Tears happen

I'm not going to say that homeschooling is easy, no one EVER should. I find myself getting frustrated daily. Some days, if I am completely honest with you, I WEEP, horrible ugly tears while screaming prayers (in my bedroom without children nearby) at God. I know he called me to do this incredible thing, to teach my children, and to raise them the way he calls me to in the Bible. I know he has placed it on my heart that I am the most qualified person to teach my children during this time of their lives, but this is the hardest job EVER!!!! Today sitting at the table next to my brilliant son, who understands math so easily but is also very easily distracted I helped him write out his math problem and then patiently waited for him to accomplish the math and give me the answer to only a portion of the problem before us. When the answer didn't come I urged him to use the methods that we have always used in the past to figure it out, methods that he has successfully used several times in the past, and that I know very well he is able to do. When the answer still didn't come my blood began to move a bit faster in my veins and the frustration was mounting but I kept my cool and urged him again to focus on the task at hand and please do this math work in front of him. He still did nothing. Now this is blatant evidence that this child just doesn't feel like doing it, because he wasn't even trying. He didn't give me a wrong answer (which would have been acceptable), he didn't give me any evidence that he was even attempting to do the work, he just fiddled and wiggled, and talked, corrected his sister when she was saying something backward about her own school work, attempted to get his brother out of trouble (he wasn't in trouble and wasn't even in the same room). The list of things he was doing instead of his math (with me sitting right next to him) is long. Did we make it through math? Yes, but only after I screamed in frustration, went to my room to have a huge horrible cry, and then returned to apologize to my poor children for their mother's bad attitude. What changed? My son, after hearing his mother loose it. While I had a hard cry in the bedroom he suddenly realized the stress he was putting me through and quickly did 2 problems, not just the portion of one problem I had been asking him to do for 15 minutes (having done one problem very slowly before this one was even attempted). After finishing these two problems he came to my room and gently knocked on the door and apologized to me and told me he had done two problems and did I want to see them. I pulled myself together and did come see them, and we continued through the day rather ok... not perfect but we made a lot of progress. Do I condone a person like myself loosing their cool and screaming at their child? No absolutely not, but it does happen. I don't have a clue why God said I was qualified to deal with this, I don't know that I am qualified, but if there is anyone qualified I'm probably the closest so I'm continuing to do it. When people say they don't have the patience to home school I laugh and answer 'neither do I'. It is the truth. I'm walking in obedience to the calling I feel God has placed on my life and I'm doing my absolute best. We have really great days, and we have some really awful days, but the end comes, the work gets done, and the children are smarter, and completely safe as well as loved at the end of the day, so I guess I'm succeeding. I'm a failure, but God is not. He asked me to do a great number of things that I feel absolutely incapable of doing.. here's a big one... SIN. He asked me NOT TO SIN!!!! and I do that every day (I'm not counting, I'm just sure I do it no matter how hard I try not to). He even knew I would and sent Jesus to die in my place before I ever even did a single thing that was wrong.. and I knowing that he did it continue to nail him to the cross daily with my wrong attitudes, filthy heart and bad behavior... not because I want to, but because I'm a failure, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love me, not at all, if he didn't love me he wouldn't have sent Jesus to die for my wrong behavior long before I ever even had a single chance to behave wrongly. I am a work in progress. Just like my children. They are a work in progress, every day I'm seeing the progress, every day I'm most likely a part of the progress, but every day I have to keep at it. There is no break for a mother. Not a home schooling mother, not a working mother, not a stay at home mother who is sending her children out of the home for school, but in my humble and honest opinion there is NO break for the mother who teaches her children at home. She works hard all day, has to keep her cool all day, has to maintain her home all day, has to schedule every event and appointment either into the school day or around it, there is no time when she is child free, there is no time she is not working for or with her children. I want you all to know it is ok to have a meltdown once in awhile... this job is hard. Be careful with your children during these meltdown's, they need to know that mommy has a breaking point but that she is still firmly keeping the expectations she has for her children (adjusting when necessary but not just because the children push her buttons too much too often). Let them see your emotions in a safe way. Once about a year ago I had a very similar meltdown and I called my mother, at my wits end, and I told her that amazingly after my meltdown my son got to work and got it all done, and I felt really guilty, like I had manipulated him into doing his task, and she said 'no, you let him see that he can hurt you, and like a good son he wanted to rectify it.' We do need to be strong for our kids, but we also need to show them that they can hurt us, and put a stop to it. I can't say I have the answers, honestly I don't have a single answer at this moment. I'm worn out, stressed out, wondering what God has in mind to have given me the most distracted stubborn kids on the planet, but I love them all so much. I can't put my easily distracted children into a public school system and watch them fail, or worse, make them work all day long because they got distracted while in school and then came home to do school all over again. Here is my only advice. Breathe. This too shall pass, and when it does you'll be one day closer to graduation!