Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose (13 page)

The First of Many School Decisions

Once we settled into our new life in Florida, I realized that we needed to send Natasha to preschool. Like I said, I had no idea that people researched schools and compared and contrasted all these different aspects of their educational options. I just thought you sent your kids to the local school and that was it. However, I soon noticed that all the other little kids in the neighborhood went to preschool so I figured it was time to send Natasha to school. Plus, the thought of having a few mornings a week with just two kids instead of all three sounded like a brilliant idea. I checked out a few preschools in the area, but I wasn’t impressed with any of them except for one that was located just a couple of blocks from our house. Score! I really liked it when I went for the interview, and we ended up eventually sending all three kids there.

Not too long after Natasha started Pre-K I was sitting in church one Sunday when someone made an announcement about the school that was affiliated with the church. It had been built only a couple of years earlier and was a K-7 school at the time, but they planned to add a grade each year until it was eventually a Pre-K through twelfth grade school. I really hadn’t thought much about kindergarten for Natasha. Again, I just kind of figured we’d send her to the closest public school. But I really loved my church and when they were talking about their affiliated school I thought I would mention it to Val.

When I brought it up, I told Val that I realized it sounded a little bit crazy, especially since we lived thirty-five minutes from the school, but I really felt like it was where our kids should go. He wasn’t going for it. It was too far away and we didn’t need to spend the money for private school. Public school was fine for our kids, and besides, Christian education wasn’t important to him anyway.

Val did say he would think about it, but I knew that really meant he wouldn’t think about it and would just let time pass. However, during that year we kept going to church and he attended more often and was becoming more open to God and the biblical teachings he was hearing there. Meanwhile, I kept gently nudging him about the school, and when summer came and we had to make a decision, he said, “Yeah, I think maybe we should look into that school.” I was quite surprised and elated about it, and I had no doubt that God had worked on Val’s heart about the situation. Not long after, Val and I interviewed with the school and our family was accepted!

While I was super happy that God had worked it out for my kids to go to school at the church I loved so much, it wasn’t always easy. After all, it was a thirty-five-minute drive twice a day on school days and at least once on weekends. We could have found a church closer to home and a school just down the road. We could have saved all that time and money. But I knew that it was the best option for my kids and it was where God wanted my children to be—a place where they wouldn’t just learn academics, but also learn about Him. Plus, Natasha absolutely loved it, which made it all worth it.

Homeschooling Mama

I would have been happy for all of my kids to spend their entire educational careers at that great school, but God—and the NHL—had other plans. In the spring of 2003, Val was traded to the St. Louis Blues, but with a strange contract clause that said he could be sent back to Florida at the end of the season if the Blues didn’t want to sign him. With that uncertainty in mind, we did not move to St. Louis, and Val did rejoin the Panthers for the following season. Then in 2004 Val was again sent packing at the trade deadline, this time to the Dallas Stars. We were yet uncertain about his future because he would be a free agent at the end of the season, so we didn’t make the family move to Dallas either.

During the summer of 2004, one of my biggest dreams came true. Val signed a contract with the Los Angeles Kings! I was going home, and my husband was going to get to play in front of my family and friends. You can’t even imagine how excited I was to return to my home city. We didn’t sell the house in Florida, because Val had only signed a one-year contract. However, we did rent a house in L.A. and we moved the family across the country. This move was a bit less eventful than the tour-bus trip of our prior move.

A hockey season starts in October (with training camp in September) and ends anywhere from April to June, depending on a team’s play-off schedule. With this in mind, we weren’t sure what to do about school. One option was to move to L.A. early enough so the kids could start school there and then stay until the end of the school year, even if the hockey season ended in April. But we decided we’d rather spend as much time in Florida as we could, so Val suggested I homeschool the kids that year, which wouldn’t tie us down to one place for an entire school year. I agreed, because I had quite a few friends from church that homeschooled their kids. I figured if they could do it, I could too. I was familiar with it, I thought it would be manageable, and I really liked the flexibility of the schedule.

That year Natasha was in second grade, Lev was in kindergarten, and Maks was still a toddler. I thought,
How hard can this be? The kids are in second grade and kindergarten. Piece of cake.
I was in for a rude awakening.

Natasha was not on board with the program. She didn’t want to work. It would take her hours to do fifteen minutes of work. She would whine, complain, and struggle all day long. I wouldn’t let her get up and play until she had done her work, so she would just sit there at the table for five or six hours and not do anything.

Lev, on the other hand, loved it. He quickly discovered that as soon as he got his work done for the day, he could go play. So he cranked out his lessons. I also found out that somehow he had already learned how to read. I hadn’t taught him. Val hadn’t taught him. But near the beginning of the school year when I told him I was going to read him a book, he said he could read it by himself. I didn’t believe him . . . until he took the book from my hands and started reading the story out loud to me. I was shocked! Sure, we had gone over letters and sounds and I knew he could sound out words, but he was able to just read entire sentences without having to sound anything out. He even read with inflection!

So while homeschooling Lev was a dream, homeschooling Natasha made me want to scream. She was so stubborn, and I wanted her to get her work done so I could get the three of them out of our rental house and go somewhere to play. I felt suffocated being in the house all day long. I finally got to the point where I would make any excuse to take them somewhere and use it as a learning experience. After walking to Starbucks, I would have the kids count out the money for our drinks. At the zoo, they would learn about the animals. After a trip to the supermarket, I’d say, “Let’s write a summary of our grocery store adventure!” But Natasha still wasn’t doing her work.

