Seton Magazine Catholic Homeschool Articles, Advice & Resources
Raising kids Catholic is what home schooling is all about for us Catholics.
However, sometimes parents lose sight of the big picture and focus too much on the immediate picture. When the immediate picture is not everything they want it to be, they become agitated and upset.
I recall attending one group meeting with several parents at which a mother told of her distress that her twelve-year-old son did not want to do his schoolwork, any subjects at all. The mother was almost on the verge of tears. After speaking with her for some time, all of us in the group were amazed to discover how much she was accomplishing. I remarked at how many blessings she had received. God has showered her with blessings! But she didn’t know it.
We learned that this mother was teaching several children at home in addition to running a business in her home. In addition, this young mother was attending college classes by correspondence at home. In her Biology class, she and her children dissected a pig!
This mother admitted that while it was a constant strain to teach her twelve-year-old boy, and he was constantly fighting her about doing his formal school assignments, he picks up books and reads them, especially books about airplanes and pilots. He does a whole lesson in math in twenty minutes, almost every day.
By the time this mother had finished telling her story, it was an obvious testimony to the Catholic supermom! Her life was a testimony of love and sacrifice for her family, and a testimony to the abundant blessings of Jesus and Mary on her family.
This story is important for additional reasons. This mom came to the meeting in a depression. Her face was drawn and her voice shook, and there seemed to be tears in her eyes. But as we recognized her blessings and her accomplishments, she began to smile and even laugh.
So many mothers go to home schooling support group meetings looking for help or for encouragement. If you are a home schooling mother in such need: run, do not walk, to a nearby home schooling support group meeting. Try to find a Catholic group if you can.
If you are an experienced home schooling mother, if you are now coasting along (or fairly well coasting along), take time to go to a nearby support group meeting. Give the necessary words of encouragement to other mothers who need to hear your testimony. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to say the particular words which are needed by other home-schooling mothers.
We are told to love our neighbor. Let’s start with loving our fellow home schooling mothers. Love enough to give away the treasure you have, the solution to the problems and concerns so many families are facing on a daily basis.
Take a few hours, one evening a month, to offer encouragement or support, to share your Catholic viewpoint. Show others that Catholic home schooling means making daily sacrifices of love for your family, as well as others. Besides hugging your spouse and kids, have you hugged a fellow home schooling mother lately?
If you cannot find a Catholic home schooling support group, perhaps you can consider starting one, even if there is only one other family. Our particular perspective, our understanding of the cross and the meaning of daily sacrifice, our devotion to the Blessed Mother and Holy Mother Church, our prayer life, our daily reading of the Bible and the use of the sacramentals, such as the rosary and scapular, give us Catholics a special and deep uniting bond. This unique bond can help us to console as well as to counsel, to love as well as to lead.
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