What a crazy few weeks!  Every time I think I need to write on my blog, I get 10 other things in front of it.  I know I said I would write about discouragement.  Can't decide if I should write about the mom's discouragement or the kids'!  Wow...since I have a couple of thoughts rumbling around in me about the kids, I think I will start there.

Today, we are trying to wrap up the homework the middle schoolers have from our home-school co-op.  Who would have thought that they would let it overwhelm them the way they have?  Yikes!  So, I'm gonna talk about the kids being discouraged today.  Moms - you'll have to wait for another day for the pearls coming your way!  ;)

Kids have such a variety of moods and needs.  But I've come to realize that no amount of my dreaming that they could just BE responsible, PLAN their lives, and HANDLE their schoolwork will actually make it happen.  And I've noticed that when I take a few minutes and sit WITH them, they shine.  The work gets done.  We have time for fun.  Et cetera  - - - yeah, I spelled it out today.  Because there's a long list of things we get as BENEFITS when I take the time they need.

So, then I gotta look at me - what is wrong with me?  On those days that nothing gets accomplished, I have to wonder that.  Sometimes out loud!  LOL   But mostly, just the thought tumbling around inside my head.  In that moment, I am learning to turn my thoughts back around - ask the Lord if that thought is from Him or if I am just wallowing in self-pity - and then act on what He shows me.  (You know - take your thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ...)

Today's act:::  help my little people excel.  I can do this!  I can't expect them to just know it, or sometimes to even just do it.  But I can do MY part!

I'm reminded of the lesson that we learned in Bruce Wilkerson's 7 Lessons of the Learner.  If the students are failing, the teacher is failing.  One COULD look to the teacher who has them for a brief few minutes on co-op day, but the truth of the matter is - - - if my students are not "getting" it - it's my job to help them get it.  So, today's goal - to help my students get it, get it done, get it learned, get it done excellently...

Whew!  I can do this - and so can you.

Second area of discouragement for the kids - decision-making problems.  Man, it's tough being a pre-teen.  I have a teen and I have a Kindergartner.  They don't struggle nearly like the pre-teens do. 

Last night's agenda (after giving some ample room time to reconsider some bad choices they had made) was to give them the short talk about who they are.  My theme - you have to choose what kind of man (or woman) you want to become.  Every action you take now speaks to your character - generous/greedy, thoughtful/selfish, careful/careless, good example/bad example, server/taker, blessing/cursing, and so on.  I didn't carry on about it, just sent them to bed with the question in their minds, "Who do I want to be?" 

I'm still praying that they are chewing on that one.  :)