Wonderful lessons in schooling my littles :-)

They say the first year can be the most challenging…ours started out wonderful…and then the grind came two months into it…and I cried out for wisdom and understanding from the Lord.  I’m going to write a few tidbits here of encouragement to others who may be weary and for me to remember what the Lord has taught me:

God has equipped me!  Just as my faithful homeschooling friends have assured me.  He showed me to go with a program…we prayed…God provided Sonlight for our family.  He showed me to look for Lewis’ learning style.  He showed me through another friend, to keep strict boundaries even during school (I didn’t want to be to strict during school, but things got a bit challenging, and the Lord brought me back).  He showed me to keep it low- stress during busy days, tough days, weary days, or days of struggle with school.  He showed me to be perseverant and to not allow “giving up” thoughts or “someone else could do better than this” thoughts in my mind.  He showed me to set goals and to pray over these goals and readjust as the year goes along.  He showed me to pray over my expectations for my son in each area of schooling.  He showed me to allow His patience and longsuffering qualitites to flow through me through prayer and dependance on the Holy Spirit when teaching was challenging or little progress was being made.  He showed me to give my son lots of encouragement when he was struggling the most (even if it looked like he wasn’t trying), to help him tackle the areas that were the most challenging for him.  He showed me to evaluate strengths and weakness at the end of our first workbook, so I can do extra worksheets to catch him up in his more challenging tasks and to give lots of encouragement and grace and understanding while doing these tasks.  We pray for the Lord to help Lewis learn and to continue to give him the desire to learn and a love of learning.  We pray for the Lord’s equipping in every way.  We pray for His strength and wisdom on days that are tough.  And we keep it flexible and uninterrupted, to not allow school to be frustrating or dreaded, but a time to enjoy learning together and to grow in our love and knowledge of each other.

I am learning so much alongside Lewis and many new things about him.  I LOVE it.  I love learning to depend on God to equip us and strengthen us to get through it—and triumph in areas that are tough for both of us!  I love teaching and my little one, despite my mistakes and frustrations, STILL LOVES LEARNING!  And I am already seeing him grow in so many areas.  When we started out, he was behind, to my surprise in many areas where I thought he had learned what he needed to learn.  We are catching up and Lewis is overcoming his frustrations and persevering!  He even said, the other day, that he loved an area of school that was particularly difficult for him.  This is my greatest joy in teaching him: seeing him overcome and persevere in the challenging areas.  We are praising God for all victories in schooling–for Lewis and mommy 🙂