When “real life” gets in the way
Last night I was reading the above book, and I had a really nice moment of clarity. Although the book was referring to not beating yourself up if something happens in life that makes it so that your school schedule gets thrown off, I realized that I do that in all aspects of my life. It is really easy for me to get stuck in my schedules and then I make myself feel like a failure for things that are beyond my control. Here is the quote that made me think
One priority is to complete most of our academics in the morning hours. Expect interruptions and intrusions - those things that throw us off schedule or prevent us from reaching a goal. This is “real life” education. It could be that Mother has another miscarriage, Brother gets chicken pox, the family car dies, the water heater malfunctions, another appliance catches fire, the house needs major repair, Father loses his job or changes jobs, and it becomes necessary to start packing boxes in preparation to move to a different town or state yet again. All of the above and more have occurred during our homeschooling years - experiences probably shared by many of you, too. Habit and order preserve weary homeschooling parents so they can keep to their original priorities and get back on track again. Getting off track wasn’t a “bad” thing, it was a “real life” thing that God will work out for good if we are truly His children. Old faithful habits make order out of disorder and leave space for both practice and play. We can be content to be God’s children through life’s challenges.
I have been focusing on “habit training” just like Charlotte Mason encourages us to do for our chlidren. This is something that I would like to work on as well. I used to be very flexible in my plans and then I rebounded a bit too far in the opposite direction. I need to work on a happy middle ground.
On an unrelated note: my emails are acting funky, so I’m going to wait on the chore list until I can get it working. Silly servers. 