Holy moly! What a dreadful month it’s been. Our family was shoved right into cold and flu season, and we didn’t emerge for about four weeks. Four out of the five of us had high temperatures, bronchitis, strep throat and/or ear infections. I’m the only one who is still standing strong! But of course that means I’m the only one who didn’t get to sit around on the couch soaking in new episodes on Netflix. Someone had to keep this boat afloat! I can completely relate to this woman in the photo, drinking straight from the coffee pot with a bag of sugar in her other hand. My “inbox” seems mountainous compared to the nearly empty “outbox.”
Hard days. We all have them. They are unavoidable. Maybe you had one of these days today. Maybe you’re reading this blog post from your bathroom while your kids knock insistently on the door because you are having one of these days right now. Those days when everything is going along swimmingly, and then something happens to throw you or your kids off course. Something turns your good day into a “is-your-father-on-his-way-home-yet?” type of day. I don’t know about your house, but at my house, something as little as saying we’re having chicken for dinner can turn a child from happy-go-lucky into a terror child.
For those of you who are at home with your children during the day, there is one thing that I’ve found that can turn a disaster day back on track. I was talking to a fellow homeschool friend last year about what to do when your kid is just having a hard day at school. The math problems for the day bring tears, the reading book stirs up more anger, the writing lesson sends them into a full-out tantrum on the floor, and the day’s spelling lesson is comparable to climbing Mt. Everest. Sound familiar? Maybe it doesn’t exactly look like that, but if you’ve been homeschooling for any time at all, I’m sure you’ve had one of those days with your kids where one bad attitude about a wrong math fact can begin a whole downward spiral for that kid.
“What do you do,” my friend asked me, “when your kid is having one of those days where everything is too surmountable for them, even though you know deep down inside that they really can handle the work you have laid out before them?” 
This is a tricky question because there is a fine line between teaching how to persevere through hard tasks and just stopping and taking a breather…..whether that means stopping for the day or just for 5 minutes. When my friend told me that she was having some consistent rough days with her (early elementary-aged) daughter, here was my advice to her…”Stop doing school for the moment and read together.”
It sounds so simple, but sharing a good story with your kids can change attitudes (and the trajectory of your day, too). Just the other day I had one kid sulking in the chair over something or other, one kid not wanting to finish their school work, and one child actually sitting next to me, wanting to hear the book I just pulled off the shelf. No matter what the attitudes are in the moment, one phrase usually stops everyone in their tracks and helps to bring us back together as a family. Want to know what it is?
I opened the book that was on my lap and cuddled in close to the one kid wanting to hear the story. After reading the first page, I simply said, “Oh, wow! Look at that picture!” All eyes darted towards me, awaiting for me to turn the book around and show them the picture. But I didn’t. I just kept on reading.
It gets them every time. The kid sulking upside down on the couch and the other one who was rolling their eyes at me for pulling out yet another book to read were now both crowding around me, trying to get a better look at the pictures in my book. Within minutes all three are urging me to keep reading and turn the page. They are drawn into the story, and, for a few minutes at least, all is quiet and peaceful.
It may not be magic. But taking a pause in our day to soak in a good picture book helps us to savor the hard days and not just try to survive.
