"I can't do this!" The thought ricocheted around my head as I walked away from my son's IEP. There is NO WAY I can homeschool my two learning disabled children. Yet, my gut told me I had little choice.
In the past two years I had watched my now first grade son change from a happy, easy going little boy to an angry kid. To further complicate matters, my school's special education administrator acted more like their babysitter than their teacher.
The good news was the special education administrator had taken a sabbatical. The bad news was he was set to return next year. I had one year to decide what to do and how to do it.
During the next several months I read everything I could get my hands on relating to disabilities similar to those faced by my son and daughter. I scoured how-to manuals for teaching the basics - reading, writing, and arithmetic. I grilled the interim special education administrator - a wonderful woman who gave me the best teaching advise I have ever received.
In the years that followed, I used much of what I learned, but it was her advise which kept me on track. She said, If your student is not learning the subject, you are not teaching it correctly.' While this sounds simplistic and, in fact, can be misinterpreted as a license for a lazy student, this is advise to a teacher not a student.
Over the years this advise kept me from throwing in the towel, considering my children too difficult to teach, or believing myself unable to do the job. In fact, her advise helped me turn what looked like an impossible situation into a doable challenge.
Once I had an underlying philosophy and a cursory understanding of how to help my children overcome their learning challenges, I went looking for curriculum designed to meet their needs. Fourteen years ago there was little available. However, my stand-in advisor again proved her worth.
She directed me to curriculum she had come across in her years as a special education teacher. While it only covered the rudimentary subjects during the primary years, it gave me the basis for adapting my children's curriculum in the future.
While each learning disability is as unique as the child who struggles to overcome it, a homeshooling parent has the rare opportunity to not only teach their child but to learn their child. In my children's case, I learned they needed much more time to grasp a concept.
New concepts had to be given in mini-morsels, repeated over time, and practiced for days. As I grew to understand their needs, I learned how to adapt curriculum to help them overcome their challenges.
The years have not always been kind. Hair pulling has occurred. Tears have been shed. Sweat has shone on our brows. However, while I would not wish this challenge on any parent, it has been worth the effort.
My children are both socially well adjusted, happy, easy-going young people who see their learning disabilities as challenges not limits. In addition, test results from their later school years showed them achieving far above their tester's expectations.
Does this mean I am a great teacher? Supermom? To be applauded? Certainly not. However, it may mean I passed the test. Maybe I learned my children enough to help them over the hurdles life had placed in their paths.
Before you can decide whether homeschooling your learning disabled child is a good idea, you need to look at your options from two different viewpoints:
Can you homeschool your learning disabled student? Only you can answer that question. Are you willing to be stretched well beyond your comfort zone? Sometimes daily? Are you a lifelong learner? Are you willing to study - your student and their learning disability? While you may not have an education degree, you must be willing to dig for answers and use your resources. Most importantly, you must not be too afraid or too proud to ask for help.
Should you homeschool your learning disabled student? What are your motives? This is no road to glory or fame - it is purely and simply a labor of love. How organized are you? Most children with learning disabilities need a lot of structure. How dedicated are you? Regardless of how things turn out, you will want to quit. How committed are you? This is a long term job! Your child's learning disability is not going to go away in a year or three or five.
Like deciding to homeschool, choosing to homeschool your learning disabled child is a personal decision. With learning disabled children, this decision becomes even more serious. While bright students sometimes learn in spite of us, learning disabled students cannot learn without us.
Nonetheless, a homeschool setting often offers what most schools cannot or will not. Most learning disabled students are sensitive to distractions. A homeshool setting can adapt to offer a less-distractive environment. A homeschool parent can offer one-on-one interaction which even the best schools can only offer rarely. A homeschooling parent can adapt the curriculum to their child's learning style. But, the most important thing a homeschool can offer is a teacher who loves this particular student more than anyone else in the world!
While parenting is the hardest job any person will every undertake, homeschooling learning disabled children ups the ante beyond our wildest imaginations. However, as any parent will tell you, when you love your children, you are willing to do anything and everything to help them become the best they can be. For me, that included homeschooling.