Be a Great Sleuth
Get to know your child’s learning style and diagnosis. Parents feel frustrated and disappointed, especially if they haven’t found the answer to how best help their child. Once you have difficulty, seek help. Ask for suggestions and get a professional evaluation from someone who understands overlapping symptoms. This takes time, but is worth the effort.
You should ask yourself, what is my child telling me when he’s exhibiting angry or frustrating behavior, or when he refuses to do his work? What does it mean when he/she actually is saying while loudly proclaiming, "I hate math!"? Look at some possibilities:
• “I don’t like the way it is taught.”
• “This is too advanced for me.”
• “I’m bored. It’s too easy for me.”
You can help your family successfully homeschool by standing back from the behavior and working from a problem-solving mode.
Follow Your Own Way
The factory, assembly-line approach common in schools limits opportunities to experience real life. Children aren’t able to easily move ahead or beyond the confines of same-age classes and school walls unless school officials, not necessarily you, find a compelling reason to do so.
You’ll never know where you’ll meet a friend or professional who’ll light a fire in your child, who’ll respect them for who they are, and encourage their success.
Read books and magazines, watch educational videos and the Discovery and History Channels, attend community classes and events, go on field trips, hike, and camp, do science experiments, use the Internet, and have a few textbooks on the bookshelf. Use workbooks and programs specifically for children with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. If you necessitate a step-by-step curriculum, of course, use one. But if this does not fit with your homeschooling style, it’s OK to move to something else.
Remember, that children with special needs require something different. Discover it. From experience and research, you’ll find your comfort zone.
Let Them Dream
If your child wants to be a rocket scientist, encourage them! Does the process of getting from idea to career help children decide whether to pursue a dream or not? Don’t children and adults for that matter, often change their minds about what they want to be when they grow up? Naturally, they do.
We use the labels when we need to, but we don’t have the right to destroy anyone’s dreams because of it. It is not our call to make.
Learn Family Advocacy
The right for homeschooling didn’t come easy. You can still encounter misunderstanding and prejudice against homeschooling. You should know your rights.
Moreover, if family or your child is getting services from a public school, know your special education rights.
Search for information on tactics and strategies and how to effectively work with your school while advocating for your child.
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