Homeschooling preschoolers-age 6

I don't really talk about our schooling situation much, because as a second generation home schooling mom, I don't really have a big internal drive to proselytize. It's simply part of our life. Learning style is a part of who we are and what we do, but I'm not any more vocal about it than say, what brand of yogurt we like.

The Dread Pirate Grace and her ship

Sometimes, though, curious moms will ask me about how we "do" things, wanting more info for their own decisions. I'm not sure I'm qualified to offer advice exactly, but I'll take an official whack at it here.

I'd suggest first starting out by reading Families Where Grace is In Place, because if you're endeavoring to teach your child anything in value in life with an adversarial attitude, you're doomed from the beginning. Maddening experiences will be had by all.

Secondly, I'd promote reading Nurture by Nature, which introduces the idea that each child's individual personality effects the way they relate to others and take in information.  If you expect your child to be your learning clone, then both you and he/she will end up incredibly frustrated, feeling fairly bad about your basic selves. If you've ever printed some adorable project off Pinterest and had experience end up an epic horror show, and if you've stood there blinking, wondering why your tot didn't enjoy it...this book is worthy of your time and attention. It's an easy, painless read, and it's relatively easy to identify your child's basic style pretty quickly.

For the last reading suggestion, I'll recommend Last Child in the Woods, which addresses the unfortunate habit our culture has developed of placing small children indoors in a chair, expecting them to do written work about the world before they've had a chance to actually go out and OBSERVE the world around them in context. Excellent read, even if you just skim.

Now. I don't know if this qualifies as wisdom, but it's certainly a heartfelt opinion based on things I've observed in my own family, which you may take with a grain of salt or the whole margarita.

Read to your small children. Pick classic books or thoughtful fiction or stories, filled with beautiful descriptive language. Randomly stop at words and sound out the letters when you're reading together (no need to make them do it, just do it in front of them.) It'll become apparent what your child is interested in and what they aren't. Listen to books on tape in the car. Talk to them. Make up stories together. Converse with them as if they're intelligent (they are), explaining the meaning of words at random if they look confused. Describe what you're doing as you cook, fish, garden, sew, shop, dance or whatever it is that you fill your days doing. Enjoy yourself, and don't be so serious!

Put them in the way of fascinating things, and let them do what comes naturally to children! Place them in environments where their natural gifts come alive.

Teach them to pay for things. Let them cook things. Let them build fires outside, climb trees, play in streams, lick rocks and catch enormous bugs. Talk about those things with them. Let them have their own conversations in public. Let them order their food at restaurants, if they're ready and able to do it well. Have them ask for directions for things they need in the store. Teach them to ask intelligent questions. Involve them in conversations with interesting people. Teach them how to put on their own bandages, clean their own wounds, scrub their own nails, pour their own drinks, and recognize their own need for rest.

For the love of pete, don't ever let your own pride and desperate need for recognition from some critical friend or family member tempt you to reduce your preschooler or toddler into a trick-doing parrot trained to impress others with long lists of memorized facts. (Such people are life-sucking vortices of doom, and you can almost never satisfy them. It's better to grow thicker skin, or, better yet, grow happily and purposefully oblivious to their tongue clucking over your 3yo who can't say her ABCs yet.)

Small children are naturally driven by curiosity and a love for discovering things, but this can be overridden by an even stronger basic animal need if it's withheld like a dangled carrot: the need for love and approval from a parent. Some will defy you (and rightly so), but some will dutifully jump through your silly hoops just to see you beam at them. The cost of turning your wee one into a performing monkey can come back to bite you in the ass, though, in the form of loss of creativity and free thinking (and sometimes, honest relationship free from need of approval). And you force your very small children to perform "learned" facts for the standards of other people, you will have turned them into yourself; unable to cope without the approval and recognition of opinionated others.

Let them get lost in hours of pretend. Toss out the toys that leave no room for any imagination. Let them dump endless buckets of water into trenches they dig in the back yard and watch how the water takes the path of least resistance. Notice with them how ants walk in a long line, and how they carry things bigger than their own bodies. Feed birds in the winter and go hunting for squirrel nests when all the leaves are gone. Pretend to be hibernating bears under couch cushion forts.

In other words...don't make them "do school". Let them be humans. Incorporate words and counting and letters as they naturally occur throughout the day, without sweating "how much" they retain as evidenced through constant quizzing. They have plenty of time for all that later. Teach them how to learn about things with their own minds and hands and observations, and they'll learn the facts of the world...and later, you come back and give what they've already observed names. It's easier to learn once you have a solid grasp on your own physical abilities and what things look/smell/taste/sound/act/behave/sound like. :)




     

Scrub Days.

Some days, all my best laid plans and ideas for the day just. aren't. working. Getting little minds and hands corralled into any activity is like trying to herd drunken cats. Or juggle them. It's difficult.

I used to end these days crying after everyone was asleep, in my favorite "comfort" pajamas over a carton of vanilla greek yogurt, asking my cat questions like: "Why is this so hard? Why can't I get them to follow this awesome plan? Am I failing all my kids completely? Why do I SUCK?! Do you even care?"

Then, on one of Those Days, I noticed something. I'd stuck everyone in the car and released them into a big park with a field, in effort to not yell at anyone harshly out of frustration. (Don't pretend now. We all do that sometimes. ;oP ) They meandered into a giant pavilion with a sandpit and so immersed their minds in play and their toes in sand that they stayed there happily for 3 full hours. It struck me that this is probably what they needed all along.

