Starting the School Year with Good Habits

by Mindi Popovich-Schneider

With the start of school and the changing of the seasons, the last days of summer are energized in a unique way. We admire our shiny new books (even if they’re only new to us), carefully pick out our notebooks, pencils, and other materials, and plan out how beautifully organized our days are going to be. 

But if your family is anything like mine, the organization falls by the wayside as soon as illness or a major Feast (or an out-of-town friend or a big extracurricular activity, etc.) comes knocking. 

I am decidedly not good at implementing new habits, so I have to work hard at making them stick. Here are a few things that have helped me, and will hopefully help you too.

Think of rhythms, not schedules.

I have noticed that my kids don’t do well without any structure, but at the same time, our days vary far too much for me to even attempt writing down a schedule. Some days we all sleep in, Papa gets to go into work a bit later, we need to spend more time cleaning the house, or we have liturgy for a special feast…and so on. 

Instead, on the advice of a friend, I’ve started to think in terms of rhythms. “These are the things we do in the morning: prayers, breakfast, make beds/tidy, school/chores. They might vary in order or length of time spent, but that’s generally what we want to accomplish each day. These are the chores/school tasks we do on Mondays; this is what we do on Tuesdays, etc. Those things may not always happen at the same time each week, but that’s typically what we try to accomplish on that day.”  Thinking in general terms helps us go with the flow, while still giving a loose shape to our days.

Start small.

If you struggle to get consistent with a habit, consider breaking it down into smaller components. For example, if you find it hard to fit exercise into your day, don’t go straight to adding trips to the gym or a three-mile walk into your normal routine. Start off with something much smaller that can fit more naturally into the habits you already have. Perhaps when you first go downstairs for the day, you can pause at the bottom of the stairs and do a few reps of stair-steps (i.e., up and down the bottom step a certain number of times). Or maybe you could have your family do some light stretching before everyone sits down to start their schoolwork. Then, once you’ve mastered that small habit, you can think of ways to add onto it, until the habit has become what you originally had in mind. 

Another example: if you want to pray more, don’t go straight to trying to do an Akathist each week. Start by praying one or two rounds on your prayer rope. Once you have mastered that, add in one or two shorter prayers, and so on. When you do face some major disruption to your routine, you’ll know how to start over. 

Create physical barriers.

Each morning, I feel a lot of pressure to get work done before my kids wake up for the day. That results in prayers–and especially reading my Bible–always getting pushed to the side. Recently, I’ve started putting my prayer rope and Bible on top of my laptop each night–meaning that I have to physically remove them before I can start work…and let me tell you, the guilt makes it very hard to move them aside without engaging with them! 

Follow your natural inclinations.

It would be really great if my family (myself included) naturally always put their shoes and socks away in their rooms the moment they took them off. That just doesn’t happen. Instead of fighting it, I made room for a second shoe rack in our coat closet. Our “pop on” shoes can stay by the back door, but anything else goes into the closet, just a few feet away. Socks don’t make it up to the laundry basket? Boom, now there’s a laundry basket in the downstairs closet (yes, I do still constantly have to remind my three year old that’s where they go).

Going back to the goal of exercising more: a friend put a kettlebell in his kitchen so that when he’s between tasks making dinner, he can get in a bit of weightlifting. An added benefit is that if you have toddlers under foot, you can distract them by having them lift weights (or attempt to lift weights) when you have to attend to the food. 

The oft-discussed habit stacking falls under this category too. If there’s a habit you already have (e.g., a cup of coffee every morning), add a habit onto it, such as doing squats or rounds on your prayer rope while the coffee brews (you might have to stare at the pot while you exercise/pray to make sure you don’t forget to do it!). My husband and I wanted to start saying prayers at the end of our meals but could never quite make it work, primarily because we and my mother-in-law always linger at the table to chat before we start cleaning up. My oldest kiddo always finishes eating before everyone else and must ask to be excused, so we attached praying to that instead of to when the adults were ready to leave the table.

Don’t try to change the way your household functions; instead, find ways to shape new, good habits to the way your family already naturally works. 

Do it together.

I find that I enjoy doing most things ten times more when I’m doing them with my family–plus, getting my kids involved means they’re developing better habits too. Instead of making my kids clean up before bed–or waiting until they’re asleep to just do it myself–we’ve started cleaning up as a family. Sometimes we’ll put on music and blitz-tidy as long as the song plays. (Yes, of course my kids still complain, but I have more fun!)

