Heads Up!

The Hyperactive Slug

2011-10-16T17:54:00.010-04:00

Here is a phenomenon that I think I understand until it happens in front of my eyes again and I find myself baffled anew despite what I know. Two of my children have ADHD and the hyperactivity component is strong. My son, Josh, is a fidgeter and a tapper. When he was younger the phrase "ants in his pants" seemed pretty accurate. By the way, if your child is a literal thinker like Josh was, do NOT tell him he has ants in his pants unless you want said pants removed in a panic while the child hops around screaming "Get the ants off! Get the ants off!" Same thing for telling a child that he needs to get his head on straight. I'll never forget the look of confusion and dismay on Josh's face as he slowly reached up to his head to see just how crookedly it was placed on his little shoulders.

My ADHD daughter likes to run across the room and then slide as far as her momentum carries her on my hardwood floors. This is a fun pastime for her and one of the ways she expends excess energy. This behavior has been going on for years, and since she is now legally an adult I'm thinking she may not outgrow this hyperactivity. I can picture her in advanced years, gray hair pulled back in a pony tail, attaching waxed wheels onto her walker and scooting across the nursing home floor. Over and over.

So, okay, as someone who struggles with fatigue problems I admit to being envious of the energy that hyperactive people seem to have in spades. But here is the baffling part - my hyperactive children can go from full-speed to sloth-speed just like that. During our homeschool day, Josh would wiggle and squirm until we took a break. Then he'd run around like a cyclone until I called him back to the table for our next school subject. After reluctantly returning to his chair, Josh would go from full-on energy to extreme lethargy in a matter of seconds. He would slouch and prop his head on his hand as if it took too much effort to hold his head up without support. Often, this child who needed way less sleep than I did would begin to yawn. He appeared to be anything but hyperactive. What's going on?

I've also observed that despite obvious hyperactivity much of the time, when I actually need Josh to move quickly he seems incapable of doing so. In fact, the more Josh is urged to hurry up, the pokier he becomes. Despite encouragement (and some yelling and begging) with increasingly desperate exhortations that we need to leave right away or we will be late, Josh doggedly has one speed, and that speed is slow. Slow, methodical, and plodding are not my idea of hyperactive. The more pressured and hurried Josh feels, the slower he seems to move. Even telling him to "Run!" doesn't work. He might trot a few steps at most and then return to his set pace. It's aggravating, but Josh isn't being deliberately obstinate or difficult. Again, what's going on?

Josh, like many children with learning challenges, had difficulty regulating his state of alertness. He tended to manifest extremes - high energy or slug-level energy, with not much in between. Josh couldn't explain what was happening, because it was all he ever knew so it was his "normal". I tried dietary interventions, thinking he was experiencing some kind of physical crash. Except it was only happening when Josh was asked to engage in tasks that demanded sustained attention and a relatively still body. My dietary interventions had no effect with Josh. I tried having him sit on a hard wooden (uncomfortable) chair so he couldn't get overly relaxed. This, too, had no effect. I offered ice water for him to sip, an inflatable cushion disk or therapy ball to sit on, fidget toys, and other sensory strategies, and over time we were able to find some things that helped some of the time. I'm still looking for anything that actually helps all of the time. It is my dream and quest.

For parents and teachers, it may be helpful to take a look at the "Take Five" Alert Program. It will help with identifying states of alertness and ways to promote regulation of the attention state. In addition it is a useful tool in helping your students understand themselves and how they can make adjustments to meet the needs for both calming and increasing alertness.

God bless our amazing children, who force us to become better teachers than we ever wanted to have to be! But we are better teachers now, because these struggling learners have stretched us far beyond what we thought we knew. We are so much richer because of them.

10 ways to recycle your old tablecloth

2011-09-28T05:48:00.006-04:00

I love the look of wood floors. I also have a dust allergy and since rugs and carpets tend to retain dust the wood laminates and flooring seem to help. I use a central vacuum system so the dust is not recycled back into the air, leaving me a sneezy mess for hours after I've finished cleaning the floors. After vacuuming, I whip out my Swiffer to finish up the cleaning. It looks great until it rains. Let me explain.

My 95 pound goldendoodle doggy, Slapshot, is active and playful and his big paws get very dirty. I keep old towels and rags by the back door to wipe his paws when he comes in from my backyard. Neither of us is very proficient at getting the dog to stand on 3 legs while the fourth gets wiped off. At the first opportunity, the dog trots off and inevitably I've missed some of the mud on his paws and it gets distributed on the floors.

Then we added another goldendoodle doggy, Daisy Mae, to the family and the dust and mud seemed to increase exponentially. With two dogs, they tend to wrestle and chase each other around the back yard. My back yard is fenced in, but it's not nearly large enough for these dogs to run freely. They have a kind of running circuit they've developed, which has resulted in paths that have worn the grass away leaving only dirt.

Every time it rains, the dog-worn dirt paths turn into mud. This was messy enough when I had just one dog, but with the two of them they have expanded their dirt paths into mud pits. They romp around and cover themselves and each other with mud as they play. When they come back into the house, they smell like swamp things. Since the paw wiping attempts can't eliminate all the dirt the floors tend to get filthy and the dust increases.

In my dream house I now include a shower stall in my laundry room so I can spray the dogs and wash them off every single time they come in. Maybe, since it's my dream house, I can rig something up kind of car wash style so the dogs have to pass through that and the bathing occurs automatically when they reenter the house. I definitely want to include those swishing cloths at the end and the blow drying, so by the time the dogs emerge they are both clean and dry.

Since my dream house doesn't exist, and I like to recycle and save money, I was pretty happy with myself when I thought of putting an old vinyl tablecloth just inside the back door. Those flannel-backed tablecloths are easy to clean but not especially long lasting. A few mishaps with the scissors while working on a homeschool project can leave holes pretty easily. A cat jumping onto the table can leave claw perforations and sooner or later the table cloth needs replaced. It seemed such a waste to just throw it out. When we had a rainy spell, the inspiration to use it as a floor mat hit me like a mud pie in flight.

It didn't eliminate the mud that the dogs tracked in, but it contained some of it and I could just toss the tablecloth into the washer as needed. It worked better than my previous attempt to contain the mud by layering newspapers across the laundry room floor. The dogs tore the paper up, and then the cat peed on them. Enough said about that.

Then my inspiration kicked up a notch and I realized that the tablecloth would actually absorb some of the wet mess if I put it on the floor upside down so the flannel back was facing up. Please don't ask why I didn't think of this until several days into my tablecloth floor mat idea, because I don't have a good answer. It seems so logical in retrospect.

Now when I let my muddy dogs in from the mud pit known as my back yard, I keep them standing on the flannel for a few minutes. It seems to help wick away some of the moisture on their paws so there's not as much to try and wipe away. It doesn't get rid of all the mess, but it does lessen it considerably. That got me thinking about other uses for my tablecloth, and you can add your own ideas to mine. Here's what I came up with:

If you have an old flannel back table cloth, you could cut it into large pieces and use them for:

changing pads
art smocks
under messy painting and art projects
muddy boots and shoes parking mat
car floor mats
camping mats to keep your seat dry
drying pad for hand-washed items
under pet food and water dishes
seat protectors in your car when kids and pets are wet or muddy
under bowls when cooking with children (anti-slip and drip catching)

By the time my old flannel-backed tablecloth is worn out, I'll have another one with holes and rips ready to replace it.

I Need Eleven!

2011-08-25T12:00:00.005-04:00

Have you ever been baffled or surprised by something your child says? You may be certain that you heard the words correctly, but they don't make sense. Having children with learning struggles, I often found that I needed to clarify both what I said to my children and what they were communicating to me. With a combination of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and auditory processing difficulties, communication was often a challenge. First, I had to obtain and keep my child's attention long enough to convey a message. Then I had to determine if the message had been accurately received. If distractibility and impulsivity didn't interfere, we could have a good conversation.

