The Secret to Homeschooling THAT Kid Successfully
Earlier this school year we made drastic changes in our 10th grader’s schooling. He’s been homeschooled since the February of his first grade year, so we should have had things pretty well in hand as we’d been doing it awhile. Right?
Wrong.
Homeschooling THAT kid is tough. You know the kid I’m talking about, right? The one who…
- knows the answer to everything you’ve ever wondered about… and tells you when you’re wrong.
- interrupts every one of your waking hours (and many of your sleeping ones) with that onemorethingyouneedtoknowNOW.
- can’t stand the sound of his sister breathing in the other room.
- loves to hum loudly to herself while doing anything.
- climbs the walls… literally.
- can’t sit still.
- never sleeps.
- never. stops. talking.
An my particular “THAT kid” is one that likes to push all the buttons, and change all the things up…. just when I think I finally have a handle on this whole parenting and homeschooling differently-wired kids thing. And we have to change things up again.
It’s pretty humbling.
It also reminds me of what I tell other people — to homeschool differently-wired kiddos, you need to be flexible because the only thing that’s consistent is that things change often.
We’ve filled out interest inventories to help tease out each new thing the kids might be interested in learning about. We’ve also had many different discussions based off of different prompts to try and find new things for our kiddos to develop passions about. But we still worry and fall short from time to time.
Finding THAT Kid’s Strengths
The secret to really making homeschooling THAT kid work — for you AND him — is to start with your kiddo’s strengths. Find out what he’s amazing at, or loves, or wants to love, and build from there.
It’s really that simple, mamas.
When we start with what our kids are great at, we can more easily help them in the areas in which they struggle. When we build our kiddos up through the things they’re good at, we empower and encourage them to be better at more things. They try harder. They believe in themselves.
Imagine for a minute that you’re in their shoes. Everyone’s telling you to stop fidgeting. To stop moving. To stop asking so many questions for goodness sake. To stay focused and wait for the other kids to catch up. To learn this one thing right now because it is what’s next in the scope and sequence.
It’s got to be not only frustrating, but completely discouraging for them. They’ve got to be replaying those words over and over in their heads.
It becomes an internal dialogue that can keep them believing the worst is who they truly are.
So, the more we choose to focus on what they’re good at, the more we can help them rewrite their inner dialogue and rebuild their self-confidence.
I created a list of questions to help me pinpoint what my kids were great at, and I revisit the list and ideas from time to time, and have put into a mini workbook so that I can easily print it out when I need it.
This is a super simple way to meet your kiddos where they’re great and build on those strengths.
And you can download it for free right here. The Developing Your Child’s Strengths workbook is the perfect complement to our new Crash Course for Homeschooling THAT Kid which opens very soon. In it, you’ll capitalize on those strengths to help create the homeschool that fits you and your quirky kiddo best.
Get your strength finder workbook and get notified when we open the course! Just put your email in below.
