The Kids are All Home. Now what?!

Summertime Family Reentry and the Importance of Practicing Mercy in the Home

ALL IS GRACE. That was my theme phrase for the new year, and this week I needed a reminder to keep going. The transition from May to June is a test of a mom’s true understanding and implementation of grace. May feels like falling off the wheel, losing steam, survival mode, and good intentions gone to the wayside. June feels like a fresh start, a new kind of chaos, a breath of fresh air, summer fun.

If I’m being honest, a big regret I have is my middle daughter’s years of preschool. It felt like a rushing, like a constant to-and-from, like a “hurry up, get in the car!” kind of time. I look back on it and remember yelling at and degrading her for making us late to another day of school that I paid for and wanted to squeeze the most value out of for both her and me. Truth be told, being late was sometimes attributed to middle daughter’s lack of executive functioning skills, but sometimes it was my love of eight hours of sleep and the refusal to believe that the preschool years don’t automatically mean you get to go back to that amount with ease.

This year, I had all three kids in the same school for the only year that will ever be the case for us: 5th, 3rd, and kindergarten. The ride to school on the last day should have been magical at best and peaceful at the least. It wasn’t. It was stressful, and I had to fight the urge to go back to that place of bitterness and rage and discouragement for things that simply didn’t go any of our ways. We struggled through the morning routine. We could all have done better. But I had a choice to make in the car. How would this ten minutes on the streets of Carmel go, and in the hearts of my children?

In moments like these, every action of grace is a fight. My flesh wants to win. But I do fight for the grace, and I fight better than I did a couple of years ago. So I will give myself grace too, seeing my progress, and watching the old self melt.

We could all have done better. But I had a choice to make…

My friend Ashley Ferris @embracingthewild mentioned the May to June transition for school-aged families as a reentry. An important distinction she made though is that just as much as it is a transition for my lifestyle as a mama, it is a transition for my kids too as they take on the newness of home versus school and all that this means for their day and their heart and their emotions. They are used to a certain set of daily tasks, activities, and faces, and now they will take on a whole new set of these. They need time to adjust, just as I do.

With ALL IS GRACE as motivation, I am deciding to see June as more than a hyper-focused reset of schedules, rules, and household rhythms. Those things need to come for sure, but first, what if the reset had more to do with a reformation of family culture and of attitudes around grace?

Because here’s the thing. Many of our kids are reentering back into our homes for the M-F | 9-5 routine for the first time in nine months. When the kids come off of a two-month break and enter a new classroom for the first time, what does the teacher do? How does she spend those first moments with her new students? She’ll get to the rules very soon, but a truly good teacher first focuses on creating a classroom culture, on developing a family-like atmosphere where the kids feel safe, loved, and that they belong. That is how the foundation of learning will actually take place and will trump the rules every time.

In the first grade, my daughter had Mrs. Hayes, and I’m going to keep her in mind over the next couple of days. A bubbly blonde with a voice meant for teaching little ones, she was in her last year of teaching before retirement when Selah was placed in her classroom. On the first day of first grade, sweet Mrs. Hayes directed each new first grader to color a little wooden cutout of a child and decorate it to represent themselves. Then, each of the children carefully put their decorated stick figure into a special treasure box that Mrs. Hayes kept at the front of the classroom. While the box sat next to her that first day and every day thereafter, the “keeper” of the classroom reminded the students that she was there to keep each of them and their hearts safe in her heart.

Well, I am the keeper of my home, and as far as keeping my children’s hearts goes, the job goes first to God, secondly to my husband and I as their parents, and then at some point after that, their teachers. So I will take any cue I can get from them and bring it home where it is even more important. In her not-yet-released book on merciful mothering, my friend and mentor Mary Gothi focuses on the verse in Philippians 4 in every point she makes about being a mercy-filled mom. It reads, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things” (v. 8).

In these first weeks of summer, as a keeper of my children’s hearts, I am going to take a challenge, and I’d love for you to join me in it in your own homes and then over on Instagram. Every few days, I plan to post one of the traits from Phillippians 4:8 and remind myself what is admirable, lovely, or true about my child(ren). I can’t promise I will be posting these every three days or on an exact rhythm, lol, as I take my own advice as best I can. However, as a motivation for us mamas (and anyone else who lives under the same roof with others) to stick with this together, anyone who comments on at least five of the eight posts will be entered to win a pre-order copy of Mary’s book when it releases. Or just send me a little note and tell me you wrote it in your journal or wherever is most meaningful, convenient, and impactful for you. Remember, ALL IS GRACE. In Jesus, there is enough to go around, for your kids, for you.

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POSTED BY

Jenna

Jenna Kruse is a teacher but not in a classroom. She loves to think outside the box and inside the Word and is daily in need of an attitude adjustment. She is a wife to Justin, a mother to three children ages 10, 8 and 5 and a mentor to teenagers and young adults. You can learn more about the heart behind her blog HERE.

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