Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Stress and commitments

Stress. I'm feeling it and I want to fix it. How did things get to this point? I so carefully considered our activities for this year, and somehow it all got out of control and the kids and I have gone over the edge of busy into insane. 

The careful balance I had found, of busy but happy and productive, has been upset and I'm finding myself desperately needing to find a way to cut back on our commitments. 

I think part of my problem is my willingness to let my daughter go and do whatever it is she wants to do. It's a wonderful problem to have... a child who wants to do everything. 

I've spoken to many parents who have pulled their kids out of school and who's children consider "schooling" or "learning" to be nasty words and something they don't want to do. Education is something forced upon them and they don't want any of it. 

Somehow, I've got the opposite problem. 

It's not so much my son, who is more of a normal child in many ways, as my daughter (if there is such thing as normal). SHE wants to do the Spelling Bee. SHE wants to learn Hebrew and have a Bat Mitzvah. SHE wants to build an instrument and play it in the Science Olympiad. SHE wants to take voice lessons and try out for a theatre production and sing in it too! (No mommy, don't drop art! I LOVE art!)

I have heard parents of kids like this complain about how people mistake their child's busy schedule as something they have imposed upon their kids. I can easily see how people might think that I am pushing my kids to do all of these things in a mistaken drive to have them succeed. The truth is that my daughter is driving most of it. The only things I ever made mandatory were continuing with the piano lessons and having a language. The art was important for a while. I'd like them to be well-rounded, and I feel that music and a foreign language can be very important in the development of the growing mind. Art can hone creativity and physical hand strength in the early years. There are reasons for these basic things. 

I do periodically go through these phases of trying to drop stuff from our schedule. I don't think I've felt so stressed about our commitments before, however. Whereas it's easy to drop a paid art class if it's not working out, it's much harder to back out of a group or team commitment where people are counting on you.

I can hear you now, "Well, it's your job as a Mom to make sure it doesn't get to that point. You gotta put your foot down before it gets this far." This is true, but it is also true that some years our kids are just sailing along smoothly and some years are really pretty choppy. I forgot about the choppy. People warned me, but now I know. Yes, 12 is a ROUGH year. Things are taking longer. She needs more time to percolate. More time to have off days, emotional melt-downs, obsess about Dr. Who, and Skype with her friends. I didn't think about these things when I let her stretch me beyond my comfort level this time. She's always stretching the envelope, how was I supposed to know I should have said "no" this time? 

Every year is a new adventure with our kids. Once you think you've got it all figured out, they throw a few new curve balls at you. This is true of all parenting, not just homeschooling. 

Somehow, we'll get through this year. I am determined to somehow get the workload down to something reasonable. They are blessed to have so many wonderful opportunities to choose from, the breaks just need to go on every now and then. Why is it I stress more than they do? 

If you have any wise advice, let me know. Meanwhile, I'll go examine my new grey hairs.

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