Home Schooling: In The Beginning

One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make.

It took me a long time to make up my mind when I was deciding to homeschool my son. I suffered many nights tossing and turning, and when I couldn't sleep I got out of bed and walked around the house hoping I'd come to my decision so I could go back to bed and sleep. I talked to neighbours, teachers, strangers I met in the street and family. All said, "Why would you want to homeschool? You won't have any time to yourself. It's the  only time I get away from my kids. It's going to take up too much of your time. You'll be with him twenty-four-seven. What about his socialisation, you can't cut him off from other children, especially when he's an only child. He'll end up a loser." These comments and more made me feel I was "the loser".

That last comment was the one that burned me the most and really got my ire rising faster than a tsunami. It was the turning point. Loser eh? The quote on the slate in this post says exactly what was going through my mind. My son wasn't coping with school life. He was bullied, the classroom was so noisy with rude children he'd become overwhelmed with the noise and have to leave the classroom. Teachers often found him out of the schoolgrounds. He just had to get away. I knew I had to do something because my son wasn't learning. When I checked his school books, nothing had been written in there for two terms. He was attending a private school. A week later, he was home with me and I was determined he wasn't going to set foot back in a school unless he wanted to.

Our first year was our hardest as Dan and I adjusted to being home together. Dan was in year seven. My husband ran a business from home, but he was out on jobs most of the time. I ran a business from home, too, so my time was divided between it and the homeschooling and running the house. What I learned about myself and my son during this time was more than I could have imagined.

Lesson number one, we were both individuals. Somehow, because he was my son, I thought he would work the same way I did: head done and just get the job done, also that when I'm focussed the rest of the world doesn't matter. Dan was different, he was easily distracted by noises, ringing telephones, and people coming and going, so that he just couldn't settle to the work. We solved this problem by encouraging him to listen to music while he worked. An outstanding result. At the same time, as he was completing his school work, he was able to do two or three things at one time which astounded me. He had two computer screens running several programs while he was listening to music and working.

My mind boggled. I stepped back and thought a moment. How could he be retaining all that he learned while he had all those distractions? The few times I insisted he focus on one thing, I was met with indignant stares and he refused my request. After much coercion from me where I said he would be more prolific and his school work would be finished faster, I got a shock to find his work stalled, and he was lost as though he'd been put in the middle of the jungle and didn't know which way to turn. My insistence in trying to organise his time failed miserably, so we returned to his way and hey presto, work was completed well before time with top marks. Well, if that was his way of learning, then who am I to change that?

I'm glad I learned this lesson. It made me aware that some of my employees may have had unusual working habits to be efficient. I learned how to get the best out of the people working for me to keep them happy and fulfilled in their work and develop a special relationship with them I may not have done otherwise. During the next few weeks I want to share other lessons I learned from home schooling.

Have you had a similar experience? Please leave a comment for me below.

Facing Your Fears

Back in January, I blogged about our motivations for achieving our dreams and goals. I hope you've had time to think about your motivations for your project. This was a great time for me to evaluate why I write, too, and I thought I would share that with you today.

I write because I'm compelled to write. It's part of who I am. Through my writing I hope to encourage others who may have a dream but are so paralysed by fear of failing that they can't get started. Fear used to be a constant companion of mine during the transition from the numbers world to the world of words. If I was called to be a writer, I had to get over my fears.

I believed God called me to write when he was planning for my life on earth. Under his Laura O'Connell file he wrote "Fiction writer- experience required: numbers, deadlines, stick-to-itiveness, life experience, ie. trials and trauma that can be used as fodder for characters; and the ability to learn words".

He put me into the accounting field first so that I could learn the discipline of working on my own, what it means to meet deadlines, and how to work at a project until it was completed. There was no point in handing in a Balance Sheet to my boss if it didn't balance.

He gave me life experiences for making my characters into real people: he put me youngest in a family of twelve; orphaned at eight years of age; scoliosis; scuba diving; wife of a serving soldier; business owner; mother of Aspergers Syndrome child; stress attack that held me captive for eighteen months; unemployment; and the fear and uncertainty that comes with a change in career. All good stuff for drawing on when creating characters for a story.

Working on your own can be a challenge, especially when the day is hot and the surf's up. Oh why am I stuck in this claustropobic room when I could be out there riding a wave. So why didn't I get up from my desk and walk out. Because I wanted to achieve my goal of being a writer. That meant I had to sit at my desk and get the words done. No one is going to do them for me. How can I encourage people when there are no words written to encourage them?

That is the truth of the writing life, or any other endeavour that you may be undertaking to achieve a dream. It doesn't get done by itself. The job gets done by applying ourselves to the task and chipping away bit by bit until the dream is achieved. When motivation is strong and time is short it's easier to keep going. If you don't have a deadline to achieve stage one or stage six, the going will be harder. Set a realistic time frame to achieve that first stage and work towards that goal. Define what it is and make smaller goals along the way that have to be met.

My goal was to plan to write African Hearts in a year. I broke the year down into segments: six weeks for planning, two months for research; four months for writing the first draft; and four and a half for editing and polishing the work. This was my rough plan. The actual time frame ended up being written and off to a publisher within nine months. This now gives me a bench mark for subsequent books. I saved time on writing the first draft which only took 2 months and my research only needed a month.

So I want to encourage you to overcome your fear with a verse from Isa. 41:10:

"So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous hand."

With God anything is possible, it's the fear that holds us back.