How homeschooling helps me bond with my kids
By Imane Fawzy Nofal
Our mothers have helped us grow into the adults we are today; they have taught us a lot, haven’t they? Yes, as mothers we are always concerned about what is best for our children. We care much about what we introduce into their lives and make sure the timing is appropriate. The first thing we think about in such situations is “is my kid ready for this?” For myself, I have always considered this an act of responsibility rather than of love. Personally, I have had an unusual experience with motherhood (you can go back to my article notes from an ungrateful mother) – it didn’t really come to me naturally. Simply put, to me, “motherhood is a journey through which women learn how to be mothers”.
In the last few months, I have chosen to home-school my twins. At first, I thought about enrolling them in nursery school … primarily, to relieve myself of the burden of trying to engage them all day in activities order than spilling my coffee, pulling my hair, slapping each other, crying, throwing tantrums, jumping over the furniture and if I flash forward, climbing up the ceiling.
During a discussion with a friend sometime ago, I learned she was homeschooling her 5 year old daughter and was thoroughly enjoying the experience. Because I admire her relationship with her daughter and thought she’s a great mother (which I don’t always see myself as), I immediately felt this was something worth doing. I accepted the challenge. Wanting to LOVE my children wholeheartedly, I am now HOMESCHOOLING my twins.
Homeschooling is basically educating your children at home by creating a child-friendly environment full of activities that’ll help them grow and develop; on a deep mental level, it is about going into a child’s mind, learning what they are interested in, introducing new things in fun and innovative ways, letting them explore, and above all accepting and embracing them as children and not being bothered by their silly childhood acts.
Fortunately for me, I was introduced to a group of ladies who care deeply about their children’s education. Our weekly gatherings are usually planned by assigning the lesson of the week to a mother who researches what is most appealing for her child and then organizes her playschool accordingly including songs, physical activities, some crafts and snack time, and we all share in the experience.
For the most part, I like that I am getting to make new friends who teach me the value of loving and caring for my children. I no longer spend time idling on Facebook, yelling at my twins because I am frustrated; I don’t leave them to cope all by themselves, on the contrary, I engage myself in their world and interact with them.
This is how my facebook status read a few weeks ago “today I came to a realization after two and a half years of being a mother, that I never knew my children and had never had any real fun with them! When I first found out I was going to be a mom, only negative emotions had come into my mind: frustration, depression and negative thoughts. Well, I won’t go into more details about that phase, but I can tell you that these days, I have realized that my children aren’t just puppets who need to be fed and have their diapers changed; their reactions and receptive abilities just amaze me. The problem is that I had never realized that children do imperfect and messy things to grow into more perfect disciplined creatures. They need much patience and contemplation on my part on how I want to mold their future. They need to scribble on papers in order to draw straight lines afterwards. I am now more for the idea of homeschooling because although children obviously can learn in any environment, it helps moms (like it did me) discover another side of themselves as well as our children.”
And yay, I DO love my kids!
Imane blogs at Express It 2 Live It
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