It’s Not About Me

Posted by Anna | 0 comments

Home education is a funny thing. I have the responsibility—the privilege—of teaching my children the way I believe best. There is no shortage of books, materials and resources to help me do it better, faster and easier, with less stress and better results. But no one seems to tell me the one thing I really need to know: it’s not about me.

Reading a recent post by a blogger friend snapped me back to reality. As a home educating mom, with the best of intentions I can get things a little off-kilter. Because I want my children to be the best, and because their success depends on me as a mother-teacher, it is easy to get caught up in myself a little too much. So find myself navel gazing, questioning my curriculum choices and my teaching style and my schedule and my lesson plans and my subject choices and… whew! I am so close and so invested that I can mistakenly put the emphasis in the wrong place.

I am so caught up in my part of the equation that I forget that they actually have a responsibility here as well. I am the cook. I dish out the food and bring it to the table. It is up to them to eat it, digest it and let it become a part of who they are. I can offer the learning, I cannot learn for them. I am only one part of the whole story.

I was reminded that this thing called home education is not about me. It’s not nearly so much about my teaching style or my lesson plans. It’s about my kids. It’s about what God wants me to do for them and getting down to business. When I keep this in the front of my brain then I am able to push through the fear that I’m not enough and that I’m not doing it right. I can push through the laziness and the doubt and the stress. When the focus is where it belongs the right things get magnified and learning takes place. Not planning, learning. Not talking, learning. Not fear or stress or frustration but learning.

I look forward to school days now because I see it in a whole new way. I’m just the facilitator. We all have a part to play and all the parts are important. With God’s help I am able to keep the focus where it belongs–on His beautiful plan for our family.

Anna-Marie is a wife and a mother of four using the Biblical Principle Approach in her home education. She is a writer and book binder. It is her joy to teach her children and she plans to continue until the last little chick is out of the nest. She resides in Oklahoma. You can read more of her musings at Principled Mom and The Creative Homeschool.