I have always been a perfectionist. I guess it comes with being the oldest child, especially growing up in a family that tried to maintain a wonderful outward appearance while crumbling apart on the inside. I've carried that legacy, or should I say bondage, right into my own family. I have never felt so inadequate as the day a nurse handed me my newborn son, and I looked at him and literally thought "Now what am I supposed to do with this?" You would think that ten years later and with another child under my belt, I'd feel equal to the task of mothering. But I still struggle with my mommy alter-ego. You know, the one who shows up to point out everything you're doing wrong. She keeps me down and focused on how NOTHING I do measures ... Read More...
7 Things Every Good Christian Mom Does
What makes a good mom? If you ask 100 people this question, you'll probably get 100 different answers. We often imagine someone who is always patient, available, and bakes cookies from scratch. Someone who never has emotional outbursts or gets irritated with her kids for making messes. The ideal standard is hard to live up to. And Christian moms face this pressure even more. In our quest to elevate the role of motherhood and encourage one another that it is a worthy calling, we've gone to the opposite extreme of equating mothering with sainthood. I can think of no mother I know who would even remotely qualify for this status. Because we're all human. We're imperfect, saved sinners just trying to do our best to raise children for ... Read More...
How To Delight In Your Kids Instead Of Deal With Them
“It must be so much fun to be her”, my husband said to me. My daughter had been singing her heart out in the shower, like a little girl should. She was completely free of cares and worry. Meanwhile, I was preoccupied with all the things that still needed to get done that evening. My to-do list loomed large in front of me like a giant that stood in the way of enjoying anything carefree. These past couple of weeks, we've been slogging our way through homeschooling. Sending my kids off on the big yellow bus would have been more than a little satisfying, to be honest. I eventually realized an important element was missing from our daily routine. I had become more focused on discipline, lesson plans and managing a home, than ... Read More...
When You Want To Quit Homeschooling Do These 4 Things Instead
I think most of us have in mind a homeschool journey that is full of serene, orderly days when we first start out. We plan for smooth schedules and obedient, enthusiastic children. But, as we try to teach them, we keep running up against something. You ask your daughter to read a paragraph and she has a meltdown. Your son gives you an attitude when you explain another way to work out a math problem. Your kids start fighting over who's going to do which part of the science experiment. Or maybe you have lofty goals of your children becoming world changers, but you seem to be stuck in a never ending loop of correcting the same behaviors. If homeschooling isn't going to "fix them", then why bother? Too many moms give up on ... Read More...
How To Fit More Joy Into Your Motherhood
Out of all the adjectives my children could pick to describe me several years ago, I don't think "fun" would have been high on that list. "Stop running around and get ready for bed!" "Be careful. You're going to make a mess." "It's not time to fool around and play now. It's time to be calm." I've said all of these phrases at one time or another to my kids. Out of context, they are understandably normal things a mother would say to her children to redirect them to pay attention or begin a task they've been asked to do. However, in my haste to maintain order and discipline, I frequently ended up putting the kibosh on their joy. I believed that efficiency was the highest priority in my homemaking, so I became a multitasking ... Read More...
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