Thursday, January 6, 2011

New Year, new start

I refuse to make new year's resolutions, but I have always loved the feeling of a fresh start. It's a great time to think about all that you have accomplished and set new goals. I realized this year that it was incredibly hard for me to think of any personal accomplishments. I had no trouble thinking of all the things the rest of the family has done, but for some reason it was difficult to come up with anything for myself. Although that's not a terrible thing (I do create the environment for the family enabling them to be so successful), I would like things to be slightly different this year. So I'm working.

I'm not sure that I could even think of half of the things we've done since my last post. A few highlights were Zoë's book one piano recital, she finished her math level, we've started an anthology writing group with the Nuehring girls, Aiden is halfway done with Algebra 1, and I've continued to tweak our school days.

Words can't even begin to express how proud I've been of Zoë these last few months. She has been the poster girl for perseverance, dedication, and hard work. She set goals for both piano and math back in August and managed to meet them both. I have always known that she can do anything she puts her mind to, and the past two months have just reinforced that. It has been truly amazing (and exhausting) to help her succeed.

Aiden has hit one of the crossroads we (and lots of other people) call the dip. He's working to learn a Bach Minuet in G and has just hit his first struggle. I've watched in the last couple of months as his playing has become stagnant or even gotten worse. After thinking about things, I have realized that this is probably the first time in his life that he is doing something he actually finds difficult. The problem is that it seems to be the same for math too. He's finally working with concepts and things that take him time to understand, and he is really struggling. On Tuesday I sat down and had a long talk with him about all of this. I explained to him that these kinds of things are the biggest reason we've decided to home school them. No matter how smart someone is, the thing that sets us apart is how we get past these struggles. They were never going to find these struggles in school, and therefore never learn how to handle them. We discussed measuring success in smaller increments, and just keeping your head down and plodding along one thing at a time.

He seems to be doing a little better the last few days. Perhaps just having the chance to voice his frustration has helped some. I don't think he was even exactly sure what the problem was, but recognizing that all of us go through this can't hurt. If I can teach him how to get out of this dip, that will be the best lesson he can learn his whole life.