Mom Delights Homemaking and Homeschooling

You wake up feeling refreshed and ready for one of those instagram-perfect mornings where the house is quiet and you and your children sip tea and nibble on muffins by candle light while you read aloud Bible verses and poetry. Sigh. But then reality hits you. Your little ones come into your room whining, “Mommy, we’re hungry!” and you remember you FORGOT to buy more cereal and milk. So you scramble out of bed and waddle down to the kitchen, where you realize you’ll have to cook something. After rummaging about in the cupboards and fridge, you decide there are only enough ingredients available to make either pancakes or oatmeal, and pancakes appeal more to your stomach, so you get out a skillet and set it on the stove. While the oil is heating in the pan, you start mixing up your award-winning cinnamon flap jacks. As you pour your very first cake, your kids are standing around watching, their lips smacking with anticipation, and you feel a bit of triumph that you have been able to overcome and conquer in dire circumstances. Just then you realize—you don’t have a pancake flipper! There is that lovely pancake sizzling happily on the skillet, but in a second or two it will become hard and charred like a hockey puck if you don’t flip it—so the search is on. Everyone starts looking high and low, pulling out all the stuffings from the pantry and the cupboards, making more mess and increasing the chaos as you race against the clock. Just as you are about to give up hope, you remember that you put the spatula in the dishwasher the day before, but you forgot to turn it on. Frantically, you open the dishwasher and stand back as the smell overwhelms you for a moment. Then you reach in and grab the tool you need, slamming the door as quickly as possible. You reach for some dish washing liquid to scrub the spatula with, but realize the bottle is empty, so you have to scramble some more to find a full one. You look over to realize there is a bit of smoke rising from the pan—so you move the other dirty pans from off the other burners and place the pancake pan there so it will slow down the cooking process. Finally, your spatula is clean and dry, and you can flip the pancake, but, alas, the bottom is black, and so, instead of flipping it onto the plate of a desperately crying infant, you must throw it into the trash and start over again...with your children whining pitifully and pulling on your Pj’s. Does this sound familiar? If we’re honest, I think we’ve all been there are few times. It doesn’t matter how much enthusiasm you have, or how many wonderful purposes you’ve discovered, or what sorts of goals you have set; if you don’t have discipline, you will self-sabotage everything you set out to do. (Ask me how I know this!) ____________________________________________________________________________ We have been discussing what it means to have your best homeschool year yet, and we’ve covered these three elements so far: 1. Enthusiasm 2. Purposes 3. Goals. If you’re new to Mom Delights, or you haven’t been around in a while, I believe it would bless you to go over the posts covering these elements, and if you are listening on YouTube the playlist will be linked in the notes. Today we are going to cover discipline of ourselves, our children, and how it affects our homeschooling lives. At the end we are going to talk about Charlotte Mason’s motto with her explanation, which I think you will find quite interesting. Now, to continue with the program… ____________________________________________________________________________ When you homeschool, there is so much freedom. You get to decide what you will learn, how you will learn it, in what order you will learn it. You get to tailor your learning to fit the needs of your child. You get to enjoy the natural flow of life. But, as with anything good, along with the enjoyment comes the responsibility. If you want breezy, happy days with your children, you must do the hard work of laying the foundation for them. You have to overcome your own tendencies to live out of control—in the ways you spend your money, the ways you eat, the ways you spend your time. You also have to train your children so they, also, can be in control of themselves. No, this is not psychology, this is simply common sense, and it comes out of the laws God placed in the earth from its very creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Genesis 1: 1-2 As you can see, God started with chaos, and out of it He made order. He is a God of order—as we witness in all of nature. It is a theme throughout His book that He sets all of nature in its place and keeps each element right where it should be; the stars in their courses, the seas and the waters under the earth from overflowing the earth. He has a purpose for all things, and it’s only when His creation steps out from His purposes that evil and sorrow result. Cancer is a good illustration of this. It is a process of good, healthy cells growing out of control and becoming chaotic, eventually sucking the life out of one’s entire body. Lack of discipline is a lot like that. When we are out of control, anything we try and do becomes chaotic, and it eventually sucks out the vitality of our existence. We can’t live well without discipline, and we can’t teach our children without it, either. The first place we apply discipline is with ourselves. Now, before you get out a club and start beating yourself over the head with self-loathing over your lack of self-discipline, I would like to share something with you. His grace. What is His grace? It is the ability He gives you to fulfill His requirements. It’s like pulling up to a road tollbooth and the attendant asking you for $3, and then the attendant paying the $3 for you. God requires us to be self-disciplined, but then He gives the ability to us. It’s included in the package of gifts we get when we walk by the Spirit: When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Galatians 5:19-25 It’s also mentioned here in 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. It’s already in there; it’s part of you as a believer in Christ. You just have to activate it by living by renewing your mind and walking by the Spirit—by reforming your brain patterns via His Word and being sensitive to the voice of God as He leads you in your daily living. If you live this way, you may still have days when you must scramble to find something to eat for breakfast, but this will be a rare occurrence brought about by outside circumstances, not by your overindulgence or laziness. Instead of doom-scrolling, your time will be well-spent. You will feel better, you will look better, and you will be able to respond to the demands of your life more sweetly because you are not afraid of what could happen next. You will become like the Proverbs 31 woman: Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future. Proverbs 31:25 As you become more disciplined, it will be easier to discipline your children. Instead of correcting in spurts, you will develop the strength of consistency. ___________________________________________________________ Now that we’ve dealt with you, let’s deal with your children. Now, I know there are many theories about child discipline floating around out there, and a lot of them have their merits. But most begin with bias, and come from some scientifically-controlled study done by clinicians with clip boards. Few, if any, ever consult with the soldiers in the trenches where the real work is being done, and even these are skewed by limited understanding and subjective observation. So, instead of trusting these, I have decided to do something radical; I have decided to consult the Owner’s Manual given to me by the Creator of us all—the Bible. This is what God has said about discipline: No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. Hebrews 12:11 That’s what we want—in our desire to sit quietly in the morning with our children and sip tea, we are desiring the “peaceful harvest of right living,” but we have to go through the unpleasant times first. We have to plant the seeds of order if we want to live peacefully. And then there is the tilling and the weeding and the watering. Let’s consult with that entire section in Hebrews: And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the LORD’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.” As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it me