Mudspark Life Learning

The journey of parenting I find myself getting so angry about how freaking hard it is to be a mom. Especially an attachment parenting, homeschooling, developing-the-selfhood-of-my-kids mom. And then I feel so guilty for feeling this way - my kids are healthy, smart children, and I chose this path, this role of super mom. I'm caught between feeling like I should stop whining and that it IS hard and I need a break already. I need kids to respect me. And I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. Such a mish-mash of feelings. I was praying about all these feelings - anger, exhaustion, guilt, gratitude, overwhelm - and as often happens if we are opening to listening to the Reply, I gained a bit of insight. It occurred to me that I have carried a perception of this time of life - mom with kids at home - as the Most Important Phase of Life. I've often told people that I've wanted to be a Mom since I realized I could be one - at about age five. Then and now I have (unconscio...

How do I choose the right homeschool curriculum?  This is the first thing homeschooling parents ask. They are comparing their ideas of school to their projected ideas about homeschooling, thinking they have to cover EVERYTHING that school "covers" and do it well. Obviously we want our kids to get a good education, whether that means school or homeschool. I remind parents, though, that regular school is about managing 30 kids with divergent needs. Homeschooling is about one kid, or maybe three or seven. These are kids who have grown up with your rules and guidelines. In school teachers spend several WEEKS working on procedures like lining up, turning in homework, and using inside voices before they even get to  actual curriculum. Then their days are divided into blocks of time broken up by recess, trips, assemblies, and those very procedures. Homeschool doesn't have to work like that, and you can get lessons done in much less time, whether you do formal lessons to go...

Want to give your kids a world class education without spending any money? Here are my suggestions for a well-rounded home-based education that requires little or no money. Assume that all books are obtained through the library (learn how to use your local library's inter-library loan system). Also see what your local public school system has to offer homeschoolers; my kids participate in a once-a-week enrichment program that provides us with free curriculum. Museums often offer discounts to homeschooling families and groups, and they also offer free days. Trade lessons with friends: maybe you can offer child care or help remodeling a kitchen or canned tomatoes in trade for music lessons or mentoring. Visit thrift stores regularly and look through the education, books, and nic-nack sections - I've found science kits, books, unused anatomy coloring books, a decent globe, pencils, and book shelves for almost nothing at our local thrift stores. Book swaps are another great place t...

Announcing my forthcoming book, Zen & the Path of Mindful Parenting: Meditations on Raising Children . Available October 2015! Amazon will email you when it's ready to order: I share with you honest and sometimes funny experiences as a parent as I seek to grow myself through the trials and tribulations of raising kids. I weave Buddhist and secular mindfulness teachings with the Hero's Journey, which I think the path of parenting is all about.

Supermom? I recently read an article in a parenting magazine about how parents today spend too much time directly attending to our kids and trying to be super-parents, and it's wearing us out. How in the past, parents could send their kids out to play and not see them until dinner time. And I got this flash of understanding as to why so many parents can't understand why in the world I would choose to homeschool. Why they often feel slightly threatened by my homeschooling. They think that by homeschooling I am spending even MORE focused attention on my kids, and they are already tapped out with the homework-driving-to-practice-school-drop-off-plus-quality-time rigamarole. How do I possibly do that plus teach them and be with them ALL DAY LONG???  I don't. Learning Through Living What people don't realize is that homeschool is not business-as-mainstream-usual plus being their teacher all day. The moms (and dads) who try that approach burn out pretty much...

People who don't homeschool often don't realize there is often very little "home" in homeschooling. We spend a lot of time going and doing. This week we've explored a wetland, gone to see a play, spent hours at gymnastics, gone to a history museum, gone to the library twice, and run to a kid's consignment store to clear out toys. Then when we are home, much of the time is spent on the computer, viewing and interacting with the world. With all that going and doing, plus the high energy of sun and heat, and the lack of our during-the-school-year weekly enrichment program, my kids are actually suffering. They are having trouble sleeping and getting sick. I gave them supplements, rubbed my anxious gymnast's shoulders nightly, instituted nightly epsom salt baths (it does help), and talked about feelings. But it hit me today: the problem is all the going. We've forgotten to ground in home. Grounding in home makes us feel safe, and it's one of the gifts...

