite so smooth. He is fully and completely compliant, but I am having a very difficult time getting him to truly understand that learning is part of life. Not something that you just "get done." That is what school is about right - but that is NOT what education is. I am trying to be patient and keep things in perspective as I know that it has only been a few months, but it gets really difficult when I am bending and twisting and feeling like there is no appreciation of the lengths that I am going to. I have to remind myself that hindsight is most effective and the fruits of my labor might just take a bit longer to ripen than I would like.

For a sneak peek of our first day with the ants check out our montage ---

Oh and KM's room makeover is complete ---- 

The green looks a bit more yellow in the pics, but you get the gist of it and KM LOVES IT!!! She was so over all the pink! 

Weekly Update - Turned out quite pleasant

This week did not start out well at all as CJ, KM and I had a stomach bug that had us down for the count, but fortunately it passed quickly and we were able to get back on track. 

I had a talk with DN about trying to find something that interests him and he is willing to put some effort into learning about, as he has a tendency to say he wants to learn something - i.e. keyboarding, video game design, geology, and about 20 other things that he has mentioned - but then when it comes to doing the research or putting the time into practicing he is not willing to put the time in on it. After this discussion he has decided to learn about the branches of the military, as this is something that he has said several times he thinks he might like to do. While I am not a proponent of anyone going into the armed forces, I do feel it is really necessary for him to get as much information on something that interests him as possible and if this is the only area in which he wants to learn this is where we are going to have to start. I had a really hard time locating something at the library that included all the branches in one book even after help from the librarian so when ended up picking up The U.S. Air Force by Sandy Donovan and The U.S. Navy by Tom Streissguth. When I got home I did manage to locate a book that I think will work on Amazon - A Civilian's Guide to the U.S. Military - and then reserved it through my library network. Hopefully this will 

We also had a fabulous day with some friends at the Franklin Park Zoo - 

and we FINALLY had some REAL snow!!! 

Weekly update - A different week

Things felt a bit different this week. Nothing really changed, it is just that things felt different. I had a long conversation with DN about honesty and taking responsibility for his own education. He is very much a pleaser and will happily click through a site for hours never actually attaining any knowledge or information if he thinks that the person watching will be happy. He also is all about the "GET IT DONE" mentality - just wanted to get to the end without enjoying the process. I tried to explain to him that really this is doing NOTHING but wasting MY time - in the planning and previewing aspects - and HIS time in the learning and boredom factor. We discussed what he thought was working - Khan Academy, Mango, Usborne Science Encyclopedia along with the Van Cleave's experiments, You Wouldn't Want to Series, My America Series - and what he felt was not working - the websites from the Usborn Science, the history sites and Manga High. Then we spoke of what I was not willing to budge on - literature, Fallacy Detectives, and the general life skills - and what we can do to compromise and make it work.

This happened with KM in the beginning as well, but I am in a completely different place than I was then, as is he from where she was. I knew the base of information that she had as I had provided the majority of it with "after and summer schooling". It is very difficult at times for me to gauge what DN knows and what he doesn't. I often just assume that he was exposed to things or has an understand of things that he just doesn't. This can be very challenging and I try to be understanding and compassionate when we stumble across something that shocks me, but I know that I slip and need to be much more aware NOT to make a big deal about it. I can see that he is proud of himself when he has learned something or remembers something that he didn't think he would and that makes me smile. It is also difficult since his time is split between two homes, but this seems to be getting a bit easier.  

After our lengthy talk we decided that we would scrap the science and history websites along with Manga High and focus more on hands on projects in his core subjects and life skills. I decided that he needs to take initiative in the area in which he showed his own interest so I let him take Spanish Conversation Demystified with him to work on when he is not at our house. We will see how this works.

KM has had a really good week. She took initiative to work on her poetry for her class she is taking utilizing Skype and seemed to really enjoy it. She is hoping that she will get a bit more comfortable with the kids, but as another mom in the group pointed out, the kids are scattered all over the country and beyond - there is a girl from England and one from Canada - so even if they embarrass themselves, they have no worries about running into each other. She also took it upon herself to begin reading her assigned historical fiction without prompting, so I think her overhearing the conversation I had with DN was a very good thing - if she keeps it up!

