heartofdakota.com

Last year was a rough year for ds. He had attitude about many things. This year has been a completely different story. He has really put his best effort into pretty much everything. He rarely complains about any of his school work and just diligently gets it done. The toughest part of the week for him is doing his written narration. It is tough for many reasons, but he has really started giving his best effort even with this. Today was written narration day. He spent an hour doing his reading and writing his narration. He was very pleased with his narration and he felt it was one of his best yet. He was right, it was. There was only one problem, he read the wrong volume of Hero Tales so he narrated on the wrong thing! There is volume II and volume III. The pages he was to read in volume II just happened to line up perfectly with a story in volume III. I realized it right away as I started to read his narration and as his mom my heart just broke. I hated to be the one to tell him what he had done. As his teacher I knew that if he had read the instruction box closely enough he would have noticed the sections of the reading were titled differently than what he read. As his mom I just wanted to say "Don't worry about it, you did a written narration and that is what is important." As his teacher I wanted to say "You should have paid closer attention to which volume it was and so now you have to redo it." He actually solved my dilemma by willingly offering to read and do the correct narration on Saturday (we aren't around on Fridays). He was frustrated with himself, but he handled things very well so for that I am thankful. I guess it is all part of him becoming a man who owns up to his mistakes, but this kind of thing sure can be tough on a Momma.

What an awesome young man you have! Thank the LORD for the work He is doing in him. You should feel very blessed.

Blessings.

Aww! I think if you tell him what you just told us, he will be very pleased with himself! You loved his work, you've noticed how much he has matured and what a responsible young man he is.

Thanks for the kind comments. I did tell him pretty much what I said here that it was hard for me because he has been working so hard on everything. When he told his Dad about it at dinner I told him that it was really cool to see God working in him to adjust his attitude. I reminded him of how he would have reacted to the same thing last year. He said it was because he had been praying about it and he has a prayer partner in the teen group at church, another 14 year old boy, and they have been praying for each other that God would help them with their anger and attitudes.

I totally get this. Being mom and teacher both at once can be tough. It can be wearing. I remember a good friend telling me she couldn't be both anymore, and so she put her dc in ps. She wishes today that she hadn't. At the time she put them in school, she was weary, and I remember her telling me that she wanted someone else to tell her dc what they had to do, and someone else to make them do it, and someone else to tell them when they did it wrong and had to redo things, and someone else to give them grades... and she just wanted to be their cheerleader... to be the one to be told good things about her dc... and to be there for them as a support when things were going well. Of course all of that comes at a price, because she really didn't know what was going on with them the majority of the time, and it was only through a lot of extra detective work on her behalf and a ton of late night talks and tears that they made it through. I guess I've come to think it won't be easy either way, but at least with homeschooling I have time on my side to work through things. I also have the opportunity to pray with my dc when things come up, to say we're sorry to each other if emotions ran high and we had unnecessary drama in our day, and to hopefully, pass on something more than head knowledge. Reading this about Noah, Lynn, I have to say God was certainly in the works of that struggle. My devotions yesterday said, "We need to look at adversity as a bridge to being able to walk more closely with Jesus." That spoke to me so much for what we are going through with our dad (thank you for your prayers so much - I've been meaning to let you know that your message came at just the right time to lift my spirits). I think that Noah used that adversity as a bridge to walk more closely with Jesus, and that's a pretty amazing thing. Thanks so much for sharing this! I can relate.

In Christ,
Julie

What a great young man! Your work is being rewarded. This seems to be already worked out for your situation, but I must say, for better or worse, I think it also would have been OK to just stick with the narration that was done. I think it would have been OK to just point out that we need to be really careful which volume is listed in the TM in the future. We have first-hand knowledge about reading the wrong Hero Tales! Your son has company!