Writing, Writing, Writing...

The kids seem to focus on different things for periods of time, moving from one focus to another after a period of time.  A couple of weeks ago Tiana and Alina could be found at just about any given time sitting together on their laptops working on their latest stories.  Both have been working on several stories over the months, some were even started a year or more ago... many of their stories are still a work in progress.  Writing does take time you know.

It's really neat to see their writing improve through this process, the spelling, grammar and the content are all improving with each story they write.  You can read Tiana's latest piece that she shared a chapter of at the link below.  If you enjoy it, please comment on her blog, she will appreciate that.

Star Dust

Tiana's Magic Video

Tiana and Alina worked together to make this video.  Tiana did the directing as well as the editing.  Alina was the prop gal and provides quite a bit of entertainment in the deleted scenes at the end of this clip.  Tiana is enjoying using the video camera and experimenting with it.  We hope you enjoy her production.

Tiana's Skirt

Tiana has started showing an interest in sewing this summer.  I started her on some practice squares and then small projects.  She spent several days on the sewing machine making blankets for her stuffed horses, a pillow and a few other small projects. 

 In September she wanted to make a tiered skirt.  This was a project we did together.  Tiana sewed some and I sewed some, showing her things I learned when I was a young girl.

This is the final product.  We got our basic information from this site:

JCaroline Creative

New Attitudes with Chores

In my previous post I talked about how I wrongly related with cleaning our home.  Having a clean home is a good thing, but the way we approach it can be unloving and burdensome.  I want to have God’s standards in all areas of my life and am in the journey of learning what God’s standards are.  He is currently teaching me quite a bit  about His standards towards keeping our home tidy and clean.

Now to continue on from my first post on chore charts… The morning after Dan and I talked to the kids, releasing them from the burden of chore charts, Alina and Daniel were actively moving about and tidying up after themselves with a joyful spirit.  They were working together with concern for each other along with loving attitudes.  This is something the chore charts did not produce.  Tiana’s attitude was pleasant or really neutral on the outside, yet she wasn’t really being productive and needed several reminders to do her part.  Sereina’s attitude remained the same as she put some effort towards our new plan.  She mainly resisted by doing the minimum of what was expected and also needed several reminders.  I had taught Tiana and Sereina the fleshly art of resisting quite well. 

What was surprising to me was the attitudes in me… my resistance turned into a sense of freedom.  Being released of the chore charts these past few weeks brought a sense of freedom to Alina, Daniel and myself.  I could see that my two older girls would need specific attention and training from me.  The condition of their hearts were being revealed, they were not all that interested in serving others in their home or doing what was expected, let alone doing more than was expected in their home.  They were holding on to self centered attitudes and resisting developing loving attitudes and behaviors.  I could see that a heart level teaching needed to take place… starting with me.

As we began this new program with no more chore charts I came to see my need to be more focused and paying attention to what my children were doing throughout the day and not being distracted with other things.  I got several opportunities to give all my children reminders with a loving attitude.  I got to practice keeping them on task, not allowing them to put things off, talking to them about putting forth purposeful effort (the opposite of habitually forgetting this or that), talking to them about looking for opportunities to do extra… all with a loving spirit.  As I pressed forward with them I could see my own flesh, how I had been the model from which they learned procrastination.  It was as if the Lord put a mirror in front of me and I could see it all clearly.  I could see that there were areas in my life that I would put off and not put purposeful effort into.  I could see that I could not expect my children to put forth purposeful effort while I was not.  I needed to repent and begin to put purposeful effort toward various areas of my life into action.

One day, a week or so into this, I noticed that several things had been left undone, so I called the kids together to talk about it.  I intended to discuss what was left undone as that has been my habit, however, when the kids sat down I was led to instead ask them how they thought things were going.  I was HUGELY…  IMENSLY blessed.

One of the kids identified that the house had been in better shape since we stopped using chore charts and I could not disagree with that at all.  Daniel and Alina began talking about how they enjoyed being able to share in the chores and helping each other with the tasks.  Daniel told me that he feels like he is getting to know his sister so much better.  Deep heart level relationships IS what I am after.  They feel less burdened and feel like they can ask each other for help more and are finding themselves more willing to give help.  No more saying, “that’s not my job” because they aren’t assigned to specific jobs.  Our focus is no longer on the chore charts, but on our attitudes and how we treat each other as we work together to produce a cleaner home.  Our focus is on how we love each other. 

Each child is expected to manage specific areas and is expected to request help in a loving manner from any of their siblings in order to get the job done.  This means a child may do dishes several days in a row or not, we are no longer keeping score.  Tiana said that when this first started she did not want to help with the dishes when she was asked, seemingly out of the blue, to help.  Because she thought she would get into trouble, she chose to do the job anyway.  She told me that she no longer feels that way and now is happy to help. 

