Reality Homeschooling

Hands
Originally uploaded by DawnMHSH
Since my mom was first rushed to the emergency room 7 weeks ago, our life as a homeschooling family has not been running as smoothly as I would have liked. From almost daily visits to the hospital or nursing home, to waiting for procedures and surgery, to moving mom out of her apartment and storing her things, to moving her into her second skilled nursing facility, there hasn’t always been time to hand out math assignments, check spelling, guide term papers and listen to reading lessons. It’s been frustrating at times.

However, I’ve been doing this for 14 years now and I know that “life happens,” even to homeschooling families. We will recover the missed lessons and make up the missed stories and writing classes. (I think that’s why I originally started year-round homeschooling!) But sometimes these “interruptions” are the parts of life we primarily  hope to prepare our children for.

I can read about compassion and bravery to my children. But isn’t it better for them to BE compassionate to their grandmother by going to visit, brushing her hair and giving her a hug? And when they see their aunt, their dad and their mom working together to take care of grandma when she is so very sick, doesn’t that teach them a common every day kind of bravery?

It might very well be that they don’t get this week’s spelling list. But hopefully the lessons they are learning now during this experience with their grandmother will give them other gifts that they can remember and draw on at other points in their life. And that’s what we started homeschooling for in the first place!