Day 13 — Wearing a Second Hat

Wow! My hats, both of them, are off to all of the teachers and homeschooling parents out there. I mean, seriously. I knew teaching was a hard job but still. It’s so much harder than I imagined.

I have been working with an online curriculum to plan, as well as using some consumables provided by the kids’ old school. And it is work. That part I expected. Here’s what I didn’t expect — how hard it would be for my kids to see me as a teacher.

My son — I guess I should stress, my 11 year old son — has always been a well-behaved student. His teachers go on and on about how “sweet” he is, how “polite” he is, how “hard he tries”. Nice, right? Yeah… well… where that boy was today, I do not know.

After putting up with pouting and poor attitude, I placed this question to him. Why does he behave so well for his teachers and be so disrespectful to me? His answer? “Because you’re Mommy not a teacher.” Ouch.

We had a talk about how the next year is going to be. I explained that this great adventure cannot happen without me being teacher. I expressed the importance of respect. So on and so forth. Pretty sure it was an in the right ear out, out the left ear situation.

Hubby came in and talked about what he expected when Mommy puts on the teacher hat. This stimulated a lot of conversation about what the hat would look like. After giggles from kids and groans from parents, both agreed to treat Mommy better in general and especially as teacher. Sonny-Bunny nodded. He said sorry. He hugged. But I know this is going to be a struggle.

To those of you who have turned from “Mommy” to teacher, how have you handled this? I know we started older with this task but I am open to any advice.

On a lighter note, Little Diva has turned to calling me “Mrs. Mommy”.

Have you ever worn two hats? How did you make the switch? And as my kids would ask — “what did it look like?”