I’m learning the hard way: Why I need a forehead tattoo
The words clogged my throat, choked by feelings of inadequacy.
You wouldn’t think that five words would be so hard.
Honestly, words aren’t hard, but feelings are. Just spit it out!
Wrapped in lies of my own creation, I feared the response to my words. For many years, I’ve believed I should be a better homeschool mom. Because my oldest daughter has VERY different learning styles from mine, it has been a STEEP, emotional, learning curve for both of us.
I held my breath – and said into the darkness of the car ride, “Hey girls, we’re starting school tomorrow.” I winced, waiting for complaints like a hammer on my fingers.
Silence.
And then, a surprising return: “Yay!! Can we have a prize jar like we did last year?”
Wait – what? My brain did not compute. Where is the struggle and the fight? The complaining and the whining? This was not expected.
Was I overreacting? I don’t think so. Moms do this all the time.
We endlessly rehearse past experiences over present like a torturesome “song that never ends.” My past experiences were coloring my future ones even though very little is the same as last year.
Both my kids and I have grown, the curriculum is different, and our circumstances have shifted, so why does my brain tell me things will be the same?
In the book “Winning the War in your Mind” (which every mom should read!!), Pastor Groschel explains the mom-brain perfectly. “Your brain is designed to look for patterns and create neurological pathways to help you keep thinking the things you keep thinking and doing the things you keep doing… Every thought you have produces a neurochemical change in your mind. Your brain literally redesigns itself around that thought.”
This is why we struggle to step outside of our mom-feelings! Our brains are literally wired to find past patterns and then repeat them!
I’m here to tell you though: We can change that!! Science shows that battles are won in the mind and have little to do with our circumstances.
This school year, what if we actually focused on our mind-war and allowed the circumstances to follow?
How? Charlotte Mason once asked, “Today, do my kids love learning more than yesterday??”
This is hard for me. Checking boxes thrills me. Slow, unhindered, exploratory learning does not.
My achievement driven eyes don’t see a happy-fun-time when I look at the weekly assignments. I see a hunt and kill. I get stressed when boxes aren’t checked.
But here’s my face-palm question… for what?
What difference will it make if the whole universe of boxes are checked but my kids hate learning? Am I nurturing a love of learning, or box checking?
Boxes will fade, but the character which is built by those boxes remains. In just a “few” years, I will release the product of my check-box obsession into the world as an adult.
The question is: Which check-box trumps all?
The ultimate checkbox recently hit me between the eyes at the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. As my kids turned circles of awe being IN the Ark, I turned circles of awe at their foundational learning.
What’s the ultimate checkbox? Knowing you were created in the image of God and saved by His death on the cross.
Maybe you don’t believe that, but The Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum give verifiable evidence of both. You can’t honestly walk through those exhibits without having serious world-view wrestling to do.
Instead of obsessive box-checking, what if I obsessed about the few boxes that matter most?
In the end, we’d find ourselves more focused and less stressed about all the individual boxes…maybe our kids would even enjoy learning more.
So, what now, momma? Is this just another “should” to add to the list? Or perhaps this replaces the list of shoulds and helps us focus on just one thing.
I work with a coach who encourages us to ask, “What is the ONE thing I have to do today?”
Every time she asks, I fight back. “ONE THING?!”- I have 1,000 things!!
She then calmly reminds us that feeling overwhelmed doesn’t help anyone.
What if we actually focused on the ONE most important thing?!
No doubt, we’d be less frantic, and more purposeful.
So today, I will focus on the most important check-box, while helping my kids love learning.
Now all I need is a tattoo on my forehead, so I remember my “one” thing. Who’s with me? Maybe they’d give us a group discount.
Meet your farmer – Liz Gerdes. She and her husband run a farm-to-table raw milk dairy. They empower moms to confidently feed their families nutrient-dense food using farm fresh milk! Visit gerdesfreshfarm.com or follow her on Facebook @gerdesfreshfarm or Instagram @gerdesliz for more info.
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