Tamtrums, drama and other frustrations...

 

"Only when we are brave enough t explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light"

-Brene Brown-

It has been a while since I have written a post... Nine months to be exact...   

I miss it! 

In all fairness, I need to confess to you, my readers; that more than a writer's block I really needed to find the courage and clarity to continue with this blog. I have been postponing it on purpose, by neglecting my passion for writing because I began to doubt myself; I believed I had very little to offer... I gave up writing because I fell hard for comparison and discouragement. I was so exhausted mentally and physically, that I could not help but keep asking myself: What could I possibly share with others about homeschooling, motherhood, family or faith? if in daily life I barely could keep it all together? 

I have been once again, overwhelmed, thrown from my horse, cornered, exhausted, frustrated and confused, to say the least. My self-esteem has been at an all-time low, so believe me when I tell you, the words I am typing are filled with deep emotion and driven by the hope of healing and liberation.

Lately, it feels I have failed in almost every aspect of my life: keeping up with my home, adjusting to my growing family, allowing myself to have time for me or my marriage, homeschool, duties, and chores... It hasn't been easy to adapt to our new chaotic life. Last school year was very crowded; between the hurricane, the birth of my baby, the recovery and the holidays, homeschool was left behind, we had way too many days off and the kids were growing less and less connected to the routine we once had. It was hard to take back the flow, or schedule of any kind: sleep, meals, school, chores... you name it! The pressure of multitasking and transitioning took a toll on me and subsequently on the kids. My mornings were already dragged from the night before with the baby; new dramas from my toddler and tension from the kids awaited as the day went by. Kids grew whiny, mom began to yell and cry, and cry some more... you get the picture. Everyone needed attention and direction. We were clueless on how to respond effectively but more importantly: graciously. 

We forgot how to respond, instead, we began to react! 


These months have been as hard as you can ever imagine... The drama, the tantrums, and the frustrations have poured heavily on all of us!

The tantrums, for example, began to emerge in my toddler. It wasn't easy for "lollipop" to feel pushed aside from being the center of attention; even though we strived to make her feel involved, she rapidly felt the change of tide in the dynamics of our family. Being 2 years old is hard as it is! She is still learning to communicate her needs, and her abilities take her only so far... so what does she do about it? She throws a tantrum! Toddlers have so much going on, they have a plan but is limited by their size and capability. Oh, my poor lollipop! I get her! her needs need to be met! she looks for guidance and reassurance, she needs my calm to sort things out. If I could only remember this when It happens... If I could only lead her... At times mommy also throws tantrums. Mommy also gets crushed by her limitations. I guess I can say from experience that tantrums are just the ineffective way to express how greatly overwhelmed you truly feel; is the cusp of exasperation! 

The drama instead, rises in the midst of the older ones. Is that constant reminder of discontent with all the adjustments we have made; is the roller coaster of emotions blown out of proportion. Any more, it seems that a minor issue always results in a mini-crisis. Sadly, complaining surely is becoming our primary language. I must confess is exhausting, emotionally exhausting to be the main problem-solving advocate. At times I am lost, literally out of solutions to their plights!

Agent 007 is the boy of the house, his wild and rambunctious games fill our days with fun for sure! But does not necessarily synchronize as harmoniously as I would imagine with his two older sisters... is hard to keep everyone at peace and uplift everyone's role. Girls are getting older and are searching for privacy, while my little man is charged with the most contagious enthusiasm and energy!  as you can imagine things just... clash, between them. Generally they get along great, but lately, they all have to push each other buttons and without warning... Boom! Drama is born! Miss Poppins and Popsicle unite their cry so mom can free them from their wild brother hahhaha 😄, they set their predicament with such a passion, (you cannot make this stuff up!) that details are unnecessary because they could be any little thing! yes, I  get called infinite times!  so I step in the middle of their issues already drained by my own. Once again, we all get dragged into this vicious cycle of reacting instead of responding... 

Ha! I thought I already learned how to help them regulate their emotions and communicate effectively, but the bottom line is that I personally do not know how to regulate my own emotions under pressure or communicate effectively. All seems good when everyone is doing well, is synchronized and cooperates; everything just flows then! but the truth is, that lately, we are all far from being synchronized. We feel being dragged by the many changes and circumstances. It is hard, you know? no one teaches you this kind of emotional intelligence, where instinctively you can turn things around with gratitude and contempt to channel all the attention seeking into empathy and connection.  Sometimes you don't need to confront problems right away or find solutions, sometimes all you need is to see things from above instead. Simply changing the perspective can bring just the right sense! So, here I may say, I share their common drama every time I feel the urge to complain or let my emotional pressure corner me to the edge of despair, blowing everything out of proportion and letting it turn into an unnecessary crisis. 

