The Upside of a Failing Schedule

One of the comforting sentiments when I began the homeschooling journey was that I would not have to spend as much time teaching as children go to school. We could "cover more ground in less time."

Good, I thought, because that would be exhausting. And I had other things to do with my time. So I set about planning a reduced teaching schedule. Each day would begin with the pledge of allegiance, a song and a prayer. Then we would sing the ABC's while I pointed to the letters. (My oldest was 3 or 4). I don't remember what was supposed to come after that, though I know we did something. But usually by the singing of the ABC's, I was frustrated that he didn't seem to be connecting in his mind the song and what I was pointing to, so we'd start over. Or the phone would ring. Or his little sister would wake up. (She was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad napper.)

At some point I realized that my frustration with our inability to follow even the simplest schedule was getting in the way of our relationship and my son's enthusiasm for learning anything with mom. This may sound very wise, but it was just a bumping up against the harsh reality that I could not homeschool (or parent, really) according to MY capacity to focus, stick to it, persevere, be engaged, or instruct. Why? Because it wasn't about me. The end goal was not that I had tried my best, or stuck to a schedule, or covered certain material, or had taught well. The end goal was LEARNING, and that was the job of my son.

So I backed off and began to notice how it was that he was already learning. When your children are as young as 3 or 4 you can SEE them learning - they are making new discoveries, asking TONS of questions, exploring everything around them. Watching the learning process happen, I discovered 2 things: it was always fun and it was rarely related to "instruction."

I decided that I wanted in on the fun. I scrapped the idea that we had to cover what the other preschoolers and kindergarten kids were learning. (Yes, this process of letting go took all that time, filled with more scheduling attempts and failures.) We began to study what I wanted to learn about - the cultures of the world - and we began to make learning the basics more fun. We went on treasure hunts to find objects that began with a certain letter. Inspired by my son's love of super heroes, I had him put on a cape, fly in, and wipe out the bad guys, whatever the offending letters were, on a whiteboard filled with the letters of the alphabet.

Did we do this every day? No. Our treasure hunt walks came when his little sister needed to sleep and being outside in the stroller would help her. Our games came when he wanted to play and had run out of his own ideas.

We had a blast, learned a lot, and the best part was, this little guy, whom I wanted to keep with me instead of send off to a stranger to be taught, was my best buddy.

He is now 10. He reads. He writes. He still pretends to be a Super Hero. We still study the cultures of the world together because we love it. He and I are still close. I have another daughter who is as old as he was when we began, and a baby the age of the little sister who didn't nap. (And THIS baby is not the best napper either.)

I'm so glad I let go of schedules long ago, because I would be spending so much energy now trying to keep 4 children on one. Now we follow rhythms. I watch when my kids, individually and as a group, naturally play together, naturally need a break or a snack or an outing. I encourage my oldest, when he is fresh in the morning, to hop on the computer and do the stuff he needs to do. (Yes, we have arrived at some drills and practicing. Is it surprising that he handles them much better as an older kid than he did as a 4 year old?) When it's hot outside in the afternoon, I read to them in the basement, or we paint castles made from shoe boxes. When they are stir crazy in the morning, I'll announce, "Let's learn about the BLACK DEATH!" and so we study and imagine. And when one day seems filled with my suggestions, even happily taken, the next I'll pull back and let them sort things out and find what they want to do.

I'm so glad my attempts to schedule our lives failed. Why? Because learning is fun, it is not about me, and it happens regardless of what we think should be going on, if we are wise enough to let it.