From Cindy Rushton's Desk(TOP!)!

Need a Do-Able Routine??? by Cindy Rushton

Need a Do-Able Routine???
By Cindy Rushton

This is an oldie (obviously this article was written three years ago since my kiddos are now so much older! WOW!)...but this article is perfect for this time of year. Sooo, ready to plan for the new year? This article is for you! Enjoy!

Mid-year! Can you EVEN believe it?? My son is finishing up his sophomore year in High School while my daughter is wrapping up her seventh grade year! I don’t know about you, but this year has already be flying by and now it is almost Spring-time again! WOWIE!

After the holidays I have found myself a bit “off-key.” We began building on to our home during the Holiday Season and we are almost ready to welcome our business to its home here on Huckleberry Hill. In the meantime, I have been re-organizing and re-strategizing to completely re-vamp our business and our routine to once again adapt to the business being in our home.

What about you? I have been getting letters like crazy asking about how we are balancing so many areas of life and asking for tips on how to organize the home and set up routines that can work for REAL families!

Soooo, if this is your need too, this article is just for YOU!

Homeschools are all very, very different. Each and every home all has its own package that makes the home full of blessings, challenges, joy, and even trials. The only thing that really is a “blanket” need for all homeschools AND all families is the great need for routine!

By setting up family routines, we take away much of the daily stress and pain of deciding who does what, when they are to do whatever, and how much they are to do. Routines are simply a MUST! Our children have struggled at times when the routines were not clearly defined OR were in total chaos. Likewise, I have felt the frustrations that come along with constant decisions to be made or the pull of constantly having “extra” things to think about that could be just part of the routine, leaving my mind to think of more important things!

So, what are some ideas for bringing routine into the home? What are some practical, yet EASY ways to bring more order and peace into your home? The following thoughts are a hodgepodge of my thoughts on routine that I have collected through the years in my personal journals. It has helped me so much to go back over these practical helps. I pray that it will help as I share them with you…

Make Sure that God is FIRST!!

Remember that when you are planning your family routines, give priority to the most important thing. I know that the academic education of our children is a very high priority. However, there are many highly educated people in our culture who are very dissatisfied and disillusioned with life. Deep down, they know that there is more to life! AND good news! There is!

The most important thing is our relationship with God! In 1 Timothy 1: 5, we find that God is very clear about our educational goals. I think He is absolutely phenomenal! As the “perfect Teacher,” His clarity is unmatchable! What are those goals of instruction? They may surprise you, but I doubt it: “love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.” This only comes from a passionate relationship with God!

In our culture, we have almost deified education at the expense of dethroning God! Education has become an idol that demands worship of those from all faiths and cultures. Yet, even education will not bring that soul satisfaction that we all seek for! We are all made with a void in our souls that cannot be satisfied with anyone or anything else but God.

The only satisfaction for this huge void is a relationship with our Lord. Relationships are not built spending one hour a week (or I will indulge the “6-hour-a week-don’t-miss-anything-at-church crew!”—six hours a week!) in a crowd with 500 others, checking out the local styles, singing a few hymns, praying alongside of those who are praying, and leaving after maybe a tear or two falls! REAL relationships take time ALONE. Really listening. Really getting to know one another’s hearts. Vibrant relationships require time and commitment. Time set aside and devoted in whole to building the relationship and developing a closer tie day-by-day!

Many of us who homeschool KNOW this...but, do our routines truly reflect our passion for God? We all need our time with God as a first priority in life! If nothing else is done each day, why not the quiet times? Why not a few moments of solitude spent one-on-one with God each day? Why not a few moments to pour out our hearts to the Lord and let Him pour forth His heart into ours? Yes. This is THE MAIN THING!

I know this. However, often I myself find the struggle is more for the to-do’s than for my relationship with God OR with the children. If we value the relationships the most, we find that our priority becomes that time to talk, read, relax, and even work together. Yes, there is always more work to do than there is time to do it. We must accept that reality while planning the time that we devote to that work around time with God and each other!

FAMILY!!!

This brings me to the next area that must be a priority when setting up a routine that will really work: Wrap the entire schedule around family life!

For many, many years, I tried to set our whole routine around the model of “school.” We set our “school lessons” during the same hours as the public schools. We even took the days off that they took off, except for Summer break!

I was proud of the “work” that was being done, but it seemed that little things would knock me “off-my-rocker!” Little things would throw my whole life into chaos.

Finally, the Lord began to convict me about seeking out a whole “lifestyle” of learning, not merely “school at home.” A lifestyle that got back to His design for the family in the first place!

