Raven Street Notes #1

The post title is basically my way of saying that there are a bunch of random little tidbits floating around in my head this week, not one long enough to merit a post of its own. I guess that means it was a short-attention-span kind of week.

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I’ve lately just realized how very, very tired I am. Weird thing is that for about six months I’ve slept 4 or 5 hours a night. Suddenly, this is not cutting it and I feel exhausted. Because of that, homeschooling is killing me and it’s not the teaching that’s hard. It’s the many fights Oldest and Middle put up about math and flash cards in particular. We can spend a lot of time *talking* about Math and flash cards and not very much time doing them.

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Tonight I listened to the beginning of a series of teachings about parenting. The speaker suggested that the way most parents try to control their kids’ behavior is by instilling in them great fear of punishment: Parents mostly parent through various levels of intimidation. (This is not a great strategy, says the speaker.) At first I thought, it’s true. And then, I agree. And then, but how else should we do it? I haven’t gotten to the part of the series where he gives the answer. The speaker said something else—and I agree with this too—that God is not up in heaven trying to control our every move. Instead God gives us all manner of freedom and allow us to use our freedom in the way we see fit. Of course, there are often all sorts of natural consequences that come about from our choices. If we’re paying attention, we’ll learn something from them and repeat or modify our original course the next time around. Maybe this is a little bit how we should be raising our kids—asking them what will you do with your freedom? and How does using your freedom this way affect your relationships with others?

I think I will try out these questions the next time we do flash cards.

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Oldest was in desperate need of some new clothes this month. She’s been kinda rag-tag all summer, and I’ve been trying to convince her to hand-down the beloved too-tight, too-short items to Middle. So I picked some stuff up for her tonight that I thought she’d love. She’s drawn to athletic stuff, especially now that she’s joined Girls on the Run. And I have to say I feel a deep welling of relief when I look at my smiling daughter in warm up pants and a sweatshirt. She looks as wholesome as she really is; she's all Mister Roger's Neighborhood without a hint of MTV-music-video.