When the truth comes out
From tuned out to engaged
Today my son was playing the ukulele along to some songs he’d learned, and that he’d sung at his youth group. So delighted. Such a privilege to listen to him playing. And what a change from where we were last year, having just left the state school system and freshly embarked upon our home ed commitment. From tuned out, indifferent and seeking any form of escape a year ago, to engaged, interested and even ambitious now, I am so relieved by the changes that have taken place over a rocky, uncertain and searching year.
From home ed wilderness to home ed vibrancy
As always, I write this blog to encourage others who are contemplating what seems the wilderness of homeschooling, or home education. And it looks like wilderness to the tourist, or the foreigner. But really, it’s like moving out of the city – thriving communities in unlikely places always seem to surprise me. There is such vibrancy in the home education home.
And this is what I’ve been thinking about in this post – when the truth comes out.
When the truth comes out
It is always such a relief when our children find what floats their boat. It’s when their talents and interests come naturally, and we watch them seek out and hone their skills. No longer in survival mode, this is when the truth comes out.
Yes, the joyous truth. Well, sometimes.
Sometimes children say such wonderful things it melts my heart. So it is on in our home ed home. Such precious moments, and sharing the pleasure of one another’s company, and sense of belonging.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/belonging/
It might be a witty quip, a moment of sheer, hilarious personality that catches you off guard, an impression, or a surprising response. It might be loving devotion. Or just simple appreciation.
But then, children can say uncomfortable things, that can be much less fun to hear. These comments that I’d automatically shrug off quickly, with a little shimmy of the head and a wriggle of the shoulders. Sometimes they can be quite funny, like when a pupil tells me their parent’s ripe “old” age (same as mine) and I have to organise my face appropriately. But sometimes it’s harder to wear a straight face. “It’s fun intimidating my him.” Or, “see you do have favourites, and he also thinks so.”
When the truth comes out – now it’s less fun
These kind of truths aren’t fun to listen to. They don’t fill me with willingness to get alongside and engage when it’s actually quite repelling to hear. Actually, my automatic response is to dive into a disciplinary explanation on why “intimidating them never ends in a good day”, and how they might benefit it they “don’t carry around” that kind of negativity.
And certainly, my instinct is to defend all the reasons why I “most definitely do not have favourites, and I resent the accusation”…
But of course, these comments come out from an engaged place of trust and attachment, warts and all.
Facing the beast
When these moments of truth comes out, founded or otherwise, they’re moments of honesty, sometimes vulnerability. They are a confidence to face the beast.
Perhaps as adults we become accustomed to hushing the kind of thoughts we ‘shouldn’t’ have. But then, in these moments, these are our opportunities to face our dragon. Or otherwise we end up making a home for it, hushing it, trying to tame it, making it comfortable in our lives, feeding it, nurturing it.
Do we really want to make a comfortable home for something so intrinsically uncomfortable? This is a unique opportunity with home ed, to nurture our children when these truths surface, rather than hide them away, or tuck them away, or else use them against their peers.
They’re watching us
Maybe it’s ok to hear these lurking, nagging sways in our hearts, and in the hearts of our children. After all, how can we teach our children to wrestle with their struggles, if they watch us ourselves shy away from them?
I mean, I was never hoping for a conversation with my child on why he thinks I have a favourite child. But, he had some thought provoking points to make. We both had to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
And as usual with education, children are watching us most of all – watching what we do (not so much what we say). They’re watching how we function, what there is to be afraid of, what to avoid, how to display emotions, and how to handle uncomfortable truths.
What’s there to be afraid of?
But what if they watch us only accept perfection?
Truth is messy. It can most accurately be described through contradiction.
We can’t be aiming for perfection. Diligence in moving forwards perhaps. A commitment to kindness maybe, and integrity of self. But if perfection is our aim we’ll all fall at the first hurdle, and succumb to endless, spiralling side tracks of excuses (untruths). So why avoid our own selves at all costs, and everything that lurks within?
Who’s ready to hear it?
Ok, we’ll face it then, there’s the truth, it feels good to be intimidating. It’s surely not even an unusual one, or the world would look very different.
Or, he really believes I have favourites. Let’s listen then, when the truth comes out. Maybe it’s true, and maybe it’s not. But in this case, I was humbled to hear my son’s reasons – in his usual eloquence, he made a good case for a sense of inequality.