Being that my discussion did not open up with talking to them about the problems, my children opened up to a more productive discussion than ever before.  Instead of pointing out what was not being done, I asked them how things can continue to improve.  They all were able to identify areas that they need to put purposeful effort into improving on their own.  This is something I have desired for a long time.  This discussion turned out to be a joyful discussion revealing how hearts were changing and finished up with each child setting goals for themselves.

My house is not perfectly clean, but it is mostly clean most of the time and growing in loving attitudes daily.  I feel a tremendous joy in that.  We are learning to love each other with a Christ-like love in ALL our activities.  The journey continues and I daily anticipate what the Lord will be showing me in the mirror next.

1 John 5:7

… let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Wrong Relating to Household Chores in Me

Before I continue too much further I thought I would share how I have wrongly related with household chores over the years.  I grew up in a home that was very cluttered and with little to no teaching or requirements that I can recall in relation to keeping a home.  My dear sweet mother was still doing my laundry for me up through the age of 22 when I went off to be married.  In the early years of our marriage our home was pretty easy to keep mostly clean with the two of us. Once Dan and I started our family, our home was rarely perfectly clean, but I clung to this standard I created for myself of needing to have a perfectly clean home.  I wrongly equated a clean home with a happy family life, of which I experienced neither growing up.  As more children came into the picture the mess grew and I felt more burdened with housework, rarely being able to meet my own false standard.  My way of dealing with it was unloving to say the least.  I would be distracted with various things, some of them legitimate and other things not so legitimate.  In my mind I blamed the children for the mess and often dreamed of days gone by when my home was easier to clean.  At times, I would realize that I needed to train them by sitting down to clean alongside with them.  I would call them into a messy room with the intent to work with them with a loving attitude, but wrong expectations and self centered thoughts would take over and my attitude gave way to relating in anger.  I could see that I needed to develop the discipline to work with them throughout the days in teaching them to clean up after themselves.  I wasn’t disciplined myself in that area and yet hung on to the wrong expectation that they ought have this discipline.

My wrong standard turned the blessing of having guests come over into a stressful time for my children, as I would focus on deep cleaning my entire house in a day.  When the kids were younger my mom would take the kids so I could be home to clean my home alone and not have them messing things up.  The house would return to it’s normal state within the following day or two.  As they got older and I would have them help clean up, as the guest arrival time drew near I felt pressure building up in me as I began to realize my false standard wasn’t going to be met, and I would release that pressure on my family.  One day Dan let me know that this just had to stop.  I knew he was right.  The Lord got a hold of my heart and showed me that the way I was relating with my family was wrong.  I didn’t know how to press in deeper to become free of it and I continued to struggle, with some improvement, sometimes being more loving than others.  I came to a point of recognizing that my house didn’t have to be what I considered perfect, but I still hadn’t fully let go of wrong expectations and placing wrong burdens on myself which spilled over onto my children.

I developed chore charts for them and for me.  This worked on the days that I was motivated to keep after the kids to do them.  On the days I had things going on, housework did not get done.  The kids would forget to do them and some of them learned to lie about their chores being done.  Charts would be lost and I would lecture them about responsibility, which would lead to self conviction as I knew I wasn’t being the example I needed to be.  I would then soften my lecture to a kinder discussion, but without understanding the need to repent of my own wrong attitudes and behaviors, I was not able to be free of them.  I did not understand what my deep heart attitudes, intentions and motivations were.  I was teaching my kids through my example to cover their own sin with softer words and false grace. 

I would change the charts from time to time, thinking this change or that change would make a difference.  My last change was to make the common areas a “group cleaning event,” calling the chore chart “group chores.”  That seemed to make a difference since everyone was to pick out items on the list and just get them done, none were specifically assigned to an individual.  I was getting on track, but not quite there.  The kids would pick the easier chores and work slowly so the harder workers would do most of the work.  The good thing about this new chart was that cleaning the house became less stressful on the children than my previous charts, we began to work together better than ever before, but only when we were doing the group chores.  The house could easily be looking spiffy in about 20 minutes under this program, but it still only got done when I was driving it.  It wasn’t developing discipline or an ability to self govern in my children.  Sereina would have certain areas she would be willing to tidy up from time to time, but the overall attitude was that “we can’t do the job until everyone is ready to work together” on the “group chore” list.  It was the failure of this system and the self centered attitudes of “that’s not on my chore chart” or “I can’t do that now - we do that as a group” that brought Dan to want to do away with the charts.  I was not willing to “go there” as I couldn’t see how any other way could work any better and I was just plain being prideful and resistant to Dan’s suggestions. 