I knew deep in my heart that if I were going to have a “lifestyle” of learning, then it meant that our daily routine would have to be more relaxed, slower paced, and wrapped around our family life. This was in direct contrast to our family life being wrapped around “school.” The difference was immeasurable!

Daddy was no longer an inconvenience, but the central figure of our home-life! He could at last be the “King of His Castle” and “Priest of our Home.”

Lessons did not have to rely on textbooks—but, many of the lessons could at last come from our life TOGETHER as a family!

The difference is like setting a bird free from the cage in which all of her life has been spent, so at last she could fly free!

So, want a very important suggestion for establishing a do-able routine just for YOUR family? Wrap life around being a family! Learn together. Learn from each other. Set up a lifestyle of learning that can go on for generations to come!

What ARE We REALLY Supposed to Teach???

Learning can be just this simple! The education of our day has become entirely TOO complex and abstract! So, what ARE we supposed to be teaching anyway??? Teach your children the SKILLS TO LEARN and give them a PASSION for learning! Knowing this can make all of the difference in the world when you are setting up a DO-ABLE routine!

How? Well, many hours are wasted in many children’s lives each day. EVEN those that homeschool. Curriculum companies have convinced us that we need books to teach Spelling, Grammar, Literature, Language Arts, Phonics, Reading, Vocabulary...and that just covers LANGUAGE ARTS!!!

Going back to the old paths, we find that education just 100 years ago was so much more simpler. In addition, that same education trained up thinkers who became the writers, artists, composers, theologians, politicians, inventors, and scientists that were world-changers! Today, the fruit of our educational system is much too sparse!

What DO you need? Well, our children need a time set aside each day to learn, practice, and use skills of learning. What do those skills include? They include: reading, writing, math, research, record-keeping, and later communicating what they have been learning. From the time our children are very, very young, they need daily time set aside in our routines for their skills of learning to be learned and utilized!

Another thing that is needed in our every day schedule is TIME to pursue areas of our children’s personal interests. This is the ONLY way to truly encourage a love of learning in our children. Yes, little children do LOVE learning. They love everything. But, their love of learning will dry up unless they have the skills to continue learning for their whole life and eventually, the time and encouragement to spend time learning deeper in areas of their interests.

The keys to lifelong learning are these two aspects of woven together. You can’t have one without the other. Without skills to learn a child will eventually get frustrated when even trying to learn. Without a love of learning, our children could possess all of the skills of learning, but never use those skills without an assignment and a deadline set up externally for them!

I wanted more! I wanted for my children to have the skills to learn AND a love of learning that guaranteed that they would use those skills to learn for the rest of their lives! These two goals helped me to set up my daily routine to help me offer a balanced education to my children.

Our daily routine includes a set time each day to learn and develop their skills of learning through a daily table time. Our daily table time covers a daily time of Bible Study as a family, daily Copywork in our Notebooks, daily Math lessons, and daily Foreign Language lessons. Our children know what to expect so there is no guesswork involved, thus our daily stress of making small decisions of what to do each day is alleviated!

Plus, our children know what it takes to get their table time finished so we can work as a family on other projects. The family time is just as important as academics, if not more so! Family time for our family may mean something different for our family than yours—it should since every family is completely different! One day Harold may work with the children on rebuilding an old automobile. (Tomorrow it looks like they will be working on changing my brake pads on my car!) Another day Harold may work with the children on a project needed for building our office. Every day is different, but the lessons still have the bottom line—we take the time with the children to teach them the things that REAL families need to know. They learn practical skills by learning how to work with their hands. They learn character qualities as they have to use them in working as a family. They learn social skills as they learn to work together with us and with those that God brings along our paths. Yep, this is another important aspect of learning!

But, this is not all! All work and no play is not the way that God designed us! I mentioned that love of learning, huh? Well, we try to have a quiet time of the day that each of us can pursue areas of interests. The children USE those skills of learning that they have learned and continue to learn through the years during this time!

Actually probably more in depth than during our table time!

Right now, I am writing this article. Matthew is reading about Glock Autopistols (surprised???). Elisabeth is reading about cats AND drawing sketches of her favorites in her “notebook.” And, Harold is leisurely reading about flying. We are “using” those skills to learn more, but this is not because of assignments. Rather, we are using the skills we have to fill our minds with that necessary daily food to keep us inspired and growing!

Take a look at your routine to see if it allows short times to learn and practice the skills of learning (long times will burn ALL of you out and possibly do more damage than good!) and if there is enough time to pursue those interests that would instill of love of learning???

Oops...Stiff or Flexible???

