Confessions of a Homeschooling Mama

Yikes! We're about to dive into our seventh year of homeschooling next week! I absolutely LOVE this lifestyle and truly believe it was one of the greatest and most empowering choices we could have made for our family.

Emma is starting grade 9 and Théo is now in grade 4. They are both receiving all their education en français. Over the years, we have developed a system that really works for us, and a wonderful support network of local friends and other homeschooling families has organically grown around us, enriching our journey along the way. Knowing where to find the best resources and educational materials has made the task of planning each academic year much less daunting.

Homeschooling allows us to integrate education as a fun and natural part of a balanced life without having to compromise our physical or emotional well-being. In our household, learning happens all the time, and it's associated with feelings of joy, passion, enthusiasm, curiosity and creativity, as opposed to stress, pressure, competition, anxiety and resistance.

I am very grateful for the flexibility we have in our schedule that allows the kids to self-regulate their moods by trusting their inner-guidance system, or emotions. Nobody can perform like a robot! Sometimes, we're just not in the right state of mind to learn anything, and that's OK. Other times, creativity flows through us like a raging river and we could write an entire play, or a song, or paint the Mona Lisa all over again. Although we do have a weekly schedule, the kids are always encouraged to follow their hearts and honour their true feelings.We make a point of spending lots of time outdoors too. The kids know more about gardening and plants than I ever did at their age.

Every day is not always smooth and perfect, because life naturally has its ups and downs. That's one of the things I love the most about homeschooling: we can take the time to allow and work through the tough emotions, the resistance and the negative thoughts when they show up, because they will, and they are welcome here. In fact, they are healthy, whereas suppressing, repressing or projecting negative thoughts and feelings are extremely unhealthy strategies, but they are often used unconsciously as coping mechanisms when there is no room for an alternative. Releasing or dealing with negativity directly is generally frowned upon or considered too "disruptive" at school or at work, so we learn to tuck it into our little box until it busts open again by the next unpredictable trigger.

In our home, there is space for imperfections and disruptions. Actually, some of the greatest learning happens when we work through our tough, uncomfortable emotions. Once these are understood, surrendered and released, magic happens. Boundaries are removed. Fears are overcome. Energy, joy and lightness return. Chez nous, holistic well-being is valued over academic perfection. Individuality and curiosity are encouraged through a curriculum that is flexible and adapted to a unique child, not a system. Compassion, mindfulness and kindness are taught and valued over popularity, or conforming to the current norm or trend.

The purpose here is not to criticize the actual education system, as it is simply a by-product of our current society and its values. We're all doing the best we can right now. I know many wonderful teachers who give their hearts and souls to their students daily. Many children thrive in schools, and as the world becomes more conscious, I believe our social structures will radically change as well. In the meantime, I am grateful to have the option to enjoy this very special time with my kids.

Simply watching the daily news is enough to see that we live in a world that values productivity and relentless hard work above joy, well-being and inner-peace; competition over sharing and cooperation; success over compassion and mindfulness; materialism over spirituality. There is hope for the future, as we are changing it this very instant with our collective thoughts and intentions. But are we aware of this? Are our children aware of the power they hold?

Here, in our humble home and school, we learn that the most effective and direct way to change the world is to start by changing ourselves first -to fully embody the changes we wish to see outside of ourselves-, as Gandhi expressed so eloquently. So each day, we learn with love, with presence, with patience and forgiveness. We learn to love and accept ourselves fully so that we may love others unconditionally. We aim to raise our level of consciousness so that the world may also become a wee bit more aware and loving. Class is never dismissed at our school of life. Thanks for reading!

P.S. I recently wrote about emotional intelligence and self-regulation in a printable document called "Dealing with Strong Negative Emotions: A Guide for Parents and Teachers." It is free to download on my website.

All the best,

Lise Villeneuve
Creator of Conscious Kids (aussi disponible en français!)
www.lisevilleneuve.com

What I Saw Broke My Heart Today...

Photo Credit

Today I witnessed something that truly broke my heart. I was at the grocery store focusing on different kinds of Naan bread, to be exact, when I heard a woman next to me harshly yelling at her two or three year old son who was sitting at the front of the cart. She said "No, you're not allowed to touch that, now I have to bring it back and take another one." She then gave the little boy not just one, but three hard slaps on his left shoulder. Tears were rolling down the infant's big cheeks, as he was holding his shoulder in pain.