We started the DuneCraft Science Fair Kit this week to go along with their biology units Although I was a bit frustrated with the directions for the peat brick stating that it would rapidly expand when in fact I had to scratch and tear at it to get it to absorb the water and break apart; all and all the directions seem to be fairly straight forward and we are now just waiting for something to sprout so that we can move on to the more advanced experiments.





CJ took the kids to see Sherlock Holmes and had rave reviews of it! They all thought it was better than the first. When they got home we attempted to make "churned" butter, using a mason jar and marbles which was an activity from Colonial Days: Discover the Past with Fun Projects, Games, Activities, and Recipes (American Kids in History Series), but I think that I didn't let the cream get fully to room temperature so it came out more like thick cool whip, than butter. We will try this one again next week.

As for me I finished a Randy Hat for KM and she was quite ecstatic - finding every excuse she could to wear it - including matching her outfit to it for her Skype class. I have been forcing myself to workout everyday - even when I don't feel like it because I stacked far more wood than I should have by myself. I know that I feel better when I exercise my body and my mind so it is also to be noted that I managed to get a good way into Don Quixote and am enjoying it.

We had a visit from the Littles and the Itty Bitties, who we hadn't seen since Christmas and will be heading to visit my great aunt tomorrow and heading to a teen get together in the evening. So family and friends were abound as well.

OH I NEARLY FORGOT today is CJ's 37th birthday!!!! Since he is on the road, as is the life of a truck driver, we celebrated on Monday when we were altogether. He has been very happily using his birthday present I got him; a RoadPro Smart Car Pot. This makes me feel comfortable knowing even if he gets stuck in a snow storm or can't make it to a full truck stop he can make a warm bowl of oatmeal or cup of noodles, rather than being stuck just eating the crackers or chips he has with him.






And before I get questions about the picture within the picture -

Winter Session Outlined and Ready to Go

I have the majority of our lesson plans ready and outlined for the winter session - PPPHHEEWWWW!!!! As always there is room for change, but I need the guidelines so that I can feel comfortable and ready to go. With DN being here and learning with us now, it really is essential as he wants to know what is going on and when it is going to happen. As I have seen with many deschooling teens, he needs room to find his interests, but if left completely to his own devices I truly believe - and have seen - he would flounder. He has been so set in the path of following orders and completing tasks that are given, that he truly has no idea what to do when he is told he can do whatever he wants. I have heard it said time and time again that they will eventually snap out of it, but I don't always think that is true. I feel it is very dependent on the child and would rather ease him into it, allowing more and more choices as we go rather than to just pitch him into the pool and hope he figures out how to swim.

So anyway....they are covering almost all the same subjects, just at different levels. I have an outline of all our curriculum choices on this page along with our weekly schedule. These are just guidelines and we often swap things around, but again having a plan helps. We will continue to tweak and monitor, especially with DN as he progresses to ensure the proper fit in all areas.  In addition to the outlines and basic curriculum choices, I picked up a few extras to make things fun and fresh!   

Week 4 - Deschooling and Book Break Update

So our week is running a bit differently this week, as we are not doing "lessons" again until after the new year, instead we are working on some projects, getting ready for the holidays and trying to help DN understand that learning is a part of life and not just something you do on certain days, at certain times, and on specific predetermined topics set out by someone else. So he spent the weekend at home and we met up with him on Sunday evening so that he could join KM at the Smash Brothers Tournament at the Library on Monday. Since we didn't need to be there until later in the afternoon the kids had the day to do what they wanted.

KM choose to be on the computer, work on some Snap Circuits Projects, play on the computer and used some of the turkey bones that were leftover from soup making this weekend to try out a bendy bone experiment that she has been meaning to do for a while, but always seemed to think of AFTER I had disposed of the carcass. DN choose to read, read, watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer at lunch, read and read some more. KM tried to get him into some of the things that she was working on, but he was really into Battle of the Labyrinth - book 4 in the Percy Jackson Series, he read the first 3 in record time and was really glad I was able to get the 4th through our library network and even happier that I grabbed the final volume while they were in the tournament - luckily thing too since he finished the 4th within minutes of us returning home.

