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Help With Your Mother's Rule

Help With Your Mother's Rule is a forum for women who want trouble-shooting help with their Mother's Rules or about any aspect of the 5 Ps of the married vocation.
Ask Holly: This blog is composed of your questions.Contact me at the address listed on Holly's Notebook page and I will post questions and answers. Please share your unique ideas as well. The more ideas and experience we share, the more successful every mother will be in designing her own unique Mother's Rule.
Holly Pierlot

A Mother's Rule of Life Companion

Establishing Your Practical Rule - Printable Workbook

Where I Can Purchase the Mother's Rule Workbook

Monday, February 26, 2007

When Real Life "Interrupts"

Dear Holly,
God in his awesome wisdom has given me an "early lesson" in the execution of my mothers rule. The next day after I emailed you about establishing my mother's rule and feeling pretty confident and "proud of myself", I went in to wake up my son and found him covered in vomit! I cleaned him up and got him dressed thinking it was just something he ate. So I was bound and determined to "keep my rule" and we were going to Mass. With his brother in his car seat and he in his coat, gloves and hat, more vomit came! So I took that as my sign.
After a morning of even more sickness, after I got him back to bed, I was presented with a choice to abandon the rule all together for the day or to continue with the rest of my day as planned. So I just picked up where we left off and kept to the rule. I learned two valuable lessons. (1) That again I am not in control but God is!! And (2) just because my morning doesn't go as "planned" doesn't mean I have to just abandon the rest of the day all together. When I miss something, just pick up and keep on. More challenges will come I am sure but with His Grace and determination in us, we can keep our Rule faithfully. It is not so much about keeping a "schedule" but about displaying our faithfulness to our husbands, children and ultimately God!
Labels: About a Rule of Life

posted by Holly at 8:04 AM 2 comments

Friday, February 16, 2007

After Dragging My Feet...

Dear Holly,
After a few months of dragging my feet and coming up with a lot of "not so good" reasons to keep putting off starting a rule, last Wednesday I just began the Rule! I sat down and answered all the questions in each section of the 5 P's and made the Rule. So coming up on a week now, I have to say it really has begun to change my life. I am now up with my husband in the morning. We are able to spend time together sharing a meal. And the joy and enthusiam he expresses at this "change of life" is encouraging. Our Rule includes daily Mass. My almost 2 year old is on a great schedule. So much fruit and graces have already come from this commitment. I just pray for discipline and perserverence.
Labels: 2nd P Person, About a Rule of Life

posted by Holly at 6:58 PM 1 comments

Husband Reluctant to Homeschool

Dear Holly,
I am the mother of six, from a newborn to age 8. My husband and I are richly blessed. I absolutely love your book. I have many sisters to share it with (I am the youngest of 14, 9 of which are girls)! One of my biggest concerns is the education of my children. I desire to home school in the worst way, but my husband does not want me to. After coming home with our newest arrival, I can't help but feel somewhat relieved. However, if my husband ever agreed to it, I would try it with my whole heart. I would much rather attempt the hard work of home schooling, than to have my children being subjected to peers brought up with poor moral values. At this time, they go to a public school, my oldest being in the second grade. We most certainly could not afford a Catholic school. I feel that we try our best to teach them their faith at home. My husband is involved with that as well. He just thinks that it would be too much work for me. I haven't convinced him yet to go to a home schooling conference. I have talked much with my brother about this who is a priest with the Fathers of Mercy. He says Our Lord loves obedience. He tells me to pray about it, for my husband's heart to open to the idea. Until then, the priest tells me to do as my husband wishes, for he is the leader of our family. I am hoping and praying that if that ever happens or not, we will be able to give back to God what rightfully belongs to Him: our children.
Labels: Homeschooling

posted by Holly at 6:49 PM 2 comments

Friday, February 09, 2007

Evening Catechesis

I had told a few ladies about what our family does for catechesis now - how we have removed it from our school time, and placed 20 minutes of faith reading before our evening family rosary. They still use grade level texts, but it has become more reflective than study related, and we plan to continue this all year round. It has changed how the kids view the religious reading - removing it from 'school' and making it instead about 'life'. And it has also produced a better recollection of the children before prayer. Philip has begun to do his own spiritual reading at this time too, and I get around to mine (in addition to another afternoon period) after working with the littlest ones in Gr 1 and Gr 3. I received this question as a result:

Dear Holly,
Also I LOVE LOVE LOVE what you said about Catechesis at night. I SO believe in that... making it a part of life... my boys are in public school and I have been STRUGGLING with how to incorporate their Catechesis... right now it is hit or miss. Any suggestions for how to 'start' this when they have been used to play/time free time until bed? Also I cannot see my husband buying into this, to be truthful. Four boys ages 1 to 10!
Labels: 1st P Prayer, 4th P Parent

posted by Holly at 5:39 PM 1 comments

Too Much To Do, No Time to Fit It In

Dear Holly,
I have 6 children between the ages of 1 and 17, and my youngest are twins. I have been homeschooling for ten years, but I am still trying to figure out how to get to everything I want to do with my children for their education. I have the pressure of getting my oldest through high school, while dealing with one child's dyslexia and another's emotional reactions to school work, while physically taking care of 3 small children and trying to make sure they aren't watching DVDs all day long.

I have a list of everything I must do for the morning, lunchtime, afternoon, dinnertime, and evening and still cannot get it all in. Today I planned to check my oldest's work, couldn't find the books and now here it is almost 11 PM and it still didn't get done. My oldest is very extraverted and finds it difficult to study alone. He is behind on his high school work because of the twins. He basically took care of the other children and the house while I was pregnant and then the first few months.

I think it is my personality that I find it very difficult to ride my older children about their schoolwork. I am very non-confrontational. That is why I made my checklists. My girls tell me that they are done now and I have a list of what to check. Very often I find that they are NOT done. I find it hard to impose consequences on getting things done. I am on a message board that is primarily Protestant, while I am Catholic. Many of them are very "training" minded and use physical discipline, which I do not. So whenever I post about difficulties within our home, I get advice that just does not fit - ie spank, make them do it, etc. That is why I decided to ask you.

I feel like I am constantly swimming upstream and losing ground at the same time. I don't know if what I want to accomplish is unreasonable or if I am just not organized enough or something. I have read MROL several times. I cannot commit to a timed schedule right now so that's why I have the checklist. I have thought of keeping track of my hours of homeschooling and trying to fit in a certain number per week.

I don't know if I have given you the right information to catch a glimpse of my life and make suggestions, but I would be very grateful for any you can make.
Labels: Homeschooling

posted by Holly at 2:53 PM 5 comments

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Kids & Chores, Despite the Maid...

Dear Holly,
I use your MROL and it has been a lifesaver!! I began using it over the summer and it was great. A big chunk of my MROL is time allotted for house cleaning - the bathrooms, floors, etc. I had a baby 2 months ago and we have had a circumstance change. My husband has been kind enough to hire a housekeeper to come clean one morning every 2 weeks. This takes care of the heavy house work. Obviously there is still day to day stuff. It is very important to me that my kids learn to clean after themselves but they are still too young to handle anything heavy - they are 7,4,2 & 2 months. What advice would you have for me as I re-vamp my MROL? What sort of things should I still have the children do to help with cleaning? Should I block off time for the daily stuff - sweeping and dishes and weekly stuff that needs to be done between house keeper visits (vacuuming & dusting)??
Labels: 4th P Parent, 5th P Provider

posted by Holly at 8:22 PM 6 comments

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