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Homeschool Encouragement Tips

Homeschool encouragement tips - quick reads for when you need a little pick-me-up in your homeschool journey.

The Threshing Floor

Do you know that the word “threshing” is used often in the Bible and not only when talking about agricultural pastimes. Gideon was threshing his wheat hiding in a winepress to try to protect his crop (and himself) from the Midianite raiders.

Yet even in Gideon’s state of fear, the Angel of the Lord came to him and told him that God would equip him to do what was needed to be done for His people. What do you think Gideon’s reaction was? “Yippee Lord, you are going to help me overcome my fear by cleansing and purifying me with fire?” I don’t think so… Judges 6 tells us how he asked the Lord for a sign and how he fleeced the Lord twice thereafter. Praise God for His patience with us!

Sometimes homeschooling can be a threshing process in a mom’s life and we can also feel like Gideon and want to hide from those things that threaten us. But God in His infinite love for us has promised that He will mature us if we will just listen and obey Him.

As I look back over my year there were times that I felt like hiding, as Gideon did, and there were time when I felt the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit in my life. As each situation happened – feeling threatened or fearful, the loving but painful work of the Holy Spirit – I was so very aware of God’s absolute love for me and my family.

I have been so aware of how he has used my husband, children and homeschooling to expose my fears, weaknesses and challenges. Yet, never have I despaired as this God we know is patient, kind, always looking for the best and His love never fails.

I realize that the Bible talks about things in seasons and we have had a season of working hard and now it will be a season of rest. This time of rest is where we spend time “catching up” those household things that fall by the wayside during school term. This time also allows for our children’s mind to take a more passive approach to learning and allow the information to sink deep into their thinking.

Love

Love is a choice, not a feeling! It is the thing we can choose to do when we respond to a tantruming toddler, a grumpy child, an angry husband or an inconsiderate driver.

Love is the thing that is the glue that keeps you together when things are tough going.

Love is not the mushy feeling that we feel when our emotions are leading us. Love chooses to love even when it is not received or reciprocated.

The longer I homeschool and am married the more I realize that without knowing Love I would be in constant flux, ruled by my emotions and responses to each up and down my relationships would take.

Why? Because husbands are not always kind, considerate or even worthy. Children are not always compliant, willing to serve and obey.

But beyond willing ourselves to act kindly, it is knowing how that “even when we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us”. It is also knowing that Jesus continues to love us and seeks to win our hearts to Him when we are sulky, inconsiderate, grumpy, unwilling to serve or obey Him.

Choices

The longer I am alive, am married, parent & homeschool my children and walk my daily Christian journey, the more I realise that life is all about choices.

In each of the facets of our lives, like those mentioned above, we can make good choices or bad choices. I hesitate to say “wrong” or “right” as this can often be related to an issue which is individual to your family, where you live and what God is doing in your lives.

Recently I realised that I had made a poor choice related to an area of training my children. This is not an area that would cause mortal damage but was an area that could have rather far fetching repercussions in their lives as income earning adults. When I was ready to hear from God, He came and showed me the error in my choice and showed me the alternative.

As I pondered the way He had waited for the right moment, I realised how He had been exposing my heart on this issue for a good few months before “crunch” time. When I noticed that He had patiently been waiting for me to be receptive to His word I realised too that this is how I need to be with my children.

I tend to often want to rush in and fix everything, or I see one area in a child’s life and want a quick fix solution for it when the root is so much deeper than just this one flaw.

Therefore this time has been a time of choosing to emulate my Father in heaven and train my children as He trains me – patiently, lovingly and by choosing a time when their hearts are ready to hear.

Mother Culture

Charlotte Mason had a remedy for moms who were frazzled, weary and overwrought. She advises that mom take a day off from the everyday grind and soak up some culture of her own. As I stood before Monet’s original Japanese Bridge in the National Art Museum in London, as I watched Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, I was reminded how important it is to make sure we, as moms, feed our own minds. But I was also reminded that we need to feed our spirits and renew our minds by leaning on the Lord. A sure remedy for weariness of spirit is to turn to the Bible, to spend time in prayer and refreshing ourselves and hearing His voice.

Uniqueness

There is such a large spectrum of homeschool methods and philosophies amongst us homeschoolers. It is no wonder that I often get very confused mommies who have no idea where to start. There is also a tendency in those who are completely “sold out” on the philosophy that they have chosen to become judgemental of the choices of others.

When questioning folk like this they will all agree in the uniqueness of each person, adult and child, and that each person is free to choose what works for them, but on further listening you often find a deep seated self-righteousness in their choice that prevents them from freely entering into relationship with other homeschoolers who are choosing a different path.

When we realise that homeschooling is less about curriculum and philosophy and rather focus on the hearts of our children using the tool of education as one more way to train our children in orderliness, neatness, perfect execution and academic knowledge then we see that our curriculum that we buy or philosophy that we follow, is just a stepping stone towards a future goal.

Manners and all those things

We have been working on table manners in our home. We had noticed that some bad habits had crept in and we had not corrected them in our younger child. Part of this process was making sure we set the each night in our dining room instead of eating around our kitchen table. We showed our children the correct way to set a table; our daughter likes to put a vase of flowers in the centre. Being winter in South Africa we have the fire roaring in this room too. But as we sit down to eat we have begun to correct elbows, overfilled mouths, incorrect knife and fork usage and others.

Charlotte Mason has a lot to say on the importance of habits. Habits learned in a non-confrontational situation, dealt with consistently and diligently, with grace will be habits held for life. Whether you are teaching your child table manners, courtesy, patience or just plain politeness, I suggest you pick one and work on it for about 6 weeks until it is ingrained. They say: “Manners make the man”. Let us not be so swayed by popular culture and permissive thinking that we ignore training our children in the basic good manners of greeting others, standing back for elders, pulling out a chair for an elder or opening a door for a woman amongst others.

Our Heavenly Teacher

The Lord is a wonderful teacher…I was going to write to you all about getting everything done as homeschool moms and as I was looking at the scriptures I saw something I never had seen before…there is was at the end of Isaiah 28 in verse 29… “The Lord of Heavens Armies is a wonderful teacher and he gives the farmer great wisdom.”

As summer peeps its head around the corner of spring we have been spending a lot of time working in the garden. My children have been struggling with the fact that the weeds are growing there as fast as the vegetables.

I was reminded this weekend that this is just like our own hearts, and those of our children. I felt very privileged to be able to be the farmer in my children’s lives and to have the Lord do this same sewing, weeding and watering in mine.

The fact is that we have lots to do in our full days with our children and in our homes. There are days when I write up my to-do list and just have to carry across items to tomorrow because I just didn’t get to it.

I have watched weeds and good plants grow in my children’s lives and am so thankful that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is my teacher. I count it a good day when I get to the end of it and I have reached my children’s hearts, even if my to-do list is not checked off.