Does your child have special needs?
As a new homeschooler, I would read the accounts of other families and dream my dreams. Would my children earn early admission to Harvard? Would they be National Merit Scholars? Never in my dreams did I ask myself, Will they ever learn to read?
Yet, that became the question and cry of my heart with my last two children, my third and fourth. They challenged me and forced me to grow. They allowed me to dream new dreams. With a lot of hard work and prayer, they are doing well.
When they were first diagnosed with ADHD and Learning Disability, their particular special needs, I doubted that I could adequately provide for their educational and emotional needs. I was ready to pack them off to the experts for them to deal with. I am so glad I didn’t!
I took the counsel of several of those experts and did my own research and created a program that made sense for them and for our family. I did not close my eyes and hope that it would all go away – the behavioral problems, the inattention, and the seeming inability to learn. Instead, I opened my eyes to another way to look at learning. I settled in my heart the incredible value and blessing of each of my children, no matter the level of their academic success. Instead of pushing them to be scholars, I now view my role as that of teaching them to be successes – with whatever gifts and abilities they have been given.
Has your child been given a special needs label? Rest assured, yes you CAN homeschool.
A good starting point for any challenging child is my book, Homeschooling the Challenging Child.