So now, when a day's just not working, I scrub all plans. Done. There's now nothing on the docket, except sitting and waiting for the day to tell us what needs to happen for us all to find our balance again. The answer always presents itself, eventually, and it's usually the youngest of us that discovers the truth first. (More often than not, if you let the youngest member of the family set the barometer for the day, things are bound to be more successful all around, in my experience, which sort of flies in the face of conventional wisdom I suppose.)

Sometimes, the solution is a day doing nothing but reading in bed together. Sometimes, we have an impromptu trip to the park. Often, it's building elaborate tents and tunnels with quilts and chairs and tables, and pretending until people fall asleep under a hideout or indoor makeshift hammock. Another favorite go-to is gross motor movement activities like tree climbing or building dams in streams with rocks or scaling giant wood chip mounds. Almost invariably, sour moods are put right again, tempers stop flaring and the pointless urgency of the atmosphere drains lazily out of the day like water out of a long, luxurious bath.

Grace and Lark's bear cave

Sometimes, we simply toss pillows in the floor and watch movies together while eating popcorn (everyone gets their OWN bowl.) If we need to run out and grab snacks just to get through that day, so be it. (And who says anyone needs matching shoes anyway? There are days for nice outfits and matching shoes, and then there are days to celebrate the hilarity of being a little ridiculous!)

Most importantly, there's no pushing through or powering ahead when everyone's got a bad case of "the stupids" (you know, the days when every instruction is met with a blank stare), or the grumpies, or when the whole family is just restless in general. There's only stopping and trying to find our bliss on Scrub days. And that's OK.

It's OK because Scrub Days are about finding something our routine made us leave behind. Relationship. Connection. Alone time. Fantasy. Imagination. Our inner monkey. When we give ourselves time to honor the part inside us that's screaming for air and sustenance, so that we can become balanced people again. Then we can move forward and think about words like "accomplishment" and "rhythm" and "planning".

 All work and no play makes Jane a dull/grouchy/spaced out/whiny/incomplete girl. So instead pecking away at the impossible, we relax and let our Muses carry us effortlessly to where we needed to go in the first place. Does it look indulgent and lazy to others? Sure. Who cares! We know it's wise. We know it works. And that's really all that matters.

Getting lost in wonderland.

Mischief Managed.

Dear Essie, Nomi and Eva,

When your mama was little, I had a lively mind, and a stubborn streak a mile wide (not a bad thing, if you ask me). When your daddy was a small fry, he was lively with a propensity for getting into honest mischief when he was bored. So, chances are, if you have as many babies as you say you want to have, you might have at least one offspring who has a wildly active mind or body.

These are the two year olds who empty not one,

but ALL of the flour

and dried bean cannisters from the pantry while their mommy lays their baby sister down for a nap. These little sprites attempt to get their own cereal and milk at 2.5, climb to the top of the bookshelf at 3, leave the house through the window screen to pick mommy some flowers at 3.5, give all their stuffed animals a

shampoo early in the morning very quietly "so they don't bother your sleep" at 4, and try their hand at making waffles from scratch and doctoring the "diseased" cat with medical tape at 4.5. (And the same children who chase down that very cat and wrestle it to the ground to save an unfortunate mole from certain death!)

Least you think my opinion of lively children is low, let me set the record straight right now,

loves: I'm rather fond of them. In fact, I think they're brilliant in every way. I admire their creativity and drive to accomplish new things, appreciate the fact that they aren't dampened by the arbitrary rules that society deems necessary to set. The soft spot in my heart for lively people is permanent and dear to me.

Teaching respect of others can be a challenge, so, I'll let you in on a secret I've discovered: lively children tend to recognize and honor the boundaries of others more when their own needs are

met. That sounds like a great deal of gobbledygook , doesn't it? What it means, boiled down, is- you may threaten and take and woun

d and restrict as much as you like, but this will likely only serve to frustrate your lively

child. Mommy knows, unfortunately, because I've tried all those things. It was actually Essie, one day, that looked at me and said, "Doing that will only make me madder. I can't help it. I need something to DO!!"

And that's the key, darlings. An active mind literally and simply cannot stop being as active as it is. So, my job as a mommy became not keeping you out of mischief, but giving you plenty of safe exploring and adventure to sink your little teeth into. It dawned on me slowly that I didn't want to slowly box you into something more manageable. I wanted to show you how to be the best and safest spectacular you that you could possibly be without blowing yourself and others up.

Ever notice how all the interesting book characters (the ones who have the best adventures) tend to be a bit different or "mischievous"? Most of them are also the people who have the quick wits and bravery to rise to the occasion when something truly terrifying or challenging presents itself. Never let another person shame you out of playing the role that was written for you; if you're full of spirit, it's for a reason!

It's been hard work keeping you busy. But then, so would have been following you around and bullying and coaxing and begging and insisting that you be still and docile, something completely against your (God-given) nature. So, we dance. We jump, we climb, we take things apart, we cook, we put things back together, we jest, we roll, we sing at the top of our lungs, we read about squirrel anatomy after we find a dead one in the yard, we make approved messes.

I sit cringing sometimes on the sidelines while you crack eggs and get some on the counter, while you hammer away at nails in a board, you dexterously walk narrow rails, while you bury yourself in the dirt in the garden, you teach me phrases of your own invented language and while you construct your very own dutch-hair-fro through copious amount of back-combing (and then proudly wait by the door to go grocery shopping in your new 'do).

And, frankly, loves? Despite the fact that I fall into bed completely and utterly exhausted every night, I wouldn't want to change a thing. I used to hope you got a "more" child in your adult years, as a means of personal retribution. Now, I pray you get the privilege someday, because it's an intensely beautiful and humbling experience to see a being that intense burn so brightly every morning.

I love you.