By now you may be wondering... What about those frustrations? Well, I can only tell you mine! For starters, I have to admit how much frustration it caused me to finish this post! You see? I am semi-new at blogging, not an expert at all, I have no strategy or agenda, I just want to write! But, the many interruptions, delays, and setbacks drained my goal to continue with this personal project.

I tell you... The story of my life never seems to align with my perfectly crafted plans! 

Nevertheless, this is precisely the main root of my constant frustrations. Yes! I had plenty of time to discover that! I struggle with life in this sense... surrendering to the now!

One thing you may need to know about me is how delusional I can be sometimes about planning and organizing... I am always aiming high on expectations... unrealistic expectations... and every time I fall short! no wonder! I skip the present, and busy my time with the rush of the future outcome, leaving all the details and process behind. Therefore frustration strikes whenever I resist surrendering to what the "now" will unfold, will bring, will teach ... It comes across as if I wanted to shield my failures and weaknesses by the planning and coverage of all the possible fronts... How exhausting don't you think?... maybe I just need a nap? hahaha seriously! I do... but, I guess what I am trying to say here, is that it is time for me, to let go of my version of well-being and stability. It is time, to simply let go my version of "me" and begin to embrace the beauty of the present, with all its shapes and forms, the beauty of my flaws and limitations and let life unfold and present itself as a learning experience. Maybe is time to let go of my pride and accept how fragile and weak I can be without shame or bitterness. I should turn to Him and finally surrender...  

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong

2 Corinthians, 12: 7-10

Not sure if any of you reading through, can relate at some level, and see what the root of all the tantrums, drama, and frustrations might reside in each one of us. Whatever our path, we share the spectrum of reactions and responses to what we go through and is precisely there where our power resides. Our time is much better spent when we decide to listen to understand instead of replying, to reflect and ask God to work on our hearts right in the middle of our conflict rather than trying to defy it while riding solely on our emotions.

I have so much to learn... and as I go on learning my way, I have to simultaneously show my little ones that sometimes we are a mess while others we will be the brooms, sometimes we will be in control and others we will be at our worst, but is OK! because we are only humans trying our way up, we are in this together: to grow, to forgive and to love unconditionally. 

So, the truth is that I have failed! but no, I am not a failure. I am only overwhelmed.
No, I am not a hypocrite because I want to write about motherhood, faith, and homeschool while falling apart, and trying to figuring it out. I am only being real. 
Do I have little to offer? maybe I do, maybe all I have is this broken vessel of my life, where light refuses to dim out and pushes through the cracks revealing a rare kind of beauty.

I am ready to embrace this new chapter of our lives, with a clear mind and open heart. I am ready to write as I go, I am learning to conquer together with my family the tantrums, drama, and frustrations by recovering peace while in conflict. I am realizing that doing my best differs according to my circumstances and I need my kids to know this exactly! because is all they really want to hear from me anytime and all the time: "I love you unconditionally".

Thank you, for reading and for following us from the very beginning. If you are just joining our journey, likewise! I hope this new chapter I am about to write and share with you will bring much more fruit and growth and can serve you in any possible way. 

What teaching has taught me!

There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is vanity. There are others who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is love.

St. Bernard of  Clairvaux

Being a mother already makes you a teacher, someone told me once! How true! We parents are the first teachers of our children. We dedicate our lives to the formation of our kid's character, skills, and habits, but at times we go on with life not being aware of it. Our life and experiences are the teaching tools we equip our little ones to face the world in all its forms. We are molding their little souls in every action, word, and deed; we are marking a print on their innocent spirits as they grow. Being a homeschooler is what I see as an extension of that arduous labor of motherhood; in a different context, yes! but in the same spectrum of the mission.

Looking back at my old teacher self, I could clearly see how I evolved and changed my teaching style. I started you may say... stiff. I played safe and limited our learning to the textbooks at first. I was not being as creative and resourceful as I should back then, I had to learn to expand my options and get to the kids level to make learning appealing. Without a degree in education, any kind of tool is a complete discovery and revelation, yes! crafting a method of teaching was the way to communicate and introduce concepts and skills. This new language had to be experienced, not planned. Homeschool was an open invitation to get to know my kid's way of learning and I was on the right track to discover the new and many ways to help them achieve milestones in their own unique way.