KM has been feeling a bit under the weather, sniffly and coughing at night, so we decided to put skating off until later in the week to not subject her to the cold and hit the movies instead to see Arthur Christmas. I had heard mixed reviews, but was really happy that we decided to go. It was super funny and both the kids really liked it. I was glad to see that it was rated PG as there were a few parts that I would think could be a bit disturbing to little ones. After the movies we dropped KM off at home to rest while DN and I went to run some errands. The beans we had setup last week to determine if direction of helium mattered needed to be transplanted and DN got to see how the bean transforms into the leaves. We spent the evening making ornaments with Sculpey and then at 9ish I had a surge of energy and decided we NEEDED to clean the fridge. Glad I did though because it took just less than an hour to scrub down everything, with the kids helping and they got to sleep in the next morning while I went grocery shopping. Teamwork and cooperation went a long way on this one!



Wednesday was shopping and chore day - I went grocery shopping and the kids needed to get their rooms organized and tidied up before the holiday.  They also spent some time painting the ornaments they had made the night before. We were hoping to get to the BSU observatory for their last public viewing before winter break, but the clouds just didn't cooperate. We did get to the discount store so that KM could pick up the fabulous dress for the formal New Years Eve party she will be attending with some of her youth group friends. She is VERY excited as this is her first formal. She picked a gorgeous flowing gown. We got the dress, shoes, and  shawl all for under $35! WOOHOOO for bargain shopping! The kids finished up their christmas shopping online, since CJ got stuck out on the road longer than expected this week. DN learned how to play Wii Music, set up his profile on Wii Fit Plus and played the new Zelda game he got from the library.

We made it to skating Thursday and they had a great time. We met up with DN's Uncle so he could spend the rest of the week home with them. Then KM went to a jewelry making class at the library - I just love how many activities she is getting involved with over there! I managed to find some time to get the last of the footage edited from KMs theater group and to finalize the majority of their winter session lesson plans. I always feel so much more at ease when I know they are all set. I am open to tweaking and twisting them around and I have a few more things to iron out, but just knowing they are there and ready makes me feel organized and ready to go. I will post about our upcoming plans next week!



All and all it was a really great week. We got a lot completed and had a really good time. DN seemed to really catch on with what we do around here, he was interested in most of the things, but passed on a few, which is to be expected - don't we all want to pass on some things.  It is weeks like this that remind me of why I started this blog in the first place - it is just a great way to see what it is that we have done. Even when it seems like it wasn't very much. Hope you all had as much fun this week as we did!

Changes...again...