You know what really irks me? Healers like my acupuncturist and chiropractor telling me that I just need to put my kids in school already. I get that parents who send their kids to school just don't understand what my life is like. I get they think it's a little crazy. But they do not need to tell me every single time I go get a treatment that I need to change this part of my life. It's not helpful. I'm working on the courage to say to them next time it comes up: "I'm not going to send my kids to school, so it's not really helpful to keep telling me to do so." That is all.

My daughter's riding lesson wasn't until 2, and it was a gorgeous spring day. 62 and sunny. We decided to pack a picnic and go to the lake just north of where our riding instructor lives. This took some doing, as I am not eating any sugar, starch (like white rice), gluten, or dairy. I made brown rice balls rolled in sesame and a little salt, and a kale salad with apples, raisins, and grated carrots. I threw in the gluten free banana pancakes left over from breakfast (they have potato starch and white rice flour in them so I didn't eat any) and some fruit. We were ready to go. When we arrived at the lake, it was WINDY. The kind that takes your breath away. We hadn't dressed for the wind, which can make a warm day really chilly in dry Colorado. So we hiked down the hill, over horse prints pressed into the dry mud, and discovered a little hollow with a pond just off the main beach area. To the kids it was a secret haven to play in, but the first things I noticed after ...

You know how you thought that you would raise your kids, but in many ways they are raising you? Yes, you are the parent - but they are the teachers, pushing you to be more than you thought you could ever be. Becoming a mother was like a shamanic death, releasing the old self and struggling to figure out what being a mother actually means. Homeschooling is like that, too. Here I thought I'd get to use my stellar teaching skills to be at the helm of my children's education. That we would fall into this comfy rhythm of my teaching and their loving to learn. Crafts, science experiments, writing projects, math problems - all would flow joyfully along here at the old kitchen table. These days, my kitchen table isn't even the same as it was. Literally - we bought a new one to fit better into our house. I keep rearranging rooms, trying to make a family of four who spends a lot of time at home, and all our stuff, fit into our smallish house. The dining nook we bought almost fi...

My meditation of late is to remind myself that I am in charge. When my daughter starts to freak out (she has massive melt downs, usually from a low frustration tolerance), or the kids are fighting, or everyone is moving as fast as snails to get out of the house, my blood pressure rises, and I silently say to myself - "I am in charge." My blood pressure lowers. I relax a little. I am able to see how best to respond, rather than reacting in anger. This anger, which can flare so fast and big, usually stems from my feeling powerless. When I remind myself that I am in charge - not my daughter's anger or the clock or my toddler's need to wear that one filthy outfit - then I regain just enough sense of power within to settle down. And that's the key - it's not "in charge" in a "power over" another person kinds of way. While I do have a certain level of power over the children and the day and whatever, ultimately I don't - I can't control t...

One of our more central homeschooling activities is reading aloud. Over the past year or so, my daughter and I have enjoyed my reading to her Grace Lin's novels , the Ramona Quimby books , and (currently) the Little House books .  While reading Lin's books, we ate Taiwanese food and discussed the differences and similarities between Taiwan and China, and (since my daughter is 7), Japan and China and other Asian countries. We wrote to Grace Lin and entered a giveaway of hers, and received a hand-written post card and bookmark from her. It sits proudly on the refrigerator. The Ramona books inspired us to make slow cooker beef stew of all random things. We examined how the books had been written over a period of thirty-five years, and discussed how certain things hadn't changed between my mother's childhood, mine, and my daughter's. Other things have changed, like phones. In Ramona, they have one phone in the hallway, attached to the wall. No cell phones, no computers....

I caught myself thinking this morning - Why is this parenting stuff so hard? Why didn't I read everything I needed to know before my kids were born and get it all figured out long ago? (As if that were even possible.) Then I realized how I let myself learn about any other subject as I go - while writing a book, keeping chickens, gardening. I don't see it as a failure, but a journey deepening into something I value. Somehow learning to parent as I go feels like a failure. And into my mind popped the image of my daughter (age 7) melting into a pile of self revulsion because she can't draw or play piano or spell a word perfectly the first or second or third time. Hmm, I thought - while my response is less dramatic, it's the same pattern. Expecting myself to be beyond perfect from square one. Time to let myself grow as I go, even as a parent, and to show my daughter my process. I've tried to show her my mistakes and learning in other areas - sewing, cooking,...