When the (pregnant) mother left to go grab another one of whatever it was her child had touched, the little boy looked at me and it's as though I could feel his despair all through my body. His little brown eyes were saying "help me, what's going on, why I am being punished, what have I done, am I bad?" My heart ached for him, and to be honest, I just instinctively wanted to rescue him and shower him with love and affection. The mom came back and off they went, but I could still hear that boy crying across the store for the entire duration of our shopping trip.

I asked myself what I could do (besides sending love and light to that child and his mother). I could give the mom my phone number and offer to babysit her boy once in awhile in order to allow her to get the proper rest and care she needs, but there's a strong chance that would insult and make her defensive. I could call the police (social services), but that wouldn't solve anything in the long term, and the sad thing is I'm sure there are cases that are much, much worse than what I witnessed today. So I decided to at least write about it.

What I feel towards the mom is compassion, because I know she can only operate from her current level of consciousness. If she were able to act differently, she would have, but many unconscious conditionings are still at work within her. Perhaps her own parents treated her this way. She is probably completely unaware that the anger she felt and directed towards a helpless child comes from deep within her, not from her son's behaviour. Nobody can make us feel anything unless that emotion is already present inside us. The many triggers in our lives make us react, they remind us that we have inner-wounds, but they are not the real cause of our feelings. They show us exactly where we have some healing to do. Nobody's perfect, but we can always strive to do better.

I know that beyond all the madness and cruelty of this world, everything is in Divine perfect order when it is perceived from a higher perspective. Nothing is random, including the family a soul chooses to incarnate in. Still, it's excruciatingly painful to watch beautiful, radiant, innocent, helpless children be the recipients of anything less than Love. My wish is that all parents make a committed effort to become as conscious as possible, for the sake of their own children.

Warmly,

Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com

Homeschooling A Tweenager: OMG!

I love homeschooling my kids, but let's be honest, some days require more patience / presence than others, especially with a tweenager who can be extremely stubborn at times! Today was one of those days. Sigh. I guess I can't expect Emma to be fully functional after a weekend of sleepovers and celebrations with her friends until the wee hours of the morning. I'm kinda jealous actually. Lol. I take her grumpiness today with a grain of salt because I know how important it is for her to hang out with her friends. It helps me keep "the post-party mood" in perspective.

I've learned a lot from the book The Conscious Parent by Shefali Tsabary, actually. What a fantastic book for any parent! The first thing I try to remember when the kids are being difficult is to NOT take their moods, behaviours, or misconducts personally. I remind myself that they are having trouble expressing an emotion appropriately and these negative behaviours are really a call for help. I have to take a deep breath and do my best to stay present and non-reactive. I try to observe the situation as best I can and validate what my child is feeling or saying without thinking "she is doing this to provoke me, I'll show her who's the boss!" Obviously, it can be very challenging to keep our cool, especially as our children get older and become experts at pushing our buttons!

What I find works best with my kids is when I sincerely demonstrate to them that I am on their side, even though sometimes I have to be firm and make rules / set limits they don't like. I explain to them why I've made these choices and how they're ultimately for their own benefit. I might ask them what they would suggest instead as a solution to the current situation. When they feel like we are on the same team, as opposed to me just being the disciplinarian and the boss, there is much less opposition and resistance. Emma pouted for a good while today. I listened to her, gently reminded her that thoughts create emotions, then gave her some space. After about thirty minutes, she came to me in the kitchen and spontaneously gave me a big hug with a sigh of release. Aw.

The "I'm really on your team" approach leaves room for dialogue, and our kids are more likely to open up to us about what is really bothering them. Let's face it, the tantrums are always a superficial expression of a deeper emotion that wants to be expressed and resolved. That's our role as parents, to help our children through the tough times instead of abandoning them when it's inconvenient or embarrassing for us to deal with their drama.

What are some of your biggest challenges with your children? What do you think are the underlying emotions behind their strong reactions? Is there a way that you can help them navigate through these choppy waters?

Warmly,

Lise
Health Coach and Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com

"Mom, You Are Waking Up My Pain-Body!"

Something pretty cool happened this morning, but first, let me back up a little. Yesterday, as the kids and I were enjoying lunch, I was telling them about the realization I had this week. I wrote about it in my previous blog (Help! What Is Happening To Me?). In short, I told the kids that I was in a horrible mood for a few days but couldn't really put a finger on the exact cause. Well, this mood of mine turned out to be quite a lesson for all of us!

