Teachers of Good Things

My child has one or several symptoms such as…

Memory problems, difficulty concentrating, trouble grasping concepts that require memorization, lack of self control, temperamental, difficulty getting to sleep, winding down… Very schedule oriented, doesn’t react well to changes of scenery or routine, sudden mood swings, low self esteem, poor attitude, forget to do things normally considered routine, have a one track mind, very easily distracted, under attentive OR over attentive, given to extremes, moody. Also, extremely creative and ingenuous, create solutions for everyday problems, have a lot of common sense, have tons of energy, a good worker at times, sometimes seem over confident, do well with younger children and animals,doesn’t assess risks and danger well…

It didn’t take me too long to figure out that my second son was a lot different than the first. Our first son was cautious, he didn’t want to make a scene, he wanted to hold my hand and stay close to me in public places, he feared getting lost or loosing mommy. The second son didn’t know what fear or caution was. He’s wander where ever we were, he didn’t think about danger one bit. He was the one, when I had son number three and daughter (child #4) that had to be literally harnessed with a rope, or I would loose him. He had no interest in writing his name or when that time came and seemed to have no memory whatsoever for letters or numbers. He’d often write his name backwards and later when he’d try to sound out words he’d sound out letters that weren’t even in the word. It was almost as if the letters were floating all over the page, he had such a difficult time. He could barely sit still and was always moving in some way. He didn’t even sit still to watch TV or play games, he was too busy seeing how things worked, he’d wander off looking at nature and forget that I’d wonder where he was. Cleaning his room was practically impossible, and he wanted to keep every little gadget he found from the time he was two years old. I bought him a case to keep it all in. He’d wander off in the store when he wasn’t strapped and I’d get frantic thinking I’d lost him and he’d be under the racks, sliding under shelves finding nuts and bolts. He’d be so dirty from being on the floor, look like a little homeless child, grinning ear to ear with his pockets stuffed full of “treasures”. He climbed everything, then jumped off it. He rode his bike faster, made ramps higher, even jumped off our 20’ roof into our pool when he was 13 (he got in big trouble for that one). He managed to make it so far without any broken bones, only about 40 stitches in various locations so far. His temperament was extreme, he’d be happy one moment and mad the next and I wouldn’t even know what changed him. I learned to use that to my advantage though, I’d tickle him or hug him when he was mad and just as quick he’d be happy again. This is the child that almost totally had his self esteem crushed in the school system, this type of child doesn’t fit in a school setting without being in trouble constantly and always compared to other children. He is the child they recommend diagnosis and medication for. There’s nothing wrong with him, he is how God made him to be, but he doesn’t fit in quite so easily. I went on a bike ride with my other son last evening and my bike was just giving me a fit, it was so hard to pedal. My son was riding his creative genius brother’s bike and he offered to trade with me. I couldn’t believe how easy his bike was to pedal. I could have gone miles. I asked him later, why is your bike so easy to pedal? He laughed, I took off the brakes and all that useless junk to make it lighter. I air my tires to such and such pressure and I oil the bearings, on and on he went. I said, can you do that to my bike? LOL

How many parents out there have children that exhibit one, several, or ALL of these traits? Parents react in different ways toward this child who is probably more difficult to raise than their others; some discipline more, some nag and complain at this child more, some have them diagnosed and seek counseling and medication for them, many do that. They struggle, they symptomize, they have them diagnosed because they genuinely want to understand & help their child function “normally”, but it somehow backfires when the kid is glued to labels, low expectations & medications.

There are many titles for it, and you can surely get a diagnosis if you seek one. I’ve read about lots of them and my son fits under several of these headings. As parents we have to recognize & realize this kid is different. His needs are different, his capabilities are different; he may never fit in to a school setting without tearing apart his self esteem & keeping him from constantly being in trouble. My son spent more hours sitting in the hallway, cubicles, corners, the clinic (alone) & the principal’s office than he did in class I think. They said he was a disruption to himself & others. He tapped his toe, he wriggled in his desk, he stared out the window, he never focused on his work, many times getting no further than writing his name on it. He would not allow people to view him as the “dumb kid” so if he didn’t know an answer when called on (which was a lot of the time) he would act up and get in trouble. He was accused of just being rebellious, they said he really could do it, but I knew he couldn’t because I had homeschooled him before. I knew what he was capable of. In fact, the main reason I gave up and put them in school was because I felt that I was a failure as a teacher and that I needed to let the “professional” teachers teach him.