Children with learning disabilities often have unusual ways of expressing themselves. My son Josh had some word finding difficulties, so he would refer to the ankle as "that wrist part of your leg". Likewise, the elbow might be "the knee of your arm." Once when Josh wasn't feeling well I asked him to describe his symptoms. He often used vague and nebulous words to tell me what he felt. I felt like a detective who needed to ask just the right questions to get my suspect to tell me what I needed to know.

One time, though, Josh told me his throat was sore and described what he was feeling in this way, "I feel as if my uvula has been acided off". (I like the "uvula" part - true son of a speech therapist!) This description, although no doubt atypical for most children, painted a clear picture of the location and degree of Josh's discomfort and indeed it turned out that Josh had strep throat. "Acided" may not be a real word, but it sure got the point across. Josh usually sailed through illnesses with little response to pain, so when he complained I knew it was serious.

When children are infants, we fret because they are not able to tell us what is wrong or where they hurt. We think how nice it will be when they are able to talk and tell us more exactly what they feel. If a child is a late talker, nonverbal, or has difficulty with expressive language we have to continue interpreting possible meanings to whatever communication attempts our child is able to produce.

My daughter Beckie was a big talker, and it was easy to tell that when she wanted "lunch fries" she meant "french fries" and that her "Valentime" was a "Valentine". Since she had auditory processing issues, she said things the way she heard them and I continued in my role as communication detective to determine what Beckie was trying to convey. This was somewhat complicated by the fact that Beckie chattered a lot and was not always looking for a response but rather was processing her experiences by speaking out loud.

When she was a preschooler I noticed a frequently occurring phrase, "I need eleven!" Eleven what? I tried to figure out if she was trying to practice her counting skills, trying to collect something, or was just repeating something she had heard. But where had she heard it? Beckie was always a cuddle bunny, and was frequently snuggled up in my lap while we read books or talked. I tried to become aware of the context when she "needed eleven", but couldn't narrow it down. She said it contentedly when she was climbing onto my lap or getting a hug. She said it when she was physically hurt and when her feelings were hurt. When I asked her if she wanted to count to eleven together, she happily replied in the negative and wrapped her arms around me for a tight squeeze.

One day Beckie had been visiting one of her best friends for a play date, and I went to pick her up. She and her friend were sad to have to part ways, and the other child's mother offered comfort by asking her son if he needed a lovin. I realized that "Do you need a lovin?" was a common phrase in that household, and in Beckie's young mind had been translated into "Do you need eleven?" It had nothing to do with numbers, but had a strong connotation to comfort and the expression of affection. Since I had responded in ways she needed despite my lack of understanding about what she was saying, Beckie was inadvertently effective in her communication with me.

This is just one more reminder that love can make up for so many things. We all make mistakes with our children. We realize after the fact that we erred in our approach to teaching some students. We feel the pressures to convey the right amount of information at the right times while helping our struggling students develop skills to help them be successful. Our curriculum isn't always a match for what we need. Our children may not be progressing at the rate we desire. We lose it. We yell, we apologize, and then catch ourselves being impatient again. We feel inadequate to meet all the needs we face on a daily basis. The stakes are so high.

You've heard it before but it bears repeating. What our children will remember the most is the relationship we have with them, not the specific things we deliberately taught or the strategies we used to help them learn. I blew it with my kids sometimes, and I knew it. I truly believe that my relationship with them is more important than any school subject and thus needed remediation before we could proceed with our official homeschooling. I find it very humbling, yet restorative, to apologize to my children when I have wronged them. They have always been very forgiving and amazingly resilient, a picture of God's grace to me.

Showing grace and respect runs both ways in a relationship. It builds character and will outlast the school years as a child grows into an adult. Have you been focusing so much on getting the school work done that you've lost sight of the importance of relationship? Don't let standards and benchmarks keep you from seeing the individual child who is right in front of you. Teaching a child is a great aspiration, and teaching in the context of a relationship is powerful. Children may not remember everything you've taught them, but they will remember you. Do you have the kind of relationship you want to become part of their lifelong memories? Let's give our children lots of "elevens" and protect our relationships as they grow.

Calling All Homeschoolers! Buy Yourselves Some Flowers! (Encore post)

2011-08-22T08:58:00.005-04:00

It's time for an exhortation, my friends! This is a call for all homeschoolers. If you are starting a new school year, on your first day back to school go buy yourself some flowers. I started this tradition for myself years ago, and since then I have been urging my fellow homeschoolers to join me in starting out right each new school year by buying some lovely fresh flowers to commemorate the onset of another year of homeschooling. Please join me in this tradition even if it is your first year of homeschooling or you are an “empty desker” with grown-up homeschooled children. All are welcome!

I began this tradition to help myself get excited and enthused for another school year. Having a son and daughter who struggled with numerous learning challenges, school was never an easy time for us. I have friends whose children basically taught themselves to read. That sure never happened in our home school. As the "Back to School" specials and commercials increased in frequency during August and school supply sales had started as early as July, I found I had to take deep breaths and tell myself, "It's going to be all right, Melinda. You've made it this far. You know this is the right thing to do, and you can do it. One day at a time. One lesson at a time."

While other moms in my neighborhood were counting down the days until school started again and were making plans to meet for coffee the first morning school was back in session, I knew that my work would just be picking up again at that point and I would not be included in the neighborhood back to school social gatherings. In my community, very few people choose to homeschool. In fact, in all the years I have been homeschooling there have only been a handful of other homeschooling families in our area. I made up for this by talking to myself while drinking my coffee as we started our homeschool day. You can call it a parent-teacher conference if it makes you feel better!

I actually homeschool year round, but we have a much lighter schedule during the summer months. The onset of a new school year meant getting back up to a full schedule, and I admit if I thought about it too much it was more overwhelming than exciting to think what the next year would bring. It didn’t seem right to begin the homeschool year feeling a bit sorry for myself, so I made myself coffee and decided to celebrate the new school year with my own homeschool style kickoff.

I started buying myself flowers on our first official day of school for the year. I would select a nice bouquet and a card for my children to sign for me. At this point I have to confess that one year I was especially dreading the onset of school because the previous year had been so rough. If you have a struggling learner or family challenges and you homeschool long enough, you come to realize that not only will you have “on” days and “off” days, you sometimes have “off” years. During one particularly hard year, my son hit a growth spurt and grew two inches in about six months. Unfortunately, it seemed like that was all he did, because the physical changes affected him so greatly that as far as we could tell all we had to show for our time was his big feet and dangly arms but not much had happened in the academic realm.

The coming year held no guarantees that things would be any less challenging, so when I picked out my flowers I selected a "With Deepest Sympathy" card for my children to sign. With their impulsivity issues, it wasn't until after they had scrawled their names on the card that they noticed the "With Deepest Sympathy" part at the top of the card. Then I heard cries of "Mo-om!" and we all had a good laugh together. I think it's o.k. for our kids to know that sometimes homeschooling is hard for us, too. It’s absolutely worth it, but we do make sacrifices and face challenges at times.

One year my daughter who graduated from our homeschool in 2006 bought me the flowers and picked out a card. Perhaps this will lead to an even better tradition where the children mature and decide to buy you flowers! In the meantime, please join me in buying yourself fresh flowers and having your children sign the card for you. Be sure to share this idea with your homeschooling friends as we embark on another school year. I’d love to hear about your “Back to School” flowers.

Dear Slapshot

2011-08-18T19:43:00.012-04:00

Slapshot has been a certified therapy dog since February 2011. He loves sharing his doggy love with people of all ages, and enjoys his fan mail and the pictures children draw for him. Recently an organization invited Slapshot to have his own column in their newsletter. Slapshot is happy to answer any questions he can (I type for him since he has a little difficulty with the act of writing!) and here is the first installment for the column, "Dear Slapshot" as dictated to Slapshot's handler, Melinda.

Dear Slapshot,

What is a therapy dog? Can any dog become a certified therapy dog?