The best push to break free as a homeschool mom was to my surprise: obstacles! you heard right, obstacles are frustrating indeed, but they are a wake-up call to creativity. When my daughter began to learn addition and subtraction even the clock we hit various bumps, we had to overcome. I tried the teacher manual's  way, my way, dad's way, but nope! none work, so what then? At first pure frustration and the overwhelming feeling of being stuck and powerless, but then came:  research!

And with research, my biggest weapons:

• Youtube videos
• Pinterest
• Homeschool blogs

Maybe it sounds naive and obsolete, but here is where I found the truth that underlined learning for my daughter: it was Visual and practical. My daughter in her early beginnings guided me to understand simplicity. Let me elaborate: The first mistake I made for sure, was to try to box, to limit, education to only a pile of books,  yes! I love books and all knowledge is logged in a good book, but my kid continued to struggle with the concepts. She advanced, for sure, but she wasn't answering consciously. She began to answer by memory, systematically, not really comprehending what she was learning.  So, I understood then, that I had to make a stop and go back to the basics, the simple introduction, the practical approach and then when she grasped it, we could move on. I wanted her to learn not just to score!

I am a visual learner as my daughter, but contrary in the style, I need my learning to be comprehensive, it has to make sense to me before it sticks; for her, it has to stick before it makes sense to her! ufff I said it! I hope it made sense, Because believe me, this was key for me to change "my way" and focus on hers once and for all. Here, exactly here, is where I referred before as the language we had to learn to speak from now on. 

The resources mentioned above opened up for me new ways that could support the structure of our curriculum, we had a good frame but now, we had to make it practical. Here is worth to mention, our curriculum invites to expand the lessons with resources to enrich teaching, but sometimes their suggestions are not enough and it is hard to come up with new ones that are effective for your particular child. Thankfully I became familiar with the Montessori method, thanks to Pinterest. Here I was able to include new materials and activities that helped my children explore with their senses all the concepts they were being introduced. I must say: this great resource changed my whole perspective about teaching, in a way made me reflect that it has been there all along. We, people, hear many beautiful words and teachings but it just slips us by. Only until we hear and witness a story we are inspired to model, it stays with us as learning lesson hard to forget. We learn better by experience not by theory alone. They have to go hand by hand in school matters and in life in general.

I have been so far collecting the steps of homeschooling: The why we chose to do it here, the curriculum here, and the room we created here, but without a doubt, this step: the teaching journey of a mother, is the richest and most challenging of all. I have learned to get rid of expectations, to become more patient, to celebrate wins and losses, to be perseverant, to embrace structure as well as hands-on experiences, but most importantly I have learned to constantly reinvent myself and adjust to my kid's needs as they go, unlocking resources and being very observant of my kid's clues on their individual process of learning. 

My other kids had brought to my attention another set of needs that brought me to be flexible, for example. My boy a difference to the girls doesn't enjoy sitting at a desk for a period of time, he likes to bounce, run and fiddle, he is my "jumping bean", so I became aware of it and adjusted his desk time only for crafts and handwriting. I allow him to change scenarios for other subjects.  He also loves stories even in Math and funny ones, so whenever we are doing Math we bring our counters and I make up for him funny scenarios to help him remember what we have learned. He is lucky I am sort of a storyteller, it works just fine! He also is very sensorial and loves manipulatives, from flashlights to play dough, to pipe cleaners, to army people to add and subtract in battle hehehe 😄. He surely makes me go the extra mile of fun!

Resources such as posters, plays, salt maps, experiments, inventions, allowed my kids to improve retention. My girls are very artistic and love to color, draw and craft away their subjects! It surely forces us to have lengthy weeks, but they do it with such a joy and enthusiasm that I don't mind it at all. 

Again I want them to learn not to score. I continue to be attentive to my kid's abilities and strengths and from there I research online the best strategies to complement our learning experience. I have become a more relaxed and open minded mom and teacher, my biggest achievement has been without a doubt to learn and enrich from difficulty and obstacles and to get to know my kids in a more deeper and compassionate level. 

Understanding my kid's way to learn is a journey of love, of sacrificing my way for what it works for them, it helps me to celebrate, never to compare and to build on their strengths instead of pushing on my agenda. 

Teaching has taught me! I evolved from trying to plan learning to live learning. I continue to evolve as a mother into a teacher and as a teacher into a mother. Hand by hand education meets reason and faith. Love and service. Fear and trust.