Many, many concepts taught in school are based on memory skills. Reading, math facts, time tables, are a few. I survived in school by merely remembering information long enough to pass a test. This child cannot do this. He didn’t read well until he was 8 or 9 years old & he got it by pure phonics. He would have to sound every single word out, even if it was on the same page twice. His memory was practically nonexistent. Some days were better than others, which confused me even more and made me think he was just “not trying”. I taught him to read at home after he had repeated kindergarten twice and first grade once because he just couldn’t “get it”. It took a lot of repetition and it was a very frustrating process for me because, at that time, I was consumed with ages and levels, I put a lot of pressure on him to “get with the program”. Constantly comparing him to his brothers or to other children, which obviously was dumb on my part and only cropped up attitude in him.

By the time he learned to read he could have taught someone else to. At his last homeschool evaluation he read vocabulary words on 10th and 11th grade levels while he was working on elementary level work because of his phonetic ability. He scored higher than did his highschool aged brother on vocabulary!

After three years in a charter school and the situations I described going on, after meeting with teachers and principal, after pleadings, I took him out. The Lord dealt with me strongly to do this and I was apprehensive, majorly digging in my heels because I had tried before, TWICE before and FAILED!!! But the third time was the charm for me, it was for the right reasons this time. After several months of de-programming and un-stressing, unit studies & a more unschooling approach I used a diagnostic test to place him in a math curriculum. I started him where his gaps started, and didn’t stumble over how many year it was behind where he was “supposed to be”. I once read that all the major math concepts needed in the “real” world, such as used in everyday practical & consumer math are covered by grade 5. After seeing my older sons’ math portion of the exam for his High School diploma, I definitely agree.

I am so proud of how well he is progressing. His confidence has tripled since being home this time. While we do unit studies and I am PRO the unit study type approach, he is working right now on some Math and Reading LightUnits. He usually does this work at night, all by himself, when the house is quiet, it’s dark outside and there are no distractions. He merely leaves blank the answers he doesn’t know and the next day we go over it. He is soaking in concepts that I never in a million years thought he would remember and understand. I have always known how bright he is, these are the Thomas Edisons and the Henry Ford’s of today. When’s the last time your boss asked you at what age you learned your time tables? Or at what age you learned how to read well? WHO CARES?! You got it, that’s all that matters. We are comparing our children with other children, we are judging them SLOW or ADVANCED, DUMB or SMART, but their performance on a STANDARDIZED TEST and labeling them accordingly!!! My step father, Angel, was from Puerto Rico, he came here when he was 17 years old, to have a better life. He worked hard, he learned English, and he was Assistant Plant Manager of our local high school. He never did learn to read and write English, which was the only reason he wasn’t the Plant Manager. He was a good man. I’ll never forget the year that the principal of the school, which had a PhD degree, gave Angel a lawn mower he had recently bought that just wouldn’t work. He said, you can have the stupid thing, it doesn’t work. Angel gladly brought it home and started checking it out to see what the problem was. He got to laughing so hard we couldn’t understand what he was saying. The mower was purring like a kitten. He said, “It needed gas!!!”. Thank God for a man with a little common sense. Angel offered to give the mower back but the Dr. principal didn’t want it, so we got a nice, new mower as a reward for Angel’s common sense!!!