Sincerely,

Curious in Columbus

Dear Curious,

A therapy dog has to love people of all ages and want to visit with them. I kept showing my owners that I was a dog meant to be shared by greeting everyone we met on walks. When I showed them how much people liked visiting with me, they took me to an evaluator for Therapy Dogs International and I passed my test. Any breed of dog can be evaluated to see if therapy dog work is for them. A dog has to be at least one year old, but training can start earlier than that and I was 2 years old when I became a certified therapy dog. I am almost three years old now and I love my work. Therapy dogs have to have a great temperament and tolerate other animals. I actually like most animals, too! Not to brag, but I think I’m a natural at this therapy dog stuff. I’d like to meet you, too, and your family and your friends, and your neighbors, and your pets – well, you get the idea!

Sincerely,

Slapshot

Dear Slapshot,

What kind of dog are you?

Wondering in Westerville

Dear Wondering,

Well, I am a very good dog, for one thing. And people tell me I am handsome. But I guess you are wondering what breed I am. I am a goldendoodle. My Dad was a 55 lb. standard white poodle and my Mom was a 75 lb. golden retriever. Guess how much I weigh? 95 pounds! I was no runt of my litter! Goldendoodles are considered “designer dogs” because they are intelligent, have good temperaments, and don’t shed as much as most dogs. Honestly, I still shed some but my goldendoodle sister doesn’t shed much at all. She also only weighs 53 pounds and we look very different even though she also had a white standard poodle Dad and a golden retriever Mom, but not the same parents as me. I’m pretty big for my breed, so some people are a little intimidated until they get to know me. One patient I visited told me I was as big as a calf, whatever that is. I guess she likes me, though, because she still pets me and even told me she loved me. I love her, too.

Sincerely,

Slapshot

iPad Grant for kids with autism

2011-07-27T11:59:00.007-04:00

When it comes to technology, I have way more ambition than skill. Getting an iPhone a couple years ago helped me see how even a novice user could find and use great apps. Diving further into the utility of technology for my personal enjoyment as well as my speech therapy practice, I was drawn to the iPad2.

Last spring my wonderful husband bought me an iPad2 (I may have given him a few helpful hints) and I dove into technology and apps with the aforementioned ambition. In addition to educational apps and therapy tools, I am impressed with the potential of the iPad2 to be used as a communication device.

One big drawback with most communication devices is that they are bulky and heavy, therefore the children may not drag their devices with them wherever they go. I've also seen devices that are used primarily by adults who know the child well and can "read" them enough to select the page or icon needed. Basically when this happens, the child is communicating to an adult who then communicates with the augmentative communication device.

The iPad2, I think, will be (and already is for some of us) the Augmentative Communication device of the future. Thin and lightweight, it's already ideal for portability. There are more communication apps becoming available daily, and they can be customized for individual needs. iPads are significantly less expensive than traditional devices and some insurance companies are catching on and starting to cover some of the costs.

Then there's the cool factor (spoken like a true nerd still longing for coolness) that the iPad offers. LOTS of people have iPads or would like to, and children using them have devices that don't look like "tools" but are appealing and versatile, and, well, just plain cool. On the spot, pictures can be taken and added to a communication app. Aides will not need extensive training for iPad use, because it is so user-friendly even a novice with technology (ahem, like myself) can easily learn to implement apps.

I came across a site, iTaalk.org, and saw that the iTaalk Autism Foundation is giving away an iPad a day until December 31, 2011 for children diagnosed with autism. There is an application online at their website, along with more information about iTaalk.org. Check out the resources and training for parents and professionals after you read about the grant at the link below.

http://www.itaalk.org/ipadadaygrant.html

Homeschool Flashback #5 Executive Functions

2011-07-19T11:49:00.004-04:00

Ahhh, executive functions. We love them, and when they are lacking we long for them. Children with AD/HD struggle to develop vital executive functions such as organization and planning. Students with learning disabilities and struggling learners (officially identified or not) often have some degree of executive dysfunction.

Any experienced teacher can look at a student's notebook and tell if that student is able to organize and access the information and materials they will need. Intelligence plays a part in academic success, sure, but the organized student typically comes out on top. Executive functions help students to show what they know. If they have completed an assignment but can't locate it the teacher has no way to assess their performance. A very bright student who forgets about an assignment or fails to complete the work even though he has the capacity to do so will be out-performed by an average student with the executive functioning skills to complete tasks accurately and on time.

Children with learning challenges work harder and longer to get results and deficits in executive functioning impact all areas of life, not just the academic realm. Consider, for example, the child who forgets he made plans with one friend and is off with another when the first friend comes calling. Or the child who struggles with time management and is chronically disorganized causing her to be late for practice again because she can't find her mouthguard.

Some children just naturally seem to develop executive functions as they mature. Others need much more direct instruction than our modeling alone provides. In the picture above, you can see the rudiments of Josh's attempt to develop some executive function skills. He has written out the date and the tasks he needs to accomplish each day. He put a check mark next to completed work. Josh's system is far from sophisticated, but it reflects his burgeoning attempts to incorporate some organization into his day.

Is Josh's method acceptable? It wouldn't be what I would choose, but Josh is a unique individual. I had shown Josh various organizers and examples that I would use but he had to find something that worked for him. The picture shows what he came up with, and although there are many things I would do differently the idea was for Josh to find a system that worked for him.

It's too bad executive function skills can't just be absorbed by spending time with people who excel with them. The good news is that executive skills can be taught. It may take awhile, but they are so important that it's worth the investment of time to help your children develop in these areas. Experts say that executive function skills continue to develop into the twenties, but don't wait to start working on them until your child is already floundering. Help your young child to develop strategies to keep track of his possessions. Assist your older children in using calendars and organizational aids. Help your child write a list of what needs to get done for the day. When executive skills don't come naturally, even the most primitive progress is just that - progress.

Homeschool Flashback #4 Discipline

2011-07-07T10:26:00.006-04:00

Discipline is not fun! The example above shows just what my daughter thought about having to practice her spelling words and then use them in a sentence. She became especially frustrated if she missed the same word several days in a row and had to go through the practice exercises. I thought of this discipline as a training technique to improve and develop her spelling skills and character. My daughter viewed it as punishment for being young enough that she was forced to learn to spell words and live up to adult expectations for her education.

How many of you teachers and parents would give in to your child at this point and not push them further? No one? That's what I thought. We push our kids to greater levels of achievement, not out of some malicious sense of payback for what we endured as children but because we know that giving up is rarely helpful. Learning to stick with a task, even one that is hated or just not fun, is something that everyone must come to terms with sooner or later. As adults we understand that hitting the wall a few times until we accomplish something makes the success all the sweeter. Likewise, giving up leaves a lingering sense of failure that is hard to eradicate.

In the example portrayed above, you probably noticed an unenthusiatic attitude about doing schoolwork. I did talk to my daughter both about the need to persevere and the need for self discipline. These two things generalize far beyond the academic realm and into many aspects of everyday life.

As I talked with my daughter, I tried to help her see that working at mundane tasks was just a part of everyday life. As a child, it might include her school work and chores. As an adult, it would encompass caring for a home and completing whatever work she had committed to do.

Here's the rub: if a person does not learn to discipline himself or herself, there will be others who will gladly discipline them. If you don't like being told what to do, don't wait when you see something that needs to be done. Take initiative, and no one will have to tell you what to do because you've already taken care of it. Learn to think for yourself and develop your own convictions, because if you don't there will be plenty of people who will gladly tell you what to think and how to act on their beliefs.

Your child may think learning to spell and do schoolwork is a pain. But it is a character growing kind of pain with a bigger purpose beyond mastery of an academic skill set. As it says in Hebrews 12: 11 "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

A Mom Like You

2011-06-20T10:38:00.005-04:00

In the last six weeks, I've had the opportunity to speak at three different state homeschool conventions. At each conference I attend, I share information about learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorders, and Auditory Processing Disorders. More important than the facts I pass along are the real-life stories from my own family experiences. I share what didn't work as well as what worked at least some of the time. I share some of the failures and frustrations as well as our hard-won achievements.

