Homeschooling Stories

Homeschooling and Reaching Our Goals
Part 1 - A Personality Re-Awakened

Noah (ASD) is now almost 11, in 5th grade, and what we have seen in him since starting homeschooling in grade four is nothing short of miraculous! Starting in his first grade classroom, we noticed his personality disappeared. Second and third grade were even worse, as the school he attended focused on a different type of therapy than RDI and it was not uncommon to pick him up from school with him feeling like a total failure! He became a child who just tried to exist, and get thru the day. He went into survival mode. He was unhappy much of the time and dwelled on anything negative.

Because of this, my objective for the first few months of homeschooling was to bring him back-- back to being the Noah I knew as a little boy, full of love and personality. It is a joyful experience to watch him return. He is now comfortable in his own skin. He is using downtime for imaginative play. He laughs so much now! He is a pleasure to be around. I think of this when I think about my initial fear about homeschooling: the fear that it is just too much time to be with my child- he was not much fun to be around after school because of his stress. Now that he is so much more relaxed, we enjoy being around each other. But even so, there are times apart, as well. Often, he is in his room playing with his brother, or engaging in imaginative play with his sister. Or, he may be found in the backyard investigating life.

Amazingly, I have more energy now that I do not have to battle to get my child help. All my kids have much more of a friendship than they ever had. When people ask me how much work homeschooling is, I tell them, "much less work then sending them to school! Noah and I can get our academics done in half the time it took for us to drudge thru his homework in the evening. My life is finally calmer than it has ever been! That alone puts a spring in my step since I have 4 children! Homeschooling = timesavings.

Part 2 - Scaffolding for Competence

My homeschooling focus is on Autism remediation. While working on competency throughout the day, I scaffold activities for Noah.

With academic subjects, the objective is never for Noah to just memorize facts. Instead, any subject turns into an opportunity to build our relationship and for Noah to comprehend the social piece in anything that he is learning. We will read to each other, we will work on Math as a team,and science experiments take on a new meaning when Noah becomes more interested in what I see in the experiment, along with learning!

Non-academic activities are equally important in our homeschool, and I have had to learn that mindfulness will not happen if because of lack of time, I just do what needs to be done. For example, last week, Noah got his stuffed Star Wars figure stuck in a branch in our tree in the front yard. As I was preparing dinner, I wondered where he was. Finally I decided to look in the back yard and front yard. In the front, Noah had a small stepladder out, with a long stick, trying to get his figure out of the tree. That meant he got the ladder out of the garage, realizing it was not high enough, looked for something to help. What amazed me was that he was NOT in distress. His competency had grown so he was willing to see how far he could go without help. When he saw me, I told him he had some good ideas so far, and we worked together to figure out some additional ideas that would get the job done. He did figure out we needed something longer, like a rake, and I held the stepladder and his leg as he was in the middle of the ladder. While I could have easily done the whole thing for him in only half the time it took for him to thoughtfully consider his strategy, when the figure came down, the joy of accomplishment on Noah's face was priceless. All I could think as he smiled from ear to ear, was how last year, he would have had a total meltdown because of the situation, and I would have come out and fixed it for him to prevent further stress. Competency is a power motivator.

Part 3 - Restoring Confidence
Noah has been literally so stressed out at school, that he is fearful when he just thinks he does not understand something. I took the summer until October to "deschool" him. I have backed up and have mixed in younger grade material with his fourth grade material so he feels competent. I have also looked for curriculum that does not have an age marker (Miquon Math) so he does not know he is working on younger material. At the same time, this is filling in any gaps he has from what he learned (or specifically did not learn) from school. Noah lights up when he sees he can understand the material. I have switched Math programs twice to get to this point. If something is not making your child feel competent then it may just be the curriculum is not a good match. Right now we are concentrating on filling in Noah's gaps with math, and we are also reading together. Noah also has a pen pal that he writes to. It helps with his episodic memory. He writes to her and is excited when he retells what has happened in the past week in his life. He was so thrilled to tell her all about New Years Eve, as seen by the smile on his face when he explained to her how he felt when he rang in the New Year. From sparklers to firecrackers, he wanted to make sure she knew how much fun celebrating the New Year with his family was. He had hoped she had as much fun with her family as he did. This experience sharing helps Noah to learn to write, eventually giving him a complete understanding that the reader wants to connect with experiences and that writing is not just words on a piece of paper.

Part 4 - A Stronger Parent-Child Relationship

Noah comes up to me all the time just to tell me he loves me. We have conversations and he asks me what I think. He will run back into the house if he forgets to say bye without a hug! I weep when I think of how far he has come!

A few weeks ago, I was on the recliner, and he was on the couch, and we were both watching TV. He got up and asked me if I needed a blanket. I told him "sure", and he got the throw blanket off the couch and covered me. He then sat back down and we continued to watch. It was not even a commercial. He was more interested in my comfort at that moment, and our relationship, than anything the television had to offer.

Another time, when all the cookies were done for the holidays, we were talking as a family in the living room. Noah turned to me and asked me which type of cookie I preferred, Gingerbread Men or Chocolate chip. I told him my all time favorite cookie has got to be chocolate chip. About an hour later, he gently came in to the dining room as I was on the computer, and told me to take a cookie break because he wanted to give me my favorite cookie as a snack!

He understands he has a role in our family, that he is a part of something. When conversation is happening, he now knows to check in to see if he is being spoken to. He understands that all of our conversations are relevant to him, as he continues to learn how to care about our perspectives. The sparkle in his eyes is because he can be a child and he is free to explore his world, as each day he gets closer to understanding it! I know him. I know my child now! And he knows me, he knows his Dad, and he trusts us!

Owning Learning
The most exciting thing for me to see from Noah is he is able to just be, with no stress. He is comfortable in his own skin. He has started to pick up books to read, which he never has done before. It is thrilling to watch his comprehension take off as he is given the time to imagine and to think. This is not from me telling him to read -- it is from giving him the prerequisites of learning, and letting him own his own learning.

Noah now enjoys telling me what he is thinking or what he is pretending. Today he was pretending to be a police officer. Quite a common choice for a young boy! Imaginative play, along with self-talk, are crucial in typical development. Noah no longer falls apart when he cannot figure something out, or thinks he is incorrect. He now wants to try, as the fear of failure lessens. One of the main components of resilience-the ability to get up and try again-is that one feels comfortable with who they are. To watch a child go thru the stages of development is an amazing thing, so to watch Noah get back on the path of this development, and be able to once again join these natural stages, is utterly astonishing.

Many thanks to Kathy, for her story.
For more about Noah, see page 111 in the new book, The RDI Program and Education.

In The RDI Program and Education, readers will meet a variety of empowered parents, professionals and consultants who have been able to maintain goals for quality of life, combining efforts in order to achieve effective remediation for their children and students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A truly diverse group, the educators captured in this book extend from high school Principals to grandparents and friends. And the educational experiences documented transcend from the private school classroom to the vegetable garden. Click here to order.