Success vs. Growth

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A big part of our life is school.  It’s something I have actually chosen to intentionally not write much about on our blog because I already keep those records elsewhere, and because there is such a plethora of homeschooling blogs out there (many of which are more a source of intimidation than help, at least for me!) So I usually just choose not to go there.

But I also realize that so much of our experience as a family relates to what we do in school.  As we’ve been wrapping up and reflecting back about the school year, I’ve been struck by a few big realizations.

Realization #1: I spend way too much of my energy fretting about all we have NOT accomplished on a daily or weekly basis, when, really, as I stop to reflect over a longer time period, I realize how much we truly have GROWN as people and in relationship to each other.

It reminds me of what happens in the garden. You plant the seeds. It’s so exciting at first, and a little nerve-wracking. You watch, and wait with great anticipation. After a few days, some seeds sprout right away, some not till later, some not at all.  The initial growth is really dramatic, and then as the plant matures the changes become less perceptible.  Some days you wonder when (if ever) they will bear fruit. But eventually they do. Again, the pace varies, some go gangbusters and bear early, like our volunteer tomato plants.  (Hooray for volunteers!) And some just seem to flounder and need extra water and TLC until they are strong enough to begin producing.

If I measured the success of my garden by how much the plants are growing and changing each day, I’d be in for some major disappointment and frustration. But when I look over the course of a growing season, the change is immense!! From seed to fruit bearing plant– what an incredible miracle worth celebrating!! It is more than just a change, it is a complete metamorphosis.

So, that is sort of what I’m feeling and trying to keep in mind as I evaluate our year, both in academics and character development. I have seen some incredible growth both in my children, in myself, and in our relationship with each other. Sure, there are things we didn't finish completely or get to at all. We cannot limit our measure of success simply by the number of books read or the number of recitations memorized or math facts mastered. These things ARE important, and we work hard on them. But that is not growth.  Growth is more about who you are becoming than what you are accomplishing.

Realization #2: Growth involves some tough choices.  Success in one area doesn't always mean optimum growth of the person.

Natalie has grown in so many ways. Spiritually and morally, she really has come to understand and internalize the principles of faith and repentance. She has experienced the power of prayer in very real ways. She has come to see the relationship between her actions, her conscience, and her feelings. She is able to explain and teach gospel principles in our family home evenings. And she is reading and praying earnestly for a testimony of the Book of Mormon for herself.

 The changes I’ve seen in Natalie haven’t happened without a huge amount of struggle. There have definitely been times I have prayed in desperation “why have we not gotten past this? Why are we still learning this lesson? Will she ever grow out of this?” Figuring out how to meet the need of the hour can be a real challenge of discernment. Do we change things? What is our part, what is the child’s and what is God’s? When do we just let things be? When do we call in external help?

Back to the plant analogy, as much as I love volunteer plants, there was one volunteer tomato plant that was really not in the right place in our garden. I had first let it grow for awhile and then realized that as nice as it was, it was going to crowd out our strawberries that we planted last year.  I initially was going to just pluck it and compost it, but, I decided to try transplanting it instead. It was a particularly hot week and I honestly wasn’t very hopeful for it.  But, I gave it the best start I could with extra B1 and lots of water. It looked sad and wilted for awhile, but then, amazingly, after a couple weeks with consistent water under the dripper, it really turned the corner and has taken off!

I feel like this is akin to some traits or tendencies I’ve seen in my children and in myself that are like that tomato plant. When looked at individually, they are good abilities. I could let them grow naturally and unhindered. But when I’ve considered their relationship to other important traits that we are trying to foster, I’ve realized they cannot be left to themselves without having impact on the rest of the person. They need to be intentionally nurtured in specific, separate ways at times to allow for optimum growth of the whole self.

One specific way we’ve seen this in our home is dealing with frustration over getting things wrong. This really stems from the innately “good” desire to do things right, “choked” by an over-emphasis on self or others’ opinions of self.  One of my children has a really hard time dealing with errors, especially in areas of perceived weakness.  For much of the year, this child has thrown full on tantrums when confronted with their weaknesses and imperfections. Because I’ve been trying to foster both a sense of their self-confidence AND respect for me as a teacher I would usually try to reason with this child through the frustration while also requiring respectful communication. But inevitably the problem would just escalate and we’d both be left feeling worse.

Finally, after much prayerful trial-and-error, I realized that I couldn’t try to foster both respectful communication and self-confidence simultaneously. I needed to deal with them separately and after my child was calm and thinking clearly. When lack of self-confidence resulted in disrespect I had to first deal with the disrespect, showing love while focusing on getting to calm. Then I had to literally ‘transplant’ my efforts to foster self-confidence to a later time and place because it was choking the habit of respect that was equally as important to me and my child’s relationship.

This has been an extremely hard lesson for me to learn, requiring deep and painful change (read: humility!) on my part. At times I’ve been sorely tempted to just give up on it all together because it has been so emotionally draining for me. And we're by no means out of the woods yet, it’s still a challenge on a regular basis. But as I have learned to humbly and peacefully give this struggle to God, and let him work the change in my child’s heart separately from the change in my own heart (instead of me trying to control both! ha ha), I have seen some amazing progress.

Just yesterday, we were working on something in our school time that induced some uncomfortable and familiar feelings of stress and anxiety in my child. But I saw something amazing happen. I saw my child pause. I saw my child thinking through the choices before acting. And then, I saw my child, without any commentary or suggestions from me, make the right choice. My child chose to come back and re-engage without throwing a fit. It was a total victory of will. At that moment, all the time we have spent cultivating new habits, nurturing new ways of thinking about mistakes, stopping at the very moment of disrespect, redirecting, purposefully postponing my coaching until calm, all of it was worth it.

Oh, the joy of the harvest!!