When my first two children graduated from our homeschool in 2006, we declared our school colors to be black and blue. We were the homeschool of hard knocks! Not only did my children struggle with learning, but I struggled to try to find better ways to teach them. One of the biggest benefits for those attending workshops for children with various special needs is to look around and realize they are not alone. There are others striving to teach children with challenges, and others who understand the difficulties families face when their child has to work harder than most for every small gain they accomplish.

What has always amazed me is how God has prompted me to share some of the hardest, most unimpressive movements of my life and that is what people are blessed by in my workshops. Sure, I offer lots of tips and practical strategies, but what people connect with is hearing a speaker who admits to not having it all together but never gave up trying. My son is a young adult now, and he comes to conferences with me. People look at the two of us as survivors, who dealt with a lot of learning challenges and came out intact. Now Josh can share his perspective, and give parents insight into why their children may act the way they do.

I've never had all the answers to the challenges my children faced. What I did have was a commitment to help them grow into the unique individuals God intended them to become, equipping them as best I could. Sometimes I was out of ideas for how to teach a given topic, and my kids still weren't "getting it". All I had to offer was reassurance that I would keep trying to find ways to help, and would not give up on them. I would be the knot at the end of the rope that they could hang onto. The message was: Mom doesn't have all the answers but Mom will always be there with you, coming alongside until we figure something out.

Don't underestimate the power of just being there for your children. You don't need to know all the answers, but your kids need to know you haven't given up on them. It's in the safety of knowing your love is unwavering that your children find the courage to try again, fail or succeed, and try some more. Our children are far more than what they can or cannot do, and they each have something to offer. This overall supportive attitude has a far greater impact than the best teaching strategies in the world.

Years ago I had a man in his 30's come up to talk to me after I presented my workshop, "Helping the Distractible Child". I don't remember which conference it was, but I will forever remember what he said to me. He explained that as a child he always had difficulty paying attention, and was constantly getting in trouble as a result. He thought he was smart enough, but couldn't sit still and had trouble completing assignments. He tried hard to comply with the demands put on him, but always felt like he was a disappointment to his parents no matter how hard he worked. "I wish I'd had a mom like you," he said. "One who could see the strengths and work with me."

One day all of our children will be adults. I challenge you to be that Mom, the one who never gives up on her kids no matter what. Be that Dad, who is consistently there for his children regardless of their struggles. Be that husband or wife who sticks around during the hard times. Be that person, so that one day your adult children will be able to say, "I'm so glad I had a Mom (and Dad) like you."

My Beckie, Homeschool Valedictorian 2011

2011-06-16T11:33:00.001-04:00

1993 was a monumental year. It was the year I started homeschooling and the year that my youngest child, Beckie, was born. Beckie was the kind of baby who quieted as soon as she was picked up. She always seemed content just to be with people. As an infant, Beckie was perfectly happy with attention from any adult or child. By the time she was a toddler and on the move, she enthusiastically joined in play with other children.

Her brother and sister (Josh and Beth) were crazy about her and wanted to include her in all their activities. They loved to teach her about whatever they were learning and when we were out and about Josh would hold one of Beckie’s hands and Beth would hold the other. Beckie was a very versatile playmate. She loved tea parties, dress-up times, Legos, and playing in dirt. Josh says Beckie is the best little brother he could ever have wished for.

I can still picture Beckie’s beaming smile as she grew up, and remember thinking how very loved and confident she always looked. More than once I thought I could have aptly named her “Joy” instead of Rebecca, because she typically seemed so joyful and brought it to others. It was hard not to smile when Beckie was in the room.

Like her brother, Beckie has dealt with attention challenges (ADHD), sensory processing difficulties, and an auditory processing disorder. Despite these struggles, Beckie has faced them with grace and determination and has experienced success. Today she is a second degree black belt in karate and at the time of her high school graduation she has already completed her first year of college.

Beckie has grown into a lovely young woman. She is compassionate, optimistic, funny, and strong. Her sense of humor and quick-witted observations are delightful. Beckie’s enjoyment when she is with animals and children is contagious. She is a loyal friend and a defender of the underdog. I think Beckie is amazing, and it has been a privilege and a blessing to be her teacher and Mom.

Beckie graduated from our homeschool, the Family Home Academy, on May 22^nd, 2011. Congratulations, Beckie!

Cooking and Sensory Processing

2011-06-08T15:44:00.005-04:00

My son Josh is not a picky eater. He's always been good about trying new foods. If Josh resists eating something the problem he has is not usually with the taste or texture of something, but the smell.

As a young adult Josh now manages most of his sensory problems with ease. He has discovered that he enjoys cooking and decided he needed to expand the number of recipes he knows how to make. I've taught him the basics of meal preparation, and I compiled a list of easy-to-prepare recipes that I thought Josh would enjoy making and eating. One such recipe was "Easy Lemon Chicken". Josh would gladly consume the final, baked version of this dish. Unfortunately, and I didn't know this about Josh, he can't stand the smell of lemon juice.

He's fine with lemonade, lemon-scented soaps, cleaning wipes, and lemon jello. In fact, I can't think of anything lemony that Josh reacted negatively to as a child. This experience revealed that there is something different and acrid for him about lemon juice and it was so hard for him to smell that concentrated lemon scent that he had difficulty just measuring it out to make the recipe.

Adding to the challenge was Josh's tendency to be impulsive, which of course is consistent with his ADHD diagnosis. With all the ingredients, even very common and frequently used ones, Josh automatically gives them a sniff before adding them to a recipe. He tells me he needs to check to make sure the smell is consistent over time and that things should smell exactly the same way each time or something seems wrong and he feels suspicious about that ingredient. In any case, sniffing food items is a well-developed habit by now, though thankfully not in public anymore.

Josh gave the lemon juice a whiff, and had an immediate nose-wrinkling response followed by thrusting his arm as far from his nose as he could extend it. Blinking incredulously, Josh proceeded to...take another whiff from the bottle of lemon juice. Why? Partly due to impulsivity and partly due to his sensory system demanding consistency over time. He had to check again just to make sure it smelled as noxious to him as it had the first time. Yep! It still smelled awful to him, but at least he knew what to expect the second time.

Predictability is comforting to the sensory-challenged. It helps to know what to expect, even if it is still an unpleasant sensation. Better the bad sensory experience you know than the unexpected sensory experience which could prove very unsettling merely by the unpredictability factor. Josh powered through the olfactory assault as he prepared the recipe, although it wasn't as "easy" for him as the recipe name implied.

Can Dogs Have ADHD?

2011-06-02T20:50:00.004-04:00

I walked in the door after a busy day and was greeted enthusiastically by my two goldendoodles. They wiggled and wagged their tails frantically around me, my husband, my daughter, and son as if they hadn’t seen us in days. In reality, it had only been a few hours, but it’s always nice to be welcomed home by those who are always thrilled to see you.

After greeting the dogs and saying hello to the cat who watched calmly from across the room, I noticed that there were bits of debris strewn on the dining room floor. Uh-oh. There were chewed up bits of paper along with other items that had been in the trash can when I left home. There was also a trail from the kitchen into the dining room, and it looked like the dogs (or at least one of them) had been pretty busy making a mess while we were gone. I put the dogs in the back yard so we could get things cleaned up without their helpful interference.

Slapshot, who is 2 years old, at least knows how to act like a dog in trouble. He avoids eye contact, tucks his tail a bit, and slinks a little. He takes himself to the back door and waits to be let out, darting down the steps as soon as he can squeeze his 95 pound doggy self through the opening door. He doesn’t bark to be let in until we come and call him or he feels he has paid his penance.

Daisy, on the other hand, is just over a year old and is totally clueless as to what it means to be in the doghouse. She gives the same toothy grin when she’s getting her leash on to go for a walk as when we discover she has chewed up a shoe and scold her. If she is put outside so we can clean up after her, she eagerly heads out and looks over her shoulder to see if we are coming along to play with her.

