Reality Check

Living in times of change and uncertainty will always lead humanity to a place of reflection and evaluation of what is important in life, what really matters.

We know instinctively that ‘what really matters’ are the relationships we build. Our first and deepest relationships are with our loved ones, then with extended family and friends, and finally, with those, we work with.

If we are being truthful and authentic, sometimes those closest to us are the people we work shoulder to shoulder with every day. Our bosses, our co-workers, and our clients are sometimes who we spend 8-12 hours with every day depending on our vocation. Respecting people for their differences and how they do things, can be relatively easy because we leave work to come home. With the COVID-19 crisis, we now work from home and may also be called to add educating our children at home while trying to finish work tasks.

Many parents are feeling these sudden changes, and it’s throwing them off.

Many parents have gone from regular home & work schedules to home & home schedules with the duties of work and home combined. I have had many conversations with parents remarking, “How did you stay home with your children every day all day AND try to teach them? I am going crazy!”

I can totally empathize. I homeschooled three children while being a ‘part-time’ Real Estate Agent in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. Juggling home and work in the same environment can be stressful, then add your children and their needs into the mix and you can just feel the tension thick in the air.

In my professional life, it was always easier to allow my colleagues to be themselves and participate in using their strengths in their way. Allowing this same freedom for my children was a different story at first. I taught them the way I learned, period. Sure I would curate curriculums to match each of them while focusing on their interests, and giving them opportunity to have outside educational experiences. I presented and required them to handle information and projects the way I did. I was taught effective difference and I was given methodologies for cognitive differences but no one ever spoke of the conative side of the brain.

Every subject included searching many sources to find information, planning, and organizing entire projects, and following the curriculum all while using whatever we could to get it done in time.

We had the same disagreements as to how it ‘needed’ to be done, why it was not completed when I ‘needed’ it to be, where was the detail I ‘needed’ and so forth. I started to reflect and evaluate what was going on.

Being introduced to the conative aspect of the brain, and the truth of each one of us is hardwired a certain way became the freedom we all needed to thrive and grow. Once we each understood our conative strengths, the disagreements all but stopped (even with Algebra), and we got so much more accomplished while having a ton of fun. The ways of doing things that my children needed to use were so foreign to me but became the key to being able to teach them to be lifelong learners. What a gift!

You have an instinctive way of handling projects and information. Your spouse, partner, children, extended family ALL have their own way they need to handle projects and information.