All of our children have good and bad qualities. They all have things that are difficult for them, whether it is learning or sharing or obeying, etc… Our job as parents isn’t to MEDICATE their negatives away but it is to TEACH them to recognize their weaknesses and enhance their strengths. There are practical ways, like eating right, getting enough sleep, making sure they are physically well. (After reading an article on Sleep Apnea, I discovered my son suffered from this and after his tonsil/adenoid removal the quality of his sleep greatly improved). I found at the Dollar store some sticker multiplication charts, my sons confidence rose incredibly just by sticking on of these to his clipboard. Up to that time every time there was a multiplication table he would have to draw lines and figure it out because they refused to allow him to consult a chart at school. He was actually sent to the office for cheating. I’m not talking about a fact test here either, but long multiplication problems require the memory of a lot of different facts as well as knowing (remembering) the process of what you do first, what you do second, and so on. He would get a couple problems done and give up. You try to do 387×243 drawing lines for every multiplication fact and see how long it takes. Then he’d get an F. I taught him how to be a good test taker and he would always amaze them when it was FCAT time because he scored highly. That’s very possible just using the process of elimination. They’d put him way in the back by himself just to make sure he wasn’t cheating, they couldn’t figure out how he could score so well, and that further make them think he was just putting on in class. He could buckle down and focus on a test like the FCAT, I told him to view it as a challenge, think of it as someone trying to trick him into choosing the wrong answer. I told him to eliminate the answers he knew it couldn’t possibly be, even if he didn’t know exactly what the answer was for sure, he could greatly improve his score by using a few common sense strategies. I quit school in 10th grade after I got in a very serious car accident, and got married at the age of 16. My schooling stopped there. Using good test taking strategies, I scored in college level on the tabe test a couple year back. That’s why I am so opposed to the ridiculous importance the school board places on ACHIEVEMENT TESTS. Teachers get bonuses based on their kids scores, and many days in school are focused on nothing but FCAT Preparation.

We must realize and teach our children that we all have limitations to what we are capable of, and when we reach those limits, no pill can fix it. I don’t care if it’s an adult with depression or anxiety or nervousness or hormonal problems or pain or it’s our kid with distraction, inability to sit still, focus and concentrate. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you don’t have Jesus, you better feed them the pill. But Christians have another hope that the world does not have, we have a God who is greater, who is ABLE to do exceedingly, abundantly MORE than we could ask or EVEN think! Why did the children of Israel die in the wilderness? Because they could not get to the place that they could have confidence in the Lord. Unbelief. There is no way in the world that if you, a Christian, say I will not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, I will not medicate my child or myself, if you give it your best shot, if you pray and you ask the Lord to help you change, help you be what you need to be for your husband and your children, GOD WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN.

Through every trial with the schools, through every frustration I had with him, I knew & still know that if my children will serve the Lord then they will be blessed coming in and going out. If they don’t, they won’t. This has been proven true in my life and my husbands life, who also struggled in school and is now running the entire south Florida division of his company. God IS good. With God nothing shall be impossible – He will make a way where there seems to be no way. He will make a highway in the wilderness for us; the Lord loveth the righteous and His ear is open to their prayers. He will turn our mourning into dancing, He will turn our sadness into gladness. We don’t listen to the report of the world, we don’t stand in the path of sinners, we don’t judge things according to appearance, we walk by faith and not by sight.

Ok Lord, you say, I see what is best for my child, I know the hopes that I have for him but I can’t do it. I’m afraid (first problem) that I will fail, that I’m not smart enough or patient enough or creative enough. I said all of these things. Moses said some things to this effect to, didn’t he? I pleaded with God; He listened to all my pitiful excuses and said to me, My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness. Some say God will not ask you to do something you aren’t capable of doing, I disagree, He very well may, but He will make you capable!! Think of who He is! Is anything too hard for God?

There are a lot of suggestions for Homeschooling, which I rather call home learning or Learning for Life (my favorite) in other sections of this site. Also, I do not suggest or promote wives usurping authority over their husbands on the matter of homeschooling or any other. Most men want the best for their children and most that I know of whose wives homeschooled in the past want their kids in school because their wife was a bundle of nerves when they got home (please see the Help Meet section). There are right ways and wrong ways to go about things, good intentions do not excuse bad behavior. We need to get our hearts right with Lord concerning our relationship with our husband, which is the very foundation of the home, before we can worry about saving our children.

MEDICATION IS NOT THE ANSWER! These medications are killing countless kids. Learn about proper nutrition, find out all your options! Please read the Health & Nutrition page. People perish for lack of knowledge.