DIY Homeschooler

Find yourself continually getting your feet tangled up? Is the terrain rough? Are you adequately picking up your feet? Or maybe it’s just the wrong road. Here are 10 tips on how not to trip. (A homeschool analogy from the track.)

Table of Contents

• 1. Walk humbly.
• 2. Don’t expect perfection. 
• 3. Don’t try to walk in lockstep with someone else.
• 4. Be yourself.
• 5. Don’t jump the hedge.
• 6. Don’t make someone else trip.
• 7. Don’t walk backward.
• 8. Don’t think YOU won’t trip.
• 9. Don’t stay tripped.
• 10. Extend mercy.
• Bonus tip:

1. Walk humbly.

Micah 6:8. It is when we get too high and cannot clearly see the path ahead of us that we are more likely to trip.

• Helps For New Homeschoolers: Finding Strength
  There will be days…maybe several. Maybe more than several. Things will NOT go as you plan. Ways to find strength.

2. Don’t expect perfection.

Perfectionists tend to walk a tightrope making it all too easy to trip.

• Don’t Expect Perfection — At First
  Good leaders give those they mentor room to make mistakes, room to grow.

3. Don’t try to walk in lockstep with someone else.

Following someone else’s pattern is tough. We all have different strides.

• Forsaking Our Idols
  Life is so much easier when we can fit things into nice tidy boxes.

4. Be yourself.

You know how you’d love to be So-and-so? Well guess what, you can never be a better So-and-so than she can be. And it is all too easy to trip when you are not being yourself.

On the other hand, what those around you really need is simply you.

• Extending Grace
  So you just finished reading about how THAT homeschool mom employs a perfectly laid-out schedule, feeds ten children a hot cooked breakfast, sees hubby off with a smile each morning through freshly-brushed pearly whites as she bakes homemade wheat bread in a dress covered by a handmade apron. And that’s all before 8 AM!

5. Don’t jump the hedge.

The hedges God puts around us are there for a reason. Your hedge probably won’t look like my hedge and vice versa. We are different, have different backgrounds, and different temptations. We don’t really understand in advance just what IS over the hedge. When we jump the hedge, we usually trip — big time.

• The Hedge of Thorns {Free eBook}
  Hedges do serve a purpose, and we little know the thorns that can abound through the hedge.

6. Don’t make someone else trip.

Remember the Mary Decker/Zola Budd race from the 1984 Olympics? Tripping someone else costs. And in our case, the consequences are immeasurable (Matthew 18:6).

• A Homeschooled Mom
  As a mother who educates her children at home, I cannot give my children what I do not possess. I have to become a homeschooled mom.

7. Don’t walk backward.

Pilgrim’s digress starts one small backward step at a time. You can’t see what you are stepping into when you are walking backward. Trip? Inevitable.

• Dangerous Journey {Free Video}
  Dangerous Journey is an illustrated introduction to The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan aimed at younger children.

8. Don’t think YOU won’t trip.

Let him that thinks he stands take heed (1 Corinthians 10:12).

• “I’m Going to Homeschool If It Kills Me!”
  Challenges of homeschooling and the lessons it teaches in everyday tasks.

9. Don’t stay tripped.

When you do trip, get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the race (2 Corinthians 7:10).

• 6 Tips for Avoiding Burnout
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10. Extend mercy.

Those who give mercy are given mercy (Matthew 5:7) — even when they trip.

• Loving the Unlovable
  You know people like this. How are we to treat the unlovable?

Bonus tip:

Keep your eyes on the finish line.