Homeschooling when your personalities don't line up.

Or maybe the more appropriate title:

Home schooling when you are a Type A, by the book, worksheet, think inside the box teacher and your student is a free spirit who has never even heard of this so called "box" everyone thinks inside of. 

I'd love to sit and weave a magic tale of a pretty red hair women who became the mom to a pretty red haired girl and a curly blond headed boy. They all loved each other fiercely and all thought homeschool was the most important act everyday. In this story, the mom thinks up wonderfully creative and wildly engaging activities and the daughter sits quietly in her chair, works on her practice pages and doesn't whine when it comes to reading. Oh and if I'm writing a fairy tail, the little prince in this story is quiet as well and is always 100% dressed. And is clean. And doesn't eat crayons. 

The End.

Sigh. 

But see, as I am sure you can guess, this isn't a fairy tale. This is real life home schooling. I'd love to talk about all the things we do, but for the most part, what we do, is make it from "kids up to daddy home" without burning down the house or visiting the ER. Real life homeschooling isn't my Pinterest boards of neat, organized rooms and happy children. No. This homeschool is messy and loud and unorganized and honestly, I don't know how on earth we learn anything most days. My real life school, is more like a small boy climbing the kitchen table screaming at his sister who has taken his car and who is proceeding to dance around with said car raised above her head. My real life school has Little B destroying Miss A's hard work in the land of Lego and then running away from her and sticking a Lego person down his diaper. This is my homeschool. This is my reality. Yes we do scripture (try not to laugh too loud) and math and reading in between the screaming and history. But mostly it is a crazy, complicated mess. 

And we are always late. EVERYWHERE. I can start 2 hours before time to be somewhere and still wind up being 15 min behind. Ever try and put shoes on a fish? This is what it is like putting shoes on Little B. 

I get annoyed and frustrated. Yes, I do yell. I hate that I do. I hate that sometimes I get frustrated and irritated and I take it out on my kids. I hate that so much. It happens, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I am a recovering screamer. I try every single day, to do better. 

I have learned that my way of teaching is not her way of learning and that is a hard revelation. When I signed up to be a homeschool mom, I signed up for days filled with learning and joy, not tears and throwing up of hands. 

Through this journey we lovingly call "life" I have found that my daughter is tactile, needs to manipulate objects, bounce on an exercise ball to read, and needs a "fidget" to learn. She needs it, or no learning will be done on that day. She simply does not retain the information unless she is concentrating on it and that only happens when she is twisting pipe cleaners around her finger,or humming. I asked our Pediatrician once if this behavior was "normal" or were we looking at some sort of ADHD or other disorder. After testing her in the office, she came to the conclusion that this was her normal. She didn't have to move and wiggle and could focus her attention just fine but the help of aids (fidgets as we call them) greatly improved her ability to learn. 

Cue the giant freak out by mom.

You see, I immediately went to a dark place, where Miss A is in college and humming to herself while taking a test and she is called out for cheating and thrown out. In the rain. During a snow storm. Wearing one shoe.

I tend to get dramatic. 

I started to ask around to friends of mine who work with kids who have ASD or ADHD or other things. These nurses and pediatric therapists know us and more importantly Miss A well, and they all had one thing to say. This was normal for her. And she would grow out of it, or learn to control the nervous energy. That was it. Nothing else. 

So how does a Type A mom homeschool a creative, free spirit, artistic kid? How does a by the book mom homeschool a kid on an exercise ball?

Where is this book among the thousands on Amazon that state it's okay to be one personality type while your child is another and oh look, you aren't going to irreversibly screw them up? Is that under self help? Or Fiction?

I had absolutely no idea how I was going to accomplish this. 

On one hand, I can be creative. I love to craft and sew and create. On the other hand, I read directions, follow safety laws and generally have a plan for each day.

Miss A, however, draws and sings and dances and learns completely different from me. I don't mean just draws little stick figures, but she will fill pages and pages of her own drawings. She can look at a character and draw it, sometimes from memory. And she hums. I don't think y'all understand the scope of the humming. She does this when she is nervous, or testing, or drawing, or it's a Tuesday at 9:27 am. She hums in her sleep, full songs. I once went up to check on her and she was creepily humming the tune to Cars. Ya know "Life is a highway, I wanna drive it all night long." The full song, eerily in her sleep. She also tap dances and yodels. This is normally done waiting in line, during which the store is full to the max with people. Oh and if Little B could be having a epic melt down, well, that is even better. 