The story of Joseph – a perfect account of a series of imperfections
We were reading through the story of Joseph in Genesis from the Bible – a perfect account of a series of imperfections. How wrong Judah and the other brothers of Joseph got it, and yet how right he came out of it, out of his was the line of David.
Isolated, abandoned and privileged
We keep coming back to this story. What is the appeal? Perhaps it is the sibling rivalry that resonates. Or maybe the tricks and deceit seems entertaining. Explaining to my children how Joseph used an interpreter to talk to his brothers whilst listening in to their every words seemed like hilarity. And yet there is also the intrigue of how God works in these characters’ lives.
Looking at Joseph’s life and events and considering where he was privileged, and where he seemed desolate was a curious discussion with no clear cut answers. Whenever he wasn’t in a privileged position, he was growing. And whenever he was in a privileged position, he had an obligation of responsibility.
The depth of God’s love
We are certainly a family of imperfections, and yet there is the privilege of belonging in a family.
Hopefully, when our children are in times of privilege or not, they will know the depth of God’s love in it.
He knows the depths – He’s been there
And God knows the depths of our hearts. With love, He knows our uncomfortable struggles. He’s not scared of what’s there, and He doesn’t look on us with disgust, but He is just and merciful. He doesn’t compromise, but He is patient.
I recently had an occasion that I came to realise I had nursed a dragon, in my life, in my family’s life. And unbeknownst to me, what a monster it had become. I hadn’t realised how flawed this mindset of mine was, until finally the curtain dropped and uncovered layer after layer of strangling weed.
The Canaanites
I am reminded of the canaanites – God did not rain down judgment upon them until, after many years, they had finally gone too far. The extent to their wickedness had become unimaginable. Then He intervened with righteous anger. When we don’t choose His Way, eventually things fall apart.
We have this too, the capacity to sway like the canaanites. But we live in a time of it is accomplished. He is waiting for us. He is running to us.
We live in the love of God, the unswerving Father’s love, through Christ Jesus. It is accomplished in our hearts, and despite Canaan, that gap is bridged.
As our children wrestle – we set the tone
Our children need to experience this love, as part of their daily bread. This uncompromising patience. This merciful justice. Love. To be ministered the Father’s love by their own dads and by their parents. They share their moments of joy when the truth comes out, and their struggles, the ones that look ugly, and those that are uncomfortable to hear.
We can minister to them with lengthy explanations on what we expect from them, but ultimately they will hear less of what we say, and so much more of what we do. So we minister not with our tongues, but with our hearts.
Do we intimidate them or do we prefer to treat them kindly and with good humour? As they wrestle with their dragons, and their beasts, they will find their solace through their experiences if we can remain steadfast with them.
Trying things out
The delights that our children are, we can’t always endorse their choices. We’re not scared of it, or disgusted. I like to use the Jordan Peterson line ‘good day’. His philosophy involves allowing the child to choose a good day. It seems to speak their language, and it’s interesting to highlight for them how a choice might not have resulted in a good day, and how quickly it can be turned around.
Laying favouritism to rest
Just sayin’… a final word on the challenge I received on favouritism. Oh dear, there are sometimes a different set of rules for one young un than another. I’ve not been the same mother to my first child as my third child. I had my first child when I was mid 20s. Just a spring chicken really. We often laugh, my son and I, about the occasions we can both remember as I tried to raise him as a new mother.
You might say I had more energy then… but I wouldn’t!
The depths of sleep deprivation and as a young mother, energy was definitely in short supply. Fast forward to my third child, who I had mid 30s. Well let’s just say after child 1 and 2 I had seriously mellowed. I had lost many of the insecurities of a youth. Any sense of raising perfectly polite, well mannered boys was long gone. In it’s place, surrounded by this whirlwind of exuberant boys, is a combination of surrender and admitting laughter.
In this 14 years of parenting we’ve been through many phases and approaches, some seem to stick for one child, some for work better for another. Perhaps some of these become habits that are less appreciated. Maybe some of them are unfair. But then, ask the youngest if the oldest is fair, (“stop parenting me!”), and ask the oldest if the youngest is fair, (“stop breaking my things!”) And perhaps fair is one of those uncomfortable parenting niggles to sit with, that needs a good old honest poke and a prod from time to time.