Monday, October 18, 2010

Stressful Thoughts Spill Out

I feel like such a newbie to this homeschooling thing, which I am, so feeling like one should be normal.  But I hate this feeling!  I feel so lost and wondering if I'm doing enough, or if I'm doing the right kinds of activities, or just plain doing it right.  I think that the stress I feel of this is comes back to something I have dealt with, well probably all my life.  I expect myself to be perfect at anything I try and do.  Seriously.  My first time snowboarding, I spent half an hour at the top of hill, yelling at God because I was losing my balance. 

But I have read enough books and blogs and other such wisdom to know that there is no "right" way, and that the first year or two is always hard to find a rhythym.  It is all about being flexible and constantly reevaluating where I and the girls are at. 

Maybe I am stressing about what a responsibility it is.  Teaching my own daughter!  Not just academics, but life skills, character-building skills.  What if I screw up?! 

Okay, it's time to calm myself down.  Today I checked off almost all my list of the activities to do with Abby.  The only one we didn't do was a glitter-tree craft, and I am ok with that since I had forgotten to prep some materials anyways.  Doing the worksheets went well, but first the getting her to sit at the table with me was a fight.  Well actually she came fine for the colouring, but I wanted to do a lesson from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and she didn't want to come for that.  I had to discipline her for not listening to me and so she ended up throwing a big fit and running to her room. 

Will it always be a fight?  Or will she eventually get used to doing lessons with me?  I hope so otherwise we are in for some stressful days.

I also have been wondering if I have too many colouring activities/worksheets.  A lot of the stuff we do for math and language stuff is colouring sheets, or circle the correct answer type of things.  Should I be looking into more things.  Probably. 

Sorry for how random and crazy my thoughts are today.  I'm just writing how I'm thinking.

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