I’m not sure, but if there is a doggy ADHD I think she may have it. Some of the signs are there. Let’s see. She’s definitely hyper, and enjoys jumping on and off my furniture. Multiple times. She persists despite correction and redirection of this behavior. This is consistent with the hyperactivity my two ADHD children displayed when they were young.

Impulsivity? In spades. I have to be on the alert when I walk her because if she sees something interesting she will take off on a moment’s notice and try to drag me along behind her. I suspect that dragging sensation she feels is the only way she even remembers I am with her.

Distractible? Daisy excels in this category as well. I have been training her in basic obedience skills, starting with the command to sit. At first, she just gave me that toothy grin while lunging for whatever treats I had to give her incentive to learn to sit. Then she would sit just long enough for her tail to hit the floor and she’d be back to the lunging. It would have been great if I had been trying to teach her to bounce her hind end on the floor, but I actually wanted her to sit and stay put for a little bit. I should probably mention that I also had this experience with my ADHD children!

At this point, Daisy can sit with Slapshot by her side providing a strong role model. He’s in it for the treats, but that’s o.k. After I give the command to sit, I give the command to stay. I step back and maintain eye contact while giving the hand signal for “stay”. Slapshot is an old pro with this command, and he sits still as a statue while never taking his gaze from me. Daisy watches me intently for about two seconds, but if there is a noise or movement nearby she has to look in that direction. She just has to, she can’t resist the urge. Again, not unlike my distractible kids. Yes, she wants the treat. But sometimes it’s not worth missing out on something else.

ADHD children have difficulty completing tasks. Once again, this is true of Daisy. What tasks could a dog have to do? How about eating her dinner? Slapshot is a big dog, and gobbles his food down as fast as his specially-designed-to-slow-him-down dish allows. Daisy, while not as large as Slapshot, is also a large dog who forgets to finish the food in the bowl right in front of her. While Slapshot greedily inhales his food, Daisy has trouble initiating and dawdles around her bowl. (Another executive function skill my children struggled with growing up – but never when it came to food!) After a minute or so, Daisy begins to eat. She is genuinely hungry, but will abandon her food for almost any competing stimuli. If she hears another dog barking outside, someone at the door, or even if I take a few steps away from her, she lifts her head and goes to where the action is – even if it means that Slapshot will try and finish her food once his is gone.

I’ve always said a label can be useful if it helps you find information and get support for what you are experiencing. I already live with three individuals with the ADHD diagnosis, so I am recognizing Daisy’s symptoms early on. Daisy is a delight, even if she still has to learn that being cute doesn’t cut it. My family members can be pretty delightful, too.

In addition to the scattered trash in my dining room, Daisy had pulled a box of dryer sheets off the shelf in my laundry room and had chewed up the box and scattered the sheets around the room. She did not ingest any, just spread them around. As we cleaned up the mess my son suddenly commented, “Hey! It smells pretty nice in here!” Immediately the other two ADHD individuals stopped what they were doing to take a moment to enjoy the fresh aroma caused by Daisy’s chewing and all agreed that the room smelled wonderful. Way to live in the moment, guys!

Slapshot and Daisy came back in the house once we had the mess cleared away. Daisy trotted up to me with her usual enthusiasm and toothy doggy grin. I bent over to pet her, and as she gazed lovingly up at me I realized that her typical doggy breath had been replaced by the lovely fabric softener scent of Clean Rain.

Homeschool Flashback #3 Writing Skills

2011-04-29T18:43:00.008-04:00

Take a look at this paper. What kind of information does it tell you? Right off the bat you can see that this child, my son Josh, has difficulty with writing tasks. His letters stay on the lines pretty well and he is doing a good job of leaving spaces between words. Margins are still a bit challenging. He remembers to capitalize the first letter at the beginning of a sentence. His spelling needs to develop. But look how hard he is working just to get the ideas out of his head, through his hand and onto his paper. Some of the letters are darker from the force of his pencil on the paper. Others are lighter, indicating an inconsistency in his ability to grade the force of pressure he uses when putting pencil to paper. Sometimes the letters or entire words have been traced multiple times. Why would he trace some letters several times but not others? Could this be indicative of a neurological issue? Is he even aware that he is perseverating on some of the letters? If you could observe him during the process of writing you would see that he does not form the letters consistently from one word to the next. Sometimes his "i" starts at the top and is drawn in a downward motion. Other times he starts on the line and writes with an upward motion. When he is in tracing mode, he might write it both ways several times. Imagine if you were writing and had to stop and think how to form the letters because you didn't have an established pattern. Josh was dealing with multiple challenges just to get a few of his thoughts down on paper. Here's how I tried to help him. I did some of the Brain Gym activities to help information flow more easily between his right and left brain hemispheres. I had him use mechanical pencils, which kept the degree of sharpness more stable than other types of pencils. He tried different pencil grips to see if they would help his hand to relax so the writing could flow more easily. I made sure Josh had adequate arm support and was using his non-dominant hand to stabilize the paper. He tried writing with a slant board. I wondered if his letter and number tracing could be due to anxiety or OCD, but that was ruled out. Eventually, Josh was able to tell me that he was processing and trying to internally organize himself as he traced. I stopped trying so hard to get him to write in cursive, and decided to be satisfied if he was able to sign his name easily and could write in cursive if it became necessary. I also wrote him occasional notes in cursive writing to be sure he was able to read them. For the most part, though, we concentrated on printing. With all of these interventions, I did see improvement in his writing. It became more fluid and automatic, but if he concentrated too much on making his printing very neat his writing became laboriously slow. When I introduced keyboarding, he greatly preferred it to paper and pencil writing. Although I tried multiple typing programs to help Josh learn touch typing, he resisted them all and has his own method of typing. It works for him, and today as a young adult he is a prolific writer. He is planning to start a blog, and I hope to be able to share that with you soon so that you can be encouraged by the growth of this previously-struggling writer.

"My Ball Died"

2011-04-09T14:52:00.006-04:00

When I heard the words "My ball died" coming out of the mouth of a preschool boy I was seeing for speech therapy, I tried not to show alarm. "Tommy" didn't seem to be too upset, but he was clearly trying to tell me about something that mattered to him. I had not heard of any recent loss in this boy's life, but then again I only saw him once a week for speech therapy and didn't know about every single person in his life. I wanted to be compassionate and allow him to talk about what was on his mind. Tommy already had a very hard time expressing himself due to speech articulation (pronunciation) errors. Even to those familiar with Tommy's speech patterns, his speech intelligibility was poor. When I repeated his words back to him for clarification, he responded vigorously with head shakes and repeated insistently, "No. My ball died." Some children, when hearing their incorrect speech production repeated back to them, will recognize that what they are saying does not match the message they are trying to convey. As a result, some children will alter how they are pronouncing words in order to increase their intelligibility. Tommy was not one of those children. He kept saying the same thing in exactly the same way, over and over again with no change. Tommy still did not appear distressed, but was making eye contact and eagerly awaiting my response. As a speech therapist, I have been asked how to respond when you just don't understand what a child is trying to say. I think the correct response is usually dependent on the situation. If the child is just chatting to make a connection with another person, then it may be more critical to be responsive and caring than to determine exactly what has been said. Sometimes asking the child "Can you show me?" helps them use nonverbal means to get their meaning across. This is limited to messages that can actually be pointed out or demonstrated, though, so much of the time it isn't a very effective strategy. The strategy of pretending to understand the child can backfire, because you may be consenting to something you don't intend to or the child may try to continue the conversation and sooner or later the fact that you are faking comprehension will become obvious. Could this affect your relationship with the child? Another option when a child is clearly trying to convey a message to you is to begin asking questions to see if you can narrow down the possible topics the child is talking about. Even with barely intelligible children, knowing the context of what they are talking about makes it easier to discern what they are attempting to say. In Tommy's case, I started by asking him if someone in his family had died. Tommy looked uncertain, so I started naming possibilities by using yes/no questions since Tommy was able to respond accurately to them. "Did your grandpa die?" "Did your dog die?" and so on. Tommy continued to shake his head "no". When this line of questioning lead nowhere, I tried asking about his toys. "Did you lose a ball?" "Did something happen to your ball?" Again I was met with repeated head shakes and the verbal assertion, always pronounced exactly the same way, "My ball died." Tommy wasn't giving up on me, but continued to make eye contact with a hopeful expression on his face. I was feeling more and more inadequate to help this sweet child who apparently had some kind of loss to grieve. Through the open window of the room we were using for speech therapy, we could hear the sounds of children playing. Following a particularly loud vocal outburst from one of the children outside, Tommy cocked his head, grinned, and happily pronounced, "My ball died!" He certainly didn't look upset about a death, but instead looked at me in triumph as if he had just proven a point. Given the context, the words, and Tommy's speech sound error pattern, things began to fall into place. Hesitantly, I asked another question, "Is your brother outside?" Tommy responded with enthusiastic head nods, repeating once again with a look of utter satisfaction, "My ball died." Okay. So no one died and nothing was lost or irreparably damaged. What a relief! For whatever reason, it was very important to Tommy that I acknowledged that his brother was outside. Although it had to be frustrating for him when he couldn't quickly or easily convey his message, he was eventually rewarded for his persistence and I was relieved to discover that in fact, no ball had actually died.

