9 January 2006

The Perfect Home

We have been having a chat with other homeschooling families regarding the "disasters" that seem to strike with frightening regularity in our homes. As many homeschooling families are spread far and wide a common method of understanding the inner workings of other families is via blogs, web sites, articles or email groups. There is only one problem with this method.
These sources mostly record the happier things in life. Like any journal, or even our own memories, we record the good things. If our memories were dominated by the "disasters" it would be very easy to become discouraged. In fact those type of books or sites have limited appeal.

We are not destined to have a "perfect" home. The home in which everything has a place, everything is in that place and the furniture, walls and floors are spotless and pristine will not be our house. "Home and Gardens" is unlikely to drop in for an article.
Thank goodness for that! Our home is a co-operative affair. All family members contribute to the cleanliness and order (as well as mess and disorder) and that is as it should be.
I have used the word disasters above in inverted commas ("") because they are really just the normal day to day disturbances of the plans we make. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" should be the basis of all our plans.
In reading the history of our adventures in this blog we have mentioned many incidents which could be called "disasters" but in reality they are better described as growth experiences, or better still, "Shared Experiences". It is these unplanned events - and how we handle them - that make family life the adventure it really is.
The benefit of homeschooling is that you are actually there for more of these events.
Each of these experiences provides an opportunity to teach and learn for all involved. Staring a conversation with, "Remember when xxx cut his head, or yyy broke her arm" leads to the memories of how everyone handled the situation and even more importantly how it turned out OK after all.
(BTW The photo above is of our two youngest "helping" clean up the kitchen)

1 comment:

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