redirect Cultivating Faithfulness in Homeschooling

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Welcome to the third week of the Cultivating Faithfulness series! Join me and a group of wonderful women as we explore cultivating faithfulness in our lives and feeding on the faithfulness of the Lord.

Today we have my friend Erin from Water on the Floor. I ADORE this post and I think you will too. It’s exactly the encouragement I needed for our own homeschool. Make sure you stop over and follow her blog. She will bless you!

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Fulfilling the Biblical requirements of training our children can be a daunting task, especially when part of this includes homeschooling. But changing our mentality about homeschooling can make all the different in the world. So how exactly can we cultivate faithfulness in homeschooling?

We must remember that homeschooling is an extension of parenting. There are times when child training has to take precedence over finishing a page of math problems. There are too many times I try to keep academics apart from training. But they must be done together in order for either of them to be successful. I must be faithful in my duty to raise godly children, even when we are doing school.

Homeschooling is my job, not just a hobby. I have certainly spent my fair share of time floundering with this one! There have been times when I have treated my homeschool like a mini boot camp and have unintentionally crushed the spirits of my children.

For the first several months of this year, I took it to the other extreme and let my children do their own thing for most of their school time. But then I remembered, this whole idea of training my children at home is not optional. They won’t know where to go without proper guidance. And the one guiding them needs to be me.

If I am faithful in my duty to raise my children according to the Bible, then the Lord will be faithful to bless and guide us all as a family.

But the big question is how can I truly cultivate faithfulness in homeschooling? Here are some steps to lead me in the right direction.

Pray that the Lord will lead me in every homeschooling decision.

I have a bad habit of jumping the gun when it comes to homeschooling decisions. If the kids show signs that they are not longer enthralled with our current books, I look for new curriculum. If I hear enough people say good things about a new curriculum, my greed kicks in and I want it, even if what have is working!

This year I have truly begun making an effort to pray before every decision I make about our homeschool. Do we really need new curriculum? Probably not. We may need attitude adjustments, or I may need to modify things a bit. I am doing my best not to get caught up in the shiny new things that will be on a shelf covered with dust in a few months. If I am faithful to listen to the leading of the Lord, I won’t have to spend time worrying about whether or not to do something. He will give me the answer!

Schedule homeschooling time as a priority in the day.

Did you ever notice how we are always so quick to schedule those things that are most important to us? Of course we do! But what is important to God? He wants us to focus on raising our children in the image of Christ and training them to give Him glory. How can we do that when we don’t make it a priority? We can’t. So don’t let schooling become what you do in the leftover time of your day. Make sure it gets done, and do it well!

Plan ahead so I can thoroughly prepared.

For me, if I don’t plan out what we will do for school work, it doesn’t get done. I am not the type that can take things day by day. I must have a plan.

Again, this is something that needs to be prayed over. Even if it is only done a weekly basis, our homeschool days are so much more productive when everything is ready to go. I don’t lose my patience looking for things that should already be there. I don’t lose the kids’ attention while I am looking for things. Being prepared makes a huge difference.

Find encouragement when times get tough.

Most likely, as with any other job, there will be days when you are discouraged. The kids aren’t listening, the house is a mess, and you have nothing ready for dinner. What do you do? Find encouragement.

Maybe you have a friend you can talk to, maybe you need to spend some time in prayer, or maybe you need to spend some time in the Scriptures to remind you of why you are doing what you are doing. For me, I love to listen to hymns. They always remind me that God has always been faithful…and He always will be.

Weave godly instruction into all of our curriculum.

This is so important. School and spiritual training don’t need to be separate. Kids can be learning patience when they have to wait for you to check their work. They can learn joy when they celebrate with a sibling that finally figured out a problem. They can learn self-control when they would rather be doing something else besides schoolwork. I have found that some of our greatest life lessons have come in the midst of schoolwork.

It is so important to always remember that our hard work and faithfulness will reap everlasting rewards. There may be days we struggle, there may be days we want to quit, but always remember that God is faithful…all the time. If we are faithful to His callings, we can accomplish great things!