Say What?

2011-03-31T10:57:00.004-04:00

I love talking with my son, Josh. He has such interesting perspectives and the way he verbally expresses himself gives me insight into how he thinks and processes information. When he was young, Josh had some difficulty remembering words so he would use descriptions to get his point across. He once described his ankle as "you know, that part that's like the wrist of your leg". He tended to use vague words such as "thing" and "that" rather than specific word labels. Despite the circumlocutions, I could always tell what Josh was talking about. Since Josh struggled to recognize many nonverbal signals and had to be taught how to use appropriate body language when he interacted, I could never take it for granted that Josh would just pick up on social cues and be able to express himself adequately. He could learn how to interact with other people, but he had to be taught specific discrete skills for social interactions. For my daughters, social skills came naturally and they just seemed to intuitively know how to relate to others. For Josh, it was like being in a foreign land where everyone else seemed to know the language but he struggled to learn basic communication and was vulnerable to being frequently misunderstood. I did speech therapy with Josh to work on conversational turn-taking, topic maintenance, and nonverbal ways to let a listener know he was interested. Unfortunately, Josh often was not interested in what others wanted to talk about, so then I had to teach him about being polite and a good friend by sometimes letting someone else take the conversational lead. Once Josh had some of the basic skills for social interaction and was able to express himself more effectively, he continued to practice and fine tune his communication exchanges. I noticed that Josh often did not respond when given a compliment. Outside of the family, Josh didn't get many positive comments so he didn't really know how to respond when it happened. I talked to Josh about possible responses and we role-played several situations together. After our practice session I reminded Josh that he had lots of strengths worthy of compliments so it was good that he was learning how to respond to them. Josh informed me that "Vanity was never my strongest weakness." Say what? After some probing (they don't call me the Momster for nothing) I was able to help Josh expand his message so that I could understand what he meant. His intention was to indicate that although he was aware that he had many significant challenges, being vain was not one of them. Therefore, he needed some help in learning how to respond to compliments. Even today, Josh comes up with some unique responses that catch me by surprise. Just this morning our dogs were playing and one of them ran over and stood next to me. I said, "Look, Josh, she's on base." After a brief pause, Josh jokingly said, "Then I'll be lead guitar." Say what? Translation: "base" sounds like "bass" as in a type of guitar. What's a band without both bass and lead guitars? Josh was making a play on words, and at least now he understands what I say and makes a deliberate choice to joke and say funny things.

Picky Eaters

2011-03-20T22:42:00.000-04:00

If you have a picky eater, you’ve probably heard comments such as “Don’t worry, she’ll eat when she’s hungry” or “All young children are picky eaters.” While these statements may be true of most typically-developing children, some kids take picky eating to the extreme and mealtimes are miserable for all involved. There are some children who can refuse foods indefinitely, long past the point when most would respond to hunger signals. Others eat such a limited number of food items that their diet is extremely restricted to just a few accepted foods. Some children insist on using the same plate and cup each time they eat. Many children with feeding aversions often resist even a change in the brand of foods they will eat. Is picky eating just a normal part of childhood? For some, it is far more than a developmental stage and can become a serious concern for the family.

A friend of mine went into a panic when she learned that the only brand of frozen waffles that her son would eat was being discontinued by the manufacturer. In desperation, she went to several stores to stock up on that particular brand of waffles while feeling anxious about what her son would eat when one of his regular, accepted foods was no longer available. This little guy had multiple allergies and would only eat a few different foods. His parents were obviously very worried about his nutrition, and the more they pushed their son to eat, the stronger the resistance they encountered. Mealtimes, which his parents had hoped would be an enjoyable time of togetherness, instead became a battleground fraught with stressful interactions.

Feeding aversions and extreme picky eating can have a number of underlying physical causes. A child who has been on a feeding tube may not have developed the muscle coordination needed for eating. They may have to be taught how to bite and chew foods. Without adequate feeding skills, children may resist foods that seem too challenging to them. Some children stuff their mouths with food or just mash food using the tongue instead of moving the food to the molars to chew. These children may experience gagging and choking, which can lead to avoidance of foods in the future. Swallowing large pieces of food can also lead to physical discomfort after meals.

Prematurity, allergies, aspiration, reflux, and other physical issues can all contribute to extreme food selectivity in children. Many children, such as those with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), have difficulties processing and regulating input, including the taste and textures of a variety of foods. Sensory processing dysfunction (SPD) can cause a child to become squeamish just at the sight or smell of certain foods. Some children will only tolerate foods with specific textures. Children with feeding aversions may eat chicken nuggets from a certain fast food restaurant but refuse chicken nuggets prepared at home. It is puzzling and frustrating when children refuse to eat or have strong reactions just at the mere sight of a food that they don’t typically consume.

One mother told me that her son’s feeding aversions made it difficult to go out to a restaurant or another family’s home for a meal. His limited repertoire of accepted foods left his devoted mother trying to explain to others about her son’s strong reactions to smells and textures of foods. She worried about his nutrition and was baffled by his refusal to try new foods. She tried strategies that worked with other children, but her son seemed impervious to them all.

When is it time to seek help for a picky eater? One indication is when a child consistently refuses food or only eats a limited number of foods. For example, a child who eats no fruits or vegetables is missing entire food groups and may have difficulty getting adequate nutrition. Some children do not drink enough fluids and are poorly hydrated. A child with repeated respiratory infections may be at risk for aspiration, with food or liquid entering the lungs. Over time, a child with feeding challenges may develop behavior problems related to eating such as crying and gagging when offered a meal or snack. When eating problems are interfering with a child’s health and family activities, it can be helpful to consult with a feeding specialist or feeding team.

A feeding team consists of a group of professionals with expertise in the various aspects of feeding and nutrition. It may include some or all of the following: primary care physician, dietitian, gastroenterologist, psychologist, speech/language pathologist, and occupational therapist. At a feeding clinic, the initial evaluation will gather information through parent interview and observation of the child when presented with a variety of foods and drinks. These professionals work with the child and family to determine ways to meet nutritional needs and expand the child’s diet to include a greater variety of foods.

Feeding aversions and extreme picky eating are far more complicated than mere childhood whimsy. Feeding problems can interfere with a child’s health and affects the entire family. When every meal becomes an ordeal, there’s a problem. Treatment usually progresses slowly, but over time feeding aversions can be lessened, diet expanded, and health improved.

