Belated New Year's Resolution

By Cheryl Henderson -
Well, it's the end of January, but I'm finally getting around to my revealing my New Year's Resolution. Well, I guess better late than never.

Following the principles of The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life I have a chart that I'm using to keep myself on track this year. Each month I list my goals and then I track how I'm doing. And I'm proud to say that I'm doing pretty well (for a change!)

So, what have I accomplished. This year I've vowed to have more fun with my kids. I enrolled them in a cyber-charter school that is doing an awesome job with them. They are having fun and best of all we're offline much more than we're online. But I sometimes make myself crazy by trying to meet artificial deadlines. So, for 2009 we will do our work systematically but I will leave more time to play with my kids.

Perhaps you too have fallen into the trap of trying to get everything done and when you look around the kids have grown another 3 inches but you didn't even notice. That happened to me a lot last year and so I'm slowing down and getting it right. I decided to homeschool to spend time with my family and to enjoy them, not be the General of Schoolwork or be Uber WAHM.

So one of my goals each day is to spend 30 minutes with each of them (or an hour and a half with them collectively) just goofing around, playing videogames, trying to do some sort of needlework or craft or just listening to Alaya's never-ending stories. And I have to admit it's working well.

Another one of my goals is to share my bible knowledge with my children. I have struggled with ways to be consistent with this in the past. Then my friend told me about the www.OneYearBibleBlog.com that covers the daily bible reading and has links to an Audio Bible (which you'll see on my sidebar). So every morning we have been listening to the bible after breakfast. The children draw what seems to be most important for them while the reading is going on. (I think it is really cute to see my two year old grabbing his drawing paper and crayons making his bible drawings along with the rest of us.) Then we spend time discussing each picture, answering questions and getting ready for our school day.

Since I've started this our days have been going much smoother. I don't lose my temper nearly as much as I did in the past and the girls don't spend so much time complaining and dragging their feet to get their assignments done. It's a win-win and I look forward to this continued trend.

Comments

Tica said…
Hi Cheryl, I like the Bible in one year. My son is doing the Bob Jones Book 9 this year, which is fine, but I will give your idea a try.

Enjoy the kids...they grow way too fast. Hugs, Marta
February 2, 2009 at 12:38 AM
Cheryl Henderson said…
Thanks Marta! You are so right; they grow up so quickly.

Hugs back!
February 3, 2009 at 10:39 AM
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