We have been revamping how things work again!
~~~ BIG SURPRISE I KNOW~~~

The first thing is our vocabulary program - KM has been using Wordly Wise 3000 second edition, since I brought her home from PS last year, as she "really liked the way it was set up." Last year they had let her keep the workbook copy that she had started with and since it was a fairly inexpensive system and she did seem to be learning from it we kept it going this year. However over the last few lessons, I noticed that she was having more and more problems with the testing part of it. She just did not seem to be understanding the definitions, when they were taken out of the content of the book or if she couldn't check the definitions. You see the workbook is set up with the words and definitions listed at the beginning of each lesson, then through out the week you do one part each day Monday through Thursday and then you test on Friday. So I sat down with her and had her show me exactly HOW she goes about doing the work. What I found was that she was never actually "reading" through the definitions of the words, she had been taught/instructed by her PS teacher in 4th grade on how to figure out the answers to the different sections using different types of context and scanning clues. Great for building "TESTING" skills, but not so great for "VOCABULARY" skills. I spoke with CJ about this for awhile this afternoon and we have decided to scrap the Wordly Wise for the time being. I am by no means knocking the product at all. I really do like the way it is setup and the different approaches, but my daughter has been trained to cheat her way through it and that just seems like busy work to me. By the way on the test she doesn't have the definitions available and that is why she can't use the system that they taught her in order to pass this test, so I wonder how well those testing skills do actually work?

So in lieu of the Wordly Wise for vocab skills we have decided to try a few different things. For one I had gotten her the My Word Coach for the Wii for Christmas - before the price shot through the roof, guess people found out how great it is!! - so we are going to incorporate that in, as well as some really cool free sites I have found online for vocab building including -

1. Number2.com
2. Free Rice
3. Learning Vocabulary Fun
4. Prepme.com

We have started Ancient History and I think the outline that we have planned is going to work really well. The hands-on project booklets, lapbook sets and ancient science are going to tie the information from the textbook together really well. I downloaded the audiobooks of the Story of the World from our library network site and I think that as we get into each section I will introduce it by using one of the stories from the set. I am stressing to her that they are stories though. I know that many, many, many people have said that SOTW is a secular program and I get why they think that since it covers all religions. At the same time, in my opinion, the way they present the stories just doesn't feel right as a "History" curriculum. However the stories themselves are great little tidbits of "this is the type of stories that they told at this time" or "these are the things that they believed at that time." I will be sure to post pics as we get more into our ancient science and kits that we will be using.

We are also adding in some more math practice review days as she is starting to get into some unfamiliar territory. Each time she comes across a new concept I am shocked at how much I thought she had learned at PS, but she really never even touched on the subject. She is using the Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra as that is where she tested into in the system and she really likes how the system is set up, but it also assumes that you have a really good understanding of a lot of the basics and while she does in some areas she is REALLY lacking in others. At the moment we have taken a step back and are spending some extra time with percentages. These can be tricky little buggers and she just doesn't seem to want to follow all the steps in the process. She starts out fine and gets so close to the answer, but somehow gets tripped up on one or two steps. The weird part is that each time it seems to be different spots as well. So we will be taking this next week to reinforce the concepts with some hands on things and real-life math problems to see if I can get her to understand that completing ALL the steps is the only way to get the right answer. As I have said a gazillion times before, I really do not like to bash the school system, but they teach the kids that any answer is better than no answer. You see on the MCAS test they get points as long as they put something for an answer. If they leave an answer blank they get 0, but if they at least take a guess, even if it is the complete wrong answer, they get 1 point. If they take a guess and get the answer that is "almost" the right answer they get 2 or 3 points. If they get the right answer they get 4 points. ---hmmmm

I adore math! I always have and the 1 and only reason for that is that math is not a subjective topic. The answer is either right or wrong, even if you can have more then one solution to a problem ~ i.e. name a prime number that is less than 11 - the answer could be 1, 3, 5, or 7 ~ the answer that you give is either right or wrong. There is no arguing about it. There is no teacher saying that THEY don't interpret it that way. It is a truly black and white subject. So it baffles me that things like this are going on in our school system and I am having to retrain my daughter's brain.

When I started typing I never intended for this post to turn into another rant about the PS system - HONESTLY I DIDN'T! Since it has been a year out of that system I really should be beyond that by now - shouldn't I? But the more I am thinking about it, the more amazed I am that I am still discovering things about the system that I somehow missed when she was there. I also think that the scary part of that is that I was a very involved parent ~ I was even a substitute teacher for a while at the school and volunteered all the time ~ so how much are the uninvolved parents missing. The parents who barely have time to read through the mass of papers that come home from school or to check their kids homework. I am not saying that they all choose to be that way or making a judgement on them, but it is a little bit frightening to me to think that their kids are just being shuffled along and taught strategies to get through the test instead of being educating in order to be a productive and prosperous member of society.