Mom and the Mat

2011-02-18T21:28:00.005-05:00

My typical exercise pattern is to walk several times a week. I walk the dog, walk around the park, and walk on a treadmill. Then I thought about how my daughters and their friends seem to really get a good workout doing the video game Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), and they have a lot of fun exercising to the music. So I decided I would give it a try, and my family presented me with my own DDR program that included the dance mat. The program has a number of options, including dancing with a friend if you have more than one mat. The “classic” mode is to step on the mat in the same pattern that is displayed on the screen. I could also try to match the game’s movements with my arm motions as well as stepping on the right spot at the correct time, but quickly decided I should hold off on that until I mastered the footwork part. The criteria I use for selecting songs is to find the lowest BPM (beats per minute) in hopes that I will be able to keep up with a slower song. Some of the song possibilities are “oldies” so I am familiar with them. Others I have never heard of, including one song that my middle-aged eyes misread as “Plastic Breath” so I selected that song out of morbid curiosity. Turns out it was “Plastic Beach”, which was not nearly as interesting. It has been fun to exercise with the DDR, although it has made me think about the experiences of a struggling learner as I work hard to get the moves right and it’s immediately followed by a screen with feedback listing how I performed. The screen shows my statistics for various aspects of the routine, and in bold print on top of the categories is the message “Try Again”. Are you kidding me? I just stomped and hopped around for an entire song, and despite my best attempts I get “Try Again”? How about some encouragement? Maybe something like “Hey, you’re back! Good for you for exercising again!” Or at least “Nice try. Keep up the good work.” My children offer feedback as they watch me work out on the DDR mat, and they kindly don’t connect the second mat to join me in my workout since it would be like me competing with Happy Feet the penguin. They gently offer pointers, such as “Mom, you know you have two feet, right?” Apparently in addition to be right-handed I am also right-footed, since my natural inclination is to do all of the stepping with that foot. I was also informed that stomping harder on the mat does not increase speed or accuracy. At least that information is useful to keep in mind, unlike the discouraging message to try again. I actually got a more positive message when all I did was walk to the customer service desk at the grocery store to throw a piece of trash away. As I approached the desk, a mechanical voice informed me, “You’re a winner!” Of course, it was to entice me to play the lottery, but at least it was more positive than my perpetual DDR message telling me that basically my best efforts just aren’t good enough. Students with learning disabilities or attention challenges also hear “Try again” over and over. While it’s true that many times tasks do have to be redone, I think we should at least try to acknowledge something positive even if it’s just to recognize that effort has been made. Everyone needs to feel successful at something. Fortunately, I am not training for any DDR competitions and my intent is simply to have fun while I exercise. I know there are other things I am good at doing, and I am more annoyed than discouraged with the DDR’s observations of my performance. Our children likewise need to know that there are things they can do well. Sometimes it is in the academic realm but often it is in a different venue. It is vital to help them find something that they can enjoy and feel confident in their ability to perform. My children found success in creative endeavors through art activities. They also enjoyed personal accomplishments through the sports of martial arts and swimming, two activities that help burn off excess energy and that can be engaged in year-round. Homeschooling allowed me to build in daily encouragement in addition to all the necessary corrections and redirections. My experience with the DDR program reminded me how discouraging it can be to have feedback limited to “Try again!” when despite my best efforts the standard for success still seems out of reach. Our children need the acknowledgement that we recognize their efforts in addition to the results, and not crush them under the weight of too many “Try again” messages.

Never underestimate him!

2011-02-13T18:48:00.004-05:00

My apologies for not posting yet this month. I have been battling the flu since February 1st and the germs seemed to be winning for awhile. I'm making a strong comeback now, though!
Do you have a child who has difficulty following novel directions? My son, Josh, has ADHD and auditory processing difficulties. He has significant learning challenges and struggles to remember what he hears. He has a tendency to take things literally, with sometimes interesting results. Other times he draws the wrong conclusion and inadvertently changes the expected outcome. For example, once I found a recipe that sounded interesting. You put all the ingredients for an omelet into a sealed ziploc bag and cook it in boiling water. I thought this would be great, especially for those of us who have picky eaters, because everyone could choose which ingredients to include. My husband and I could include onions in ours, but our daughter has not yet learned to appreciate onions so she could omit them from her omelet. I compiled a few different omelet variations into separate ziploc bags and made sure they were sealed tightly. I put the water on to boil, and went into the next room to work with my daughter on a computer assignment. Josh went into the kitchen and shouted to me that the water was boiling. I asked him to carefully put the bags into the boiling water for me and to use the tongs that were sitting on the counter. Using one of his strategies, Josh requested clarification that I wanted all the bags put into the water. I confirmed that and a few minutes later went to check on my omelets. Surprise! What I found looked more like egg drop soup than omelets. At first I thought the bags must have split open while they were boiling. Then I saw the emptied bags off to the side and realized that Josh had meticulously opened each one and poured the contents into the boiling water, thus defeating the attempt to keep the ingredients separate for different omelets. Josh saw the flabbergasted expression on my face and asked if something was wrong. I explained that when I had asked him to "Put the bags into the water" I meant the entire bags. Josh said he thought about it, but that idea didn't make sense to him and he had never seen me put any bags into boiling water so he decided he was supposed to just dump everything in. I thought I had been clear in my instructions, but I told Josh I would try to be more specific in the future. He grinned at me and said, "Never underestimate my incompetence, Mom!" I love that kid and his sense of humor.

Energetic, Impulsive, and Distractible

2011-01-28T14:16:00.007-05:00

My daughter, Beckie, is an amazing girl. She has worked through most of her sensory processing and auditory processing difficulties. She is funny, kind, and is doing well at her part-time job teaching martial arts. Beckie also has a diagnosis of ADHD, combined type. Girls are less likely than boys to be considered hyperactive, but my Beckie has that component with a capital H. I love her energy! Even now that she is an older teen, her hyperactivity is still apparent. Beckie has learned strategies to help her focus over the years, and she knows ways to help burn up her excess energy. She teaches martial arts for several hours each week. She rides her bike or walks to neighborhood destinations. When she was younger, Beckie used to race cars from our house to the end of the block, running barefoot down the sidewalk just for the pure joy of it. At home these days she listens to music on her iPod and paces or runs through the house. Our first floor is structured in such a way that Beckie can basically run laps around it. Since we have hardwood floors, she can also get a running start and go for a nice slide across the floor. It's kind of hard on her socks, but that energy has to be expended somehow and the sliding across the floor is relatively tame. We laugh together about the time I asked her if her hair dryer had stopped working, because she was running around the house with her hair only halfway dried. Beckie explained to me that her long hair takes several minutes to dry and she had to take a break from the monotony of drying her hair so she could move around a bit. Her attention span is short, but intense. She studies very hard, but not for hours on end. After concentrating for a period of in-depth studying, Beckie tells me her brain needs to take a break and do something different for awhile. I'm actually glad that she recognizes what she needs and finds strategies that work for her. Is she distractible with a short attention span? Yes, but she can focus and sustain her attention when needed. Is she hyperactive? Absolutely, but her extra energy is often a plus. There are times when Beckie acts impulsively. For example, she walks into a room, sees me there, and grabs me for a hug. Sometimes she will spontaneously start giving me a back rub as she is going by, and it is the best 10-second back rub I've ever had! True, it only lasts a few seconds before she is on her way, but I do enjoy those brief moments. Beckie faces challenges from being so energetic, impulsive, and distractible. But it's not all bad. There's something wonderful about Beckie's ability to spontaneously show affection and respond with enthusiasm to so many different things. She is growing as the individual she is meant to be, without the burden of trying to completely change her natural inclinations.

What's So Bad About Yelling?

