Pretend You Are Relaxed Until It Is True
I realized this evening as I walked through my empty living room that I was relaxed. In spite of a day with no ‘school’, I am happy. I did not have to pretend today and I think I finally figured it out.
I started our homeschool journey as a tightly-wound, eternally worried homeschool mom. Were my children learning enough? Did they do enough worksheets on that day they were were sick to count as school? What was I going to do about that one afternoon that everything fell apart and we never got to spelling lessons?
And slowly my children taught me that they were learning, no matter what I forgot to teach them.
Somehow they learned it anyway. They grabbed a book when I wasn’t looking and read about it. How did that change happen? I haven’t a clue. All I know is that I kept going. I put my head down and tried as hard as I could to give my kids an education. I beat myself up about all the places I thought I failed. There were bad days and plenty of barely OK days, but I kept at it because I knew that for us there is no other alternative.
And so as I saw the kids begin to learn on their own, I finally started to listen to my husband who all along had been telling me to slow down and relax!
Do you have one of those smart husbands too? I wish I listened to mine more. Life would be so much better. But on with my story. . .
I began to try to relax. I knew that heading into the teen years we all need to back off our kids. They want to try for themselves and decide on their own. What better place to get good at that skill than in your homeschool?
Now, relaxing is so much easier said than done for me. (Remember I am a tightly-wound A-type at heart. When I chat on the phone with friends I re-organize the pantry and make all the labels line up neat and straight!) So relaxing is really hard. Relaxing means slowing down to the point that the parts of my past I really don’t want to dwell on come creeping out of those dark shadows.
But I needed to relax for my kids to blossom and grow and enjoy being teen homeschoolers.
And so I discovered the key: just pretend.
If you pretend you are relaxed, you have to act as if you are relaxed. Basically you practice being relaxed. Yes, it sounds really funny. But it actually works. The longer you practice, the better you get at it.
And one day you realize that you are in fact, deep down to your toes relaxed. That day, for me, was today.
I realized that in spite of the son who slept till 2pm and the daughter who was monosyllabic all morning because she was texting friends, I felt relaxed. I did not rush my kids or tell them they better remember to do some lessons. I did not even feel worried.
The results were that my son woke up and managed to write a speech, do four math lessons, and some reading before heading off to a scout leadership election night, pressed and dressed all without my help. My daughter. . . well, she did a full day of lessons and managed to text all the way through.
If I had been worried or stressed about my kids, I am absolutely certain that they would not have happily gone about their day. All I would have done is shared my stress with them.
So if you want to relax your homeschool, start by pretending. And if you pretend long enough that you are relaxed, you will wake up one day and find that you are!
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