Create the Best Homeschool for Your Family

Homeschooling opens up many opportunities and possibilities for our neurodiverse children. It’s a different kind of education, and it’s exciting! When you choose to open up to all the avenues of education that are possible, it can be empowering.

Letting go of the fear

Oftentimes, we as parents of neurodiverse kids homeschool from a place of fear.

The first step to opening ourselves to all the possibilities while homeschooling our quirky kids is to just lay it all out. Journal about what your actual fears for your child’s future are, and how homeschooling is related to that.

I was terrified about the future. I’m not a parent who thinks that the only road to success lies in higher education. I am fully aware that there are many ways our kids can be successful in their future.

When my oldest graduated high school he did not want to go to college at all. He wanted to take a gap year just to kind of be, which was the right choice for him. Then out of the blue one day, he said he wanted to go to the local community college and take a few classes. It has a two-year video production and media technology degree with the potential of possibly transferring afterwards. And guess what? It’s possible even to do that with a couple of weeks’ notice.

By laying out the fears you have and realizing that there are multiple paths to the same end — and that there are multiple ends available to our quirky, differently-wired kids — we can feel ready to tackle anything that comes our way.

Take the time to figure out what your actual fears are. If you don’t give them a voice, they keep circling and showing up as these big unknowns creating a constant state of reaction.

I was just talking with a good friend of mine about living in that constant state of fear as the person who is responsible for the family structure, with multiple children who have very unique needs, desires, interests, and passions. By laying our fears out in our journals, or to another person, we allow it to be reactionary in the written and spoken words. As fear tells us all the things that could go wrong, we can actively work to reframe it.

We can give our fears a voice, recognize that they’re just, valid, and real. Then move on.

Lean into Community

When we feel alone in our fears, worries, and expectations they will grow and prey on our minds. But, when we have a community of others who love us and our kids for exactly who they are, we create this new way that allows us to relax in those fears and see the full potential in front of us.

Talk to your trusted people about what you’re going through. Let me emphasize that you want to make sure that you’re with safe people. You’re finding community with people who get your kids and get you, whether that’s in person or online. Find a place where you all can have someone or a group to connect with on a regular basis.

Homeschooling Your Neurodiverse Children

Now you are ready now to tune in to the possibilities of designing your kid’s unique educational experience — especially one where you’re following your kids’ interests, embracing their passions, honoring their unique strengths, cultivating their gifts, fostering their creativity, and running with it.

Do what builds a rich education for you and your child. For a while our history study looked like reading from a history book two days a week, then two days a week watching documentaries, and one day a week meeting over hot chocolate and coffee to talk about the things we could learned from what we read and watched.

There were no essays, comprehension questions, memorization of dates, nor timelines. But the kids who I did that with know a ton about history. This made for a rich conversation and relationship-building experience within our home.

Tune in to what your kids love, your child’s uniqueness, and what lights them up. Trust your gut if your intuition tells you that something seems counterproductive to your family. Often there is a different way.

With that, we must filter out the unhelpful voices and meet our child’s needs. Not everyone’s going to understand what you do. And here’s the best advice I can give you for being open to new possibilities: be brave.

Be brave when you start tuning into what you and your kids really need. Be brave about what you know deep down is the right thing for your family.

You are the absolute best parent for the children you have. I’ve said it before, and it’s true. You’re also the absolute best teacher for the kids that you have. My husband, who still teaches in the public schools, told me he’s so glad that we took this chance 14 years ago because it was the right decision for our kids.

And they have gotten a much better education than they would’ve ever received going to a traditional school. Trust yourself and be brave. Not everyone’s going to get you and your kids, but the right people will. You will know you did the absolute best that you could and that you took advantage of the opportunities and opened yourself to all the possibilities.

Raising Lifelong Learners Podcast Episode #207: Create the Best Homeschool for Your Family

You have neurodiverse children. They are gifted, they are twice exceptional, they have anxiety, perfectionism, sensory struggles, or perhaps they’re on the autism spectrum. They have any number of neurodiversities. I am right there with you. I believe with my whole heart that homeschooling is the best possible educational choice for kids like ours.

And I’m here to help you with that. So today we’re going to talk about opening your mind to new possibilities. It’s a different kind of education, and it’s exciting.

Links and Resources from Today’s Show

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