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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Project-Based Learning for Neurodivergent Kids: Why It Works
The phrase “project-based learning” might conjure up images of color-coordinated folders, trifold posters exploding with glitter glue, and Pinterest-worthy perfection. But for the neurodivergent kids—those asynchronous thinkers brimming with ideas and creativity, yet often struggling to bring projects to completion—real project-based learning looks very different. It can be beautiful, yes, but not in the ways…
When Perfectionism Looks Like Avoidance
He sat at the kitchen table with his pencil hovering over a blank sheet of paper. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. When I gently asked if he needed help, the answer was sharp and closed: “I can’t do this. This is stupid.” The paper was shoved aside and he stormed out of the room, tears already…
Beating Boredom Without Busy Work: Motivating Neurodivergent Learners at Home
The words hang heavy in the air: “I’m bored.” It’s the anthem of childhood and the phrase that can send even the most confident of homeschooling parents into a tailspin. You start to question everything – Is my curriculum enough? Should I be adding more activities? Is there something wrong with my child, or with…
When Passions Turn Into Pathways | Rethinking Motivation and Learning for Neurodivergent Kids
There’s a certain pride that comes with seeing your kid spend hour upon hour meticulously building in Minecraft, memorizing every prehistoric era and creature, or scripting pages of dialogue for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. And then, just when you feel like you’ve cracked the “motivation” code, that same child will melt down over a…
Understanding Executive Function vs Motivation in Neurodivergent Learners
You sit there, watching your child as they stare off into space, the blank math worksheet sitting untouched in front of them, the pencil rolling slowly back and forth on the table. Minutes tick by. You know they’re bright. You’ve seen them obsessively research trilobites for hours, build elaborate Lego designs that put YouTube master…
Confidently Planning Your Homeschool Year: Tools, Tips, and Real-Life Strategies
It’s that time of year again. The air is thick with possibility and exhaustion at once—you’re finishing up last year’s curriculum, staring down the barrel of next year’s planning, and if your inbox is like everyone else’s, it’s bursting with “Can’t-miss!” sales and curriculum recommendations. It’s a strange overlap, this limbo between ending and beginning,…