April Gleanings
This month’s cover is a reminder to once again keep your eye out for spring wildflowers. They will be blooming soon, if not already,so take the opportunity to observe them at local greenways, parks and fields. Purchase a field guide if you do not have one, and tuck it in your tote bag to have at the ready.
The annual wildflower celebration at Reflection Riding (part of the Nature Center) is April 7, 8 and 9. Take your children, a notebook and pen on one of the guided walks so you can start a list and write short desciptions of some of the flowers you’d like to make a better acquaintance with.
Call Reflection Riding at 821- 9582 or visit reflectionriding.org for more information.
The early wildflowers are a messenger of Easter, a symbol of renewed life, a triumph over death. I don’t know about you but this is season of year when I need times of refreshment. The year of lessons is winding down. I have come to the realization that my child is not going to finish that math book, that for another child the science experiments did not happen and that some of my ideas for the past year did work out according to plan. How do I view all this?
Much encouragement this year came at an event I attended recently called “Rhea’s Education Days,” a three-day gathering in Nashville of about 300 people from 30 states to learn how to encourage our children and each other to be entrepreneurs. It was a time to think differently about education, to step back and consider what roadblocks lie ahead, what tools are needed, how relationships might be made right. Here are some of the highlights:
- If the relationship between mother and student is not right, you need to stop teaching and fix the relationship. If you are living in conflict, you teach your children to live in conflict.
- Read or reread “Love Languages of Children,” by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell and make sure you are speaking the primary love language of each child in specific ways and in all five ways to each child
- Act; do not just react to your children. Avoid nagging
- Start with just one daily habit and work on it with your child, then add another.
- Keep a booklist for each child and for yourself.
- Realize that when your children are young is the time to try anything and everything that strikes their fancy (as long as your schedule can bear it). It is OK to fail. Failure is just a stepping stone. Help your children discover their passions with meaningful projects, and wise expert mentors.
- You should ask how are my children smart, not how smart are my children. There are at least eight different kinds of smart. Standardized testing only deals with two of these eight. See DavidLazear.com
- Some books to read:
- “Dreamers, Discoverers, and Dynamos,” by Lucy Jo Palladino (formerly The Edison Trait)
- “A Thomas Jefferson Education,” by de Mille
- “The Mark of the Maker,” by Tom Hagg (wonderful picture book about importance of faithful work)
- “Hands-on Dad,” by Rick Boyer
This is not to give you another to-do list—who needs that! These gleanings are offered in hope that you will be encouraged in your journey at this time of year, in this season.
Easter joy to you and yours!