I explained to them that our thoughts create our emotions, so generally, when we start to feel bad, we can ask ourselves what thoughts may have created these negative emotions. Of course, the majority of our thoughts are involuntary and unconscious, which makes this exercise challenging at times. In my case, my dark mood just seemed to come out of nowhere, and being in that negative state of mind almost felt addictive and pleasurable. Emma said "Yes, I feel that way too sometimes when I'm in a bad mood. I kind of like it and I don't want to stop it." I then added "You're right, and I think I figured out why negativity, complaining and resistance have this addictive, pleasurable quality to them, which make them feel almost normal and beneficial to us." Why, mom?

Because they strengthen our ego. It's a tricky thing to explain the ego to children, but I basically told them that the ego is not the "real you". The real you is your spirit, and the ego includes your thoughts, your emotions, your physical body, your reactions and your opinions. I said "you see this cup? You can look at it, touch it, smell it, right? You are observing the cup, but you are not the cup." It's kind of the same thing with your thoughts, emotions and reactions. You can observe them, feel them, acknowledge them, but they are not the real you. The ego wants to make you believe that the real you IS those things, but that's an illusion! The real you is the awareness behind these things that are "happening" in your life, in your body, in your mind.

Why does the ego trick us like this? Because it's basically a big scaredy-cat! It's afraid of not being important enough, it's afraid of being alone. The ego believes it's separate from everything, but your true self knows that it's connected to everyone and everything. So, when we are negative, when we complain, it feels good to our ego because we tell it how "right" it is and how separate we are from everyone / everything else. In reality, we've just been punked by our ego!

Where am I going with this? Well, keeping our negative thoughts in check and focusing on positive ones instead is certainly a step in the right direction, but this still feeds our ego! Why? Because we are still identified with our thoughts! We are still deriving our sense of identity from our mind, instead of being the witness of our thoughts. And? We'll, that's fine, but it will inevitably create suffering for us. For as long as we identify with our ego (i.e, we take things very personally as opposed to witnessing them from a higher, more neutral perspective), we will keep feeding that inner-field of energy that holds all our suppressed pain and negative emotions. Yup, I'm talking about the "pain-body."

No matter how positive you are, if your sense of self is ego-based, your pain-body will eventually wake up from its dormant stage and feed on the negativity your ego craves! The pain-body is like a hungry monster hiding inside each one of us. Once he comes out, he can be very hard to control. He makes us feel angry, he makes us say and do things we regret sometimes, he makes us believe we "are" it. But we know better now, don't we? We are not our thoughts, our emotions and our reactions, we are the witness behind these. All we can do when the monster comes is to be as present as possible and let the emotions pass without fuelling them with more negative thoughts. Emma said this sounded "really freaky". She's right!

And now for the more entertaining part of this story. This morning, Theo (5) came into my room and started to get angry about something he wanted immediately. I told him he was going to have to be a little more patient, then he started threatening to hit me, he started taking some of my things and even shouted. Before I even said a word, he paused, looking reflexive. I said "what?". He replied "you remember what we talked about yesterday at lunch?" Yes, I said. He continued with "you are waking up my pain-body!" I was amazed! I congratulated him for noticing that. "You felt it in your body, didn't you, and you noticed it! Good for you!" And just like that, the mood stopped! I have to say, my ego felt validated!

However, about 20 minutes later, the monster came back...with a vengeance! Theo was now yelling, kicking, he was furious because his sister accepted to do the job he had refused. I know that it's during these times that we especially need to be present with our kids. Putting them in a time-out is like saying "shut up, what you are feeling is not important, your tantrum is inconvenient for me right now." Instead, it's our job to help them navigate their feelings and to show them appropriate ways to express their overwhelming emotions. The truth is, all emotions are acceptable, they are a part of being human, and when they are not allowed to be expressed, they remain in the body and eventually create neurosis and illness.

Theo is very aware that hitting is not acceptable. He knows the immediate consequence for hitting (he loses money from his earnings jar), and when he does, I simply say "you know hitting is not acceptable" and I take the money away without getting emotional, angry or reactive. I try to remain as present as possible. As long as he is not doing something inappropriate or harmful, I let him express his anger, and I try to validate his point of view. "When Emma decided to do the job you refused to do, that made you very angry, didn't it?" This usually helps to calm him down. I also remind him that it's ok to feel the way he does, and that soon, he will feel better. I tell him that I love him and that I want to help him feel good again. The rest is all about being fully present, non-reactive and patient. I remind myself not to take this tantrum personally. Theo calmed down, came and sat on me, I gave him some cuddles, and the storm was over. The pain-body expressed itself and then went back into its dormant stage once again. Thank you, Life, for giving us these intense "Pain-Body 101" lessons! Until the next time!

Warmly,

Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com