When I was a kid attending public school, there sure were a lot of papers to deal with. Math homework and essays for English, report cards and assignment sheets, all flew to and fro in a forest-obliterating frenzy. It’s a wonder we have any softwoods left nowadays, as the hauling of paper from school to home and back again continues unabated for today’s generation of schoolchildren, who have had to add wheels to their backpacks just to deal with the situation without consulting a chiropractor.

While some of the papers were handed back to the teacher with hesitation (the research paper we left ’til the night before) and some with glee (that French exam we’d been studying for all semester) my favorites were always of a different sort . . . permission slips.

Permission slips were fabulous. They meant we were allowed to go on the class trip to Washington, D.C., or that we were going to be out of school for a family vacation next week. They signified a break in the action; a reprieve from work. Having a permission slip meant that we were allowed to not perform whatever it was we would normally be doing if we didn’t have that piece of paper.

After 13 years of homeschooling, I think that every homeschooling mom needs a few permission slips of her own. These are the ones I’ve found the most useful, and I hope they’ll be a blessing to you, too!

Here they are: permission slips for homeschool moms.

Slip #1: Permission not to follow a schedule exactly

We all know that adding the full-time job of homeschooling to the full-time job of being a mom is, well, perhaps evidence that we are a bit daft, not being able to add 40 to 40 and realize there aren’t that many hours in a week and all. Doing it with any semblance of sanity left at the end of the year/semester/day means we’ve got to have a schedule of some sort. Without plans for meals, prayer time, math, science, outside play time and teaching the littles to read . . . well, lets just say the results wouldn’t be pretty, because none of those things would happen at all.

We need some sort of guideline for how our days will progress, and so do our children. But sometimes, I’m tempted to take my schedule too far. When the math lesson takes priority over dealing with the heart attitudes behind my childrens’ bickering, or Bible time is forgotten once again in the rush to hit our workboxes, something needs to change. I need to remember that I’m the teacher, I made the schedule, and I can mix it up, readjust, or kick it to the curb as necessary on any given day.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Ecc. 3:11

Slip #2: Permission to have a less-than-perfect house

One day, as I stood in the middle of a mound of spilled Cheerios, I looked over the pile of yet to be folded laundry on the ottoman at the disheveled dining room table, which was covered with drying watercolor masterpieces, scattered schoolbooks and a few remnants of that morning’s breakfast (mostly syrup) and thought to myself . . . where’s the janitor? I’m sure no one who spends time here really has any clue how I’d like my house to look, and I haven’t seen my decorating style (or my kitchen floor) in a couple of decades. I’m just kidding– it’s not really that bad.

Sometimes it just feels like it is! We have a chore chart, of course, and everyone has assigned areas of the house that they’re (supposed to be) in charge of. I spend most of every summer doing as much de-cluttering as possible so that once school starts, I don’t have to think about that much. Enlisting the kids’ help is a good idea for their sakes as well as our own, since they will have to care for their own homes one day. And we need to use our down time wisely. I’ve found that if I spend 15 minutes at the top of every hour working on *something* in my house; be it laundry, the kitchen, or picking up school shrapnel, everything is in pretty good shape at the end of the day as opposed to looking like a tornado went through. But we’ve definitely had to tone down our expectations in this area. My home is lived in, and if you’re a homeschool family, so is yours. It’s not going to look like House Beautiful’s cover, or like your sister-in-laws house where everyone’s gone all day at public school, work, and sports activities for the bulk of the week.

Embrace it–it’s reality. “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.” Prov. 14:4

Slip #3: Permission not to be a perfect mom

We start so hopefully when we embark on our homeschool journeys. We are going to be June Cleaver, Martha Stewart and Charlotte Mason all rolled into one. We are going to speak to our children gently and respectfully. We are going to teach them Latin and go through all of the Great Books . . . this semester. We are going to meet our husbands at the door at the end of each homeschool day in our aprons and pearls with a hot dinner on the table and the children standing in a row, shoes shined, reciting the states and capitals (okay, we’ll save that for Grandma.) We will have a garden, raise goats, and bake bread. We will rise at 5:30 am for Bible reading and chores, our kids will graduate from home college at 16, and we will sing at the local nursing home on Fridays. And everyone will LIKE IT.

Or not.

Somewhere during your first year of homeschooling, you might have noticed an interesting phenomenon: you are still human. Even after we purchase a bunch of curriculum, buy matching pajamas to homeschool in, and set up our children’s desks, we’re still dealing with sinful human beings, and the most difficult one to handle is the one in the mirror. Becoming a homeschooling mom didn’t automatically make us more patient, less prone to yelling, or incredibly organized. But Jesus can make us all of those things–or at least, more of them than we are now. These children, after all, were His idea, and they are His primary means of our sanctification–surprise! We won’t be perfect. Indeed, we can’t be perfect.

A few years ago I was asking God why I felt like I could never be enough for my kids, because I so wanted to do everything exactly “right” (whatever that means.) What He said to me has stuck ever since. The gist of it was, “Because that’s impossible. The areas where you aren’t enough–the areas in their lives where you leave holes–those are the places I will reach in and touch their hearts. They are the areas in which they will find their need of Me.” Wow. So much for perfection! We offer our hearts to God, and ask and then allow Him to change us. And when we yell, or forget to teach someone something, or are too lenient, or don’t have all the answers, God shows up. That’s an important lesson for all of us. “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 2 Cor. 12:9

I’m sure the list of slips we’d all find helpful could take up a lot of that paper we were talking about earlier. Take some time now to ask the Lord which one you need–and if you come up with a new one, find a way to pass it on!

Misty Krasawski is the overly-blessed mom of eight children whom she homeschools in sunshine-y Florida. She has been clinging ferociously to the hand of her Lord since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, homeschooling for the past thirteen years, and has eighteen more years ahead of her with the children who are glad she will have done most of her experimenting on those who went before. Her wonderful husband Rob has much treasure laid up for him in heaven for having been called to such a daunting task. After the house goes to sleep she can sometimes be found gathering her thoughts at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MistyKrasawski.