This past summer, I began to meet with Barbie who began telling me various truths.  The Holy Spirit led me through the process of letting go of a deep seeded spirit of anger that I had learned to deny the existence of and struggled against for years.  I hope to share that story soon.  I have also been going through the process of letting go of many wrong expectations, of which one of them was the idea that our home should stay clean or that I need to strive for a perfectly clean home.  This process was apparently necessary for me to stop resisting Dan’s ideas and let go of the burden of chore charts.

If you are wondering what this has to do with school and the Lifestyle of Learning approach to homeschooling it really has a lot to do with it.  If I was wrongly relating with housework, I was obviously wrongly relating with many more things in our home, including how we approach school.  More to come…

* * *

A BURDEN is to require something that is carried with labor or difficulty; that is grievous, wearisome or oppressive; unjustly severe; to weigh down, overload

To read more about how Jesus wants to free us and our children from the yoke of unfitting burden join Home Educated Mom on Facebook if you haven’t already and read the following discussion which is based on a book Marilyn is writing:

H.E.M.  Discussion 

Chore Charts

Chore charts seemed like a good idea, a great way to make sure everything got done in order to have a clean home.  I have used them with the kids for years now… okay really I have struggled with staying consistent in using them.  I have recently come to realize that not only do chore charts create unwilling and self centered hearts, but they seem to result in discipline being developed in the one instigating the charts… providing the one instigating the charts stays consistent.  That would not be me.

Over the years Dan and I have had conversations about my little system and how well it worked, which would result with me defending my charts and Dan ending up feeling frustrated.  My defense was that they work “when I use them properly” and that I just need to do better to make them work - "so just leave me alone!"  I wasn’t getting better at making them work, and I wasn’t open to suggestions.  My attitude was self centered.

The beginning steps of developing a Lifestyle of Learning is developing character, first in us parents before it can be developed in our children.  As I mentioned in our story under the Lifestyle of Learning tab this process of developing character in myself is what has been missing in our education process.  Thankfully the Lord led Barbie and Marilyn into my life several months back.  Barbie and, at times, Marilyn spoke and continue to speak truth to me about many things which relate to developing Godly character in myself and then, as a result, in the rest of my family.  

About three weeks ago Dan and I had a different kind of conversation about the chores which resulted in a new out outcome.  I gave up my defensiveness and listened to Dan for a change and he listened to me.  The next day we sat down with the kids and began to talk about what was happening vs. what needs to happen around our home.  We talked about the need for each of us to become “acts of service oriented” which is part of becoming “extravagantly loving.”  This would include each of us doing “more than is expected” in order to be “useful” and “helpful,” going “above and beyond” what is being asked, and “seeing a need and taking care of it” without being asked.

We began to identify natural bents that the children have in helping around the house and gave them the job of managing that area of the house.  We discussed what “being useful” for a greater purpose than ourselves looks like.  Daniel and Alina embraced our ideas with enthusiasm.  We were taking away the structure of a chart, which was difficult for Sereina to embrace since she has a natural bent towards structure.  I have come to realize that, while her need for structure is a good thing, it can be out of balance and lead to a self centered attitude and a refusal to help above and beyond what is on the chart.  Tiana was neutral on the outside, but it was evident she was not embracing the idea.  With some encouragement and further discussion Tiana and Sereina came into agreement with our new plan.  


The next few days would reveal attitudes that were and weren’t so surprising…

Lego Education

 Barbie and Marilyn (of Lifestyle of Learning) say, "Let them make a mess!"  So these past few weeks Daniel's mess education has been taking place in our living room.  

 He has built many things from his own imagination.

 He is getting a lot of experience at studying directions and then following them to build kits.  

He's been learning the value of a basic system of organization so that he can find parts easier.  He's also learning the skill picking up his mess educational materials up so that we can have use of the living room from time to time.  Daniel spends hours and hours on his education, waking up and getting right on it and working through the day until it's time for bed.

Sereina's Photoshop Painted Drawings

This is one of dozens and dozens of pictures that Sereina drew around the age 4 or so.  Her pictures during this time seemed to often include a zebra, a penguin and an elevator.  Other pictures she drew frequently were pictures of her family, which at that time included Tiana, Alina, Dan and I.

Over the years I have seen her draw, off and on, in her free time.  There was a time period that she watched the cartoon tutorials that were added to the Veggie Tale DVD's and she drew some of Veggie Tale characters.

Below are pictures she drew a couple of years ago, but recently scanned into the computer and added color by painting them with Photoshop Elements.  It's fun to watch the different directions an interest can go. 

An Elephant

 Saint Patrick from Veggie Tales, Sumo of the Opera