All About Attitude

I've been finding that my home schooling experience has lately been more about attitude than academics. Gem struggles with being overwhelmed if she doesn't get something right away. Math and piano have been the main focus of this frustration. She often explodes, hurling blame at me and anyone else close enough to come in the line of fire.

I have to admit that I understand this struggle. It's not that she can't actually get the material being taught; it's just that she doesn't want to make her brain work as hard as it has to in order to get the mastery. Work. I've kicked against it since birth. Dread, procrastination, worry, they all have been partners in the fight against me. Can you feel the weight of them?

So what is the remedy? We had a long discussion (lecture) about it this morning. We talked about casting cares on Jesus. We talked about embracing challenge. We talked about having overcome obstacles that seemed like mountains, but are now molehills (last year's math, for instance). We talked about approaching work as part of life and not living for the vacations. We talked about how pouting and blowing up only made us spew ugliness, but didn't do anything to solve the problem. We talked, and talked, and talked.

And guess what? Attitudes changed. Wow!

Now maybe we can get some school work done.

I'm so glad that even if the new math concept doesn't sink in today, something far more valuable was grasped. I expect that we will have to brush up on this subject from time to time, but for right now work isn't the enemy, a poor attitude is.