Finding the Balance

Lately, I keep telling my children to “Just do the thing in front of you.” We started homeschooling again and have been in that transition from summer-I-can-do-whatever-I-want back to school-and-mom-has-a-busy-schedule-planned. My TV-deprived kids are constantly coming up with new ideas for what we can do after school before we’ve even opened a book. So I repeatedly have to re-direct them to what is in front of them.

This year I’ve added a lot more hands-on activities so we can combine much of our lessons and my youngest can still have fun. Only, I’ve become a more frustrated teacher rather than a fun teacher. I’ve noticed that these projects really derail our schedule. Our learning time.

I can hear Stephanie yelling in my ear right now that the projects ARE learning time. The more projects the better! I know, I know. But when they take their little explorer fact cards we are making and start turning them into Pokemon-like trading cards with health points based on the difficulties of their voyages, etc. I look at the spelling and the math books and begin to twitch.

My goal is to get to the end of the day and get through everything.

My kids’ goal is to have fun.

Having thought about this a lot, I finally realized where the tension lies and what to do about it. I am trying to harness in my children’s creativity so we can get finished—stop thinking of new things and let’s just do what is in front of us already!!!! But this is the exact opposite of what makes homeschooling so great. We are supposed to take the time to explore ideas. Play with new information. Allow creativity to flourish instead of being squashed into the proverbial box. So, what to do? I need to relax and explore with my kids. Teaching opportunities will naturally arise on these extended projects, and they will likely learn more—having fun while they do.

As all thoughts eventually lead to writing, I began to wonder. Am I doing this to my writing? Am I too concerned with getting to the end that I don’t explore enough? Be creative enough? I’ve written a lot of blogs about staying focused and on track. You know, keeping up the writing routine.

My goal as a writer is to get to the end of the book by my deadline.

My readers’ goal is to have fun.

There has to be a balance. No one will ever read my books if I don’t get them finished. On the other hand, no one will want to read them if I haven’t taken the time to infuse them with my own creativity. Ah, once again, the students teach the teacher.

What are you learning lately?

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