Oh what great news!
I have witnessed the same with my 11yo in preparing too! He is maturing so much before my eyes. It is so important for me to keep school lighter for him. I have noticed that if he gets behind at all (by being distracted usually), he becomes condemned and gives up. The last few days have been so busy for me for various reasons and I was not able to "keep on him" and remind him to stay focused. So he was behind. He woke up realizing that he was behind & he didn't even want to start. I gave him a reasonable goal - it was 6:45am when I woke him up and I told him if he works hard (doing catch up from the past two days) he could be totally done by 12:30! (Regardless of whether he finished all he needed to or not...) He felt hope again. I keep the expectations light so his burden is not heavy.
This situation is obviously not normal. He has been getting school done daily usually by 1:30, starting somewhere around 8:30.
The goal is always to be done before we eat lunch. We started with half days for awhile and he really got the feel for school by doing that. Once he really started breezing through (and waking up to do his school work early!!), then I knew he had caught the vision & he was ready to have more added to the day. These past few days, as I mentioned, I wasn't there to help keep him on task & it was well into the early evening that he still had school hanging over his head...we were back to where we started before HOD! Thank God He has given me this curriculum, which gives me the tools to help him to feel FREEDOM, so he isn't continually burdened by condemnation.
Again, I was just explaining how we are handling our "catch-up" time. We used to BOTH feel pressured and he was always condemned when we had gotten off track. Now, there is a renewed sense of what should be expected.
This alone has been just one of the great ways that Heart of Dakota has blessed us.
Praying for you Paige,
Mercy
PS - I'm not sure I'm quite ready to blog again. It just takes a lot of time & energy that I don't have right now. I will probably post about how HOD is working for us when I get a chance, but other than that...I'm just not feeling that push right now if you know what I mean.
