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Have you ever been so passionate about something that you wanted to do everything to the “T” regarding it?
And then you put so much time and effort into “your thing”, trying to get it all right and not make any mistakes.
But then as time goes on, someone or something comes along and teaches you either an easier way to do “your thing” or a more relaxed way of doing it.
You see, that’s how homeschooling was for me.
When we first started homeschooling 7 years ago, I was very structured, like public school status.
I wanted our school room to look like a classroom, have a cute little work desk, do all the workbooks, grade all the papers with a ?red pen just like a real teacher would, and so on. It was definitely what I like to refer to now as, “public school at home”.
But you see, it wasn’t until some years later when I read this:
For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
In my opinion, this is one of those “must-read” books for every homeschooling parent, or better yet, any parent at all and this is the book that introduced me to Miss Charlotte Mason’s methods.
Before I read the book, I was stuck in that academically centered, public school at home mindset in our homeschool.
This is not to say that I don’t care about academics anymore, on the contrary, it’s just not my sole focus while raising and teaching my kids during our homeschool hours.
In the book the author teaches about the Charlotte Mason philosophy of teaching your children, and how as parents we all hope to provide a joyful educational experience, but yet, most of us fall short of this goal due to some of the things I mentioned above.
Getting stuck in that mindset.
And now, since reading that book multiple times, I can say that I am more relaxed in our homeschool, taking time to appreciate and nurture the small, yet more meaningful things in our days, as opposed to being rigorous about doing worksheets for 8 hours over and over again.
If you’d like a good read, I’d encourage you to read or listen to this book to get some inspiration and permission to loosen up a bit and embrace the everyday moments with your children as you raise and homeschool them.
