Is Your Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

“I’m. SO. BORED.”

You’re eleven year old is looking at his a textbook like it will give him the black plague. Meanwhile, your seven and five year olds are chasing each other around the house instead of doing their assigned tasks, and you are about to explode.

What are you thinking right now?   (I’ll come back to this in a minute.)

What’s going wrong?

If you’ve already started school and it’s not going well.   It’s time to stop and evaluate why:

1. Is your curriculum working? Does it fit your teaching style and the way your kids learn? Is it engaging?
2. Do your kids listen to you and do what you tell them to do?
3. Are you trying to do too much and homeschool at the same time?
4. How is your attitude? Is your glass half full or half empty?

Or maybe you have a combination of all four of these things plaguing you at the moment!  If so, it doesn’t have to stay that way.

If you struggle with a bad attitude yourself, this post is for you.

Over the years, I’ve observed that everyone seems to have a natural bent to view circumstances in life one way or the other.  Either they tend to be positive (glass half-full) or negative (glass half-empty).

You Can Change Your View

But that’s just the way I am, you assert.  If I think the worst, I’ll just be pleasantly surprised if things go better than I expect.

Wrong. That’s not how it works.

You may be surprised to learn this, but our thoughts lead to our attitude, and our attitude influences our behavior.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, maybe you’ve lived through some difficult or maybe even tragic circumstances during childhood. Maybe you have a predisposition toward negativity because of your history.  If so, I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. I know it must make homeschooling with a positive attitude seem like an impossible task.

Many times in these situations, psychological and/or spiritual intervention may be necessary to deal with the pain and the past and gain a new outlook on the present.

What about the rest of us?

For the rest of us, though, keeping a handle on our thoughts should be a daily discipline.

The first step is usually pinning down what you are thinking and how it is influencing your attitudes and behaviors.

If you aren’t sure how this works, remember the last time your husband came home after having a difficult day at work and was short-tempered and judgmental about what you had or had not been able to accomplish that day?

What were your first thoughts?

1. He doesn’t have the right to treat me that way.
2. If I was a better wife/mother, he wouldn’t talk to me like that.
3. He doesn’t love me. If he loved me, he’d be more understanding.

What was your attitude?

• Angry?
• Depressed?
• Hurt?

–What did you do? Get depressed? Chew back? Cry? Kick the dog? Swallow your words but then find yourself being overly critical with your kids or others?

Frequently we don’t even need an antagonist to hijack our attitudes – we do it all by ourselves! For example, perhaps you can remember a time, especially when you were beginning homeschooling, when you thought something like; “I don’t know what I am doing.” If you dwelt on that thought, it was probably followed by,

• “I am not going to be a very good teacher.”
• “My relatives/in-laws/neighbors/friends are right, I have no business trying to home school.”
• “My kids are not going to learn anything.”

You know what I mean. If left to our own devices, those thoughts tend to spiral downward, and so do our attitudes and behavior!

Maybe this year you are starting to feel a little overwhelmed at school beginning. It would be a great time to get out of the house, perhaps with your spouse, and talk through what worked last year and what didn’t work. For the things that didn’t work so well, brainstorm ways to approach things differently. Try to take areas one at a time. Maybe more than one session of this nature is necessary. Don’t rush back into school until you are ready.

When negative thoughts occur, stop and think through to what the root is of the thought is instead of allowing the ‘downward spiral.’ Alternatively, try to reframe the thought into a positive action.

For example:

Instead of thinking: I have so much to do planning six subjects!

Reframe that thought into: How can I break this planning up into smaller pieces? I think I will spend a few hours a day on one class/subject at a time.

Instead of dwelling on: Once school starts I’m going to be so overwhelmed!

Reframe that thought into: How can I be better this year with taking regular time for myself? I could get up 15 minutes earlier to have a quiet time. I could trade off child watching with a neighbor and take an afternoon walk a few times a week. I could plan in a quarterly teacher work-day and get someone to watch the kids elsewhere so I can stay home and get organized. I can meet a friend for breakfast Saturday mornings when my husband can watch the kids.

Instead of dwelling on: I get so mad at my student when s/he doesn’t finish his work! I dread battling over writing again this year!

Reframe that thought into: It is normal to loose my temper sometimes, but what can I do to keep in control? I could walk away until I calmed down. I can sit down when I am not angry and calmly but firmly talk over the situation with my child. Instead of fighting over writing, I’m going to ask my friend Sally to teach my son writing and maybe I can teach hers math.

You get the idea.

A familiar Biblical example of reframing our thinking is found in the book of James. In verse two of chapter one, James exhorts us to ²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James is saying that even though our natural reaction to trials is to be upset, worried, fearful, etc., he wants us to choose to be joyful. If we can focus on the thought that trials will be of benefit to us, it is easier to walk through them with a better attitude.

One verse that I find very helpful with stopping negative thinking is I Corinthians 10:5: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Start out this school year with a positive frame of mind; take time to recognize and identify negative thoughts, disappointments, and discouragements from last year. Ask yourself:  What can be done differently or how can I approach this situation from a different mental viewpoint? Am I practicing applying a biblical perspective to this situation or circumstance? Do not settle for mentally wrestling about the same anxieties of last year. If you need help, call upon your husband or a trusted friend.

May God bless you as He continues to conform you to His image!