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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Finding the Sweet Spot – Balancing Structure and Flexibility in Your Homeschool
Maybe you’re staring at your own lesson planner right now, doing battle with the same questions I’ve buried myself in: How much routine do our kids really need? How much flexibility will break, rather than liberate, them? If your house is brimming with gifted, twice-exceptional, or otherwise neurodivergent kids, you know the stakes are high,…
Nurturing Neurodivergent Friendships: Practical Tips for Parents and Kids
There are few parenting heartbreaks quite like watching your child struggle to form friendships. As a homeschooling parent of a neurodivergent child—whether they’re gifted, twice exceptional, on the autism spectrum, or carry a tangle of diagnoses and intensities—this ache can be especially poignant. The longing for connection is real, and the reasons for difficulty can…
Executive Function Struggles in Homeschooling: Why Smart Kids Can’t Find Their Shoes (and What to Do About It)
You’ve mapped out a day full of promise. There’s a science experiment waiting, fresh notebooks calling your children’s names, a creative lesson you know they’ll love—finally, a morning where everything is lined up for success. But when you walk into the living room, your bright, imaginative, and intensely curious child is melted facedown into a…
Finding Your People | Why Community Matters for Homeschoolers of Neurodivergent Kids
Sometimes, community can feel like an impossible puzzle for homeschoolers—especially when you’re homeschooling kids who don’t quite fit the norm. If the word “co-op” makes your stomach flip with worry, or you’ve tried group after group only to leave feeling judged, burned out, or like the odd one out, you’re not alone. Homeschooling kids with…
Building Flexible Thinking Skills in Your Neurodivergent Child
You’re standing in the kitchen, coffee still cooling, when the meltdown hits. The math worksheet looks wrong. The day’s schedule changed its order. You gently suggest starting with writing instead. Tears brim, resistance builds, and you find yourself wondering—Why can’t we just roll with the punches? Why does every small curveball seem to derail the…
Why Decision Making Feels Overwhelming for Neurodivergent Kids and How to Help
We think of decisions as small things: pick a topic, select a snack, choose a class. But for neurodivergent kids, making a decision isn’t about flipping a coin or going with their gut. Every choice, no matter how minor, demands a whole host of executive function skills—those “central command” abilities that allow us to plan,…