The same applies to other chores as well. When my son was two, we made up a silly game involving folding socks to occupy him while we put away laundry. It very naturally segued into him folding and putting away his own clothing. 

I know none of these concepts are particularly revolutionary, but I do hope that as you prepare for the new liturgical year and school year, they will serve as motivations to grab those habits you’ve been wanting to implement–without feeling pressure to do too much or to be perfect. May God bless you, your family, and all you undertake in the upcoming year! 

Meet the Matushkas: Mat. Melissa Naasko

Saint Emmelia Ministries is blessed to have a board of wise, loving Spiritual Advisors who help run our regional conferences and online events, provide guidance to local homeschoolers, and guide the vision & work of the ministry. Alongside them are their wives, who work tirelessly to support their husbands’ work, on top of educating their children. In this series, we are honored to introduce you to these exceptional women.

by Mat. Melissa Naasko

1. Please introduce yourself briefly.

Father and I have eleven children, six girls and five boys. It has been an interesting journey since we met in at the University of Colorado. We met in the student government office and had friends who just happened to be cousins. We hit it off immediately and here we are!

2. What did the discernment process for the priesthood look like for your family?

My husband was a philosophy instructor and worked with Catholic seminarians. One day, while the bishop was visiting, he asked my husband to come into the altar after liturgy. He asked him to consider the diaconate. We decided together that this would be a way for him to help serve our community. Later, when we lost our priest, the bishop called and asked him to consider the priesthood. At first, he was hesitant. He loved being a deacon. I am so glad that he decided to say yes because he loves being a priest even more.

3. How did you decide to homeschool? How did you decide what methods/curriculum/pedagogical approaches to use?

Our oldest was fascinated by reading and was reading early chapter books at four. I had started teaching him phonics in a haphazard way but it worked for him. There was an article on why some people were homeschooling in Parents Magazine and we started considering it. My mother bought us the books "What Your (blank) Grader Needs to Know" and we dove in. A mother in my local support group was graduating her youngest and gave me her well loved set of Charlotte Mason books and just started.

4. What are some practical ways that you balance ministry, homeschooling, homemaking, etc.?

We really believe that we are a tag-team. We have the same goals and we tag each other in and out to get everything done. There have been times when we had to divide and conquer and some of us will miss some services to be able to deliver lambs or calves or study for an exam and other times when we set everything aside so we can all be at Church. The best way for us to decide how to manage all the various demands is to consider what has the most consequences if not met and do this first down in importance to the thing of the least consequence. Sometimes we do it well and sometimes we don't but we try to do it together.

5. How do you recharge yourself to be a better person for those around you? How much time do you spend?

Now that my kids are older and not early risers, I get up before them and I knit with some coffee. I just enjoy the morning this way so much. When they were little, everyone had "Afternoon Nap". I did not care if they slept but they had to be quiet. I played the same classical music CD (it was about 50 minutes long) and when it was over, they could get up. I sometimes napped and sometimes read and often knitted but it was a critical time for me.

6. Not counting the Bible, what book has impacted you the most as a mother/teacher?

There are lots of parts of me and each has their own book. I would say that for my homeschooling journey, it would be "Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum" by Laura Berquest. I still use it. For my spiritual journey, it would be my Jordanville Prayer Book. It is so well used and looks like it is barely holding together but the worse it looks, the better I do. I could replace it but I have no plans to. Then there is Robert Louis Stevensen's "A Child's Garden of Verses" which I memorized, on my own, when I was little. I started reading every poetry book I could and collected them from thrift stores and just memorized enormous swaths of poetry. All my children started out in this book.

7. If there’s one thing you could tell your just-starting-out-homeschooling-self, what would it be?

Firstly, you don't have to be perfect but you do have to be consistent. Stick at it every day. Just keep going. Secondly, cultivate a culture of reading by always reading. Carry a book with you. Let your children see you read. Read aloud every day. If they can read and comprehend, they can learn anything they want.

8. What would is the most crucial subject homeschool beginners should focus on?

The three Rs, in fact, get Ruth Beechick's "The Three Rs" and just do that. You can make your own curriculum for young children. Just start and be consistent. You really don't have to be perfect or have the most fun curriculum. What you need to is to be consistent.

