The Hardest Lessons

Sigh.

We are almost done with our second week of homeschooling. The first few days went surprisingly well, but as the subjects added up, attitudes changed. I have four students, grades kindergarten thru sixth, each with very distinct personalities, and each with subjects that they like and dislike. And for a few, dislike borders more on hate... detest... loathe.

Take my oldest daughter, for example. Just say the word 'math', and a scowl begins to grow on her face. Before she even knows the assignment, her shoulders are hunched over. All energy is somehow sapped out of her arms and she can barely lift up her pencil. And this is the girl who, just a minute before, was dancing around like a marionette puppet. I gave her one page of math review today, and she said, "That's too much!" She brightened a bit when she finished the page. But then there was piano. This girl gladly blows on her recorder without prompting, but when it comes to piano, she becomes a limp jellyfish again. My frustration grows as I say for the umpteenth time, "Please sit up straight. Please curl your fingers. Don't pound on the keys!" And I don't think it's me being picky as a classically-trained piano major. It's my daughter's attitude that frustrates me. She wants to 'get it over with' in five minutes, move on to what she would prefer to do, and I'm her only obstacle.

Of all the lessons I teach, lessons of the heart are by far the hardest. How can I reveal to my children that I have their best interest in mind? How can I teach them that perseverance and effort is more important than ease and comfort? How can they grasp that their attitude toward learning, and life in general, is mostly in their control?

As the years go by and my children grow older, I'm seeing more and more the importance of what I do as a homeschooling parent. There is the pressure to make sure my children can pass the SAT (and prove that I was an effective teacher), but the weight that I feel more on my heart is this daily molding, the lessons that are not in any textbook. Someday, my children will be 'tested', and my prayer is that they will be ready.