Be Flexible

These words were in a caption on an exercise video I did yesterday: Be flexible. They apply to a lot more things in life than stretching you body. Two small words. Seems so simple. But, oh my goodness, it is so hard for me.  There's nothing else that makes it stand out so much as homeschooling my daughter. She struggles a lot in school and I'm coming to realize she's dyslexic. It's more noticeable in some areas than others. Most recently we've started multiplying multiple digit numbers. This is one of the areas that she just didn't "get" when she was younger. I noticed that she was having difficulty getting her columns lined up. I had a stroke of genius (or, so I thought), and had her turn her paper sideways so the lines could help her form her columns. 

It wound up looking like this:

Hmmmm. That didn't work out like I hoped. So, I went to the store and bought some graph paper. I searched high and low for it, too! I finally found it on the bottom shelf with other notebook paper stacked on top of it. Apparently, someone else could use a lesson in organization.

I did draw lines on the paper to give structure to the problem working area.

Not bad, huh? The most amazing part is, she went from about 50% accuracy to nearly 80%. What a relief!

I really do enjoy homeschooling, but I do have a rigid mind set and an idealized notion of the way things should go. It's a little hard for me to accept that just because things go imperfectly, it doesn't mean that it's an epic failure.

It's been a struggle this past week. I've been second guessing myself left and right and wondering if maybe I should just enroll her in public school. But, oh my, she's in 7th grade. That's a crappy year in school for most kids, especially kids with learning difficulties.

Soooo, here's me taking a deep breath and carrying on. I'm stretching myself to continue the good work we're doing and to think outside the box when necessary. I thank God, that He is a creative God and He blessed me with a creative mind. Now to exercise it!