How was I going to teach an artistic kid math? Or reading? Or writing? I couldn't fathom a plan and that scared me more than anything else did. I had no plan. The scariest day for me was when we had to make the choice to continue homeschooling her or sign her up for public school. I was so distraught over this. I fully believe being a homeschool parent is a calling and right then, I felt I had heard someone else's calling and I was meant to tame monkey's at the zoo. I'd be good at that, I am sure of it.

 I was up reading late one evening, when I read about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. The story talks about Jesus before his disciples, and he knows that Judas will betray him. He knows who will ask for proof after he is risen. He knows that this is really the last time they all will be together as they are before his Crucifixion. Knowing this, he washes the feet of his disciples. This was a humbling experience and when Simon Peter protests, Jesus gently tells him that this must be done. Simon then says to not only wash his feet, but his head and hands as well. He wanted to get all of what Jesus was trying to teach them. What stood out to me in this story in the scripture, was when Jesus tells his men, " Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you." John 13:14-15

It stuck out to me in that moment, what I was doing. I trying to teach a lesson and instead of listening to my student and trying to make her understand my lesson, I was like a pharisee. I went about our homeschool, spouting truths and knowledge and never really teaching anything. My student was like Simon, she wanted not only her feet washed, but her hands and head when she learned a subject. I wanted only to check something off my list and move on. She wanted to be immersed in what I had to teach her, fully, bodily, in every way. I thought that because I was the teacher, I didn't really need to be taught. That isn't the case at all. My daughter can teach me so much if I just humble myself, give up my pride and listen to her. She has so much to offer me in the way of how to teach her, I just need to be willing to listen. Jesus knew what he was doing was symbolic. He knew the very importance of that moment would have a profound effect on those 12 lives. He could have spouted off scripture after scripture and roared to life the reasons he was so important. He didn't. He washed their feet. He humbled himself, removed his outer clothing and wrapped a towel around his waist. He needed to teach a lesson that could only be taught one way, and that was not the conventional way of Teacher/student relationships. 

I needed to stop and meet her where she was learning to have her fully understand the impact of my lessons. While mine are not as profound as Jesus washing the disciples feet, my lessons are fundamentals. They are parts of a whole that is education and something I have been entrusted to teach. I have been called and it wasn't until that very moment when I realized I had to think outside my own box to teach. It wasn't going to be easy. But I was now armed with a plan....... let her lead. 

Let her lead the educational adventure. Let her rock on a ball while reading Charlotte's Web. Let her go outside and throw water balloons at sight words and hula hoop to math facts. Let her lead, because I know the outcome if she does. She learns. She doesn't just retain facts and information, she learns and continues to learn and explore and look things up and dust off old learning to explore it some more. 

Now, in my story, we do not have a Judas who betrays our family for 30 pieces of silver but we do have my doubts that betray the nature of what I am trying to do. I am full of self doubt and guilt and stress over my own perceived ways of learning.  So my Type A self has learned to step back and let my free spirit child lead and take the educational reins. This doesn't, in anyway, mean we do "nothing" all day if she doesn't feel like it, but it does mean that shows on tornadoes maybe watched and experiments maybe done, before actual writing. It means that math is sometimes keeping within our budget at the grocery store, instead of practice worksheets at home. It means that reading sometimes means BINGO and games and Don't Break the Ice, than actual sitting down and reading out of book. This also doesn't mean the traditional way to teach/learn isn't introduced, it just means I have to learn to think outside the box along with my child who has no idea that thinking is ever square.

When I start to get stressed out about the teaching. When my mind races at all the shiny new curriculum coming out. When my wallet opens for those new school supplies I just know will make our learning experience that much greater, I am reminded of how the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet ends. What Jesus tells his disciples. 

"16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."

No servant is greater than his master. No messenger grater then the one who sent him. Powerful reminder as we start a new year. A teacher can and should learn from her student and her student can and should teach lessons that impact the teacher. For only when we give and receive and realize that our children are teaching us right along side us teaching them, only then can we be truly be blessed.

Do you have a different teaching or learning style than your child? I would love to hear from seasoned homeschoolers on how they tackle this in their own homes. 

Jelly Mama