summer motivators: securing support

Human support comes to us in two primary ways.

Emotional support and tangible, hands-on support.  The support you need to wake up in the morning to get through life with some grace and self respect.  And the tangible support, that which you need when your feet hit the floor.

Emotional support.  When others condone our choices, empathize with our difficulties and rejoice in our success.  Here's the tricky part.  We don't always get that kind of support from the people we love.  We must have people in our life who will give us some emotional support so we don't get discouraged.  However.  We can't solicit support or force support from those we love.  We just can't make other people believe in what we are doing.  But here is the very good news.

We don't have to.

We don't have to convince the people we love that our choices are right or good or true or beautiful.  We are going to cause ourselves a lot of distress if that becomes our goal.  What becomes a more reasonable request is simply that they respect our family choices.  For example.  If your parents don't think homeschooling is a viable option for your family, your job is not to convince them otherwise.  A lot of arguing and head butting could ensue.  However, simply requesting respect for your own authority of your family is pretty reasonable.  No guarantees of peace, but it's a lot more likely that someone can agree to respect your decisions and autonomy than to agree with your choices.

And on that note, important to be respectful of their decisions and autonomy, too.  Tendency is to reap what we sow. 

Next post I'll talk about the other kind of support.  The support you need when your feet hit the floor.