Stillness, Part II

by Mindi Popovich-Schneider, Saint Emmlia Ministries Assistant

It seems a bit silly for me, of all people, to be writing this blog post. After all, I am not, by nature, a particularly “still” person. I struggle with fairly severe anxiety, and my mind tends to wander towards current or potential projects whenever I’m faced with a task that seems mundane. On the other hand, that means that I have had to think a lot about ways to achieve even the tiniest bit of stillness. Here are some habits and techniques that have helped me.

1. Remember your goals. Yes, there’s curriculum to teach, laundry to fold, dishes to wash, errands to run…a never-ending list of chores and responsibilities. And those things are important, but they are not the goal. Our main goal is to be sanctified, thereby being united with Christ. Our second goal is to raise our children to pursue the same. Our third goal is to love and serve others. Completing housework, teaching a set amount of curriculum, and so on—these are much farther down the list. When you approach each moment as a possibility for achieving our goals, essentially giving each moment to Christ, the rest of the world has a way of melting away. You’ll still be folding the same shirt you folded yesterday or washing the 800th fork of the day, but you’ll be doing it with the knowledge that it is for your sanctification, not for marking off a to-do list item. 

2. Lead with prayer. One of the biggest disruptors in my peace is arguing and negotiating allllllllll day with tiny humans who don’t know how to tie their shoes but are convinced they should be in charge of…well, everything. One of the–if not THE–sweetest balms for that struggle is prayer. When it feels like I’m disciplining my children every 5 minutes, I stop and pray. Not silently, not a memorized prayer. I take my child onto my lap, and I ask God to give me His love and peace. And then I ask my child to take a turn praying. I cannot think of a single instance in which this has not opened my child’s and my hearts to reconciling with each other, working together, and loving each other more.

3. Pray for others. Something I really struggle with is replaying interactions on loop, dissecting them and fretting about them. And if I’m not analyzing specific interactions, I’m probably worrying about entire relationships. Recently, I have begun focusing on praying for people the moment they come to mind. If I am able to do a full circuit on my prayer rope (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on my mother/my friend/this sick person at church/a political leader who said something troublesome), that’s a massive blessing! But five “Lord have mercies” as I’m going about chores works wonders on their own.

4. Practice gratitude. It’s hard to be anxious when you’re focused on how many gifts you have and how many good things you are surrounded by in the current moment (no matter how stressful that moment is!). When my child does something well (like obeying quickly or completing a task efficiently), we thank God and our guardian angels. I (try to) give thanks for my children throughout the day, appreciating every smile, funny expression, precocious or goofy comment, etc. At dinner each night, we take turns thinking back on the day and choosing one thing that we’re grateful for. These three things have made our home so much more peaceful.

5. Live in the moment. If I had to sum up my other tips, it would be this! When you give up the things of tomorrow, or next week, or 10 years ago, and you focus on what is in front of you in this moment, there is so much more room for peace and stillness. This is a very hard thing to do! It’s a bit like doing a plank while working out, and I myself can only hold this mental “plank” for a few seconds at a time, and with great effort. But just like with learning to do a plank, you get a little stronger each time you do it! One thing that has helped me when my thoughts start to wander away from whatever is in front of me in a given moment is to picture–or more accurately, feel–myself actually handing my thoughts over to Christ. 

In Part I, Londyn shared a beautiful piece of wisdom from Saint Isaac the Syrian: “Establish your heart in peace, and a multitude around you will be saved.” But along with that exquisite articulation of the importance of stillness, I want to share this reminder from St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews: Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Remember that stillness is one of the destinations on our way to our ultimate goal of being united with Christ…but it is also a race—more accurately, a marathon—in and of itself! Take courage, and each time you fall, letting the noise of the world crowd in, get back up with God’s strength, and begin to run again! 

God be with you in this difficult, but incredibly rewarding, race! 

Beating the Winter Blues

by Mindi Popovich-Schneider, Saint Emmelia Ministries Assistant

It is a truth (nearly) universally acknowledged that homeschoolers stuck in the deep midwinter must be in want of an outlet for their energy. Add on the swift approach of Lent, and accomplishing anything–let alone productive schoolwork–seems like a far-off dream! 

