How You School This Year Really Won’t Matter

I get it.  As parents, we feel the pressure to make each moment matter.  And a year consists of LOTS of moments!  But what if I told you that how you school this year really won’t matter in the grand scheme of things?  

I know there are exceptions to every rule.  There will be some extreme cases where one choice leads down a dangerous path.  But over all, as long as we come out alive, we will live to see another day and go forward from there.  

You should put your best foot forward and prayerfully consider your decisions about how you will school this year.  You may pour yourself into choosing the best educational path or the best curriculum, but how you school this year really won’t matter nearly as much as your relationship with your children. How you relate to them is what will count most this year.

Our Growing Babes

Let me take a minute to talk to those of you with older children, those who are reaching their preteen and teen years–or maybe those who just act like they are!!  How we interact with our little ones is VERY important, but how we interact with our older kids is just as crucial.  This is a critical time when our kids are pulling away a bit.  Our kids who wanted to be with us all the time may not want much to do with us.  It is hurtful. It is confusing.  But it is NOT time to pull away.  We have to find a balance between helping them learn to live independently and make their own choices, as well as continuing to guide them where needed.  This is the home stretch.  We can’t give up.  

When I received a copy of Love Her Well: 10 Ways to Find Joy and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter, I realized that I had been gifted a great reminder of many things that I need to hear at this particular moment.  My daughter is almost 10, but she is embracing all things teen as quickly as she can.  She has always been mature for her age.  I also have a teenage son.  Although Lover Her Well is geared toward girls, there was a lot of applicable information about boys in there too.  My kids are amazing and they mean the world to me.  I have lots of experience with young children, but preteens and teens are a whole new ballgame–and one I don’t want to lose.  

How You School This Year Really Won’t Matter. Here are 5 Things That Will…

These are the 5 pertinent reminders I received from Love Her Well: 10 Ways to Find Joy and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter…

1.Choose the Right Moment.  Your kids will need correction and constructive criticism, but it doesn’t need to come in the middle of a happy moment of bonding.

2.The enemy, who loves to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10), particularly loves to see families struggling and falling apart.  Don’t give him the satisfaction.  Our God is bigger.  

3.Kids actually do have hard lives.  The stress and peer pressure of this generation is much more so than it was in our day.  They feel the weight of deciding and preparing for the rest of their lives now.  If we want our kids to relate to us, we need to acknowledge that their lives are not easy.

4. Anytime your child opens up to you, seize the opportunity.  You don’t know if or when it will happen again.

5.If we all live long, healthy lives, we will have more time with our kids in their adult years than we will during their short 18 years or so in our homes.  The way you parent NOW will largely determine what kind of relationship you have with them then.  Make it so you can be best friends.  

Grab Your Own Copy

I urge you to grab your own copy of Love Her Well: 10 Ways to Find Joy and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter, not simply because they gave me one to review, but because it is conversational, easy to read, and chock-full of things that you need to hear as you parent your rapidly growing children.  You can also enter to win your own copy here and get some extra gifts to help you foster a relationship with your daughter here.  I highly recommend that you use this book as a tool to maintain and build a relationship with your rapidly growing children because how you school this year really won’t matter, but your relationship with your kids will make all the difference.   

What tips do you have for raising preteens, tweens, and teens?