As beautiful and lovely as spring can be, it can also be a hard time for a homeschool mom’s heart. I think this time of year more so than any other we must be comfortable in the choices we have made for our homeschool. For our family. For our homes. Guard Your Heart!
Spring rolls out all the homeschool conventions. Conventions some of us might not be able to attend. I didn’t attend our local homeschool convention for the first three years we were homeschooling. It wasn’t easy to see all the photos of friends meeting up, nuggets from workshops, or discounted curriculum. But we survived just fine. Guard your heart.
Spring rolls out all the homeschool planting, gardening, and field trip fun. Fun some of us are still waiting for our neck of the woods to warm up. The Homeschool Village hosted a garden link up in blogs past and I was so surprised how many bloggers were unable to participate even after Easter! (what can I say, I’ve lived in FL for over 24 years). Guard your heart.
Spring rolls out all the new homeschool curriculum your friends have purchased for next year. Curriculum some of us aren’t yet ready to buy. It’s the season of blogger reviews too! I remember a few years feeling so anxious because I still didn’t know what we were going to be using. Guard your heart.
Spring rolls out the end of the year celebrations. Celebrations some of us might not be ready to throw just yet. We homeschool year round taking off more time in the winter than summer so we transition into the next grade earlier than majority of our homeschool friends. But one year due to a late-term miscarriage and hard time healing emotionally, I felt “behind”. I pushed a little boy to “catch up”, and he never should have been rushed. Guard your heart.
Friend ~ it’s your homeschool. It’s your family. It’s your home. Go at God’s pace He has planned for you and enjoy these moments! These crazy, messy, silly moments because it’s all we really have. Who wants to look back on their homeschool with regret we rushed to keep up with what we saw on someone else’s blog or that church friend’s schedule?
Spring is here … Guard your heart.
This post was written for The Homeschool Village by:
Stef Latyon is wife to Thad, a golf course architect, and homeschool mom to two hands-on active boys. When she’s not planning the next great field trip, she enjoys yoga and tennis. Stef created The Homeschool Village in 2010. She shares fun tactile learning projects as well as intentional parenting tips at EducatingLaytons.com.
Very good article.
I learned on my own to guard my heart in these ways, and it’s great to read someone listing many of the same reasons for which I do it. Although I’ve never been the least bit tempted to attend a homeschool convention…maybe because I really hate spending money! 😉 Now if there was a used-curriculum homeschool convention, I’d have issues staying away. Please don’t even tell me if those exist! lol!
Since we live in blazing hot Florida, I learned early on that taking a summer break meant the kids not getting to enjoy their freedom playing outside…it’s no fun to play outside when, even when you go out at 9am, it’s 90+ degrees and you’re pouring sweat within the very first minute outdoors.
So I’ve got us schooling through most of the summer (though we take most of June off- and enjoy VBS), but then we take a month off in October, when the weather turns gorgeous and cool here (but still warm enough to wear shorts and take a stay-cation at the beach–at super low fall rates, and fewer crowds), another 3 weeks off in December for the obvious, plus family birthdays, and then 4-6 weeks off in March/April, when the weather is wonderfully warm (but not hot), and that’s when I do heavy spring cleaning, and planting. And what a time for the kids to spend every day outdoors…it’s perfect! But STILL, when the rest of the world (it seems) is declaring how happy they are to be done with school and free by the end of May…it can be so hard to watch, even though I remind myself (and the kids) that we were free earlier in the spring, enjoying the perfect weather, while they were stuck in school.
…anyway, thanks for the great and timely reminder! Guarding my heart!