Yep! The hardest thing in the world for me as we began homeschooling was to learn that MY plans were not always GOD’S PLANS! Shocking huh???

Once I learned to be more flexible things really got much, much better! My plans never took into account those gorgeous sunny days in JANUARY! Nor did my plans take into consideration the moments that needed to be seized to really teach the heart of my children. Know what I mean?

So, remember that you can feel free to alter any given routine!

As we go through life, we find that life is so short. The sunny moments simply must be snatched along the way. Some lessons only come along once in a lifetime!

Even in Charlotte Mason’s schools, she would ring a bell on nice days and set off for an all day expedition! Can we be this spontaneous? Yes, duty calls and responsibilities should be accepted habitually. BUT, all the duty and responsibility is out of balance without the liberty to enjoy life and its spontaneity...without time to make precious memories!

Choose the BEST!

All through the years, we will face opportunities and options to include so much in the education of our children. One of the blessings of homeschooling today is that there are so many wonderful activities and lessons. We have everything from field trips to online classes...coops to civic events...sports to geography bees. The sky is truly the limit!

We all want for our children to have ALL of the advantages that we can give them. However, somewhere we have to choose the very best!

There are so many GOOD things. Those good things can battle against our focus so that we do not have time for the very BEST things! It just takes a little while before our routines are so overcrowded with truly great activities, but no real substance!

We have to be constantly de-cluttering when it comes to time. We all have only 24 hours in each and every day. These days are flying by. We need to redeem the time and use each moment as God wants for us to use it!

We need to KNOW where we are going? Why are we doing what we are doing? Are we stressed out (just ask the kids!)? Can we stay home just ONE day? How are our children behaving? (These can be little warning signs to let us know if we are doing too much or if the things that are really not important!). Is more really better? Are the things that we are doing TRULY the BEST? Is MORE really better? What CAN go?

I tend to get so busy that I don’t have time to stop and think. I don’t have enough margin to slow down for even thirty minutes to watch the sunset. Unless I constantly guard my lifestyle all becomes “go-go-go...rush-rush-rush!” Yes, busy with stuff that is of very little or no value for me or my family! Stuff...when I want the BEST!

We must be very particular! We must reach for the BEST! We must guard our routine to be sure that we MAKE time for the important...the eternal! Everything is our day must be evaluated from an eternal perspective leaving only those things that work toward the very best!

We need to schedule in time to plan...time to set goals...time to re-fill our cups! Otherwise, we are no good for families and friends!. We need this time so that we can make those important decisions KNOWING that we have had time to really hear God and KNOW His perfect will for our children! So much responsibility! LIVES that we affect with daily decisions! But, it is not just decisions. We also have to be filled up with GOOD stuff or we cannot pour forth into the lives of those we love the most! Well, we can pour forth...but, I don’t think those around me want what I have to offer apart from my daily time with Jesus! We need to slow down, be filled up, so we are prepared DAILY to pour forth into the lives of others!

Easier said than done, I know! I have those days that my whole daily routine is upset. I can begin the day fine with my quiet time (so of course it is not ME!!). Yet, the moment I come in contact with my family their attitudes throw me for a loop! (after ALL I do to train them right!!!!)

That is when we need it even more! The routine is nothing if we lose sight of the most important things: building relationships, discipling our children up in the Lord, and making memories! But, even these things are utterly impossible unless we have time with the Lord! I KNOW how hard this can be!

When my children were little, I thought I would never be able to have a quiet time without wiping breakfast cereal (spilled, of course) out of my Bible! Yet! That time was priceless! It carried me through! It laid the foundation for my relationship with God AND for my children to KNOW how to spend their quiet times with the Lord! GO FIGURE!

If you see this as an impossibility, go to the Lord! Tell Him all about it. I assure you beloved! He WILL provide. He’ll provide exactly what YOU need, but you need to trust that He will. Diligently ask for His help!

Then, as our cups are filled...we must offer our families the VERY

BEST! We must guard the family routine to be sure that we MAKE time for the important...the eternal!

We need to schedule in time to learn...time to play...time to make sweet, sweet memories...time to really enjoy our children! Oh, time to fill their little cups!

We only have our children for just a little while. For those with children that are now towering over their heads, we only have our children just a little while longer! Let us establish a home centered on GOD...FAMILY...REAL LEARNING…forsaking all to choose the VERY, VERY BEST!

What will happen? Oh, the stress will lessen. The eternal will happen. The world will pass by. And, you will have a legacy, a legacy that God designed from the foundation of the earth for the godly homeschool family!

Happy Homeschooling!