Since 2003, I've been helping families homeschool who have children, and sometimes parents, who have special needs. What is special needs?
This can be anything - from physical challenges (everything imaginable, even wheelchair or bound to a bed), brain or behavioral (Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, PTSD, to the entire spectrum of Autism, and more), and health challenges of varying degrees and topics. When it comes to homeschooling, the challenges of homeschooling a child with special needs, or multiple children with different diagnoses, are intensely magnified.
More than 70 percent of homeschoolers I have worked with and who chose this route (not counting those who were forced into homeschooling via a pandemic), have at least one child with at least one diagnosis.
Usually by the time a parent learns of me and has made that decision to homeschool, they have already endured a history of experiences and don't want to hear any more about what the schools have to say, and many have even rejected psychological and psychiatric experts at this point. They are drained - emotionally, mentally, physically.
You do not need to feel alone and one of the most important things that I want you to understand is that only YOU are the expert on your child. I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and as I said above, you are likely homeschooling because you are sick of hearing from clinical viewpoints anyway. YOU are the person who spends the most time with this child. You are the person who observes their daily activities – day in and day out – you know how they eat, how they sleep, how they function, what triggers them to go into an episode and what calms them down – you know everything about YOUR child.
A specialist or a therapist might only spend an hour a week with your child, and they have a lot of other children they meet with. So they get this tiny, tiny glimpse into your child, and then they give you a diagnosis based on that tiny, tiny glimpse. And then parents are promised that because they have a diagnosis, help is going to finally come. But it never really comes to fruition, because the next steps after a diagnosis are entirely focused on what your child CANNOT do.
What I can offer is years of experience providing encouragement and resources and support for parents, listening to all the different things that people are dealing with, and then helping them to find creative and effective ways to overcome whatever they have to, or to at least lessen the overwhelm.
I teach parents how to mentor their children, to find those things that they CAN do, and that they CAN achieve. In my workshops, I teach simple, practical things that are not found in a box.
You will learn how to integrate all of the pieces of homeschooling a child with special needs, into a whole family functioning unit.
We talk about the academic challenges - from dyslexia to all sorts of sensory needs, as well as socializing your special needs child in a way that is not intimidating or overwhelming. I give strategies for special needs children who are very young, all the way to college age. How to give your child a sense of independence, that sense of "I'm important", in a world that suggests they are not.
You don’t have to be superwoman, or for you fathers out there who are doing this you don’t have to be superman. You don’t have to do it all or know everything. But if you are constantly moving forward, with one small thing at a time, then you will start to see some progression and you will start to let go of what your child CAN’T do.
Come and learn about those things that can propel you forward.
This workshop dedicates time on Day 2 of the 3-Day Home Education Workshop, and the principles are demonstrated throughout the remainder of the 15 sessions of that workshop. It is for members only (Lite or Premium plans).