Encouragement for the Weary Mom on Teaching your Kid
/It had been almost 2 weeks since we last sat down to do school work. Determined not to be lazy, we opened the workbook and began identifying letters.
“What letter is this?” I asked my 3.5-year-old daughter while pointing to the letter A.
“Ummmm…” She tapped her pointer finger on her chin, “I don’t know."
That's all it took for frustration to start bubbling inside of me. How could she not know the letter A; It was the first one in the alphabet! How many times would we have to go through this? Maybe homeschooling isn’t for us.
We pushed through. I helped her identify the letters as she repeated after me. A long 15 minutes later and we were finished with the lesson for the day. Hallelujah!
I wish I could say this moment was a rare occurrence in our house, but for the past few months, it hasn’t been.
A few hours after the fact, while reading a magazine, a thought crossed my mind. I was reading an article titled "Train them to Remember." The premise was that we must train our children to remember, or we will suffer the consequences. For example: remembering to wear shoes outside or suffer stepping on prickers or remembering God's faithfulness or suffer the consequences of not being allowed into the promised land.
I hadn’t finished the article when the thought crossed my mind, how had I failed in training Natalie to remember?
Of course, Natalie wouldn't remember her letters, it had been 2 weeks since we had last practiced! She hadn’t been practicing them, so she forgot.
By failing to practice with her, we were suffering our own consequence of relearning the same letters and frustration/impatience on my part. It wasn’t fair of me to be frustrated with my daughter when I had failed to train her to remember.
It's so easy for us to forget how much discipline and practice it takes to train up a child. Just when you think your kid is done having potty accidents, they decide to pee their pants because they are having too much fun.
We must remember that it takes endless practice and lots of grace. Our kiddos are going to make mistakes. We are going to make mistakes.
But through consistency, discipline, and perseverance, they will remember.
They will remember to go potty in the toilet (or wake up to go pee).
They will remember the difference between the letters b and d.
They will remember to say thank you and please.
They will remember.
When you are weary, when you feel as though they just aren’t getting it, remember, it takes time, and it takes practice.
Practical Tips:
Use every opportunity to learn. Education and training aren't confined to school work. Kids can learn throughout the day. For example, plop the cereal box in front of them during breakfast and make it a game to find individual letters. Ask them to pick up 5 balls and place them in the toy bin (or bring them to you). Identify colors on a family walk, or folding the laundry. You'll be surprised how much kids will learn when you use everyday opportunities to teach.
Make realistic goals. Making a goal to do school work 5 days a week for a 3-year-old was not practical. When we fail to achieve our goals, we are likely to quit altogether (hence the 2 weeks between lessons). Instead, shoot for what is achievable but still a stretch. Now our goal is to accomplish 2 days of actual lessons.
Plan ahead. “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” ― Benjamin Franklin
Do the hard thing first. This advice is probably why most people work out in the morning. We know that if we don't get it done and out of the way, it's not going to happen. For my family, I know if we don't accomplish our schoolwork before lunch, it's likely not to happen. When we knock it our right after breakfast, it's always a win!
