She’s 14. Disturbingly beautiful. Breathtakingly uncooperative. She laments a lack of fall weather in Florida, so I schedule a short trip to see family in northern Virginia during “peak leaf week.” Our usual homeschool days start with caffeine and math, one of the two subjects into which I invest an hour beside her each day. Then, we work separately for a few hours and converge again for history and debate, during which I guide her through annotating American Documents and researching debate issues.
We stride through the Orlando airport, our conservatively-packed personal items slung over shoulders. We’re not rushed. We follow signs calmly with our covid masks in place. I often feel that I annoy my daughter, but she’s not annoyed now. She sees me navigate easily through the airport. We find our gate an hour before departure, so we have time to grab a coffee and a donut. We visit the gift shop to buy keepsakes for her cousins.
I chose her academic curriculum this year, and I help her to navigate it. She doesn’t appreciate it. She does appreciate this trip, though. The curriculum I chose comes with a community day shared with seven of her peers and a tutor. They discuss classical readings on literature, science, history, Latin, and logic and prepare for an end-of-year debate. It’s an award-winning curriculum, but she doesn’t like it. Her tutor told me last week that she’s not prepared for discussions. I know she is prepared because I check her work, so I ask him why he thinks she is unprepared.
“She doesn’t participate in the discussion.”
I feel embarrassed.
Later, I ask her why, and her answer is vague. I decide not to be angry, but to troubleshoot. She says she doesn’t like the topics or the way they are presented. She feels that other students have more to offer in the discussion, and she doesn’t want to compete. I coach her, but I decide that I will make a change in her curriculum after some research.
We usually eat healthy food, but today we are eating donuts as we wait at our departure gate. In past years, I wouldn’t have given my children processed sugar on a trip like this. I would have gotten them fruit, yogurt or granola with honey. These days, I balance the shrewdness of a daily carrot with the grace of a special-occasion donut.
We arrive in Baltimore, and my mom shuttles us to her home in West Virginia. Though our trip is only a few days long, we spend quality time with many treasured family members and friends. Highlights are a night corn maze, a pumpkin patch, cousin sleep-overs, meals with grandma and aunts, a drive-through autumnal scenery, historic Harpers Ferry exploration, and a new silver and onyx necklace. My daughter sleeps well, eats well and laughs heartily.
On the way home, she thanks me. Her words sound unfamiliar. I try to understand why she is so thankful. I think of my interactions over the weekend. My mom and I chatted pleasantly. I helped to organize my daughter's time with her cousins so that she had some quality alone time with the two closest to her age and some group time with several at once. We explored the outdoors. I didn’t complain, express anxiety or argue. I simply enjoyed the place and the people. In short, I modeled how to enjoy people and places. What would happen if I applied these ideas to our homeschool? What would happen if I simply modeled how to enjoy the ideas, people, and places involved in her studies?
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