First, it’s important to know that whatever you do manage to accomplish is perfectly fine. Your kids’ futures will not suffer in any way because you didn’t make it all the way through their textbooks according to your original schedule (or at all). They will learn everything they need to know whether they slam through 5 levels of Rocket Math in two days or in two months! And “staying on track” is never, ever worth souring your homeschool experience and relationships with your kids because everyone is constantly squabbling. 

So, as much as you can, relax your expectations. Reevaluate what absolutely needs to be done and at what pace your kids can reasonably accomplish those things. Find ways to make the necessities joyful, and let the instruction, concepts, and lessons come second–because they will come.

Here are some ideas for EASY activities that might help make your lessons more joyful as you get through the winter slump.

1. Design a board game. When I was a homeschooler, one of my favorite activities was to design a board game to review for an evaluation (or just to practice concepts). I loved drawing out the game path and setting it all up while my mom worked with my siblings. Then, when they had finished up their tasks, we would gather around the board and start playing! When I became a teacher myself, my students pretty universally loved using this as a study tool for evaluations. 
   
   The best part of this activity is that it can really work for any concept–practicing spelling words, reviewing history dates, solving math problems, etc. The second best part is that you can easily make a game board with materials you have around the house. Posterboard is ideal, but construction or printer paper work too. In my avid game-making years, we had a little box full of rubber animals that made the perfect game pieces, but you can use anything around the house. For even less mess, you can replicate all of this on a whiteboard, using magnets as game pieces.

   The simplest version is a Candy Land style “road.” Kids can make up special instructions for different squares, such as “move backward 5 squares”–or even things as silly as “do 10 jumping jacks!” At the start of each turn, a player will have to answer a question. If they get the answer right, they can then roll the dice to determine how many squares they move. If they don’t get the answer correct, they lose a turn.

   Of course, you can use any kind of board game using the same concept. What really matters is that it’s a very quick way to add a new, fun element to your studies.

2. Do a Nature Scavenger Hunt. This is another one that you can make as simple or as complicated as you want–all that matters is that you’re getting out in nature and taking a little time to really look at things. In its most simple form, kids can look for things in nature that correspond to each color of the rain bow. If you want to really get invested, you could take an empty egg carton and paint each slot a different color. As you walk, kids can fill it with whatever they find. Of course, depending on where you live, finding things that are pink, purple, or blue might be quite a challenge in the winter, so consider adjusting your color palette with that in mind.

3. Bake something. Baking is such a great educational activity: it incorporates science, math, following instructions, and creativity–and, of course, you get a tasty treat at the end! There are lots of resources available online to help you explain the chemical processes that happen during baking, but even if you forgo scientific or mathematical instruction, kids will get a lot out of the project!

4. Make a craft. I know this sounds obvious, but the point I want to make here is that making a craft does not have to be complicated. Throw something down on the floor (an old tablecloth or shower curtain liner, scrap paper or newspaper, etc.) and put out whatever craft supplies you have on hand. Get creative–throw in a handful of cotton swabs, cotton balls, rubber bands, and so on. Everyone can work together or make their own project.

5. Do something kind for someone else. One of the best ways to get over bad days, in my experience, is to think about someone else. It doesn’t have to be complicated; in fact, it can be as simple as picking up a quick treat from the grocery store and going to a friend’s house (especially if they’re also having a bad day) to help out with chores. You could combine this with one of the other activities, like baking something, and deliver your treats to someone like your godfamily or priest. Or you could even sit down and write letters and draw pictures for anyone in your parish who is sick or homebound.

6. Have a “saint day.” Look up the saints for the day. Choose one and read about them. Listen to their troparion, and if you can find the sheet music for it, try to learn it. If the saint is famous, you can probably find corresponding activities with a simple internet search. If less is known about them, you can look up recipes, games, and crafts from their home country. Maybe you can even trace or draw “icons” of that saint! Whatever you choose to do, spend as much of the day as you can just getting to know one particular saint. 

These are just a handful of the many activities you can do to break up your routine when your routine is just too much. Ultimately, what you do doesn’t really matter; what’s important is to remember to not let your homeschooling–and your family life–become a battleground. Remember that even God rested. Have grace with yourself and your kids. There’s plenty of time for them to learn everything they need to know, but they’ll only be the exact age they are now for a very short time. Treasure it!