After a few months of this, Val could see how it wasn’t working for Natasha or for me. Let’s face it; I wanted to pull my hair out! And if I didn’t color it, I’m sure I would have seen some grays. So we both prayed about it and Val told me to go find a school for the kids. I was so relieved. I started looking at schools in the area and found a little Christian elementary school nearby that seemed great. Part of me was sad that the homeschool thing hadn’t worked out for us, but overall it was best for the kids and for my own sanity. Natasha obviously needed the social interaction with other kids and the kind of motivation that I couldn’t give her. I learned that I’m not the most loving and patient teacher in the world. Lev lessened the blow of me feeling like a failing mom when he told me how much he loved me homeschooling him and that he wanted to continue. But he seemed to understand my reasoning for the new decision and was just as excited to enter a classroom for kindergarten. And as I had suspected, he proved to be a star student!

Meanwhile, to my shock and utter disappointment, Val got badly injured in his first preseason game with the LA Kings. As he picked me up from the Los Angeles International Airport, I remember kissing him an excited hello after coming back from my first mission trip in Ghana, Africa. As we walked to the car, he told me of his injuries and that he needed to have both hip and back surgeries as soon as possible. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been there for him and that I had been so far out of the communication loop that he had to wait to tell me until I was home. I suddenly knew how my parents felt on my engagement day!

Because of his extensive surgeries, Val was unable to play or travel with the team that year. That also meant he was at home every day, as I became his full-time nurse, which added to the homeschool pressure and was the final instigator in sending the kids to school. My extended family had all planned on buying season tickets for the Kings, and we were all bummed about not being able to watch Val play in his black and silver colors. It ended up that Val never played another game in the NHL, and I never even got to see him suited up as an LA King. That first preseason game would be the last game of his career. So at the end of the season, we moved back to Florida.

School Hunting . . . Again!

Jumping ahead a little bit, when we ended up moving back to L.A. a couple of years later, we once again had to make a decision about where the kids would go to school. We already had a condo in L.A. that we knew we’d initially move into, so I started researching schools in the surrounding area. I was definitely more comfortable this time around since I was born and raised in L.A. and felt like I had a better handle on what I was looking for in a school. However, I did have high expectations since the school we were leaving was more than I could have wanted as a parent and as a Christian.

We had some friends that had moved back and forth from L.A. to Ft. Lauderdale who also had young children. They told us about the school where their kids had previously attended in the L.A. area which, again, was about a thirty-five-minute drive from where we were living. We checked out that school and also researched a few others. Finally we narrowed it down to three Christian schools and ultimately chose the one our friends had recommended. The school is from Pre-K through eighth grade, so having all three kids in the same school was a total bonus! While I still love our Florida school the most, this school is definitely the best choice for us in L.A.

As a mom, I try to get as involved as I can at school by helping with classroom parties, being a lunch helper, cooking for teacher appreciation days, chaperoning field trips, sitting in on chapel, and participating in community service events. Some years I’ve been more involved than others, depending on my work schedule, but I always schedule it in and if I have to end up having to cancel I will. But I’ve learned now that with one child in high school and the other two in middle school, parental help and involvement is becoming less and less, which bums me out. My kids are growing up and becoming more independent. They have to learn to do things on their own, and I’m thankful that Val and I have been so proactive in finding fantastic schools for our kids. I know that a good school will nudge my kids to make decisions for themselves, while allowing them to fail in the process for the sake of maturing. It’s my job to take a step to the side but to also never be too far away when they call.

Balancing Choices for Children

Life’s about choices and honestly, so is balance. Your time, your money, your relationships, these are all areas where our choices determine our ability to balance that which is most important for a healthy life. If you have children, the decision of how to approach their education is a big decision that will have a huge impact on what your picture of balance turns out to be. I’m going to give you some principles for making educational decisions for your family, but first I want to share something with those of you who may not have children. Let me encourage you to make the lives and education of children part of your life’s balance no matter your circumstances.

As I shared earlier, we all have children in our lives—and we all have schools in our communities. If your schedule is flexible, consider volunteering at a school whether you have children or not. And maybe you work during the day, so you can’t volunteer at a school, but you could help with an after-school program. Or maybe you’ll teach Sunday school at your church. Regardless of the form this takes in your life, children help us see life through a different lens and all children benefit from another adult in their lives who believe in them and make time for them.

Now, for those of you who have children, the specifics of what it looks like for you to invest in the lives of children obviously revolves around those God has given you to love and nurture. And a big part of what that will look like on a day-to-day basis for a big chunk of their lives revolves around how they are schooled. There are so many wonderful choices when it comes to educating your kids. Every parent needs to evaluate their top priorities, which could include academics, religion, sports programs, the arts, social circles, and size. You will need to consider whether your kids—and you—are best suited for public school, private school (either secular or religious), or homeschool. Depending on your family situation, there are likely other factors to think about when choosing a school for your kids.

When contemplating these choices, try not to make sweeping generalizations or assumptions about different forms of schooling. I have many friends and family members who are Christian homeschoolers, but I also know parents with little religious affiliation who homeschool their kids for academic and sports reasons. Private schools aren’t necessarily better than public school when you live in a great school district with fantastic teachers. And one pastor friend of mine intentionally put his children in public school so that they could develop their Christian worldview in a secular surrounding.

No one type of schooling is “right” for all families or all kids. Each parent knows his or her child’s strengths and weaknesses. My kids are very different when it comes to personalities and learning abilities. What’s right for Lev isn’t necessarily right for Maks, and Natasha’s high school won’t necessarily be the right choice for the boys. Everyone has a different and unique situation. It’s best to understand your circumstances and make a decision that is best for your family, not what’s most popular with your extended family, friends, or the proverbial Joneses. It’s up to each individual family to decide where God wants them to be and to determine which school will best help their kids become the kind of people they want them to grow up to be.