Podcast
The Raising Lifelong Learners podcast helps parents — especially homeschooling parents — encourage their differently-wired kids to learn, explore passions, cultivate creativity, and become fascinated by the world around them. Join host Colleen Kessler — educational consultant, gifted specialist, author, and speaker — for interviews, audioblogs, tips, and encouragement to help your differently-wired kiddos become lifelong learners — children who know that they can find the answers to anything they want to know if they can just view their world with play, passion, and fascination.
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When Curriculum Fails Our Neurodivergent Kids (And What to Do Instead)
You have the beautiful basket, the carefully curated booklist, and the latest, greatest interactive workbook that promised to finally unlock your child’s love of learning. You reorganized the shelves, printed the planner, and even bought the watercolor pencils. But it’s only October, and the “perfect” curriculum is already sitting untouched, while your child refuses to…
Navigating Criticism as a Homeschool Family: Finding Your Calm Confidence
You know that moment—the one where you’re at a cousin’s wedding only to be cornered by a distant relative who asks if your kids will ever be “normal” or return to “real school.” There is a particular sting in the questions that come from the people who love you, especially when the choices you’ve made…
Creating Home Systems That Support Executive Function for Neurodivergent Kids
Raise your hand if you’ve ever asked your child to “just get started” on a task, only to find them spinning in circles, paralyzed by too many choices or distractions. Or, maybe you find yourself regularly reminding everyone where things go, and still, it’s a scavenger hunt every morning trying to get out the door….
Navigating Parent Burnout While Homeschooling Neurodivergent Kids
Homeschooling takes everything you have. Homeschooling a neurodivergent child takes everything—and more—you didn’t know you could give. So often the conversations in parenting circles center around how to support our children, how to advocate for their needs, how to adjust and accommodate and scaffold each day so they become who they’re meant to be. But…
Navigating Sibling Conflict and Neurodivergence in Your Homeschool
It’s the universal family refrain: “That’s not fair!” If you have more than one child, you’ve heard it—sometimes on a daily basis. In neurodivergent homeschooling families, though, these conversations about fairness and sibling dynamics can take on a whole new level of complexity. When giftedness, ADHD, autism, anxiety, sensory sensitivities, dyslexia, or any combination thereof…
Real-Life Homeschool Rhythms for Neurodivergent Kids
“How am I supposed to teach all these kids at once?” If there’s ever been a thought that repeats itself on a loop during your homeschool days, it might be this one. The never-ending tug-of-war—one child glued to your side and needing guidance every step of the way, another begging for independence, a gifted kid…