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Real Life Homeschooling
Real-Life Homeschooling typography

with
Ashley Wiggers

Learning & Growing Together
It

doesn’t get more real than family. We have a front row seat to every bad attitude. We see all the fears and frustrations. We see the worst come out at times.

We also see the best!

We see the tender hearted moments and the growth that occurs over time. There’s no place to hide when you’re together all day, every day!

While Lincoln was helping me with lunch one day, he shoved a bowl full of mac n’ cheese across the table to his brother and it went straight overboard, falling epically to the ground and spilling out everywhere.

collage of picture showing different homeschool activities including playing the water, magnetic building toys, and an image of Ashley Wiggers and her daughter
My initial response was a large gasp followed by some passionately spoken clean up instructions. Let’s just say I could have handled it better. I’m learning.

He was already upset with himself for the mistake and didn’t need me to add to that. What he needed from me was to step into the mess with him and reassure him that we all do these things from time to time. Yes, he did need to be more careful in the future, but more importantly, he needed to know that I wasn’t going to make him feel rejected or ridiculed over some spilled mac n’ cheese. So we cleaned it up together and after a couple deep breaths I shared with him about mistakes I had made growing up that I learned from, too.

Like when I put a plastic plate on top of a hot burner and it melted leaving a horrible smell and smoke in the room. This happened while I was visiting someone else’s house, by the way. Lincoln smiled at my story and asked me to share more times that I had messed up. So I did.

bowl of mac n' cheese
We laughed about the time my brother and I thought it would be really clever to hide from my parents and not tell them where we were. We learned not to do that ever again! I told him of another time I had heard a line spoken in a movie and thought it would be funny to say it to my friend. I found out the hard way that it’s not funny at all when you end up hurting someone’s feelings.

His mistake of spilling the food, and mine of reacting poorly, turned into a moment of connection. Those are the times I look back and think, I’m glad I took some deep breaths and tried again.

Trying again is a powerful lesson to teach my children. No, we’re not going to get it all right. Not even close. Sometimes that initial reaction flies out of my mouth before it seems I can stop it. Thankfully, though, even if I have let the reaction go without proper consideration, in the next moment I can backtrack and try again. What a great tool to pass on.

On another occasion, one son started the day with a bad attitude. I sent him back to his room for a five minute time out and when he came back, we pretended like the day was starting all over again. He was able to shake off the attitude and step into the day fresh. Yay! We celebrated. Every time one of our kids does something kind without being asked or makes a comeback after a mistake, we all join together and cheer. Three cheers for (add the name of said child you want to celebrate)! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! It’s a simple way to teach our kids what we value. And I think we all need a little more celebration in our lives.

collage of picture showing Ashley Wiggers' children doing different outdoor activities
I want to leave you with a thought my mother-in-law shared with me. The other day, I was telling her about some of the frustrations I had had that morning and she said something to me that really stayed with me. She said, “Raising kids is hard. The hardest thing you’ll ever do. But growing up is hard, too.”

I thought to myself, “Oh how I wish I could go back to the carefree days of being a kid again!” And sure, there are a lot of great things about being a kid. There are hard things, too, though. Like, you’re not really in control of anything. Everything you experience is new and unknown as you get older. And you’re having to work through being corrected—often while learning how to control yourself! I want to be more aware of the need to see things from someone else’s perspective. I think we as parents don’t typically put ourselves in our kids’ shoes. More often, we’re thinking about how what they do affects us. But she’s right. Growing up is hard, too. If I can look through the eyes of what my children are feeling or experiencing, I will be able to speak with the kind of compassion they need from me.

“I want to be more aware of the need to see things from someone else’s perspective. I think we as parents don’t typically put ourselves in our kids’ shoes.”
Do you remember feeling misunderstood as a kid? I do. I remember times when others would assume I had intentionally done this or that, when that wasn’t the case. I felt powerless to convince them because their minds were already made up. We can be too quick to judge a situation and place intention where it might not belong.
child being held and laying on parent while holding a stuffed toy
Maybe we should spend some time remembering a few of the challenges we faced as kids so we can be on the lookout for opportunities to help our kiddos through them. May we all have a heart of understanding towards our children as we learn and grow together.
Ashley
Ashley Wiggers headshot
A

shley Wiggers grew up in the early days of the homeschooling movement. She was taught by her late mother, Debbie Strayer, who was an educator, speaker, and the author of numerous homeschooling materials. It was through Debbie’s encouragement and love that Ashley learned the value of being homeschooled. Currently, Ashley and her husband Alex are the publishers of Homeschooling Today magazine. Ashley is the Co-Executive Editor and a contributing columnist as well as one of the hosts of their podcast, Homeschool Boldly. Husband and wife team, Alex and Ashley are busy raising and homeschooling their three children while running the family business together.