Having Dessert First

Posted by Marsha | 0 comments

I don’t know about you, but I am a Type-A kind of girl. And no, it doesn’t mean that I am an A+ excellent home educator and on the mommy-honor-roll with my kids proudly proclaiming it with a bumper sticker on their bikes!

Reality would more likely show me to be an overbearing, over-scheduled, checklist loving, rule following drill sergeant! At least that’s how I’m naturally bent. Or was today anyway. When the troops… er, my children don’t keep to my schedule, follow all my rules to a T, and allow me to merrily mark off all the items on my checklist, let’s just say it gets pretty ugly around here.

Can you see the theme here? It’s all about ME!!! Ugh.

Both Rachel’s and Cheryl’s recent posts really got me thinking– it’s NOT about me! Come to think of it, “not being about me” was also the topic of our Sunday School lesson as well as the morning sermon. Eeek. When God uses so many different avenues to tell me the same thing and within a span of only two short days, I better listen up!

In the realm of homeschooling, if it’s not all about me, then whom should it be about? How about the three little guys that spice up my life and totally outnumber me? Yup, those very same ones.

Hi boys. Mommy loves y’all.
Even when I’m a mean old fusspot that yells, whines and gripes when things don’t go my way.

We can now go many directions with it being about our kids and not us. While I would rather wax philosophical and tell you something that will pull at your heartstrings and change your life forever, I won’t. Because it’s not about me. It’s about them. (Hi kids!) Besides, I’m not very good at the whole life changing kind of talk anyway.

The them’s in my life would like for all of you mom’s (and dad’s) out there to think in more practical terms of how to stir the pot and change things up. And because they do like to make mommy happy occasionally, we’ll do this in a handy-dandy LIST format!

• I am inclined to do the more serious work first, saving the super fun activities as a reward for proper (and speedy!)completion of the three R’s. Instead of ending the day with the fun stuff– like painting a picture or playing a game– how about starting the day with it?
• Since we’re switching things up, how about having dessert before dinner? Or *gasp* having it for breakfast!
• My boys really dislike erasing. I don’t blame them. It can be quite aggravating when you accidentally erase a hole into your paper. Sometimes I let them just mark through the misspelled word– even when there is no room to put the correction next to it– and write sideways in the margin all the way up the paper.

I do understand that my children don’t always know best– if they did, they certainly wouldn’t need me! And if they always ate dessert first, they wouldn’t have room for the nutritious food necessary to keep them healthy. As parents, it is our responsibility to do what is right for our children. But can we do right without being such sticklers and sticks-in-the-mud about it all? Can we take little steps here and there to train ourselves to not always have the it’s my way or the highway mentality?

As you can see with my pathetically short list up there, it is not easy for me to think outside my perfectly square box! I would love it if you would share your ideas with me. What are some ways that you mix it up at your house? Is there something in your daily life or in your homeschool that you do for your kids (or let them do) that goes against your norm or preference? And did your kids look at you in total disbelief about it?