Small Victories...

TODAY WE WERE celebrating small victories. The other day I posted about learning challenges and and the webinar that I watched. Learning and learning challenges are all brain driven. I'm sure you're thinking, "yeah, no kidding!" But if the brain isn't firing quite right things don't get through and children don't always "see" the same things that you're seeing. Case in point, while my oldest was going through occupational therapy there was a day that he was presented with a simple activity. What happened was fascinating to me. He was asked to recreate parallelograms and other shapes with stirring straws. What was created by the therapist was to be copied by my son. There were several examples that he could just not recreate. Not only wasn't he able to copy them, he argued that what he created was in fact the same as what the therapist had made with the straws. He was visualizing something completely different from what was in front of him. I was amazed. It never occurred to me that when I was asking him to do something what was "going in" wasn't always what I meant or intended.

I think that many parents of children with learning challenges don't even consider what it's like on the other end of the learning spectrum. As parents and teachers, we put forth the curriculum and it makes sense to us and we expect that through our explanation it makes sense to them. At least I did. I would go over and over things and only to be frustrated because, "He's just not paying attention" among other things that I thought. When you, yourself don't have a learning challenge or maybe you do, but instead of getting the help you needed you just chalked it up to "I'm just not good at ______" (you fill in the blank). You don't even consider that they may just not be comprehending what you're asking. This was all BREAKING NEWS to me. I felt terrible about what I thought and even, how at times, I behaved when faced with challenging moments.

There are so many developmental things that go into learning. Physical things that most first time parents don't know. I also don't think that parents are educated well on how important these things are. Like crawling for example, it is so important for a child to crawl as a baby. It works both hemispheres of the brain and helps with learning things like reading when the child gets older. Playing in general is so important! Physical activity. Using the big muscles. All these things help build pathways in the brain and help the learning process.

So getting back to small victories... Today my seven year old mastered the monkey bars. You may not think that's a big deal, but let me tell you why it is. Being able to swing and control your body is a BIG brain builder. When I was doing occupational therapy with my oldest some of the activities he had to master was swinging and controlling his swinging. Some times he had to swing on a platform and swing in a clockwise motion. Controlled and steady. Then other days he had to do it counter clockwise. On other days he had to sit on a seat on a rope swing and swing in a circular motion and while tossing bean bags at a target. All these activities required control of ones body and they are all brain building activities. Often times I would take "school" outside and do it on the trampoline or on the swings in our backyard. I would read-a-loud or he would recite math facts, etc. while he was able to move. Amazingly enough he was able to concentrate and accomplish lots while doing these things and having the freedom of motion. Sitting on an exercise ball while doing school work can work wonders too!

So the next time you feel frustrated or like your not good at teaching, get curious. Maybe there's more going on than you think. And celebrate those victories!! They are important!!

As an FYI, I am now an Amazon Associate, which means if you link to Amazon through any of my links and make purchases you are supporting me. If you have a blog you can do it too! Who doesn't need more money for books and curriculum?? Thanks and enjoy your day!

Learning disabilities...

DO YOUR CHILDREN have learning disabilities? Do they struggle with reading and writing, maybe math? The first time around I had a child struggle with reading and writing. Math seemed fine to a point and then fell apart. I felt like homeschooling wasn't working and I must have been doing it all wrong. Other families did it and their children seemed better educated than mine and they seemed to enjoy school. I was mystified because this was NOT my experience. Not my experience at all!! There were so many times I thought I would put my child in school, someone else could and should do it better. Of course they were more qualified.
Luckily, even though I felt way in over my head, I stuck with it. Through talking with other mom's I discovered that maybe it wasn't me and maybe we both just needed some help. I had my child evaluated and discovered he did, indeed have some learning challenges. We did occupational therapy, vision therapy, auditory therapy and a lot of trial and error. He is now going into his Junior year of high school and you'd never know he ever had any problems. He reads lots, for school and pleasure. He even took an online course this year though Institute for Excellence in Writing and achieved over a 90% in each semester. I call that success!!! Considering there were years I wondered if he'd ever master the art of writing at all.

Well, now I'm on child number two and he too, seems to have some challenges. However, this time we may not be able to do all of the necessary therapies, due to insurance and cost constraints. Or at least not as quickly as I would like. So I may have found another option and the beauty of it is I can do it at home and at our own pace. I am excited about the prospect!! There were so many times during occupational therapy that I thought, why can't you just show me and I could do this. This time possibly I can!

After watching the Webinar through Learning Link Technologies, I feel ready to again tackle these learning challenges. I've been looking over this program for a while now and when they had their free webinar I signed up to learn more. I really think this will be a good fit with the challenges we are dealing with. When we get going with this program I will be sharing our experiences and progress.

I know from educating my first child how hard it is to deal with learning challenges. So I plan to share this so that if you or someone you know can be supported and helped along their journey of finding what fits. Every family and child is so unique. This is just what we're choosing. I'm not suggesting this is the best or only program, just that for what we are dealing with it looks like a great find. So intermixed with the other activities we do, I hope to be sharing our journey. And God willing our successes!! Some times the homeschooling road is hard, but I've always said that homeschoolers are DOERS and if you choose to you can do most anything. You just may need a little help along the way and that's ok! Just keep moving!!