Being well-rounded is a goal we most likely all have for our children. We want them to be good at everything, or at least we do when they’re shiny and new.
After a while, our standards lower just a tad: during middle school years we just want them to shower occasionally and speak with a modicum of intelligence instead of grunting for food like a zoo animal.
I think we tend to forget that no one is perfectly well-rounded. Case in point: Yours Truly.
I can bake excellent scones, but I can’t recall most fifth grade math. I know all the lines to Les Miserables, but I will never earn the orange pie shaped wedge for the Sports category in Trivial Pursuit. I’m a decent housewife, but when it comes to gardening, most plants seek their graves immediately rather than deal with me. My kids call me a plant hospice worker: helping the ferns go meet Jesus.
So I’ve tried to remember this when homeschooling. My daughter can’t be excellent and a straight A student at all subjects, and that’s okay.*
*If your daughter is a straight A student in all subjects, please don’t tell me. You’re ruining my theory. Also, you’re very intimidating and you make me want to eat potato chips and sulk.
There are going to be areas where she struggles, and areas where she excels. (Unless she’s in middle school, and then there aren’t areas where she’ll excel because middle school student’s brains have turned into pudding. Don’t fret too hard because the pudding is temporary and once the hormones settle down you’ll get your human child back.)
On any given day we can be doing seventh grade language arts and fourth grade science. Or maybe it’s high school level literature and sixth grade pre-algebra. Whatever the subjects and levels and talents and gifts in your household may be, relax and teach where they are to who they are.
They won’t come out perfectly well-rounded and that’s okay. The best pancakes are the interesting shaped ones. Not that I’m saying you should eat your children.
Hmm. I’m not sure where I was going with this.
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