I do apologize for the twisted route that this post has taken...I guess you just never know where you will end up once you start out -or what kind of changes you have to make along the way - so maybe I didn't get so far off topic as I thought I had!

Another Revamp ----

While I was traipsing around the blog-o-sphere last night I came across the post of a fellow homeschooling mom blogger Summer Fae - here - who had typed about her case of HMP - Homeschool Mom Panic!

This of course is the worst sort of mom panic, because your child's entire FUTURE rests in your meager little hands. There is no "awful teacher" to blame it on - except yourself - no "student peer pressure" to blame that behavior on - except those other children you have in your house - and no "school bus driver" who they picked up those bad road rage words from - I would never say those things!

Once you get past those wretched truths, you can soon come to realize that this is also the best sort of mom panic because you have total control over the situation - of course you may want to consult that co-principle that some of you have and then again you may not. You have the right to decide when, where, what and how your children are learning! The best part of homeschooling is that revamp policy that says "hey if it isn't working try something different or scrap it all together".

Here at GCK Homeschool we are working on an experiment in timing. We have found that trying to get KM to wake up, eat breakfast, brush her teeth and get ready to start her bookwork in the morning is just not worth the fight! It was getting to feel like we were back to the rush rush rush out the door feelings we used to have when she went to PS and I just don't have it in me to fight that battle anymore!

So instead, we are letting KM get out of bed and have breakfast at a leisurely pace. She has been watching some great Discovery Channel DVDs on the laptop during breakfast - presently she has been enjoying the Secrets of Archaeology Series which we got from the library. We then ease into our geography/holiday project we have been working on "Holidays Around the World" - pictures of that will be posted later in the week. We have been doing some yoga, silly games, exercises and chores after that, which brings us just about to lunch time. While I start lunch KM goes in and gets her daily estimation, daily writing, daily science question and Wordly Wise assignments done - which generally takes about 20-25 minutes to get done when she wants them to. During lunch we have been listening to audio books together - we just finished up the Redwall Collection by Brian Jacques, which is such a great story for audio books! After lunch we work on History, Science, Foreign Language, or whichever elective we have planned for that day. She has some free time in the afternoon, which she has been spending either on the computer or reading a lot lately. Then KM does her Teaching Textbooks assignment on her own in the later afternoon early evening.

Some days it feels like a lot or like the day is dragging on forever, but there are no fights in the morning to "get into gear" - CJ's favorite morning euphemism - and besides her daily things, she seems to be getting most of her other work done in 2 or 3 days instead of 5 - which is FINE by me! She seems to be much more able to focus and get things done when she hasn't been rushed into starting.

I don't know if this revamp will last forever and I am sure that it won't be our last, but I do know that at the moment it has calmed my HMP attacks quite a bit!

Me Time!

Two months ago I received my initiation in the First Degree of the Usui System of Reiki Natural. Since then I have tried several times to sit and go through the paperwork and books to prepare myself for the Second Degree training, but it seemed that every time something happened ~ the phone rang, SC woke up, KM needed help with something, the dryer buzzed - you know the inevitable something that causes every parent to not take time for themselves. This evening - after my sister called 5 seconds after I sat down with my books - I shut the ringer off, blocked out all other things and went over my notes.

I did not get anywhere near as much done as I would have liked, but it felt good to really engulf myself even for a few minutes in something other than next year's curriculum, pre-revolutionary America, 5th grade math or board books. It is often difficult to find time for oneself, but you have to or you are no good to anyone.

You must create a sanctuary for yourself, even if it is just a corner of your room, where you can recharge your own energy. Now this often means different things to different people ~ reading "girl" magazines, doing spa-at-home treatments, scrapbooking, meditating, listening to an audiobook, getting outside and being in the sunshine ~ but whatever your "thing" is, do it!

I have a meditation area in my room that is about 6 by 4 and nothing else is done in that area, but the thing is that I have not done any more than step through the area to grab a book in months! I must get back to my practice to balance things out again. I have bumped my yoga up to two classes a week, I am getting back to my regular daily yoga routine as well and I have scheduled my first shamantic-angelic-reiki session.

I am trying to remind myself on a daily basis that a burnt out mom - leads to a burnt out family!

There was also a quote within my notes that I felt compelled to share:
"Energy can only ground on the one who sends it out, and your job now, each one of you, is to measure carefully your own choices in interaction and step away from those who continue to participate in the darkness and negativity. Love, honesty, and kindness may now need to be tempered with a sense of finality when those in your life do not behave with honor, or choose to stay locked in negative behavior patterns. Justice is taken care of in the flow of energy itself, and will leave you free to move on to better days and wonderful new relationships when you make the choice to walk towards greater peace that you claim for yourself. Like attracts like." - Elaine Read-Cole

Feel free to share your ideas on how to recharge by leaving a comment!