Getting Out Of Their Way | Our Weekly WrapUp with Friday Funnies, Flops and Fails

This Week Was About Getting Out Of Their Way… Our Weekly WrapUp & the Friday Funnies, Flops, and Fails Linkup

This Week I Realized I Had Become THAT Homeschooling Mom

This week was a monumental, clouds parting above, music playing from the heavens, kind of a week for me. I realized that I was well on my way to becoming that overbearing homeschool mom character you see in cartoon strips.

My Kids Were So Ready For Me To Back Off

I think for my kids, this week was more of a relief than anything else.
Mom was no longer chasing about behind them with piles of notes and books saying, “Don’t forget! I sent a list of things you need to do this week. Have you remembered to work on them?” Mom (that would be me) stopped the hounding and the checking up on and general obsessing about everything each teen was doing.

But How Did I End Up Here?

I have no idea how I got here. Maybe it was the stress of the last few months leaking over into my relationship with my kids. Maybe it was just me being worried that high school was hard to manage. I really don’t know, but when I sat down with my son to formally write up his course requirements for 9th grade, I realized that I had somehow mapped out the entire four years of material into just one year. We had 3 science courses, two with labs, four different kinds of English courses, many more than four history courses, and that was just the start!

I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea when I planned it over the summer months. I was thinking I needed to ‘step up the game’ over what my twins had been doing in junior high school. I thought that I needed them to learn to work harder and more independently, just like all the blogs and books say.

I Had Forgotten To Consider My Kids When I Planned Their Homeschool Year!

But I did not step back and assess my kids first. I did not realize that they were already working beyond the competency of a high schooler. Both my kids have chosen additional coursework for themselves and set off to learn it, all by themselves, for years! Living in my homeschool bubble I thought I needed to push my kids further. But my kids have been homeschooled since they were little and they have naturally followed the homeschool-typical learning path that ends with autodidacts.

My kids can teach themselves.

They even plan their own courses. Once in a while they need help from me but they both prefer to figure it out on their own.

I just need to get out of their way and let them lead for a change.

As terrifying as that is for my, it is what homeschooling high school is all about in my home. And I had been standing on the tracks trying to show the freight train of education which way to go and how fast to travel.

My job right now needs to be the school administrator. I need to let my kids continue to plan and execute their courses. They want to learn physics and chemistry and marine biology. They are studying Japanese and Koine Greek and learning to program Java. In that activity, there is no longer room for me to participate.

I Can Still Help Them

I can help them by documenting. I can help them by setting the framework that will lead to an intelligible high school transcript. But standing between them and learning in order to point them in the direction they are already going just slows them down and frustrates them to no end.

I Just Need To Get Out Of Their Way

And so the clouds parted this week and left me in a different role in our homeschool. I still get to help and teach, when my kids ask for help and I still manage the school administration. We still sit down in the living room each day for a time of shared reading and discussion.

But the rest, I must remember to leave to them.

Great Homeschool Products we are trying out:

CTCMath

Brinkman Adventures

Books We Are Reading:

Where We Belong by Lynn Austin

Saving Marty by Paul Griffin

Blog Posts this week:

https://www.byebyebrickandmortar.com/2017/09/21/care-feeding-pet-black-hole-smoot-rebellious-shadow-two-book-reviews-penguin/

https://www.byebyebrickandmortar.com/2017/09/19/easy-effective-lets-go-geography-homeschool-review-crew-review/

https://www.byebyebrickandmortar.com/2017/09/18/imagine-great-flood-homeschool-review-crew-review/

Favorite Bible Verse This Week:

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? – Isaiah 40:12

Places I Linked Up This Week

Drop by and read the posts of some great homeschooling families at this week’s Homeschool Highlights hosted by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break! And read through the great posts at Weird Unsocialied Homeschoolers’ Link Up as well! …and check out the great weekly wrap up posts linked up at The Homeschool Post!

Join us in linking up with my Friday Funnies, Flops, and Fails Link Up Party below!

Did you have a flop or a fail in your homeschool this week? Maybe something happened that was just too funny!

Share it here in my link up – let’s show all those homeschooling moms who think that homeschooling has to be that Pinterest-perfect activity ALL the time what homeschooling really looks like!

Homeschooling can be messy and there may be tears, and your laundry absolutely never, ever, gets done! But it still is the absolute best thing you have ever done and the best life you could possibly imagine for your kids and for you, right?!

Now, How Was Your Week?