Opening and Closing Mantras for Your Homeschool Day
Although it seems like the calendar year just began, summer is already coming to a close and the traditional school year is about to commence. While our family doesn’t fully abide by a traditional school year, we prefer a year round approach to learning, we still adopt some traditions, e.g., first day of school pictures, and I always feel a slightly manic, excited energy as I begin to plan, prepare, and create goals for our new school year.
Whether your family homeschools, unschools, or follows a more traditional route, I wanted to offer an opening and closing mantra to begin and end your day.
Opening: I trust that everything that needs to happen today, will.
Closing: I trust that everything that needed to happen today, did.
You can adapt it to any verbiage that fits your family best. Some alternative examples:
I enter the day trusting that I/we will accomplish everything we need.
I close the day trusting that I/we accomplished everything we needed.
I have faith that we will meet all our necessary goals today.
I have faith that we met every necessary goal today.
Why these mantras?
So often I enter the day with a list of things that I want to accomplish. I think it is a rule of the universe that the more invested I am in our educational tasks, the less of a priority they are to my children. I think they sense my energy and are giving me the opportunity to practice the lesson of un-attachment. After all there is only 100% concern to give to any single goal and the more of that 100% I put on myself, the less there is for my children to hold.
“There are no educational emergencies as the period for learning lasts a lifetime”
When I spend the day focused on my “to do” list I miss opportunities for organic learning and connection. When I, instead, embrace what happens with a trust that all is as it should be, and a deep belief that everything we do will meet our emotional and educational needs, I am less stressed and more joyful.
When I want to focus on math and my children are instead collaboratively building habitats for animals in their sandbox, I have three options: (1) I can force them to stick to my agenda (which goes against my goal of child directed learning and facilitating a love of learning), (2) I can accept their “no” with frustration and anxiety, letting my need to accomplish my goals result in fear and worry, or (3) I can repeat to myself, “trust that you will accomplish everything you need to today” and move forward with a calm belief that today is playing out in the way it needs to.
We all have hopes, dreams and goals for our children. That is normal and usually beneficial, yet rigidity is rarely helpful. There are really no educational emergencies as the period for learning lasts a lifetime and nothing truly must be accomplished in this moment. Remind yourself of this truth when the reality of your day doesn’t match the one you planned in your head, and trust that often the most important tasks we accomplish each day are unseen, unnoticed and/or unplanned.