2011-01-06T16:43:00.002-05:00

Before I became a parent, I determined that I would not be a yeller. I would talk calmly to my children, who of course would hang on my every word as I politely explained what I wanted from them. They would comply with my requests, and we would ultimately end up on the cover of a homeschooling magazine. Some of this actually came true. I did become a parent! As for the rest, let’s just say I’m still a work in progress. I used to think I was a very patient person. As a speech/language pathologist, I worked with others’ children and people remarked about how patient I was with them. I truly believed they were right about me, until I had children of my own and they were around for longer than 30 – 60 minute therapy sessions once or twice a week. I was forced to see that I was really pretty impatient a good deal of the time. On top of that unfortunate revelation I found out that I was quite capable of being a yeller, especially when I felt frustrated. Is yelling such a big deal? The old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is just not true. Words can hurt, and sometimes have lasting results. Once in frustration I yelled at my son, “What’s wrong with you?” and that was after he had already been diagnosed with ADHD, auditory processing, and sensory processing difficulties. He struggled every single day, and my yelling at him was insensitive, hurtful, and revealed much more about what was wrong with me. I asked my son for forgiveness, and he willingly gave it and showered me with grace. Even though my boy was able to move past the incident, I was scarred by my own words and knew I needed to alter my behavior. My yelling forced me to see some ugly things about myself that were hard to acknowledge but needed to change. In addition to the negative emotional effects it sometimes causes, yelling really isn’t effective as a child training technique. Children who are frequently yelled at learn to gauge the seriousness of the yeller and when they will actually have to comply with requests. It’s as if they know they don’t have to worry about taking action until a certain decibel level is reached. You may think yelling will help you blow off steam, but it’s bad for your voice and ultimately doesn’t make you less frustrated or more effective with your children. If anything it has the opposite effect, much the way an immunization helps build up resistance by introducing a small amount of something undesirable into the body so it will build up immunity against stronger versions. Children who are yelled at often build up a resistance to your loud voice and they tune it out until it’s clear you mean business. A parent who is yelling empty threats with no consistent follow-through inadvertently teaches children that they can safely ignore what is being said. This leads to further parental frustration and the yelling cycle is perpetuated. I have seen more than one movie where the most frightening “bad guy” speaks in a soft, controlled voice. It’s scary because you know that he means what he says and will follow through with any promised action. He is in control of himself and the situation, and he doesn’t need to raise his voice or repeat himself to make his intentions known. Now I’m not trying to frighten my children into obedience, but neither do I want to overpower them with my own lack of self control as I screech commands at them. I don’t want to yell to get my children’s attention, and I don’t want my children to think they only have to listen when Mom is about to blow. Some people find that they are less likely to yell when they have spent time in God’s word and in prayer. Others know they need to exercise to release tension, or have some time with friends to recharge a bit. I had a hard time eliminating my yelling responses. I spent a lot of time in prayer. I did not want to continue to be a yeller, yet I often felt like screaming. So I read the Bible. I journaled. I cried and prayed some more. I recognized that I needed to treat my children with respect, even when they were at their most challenging. The yelling problem was about me, not them. In order to be the person God wanted me to be I needed His help to persist in fighting my impulses to yell. I’d like to say that at some point I reached a level of maturity and self-control and never yelled at my children again. But that would be a lie. I have had to ask for forgiveness from each of my children many times. Talk about humbling! I don’t yell much these days, but I know I’m still capable of it. I’m not yet the person I someday hope to be, but I am taking steps forward and pushing on by the grace of God. I hope this is an encouragement to all my fellow yellers. You are not alone, and change is possible.

Homeschool Flashback #2

2010-12-29T12:55:00.004-05:00

The assignment was to write a story, using the words listed in the box. My children always preferred to come up with their own topics to write about, and being given a list of words was too limiting for them. My daughter clearly was not excited about this particular writing task. As do many students with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), she wanted to complete the assignment quickly so she could move on to more engaging tasks. She fit as many of the words as she could into the fewest sentences possible. She didn't find a spot for one of the words in the box, but that didn't bother her since she wasn't interested in writing about those words in the first place. For the record, I am not the woman who was "scared of mice." In fact, over the years we have had a number of rodent pets including hamsters and mice. I have presided over a number of shoebox burials befitting a rodent. One time I couldn't come up with anything nice to say about Tommy, the misanthropic finger biter, who latched on to any hand with an evil mousy grimace. We had to wear thick gloves just to feed him and then we had to shake him off our hands when we were done. He leered menacingly all the time until I finally told the children to try to avoid looking him in the eye so he wouldn't give them nightmares. The other mice and hamsters were decent pets, and were eulogized appropriately. As for the rest of the story above, I do live with my husband and children. At the time of this brief essay, my children were still young enough to be losing baby teeth and it was an event to be celebrated when another tooth became loose and fell out. Last week, I had part of a lower molar break off. Loosing a tooth at this age is no longer exciting. In fact, it's downright disconcerting. I called my dentist at 8:00 a.m. the morning of Christmas Eve., since I was trying to be thoughtful and not disturb him when it happened the night before. I think I woke him up. I told him what had happened, and he didn't seem to think it was an emergency. I wasn't convinced, since it has been many years since I last lost a tooth and I didn't anticipate losing any more as an adult. I've had what's left of the tooth repaired, and was reassured that "sometimes with age these things happen." Sigh. This homeschool flashback could have an interesting twist if it were written today - the children and the Mom could each lose a tooth!

10 Ideas for Teaching with Gift Wrap

2010-12-15T19:15:00.012-05:00

Need some fresh ideas to use with your students? Don't throw those wrapping paper scraps away, and hold on to that used gift wrap for a little while longer. Here are some ideas for using wrapping paper as a teaching tool, and it won't hurt your budget a bit.
1. Use leftover pieces of gift wrap to practice scissor skills. Include some narrow strips of paper so that beginners can feel the success of cutting through the strip. Snip, snip!
2. Cut out images from the wrapping paper to play a matching game. Want something that will last? Glue one set of pictures on the inside of a file folder, and glue the matching pictures onto index cards or card stock paper. A little packing tape will work about as well as lamination to keep the pictures preserved for multiple uses.
3. Work on handwriting skills by having your child circle images on the gift wrap. If that's a bit too challenging for your student, help them just draw lines connecting the pictures on the wrapping paper. Washable markers may show up better than pencil, especially if the paper has an intricate design.
4. Use both hands together as you tear wrapping paper into pieces. Glue the pieces onto the back (blank) side of another piece of gift wrap. For a greater challenge, try shaping the pieces into seasonal shapes such as a snowman or Christmas tree.
5. Develop hand strength by balling up the paper and squeezing it.
6. Practice following directions and visual discrimination by pointing to named pictures on the wrapping paper.
7. Work on listening skills by covering your eyes and trying to identify the location of a crinkling paper.
8. Teach about recycling by crumpling up old wrapping paper to use for packing material when preparing packages to be mailed. For added fun try throwing the wadded up paper into the box from various locations near the "target".
9. Work on expressive language skills by naming or describing pictures on the paper.
10. Provide sensory input by putting scotch tape on paper. Try to offer a variety of thin, heavy, slippery and shiny paper to experience the different qualities of each.
Don't you just love inexpensive materials that you can make yourself? I sure do, and I feel so frugal and creative when the activities are also fun for my kids.

That's a Wrap!

2010-12-12T19:12:00.005-05:00

This is a busy time of year and there are many activities I greatly enjoy. Some of my holiday preparations are harder to fit into my schedule. Wrapping gifts is the one thing that I tend to put off. There are a couple of reasons for my gift wrapping procrastination. First of all, I need a cleared surface to work on in order to adequately wrap presents. I need to be able to spread out a bit so I can access and measure the paper, get to the scissors, and use the tape. Individuals with ADHD tend to see all flat, empty surface space as a good spot to dump their possessions. Finding an unoccupied area to use for wrapping is not likely to happen on the first perusal of my home. Then, once I manage to get a nice area cleared off it's a race to see if I can use it before my husband, son, or daughter spot the flat, empty surface and cover it again. Another reason I put off wrapping gifts until I can't avoid it any longer is the tendency of my inattentive family members to somehow notice what I don't want them to see. How is it that they can step over a laundry basket that needs taken upstairs and not even notice it, but if I inadvertently leave something unhidden they spot it immediately? It's one of those mysteries of life. I've made a great discovery, though, and it will work for birthdays and any other gift wrapping occasion. If I put a movie on for them to watch, I can wrap all the gifts while my family members are mere feet away! Amazing. Those who cannot sit still and pay attention during our homeschool day can actually hyper-focus on a movie. They become so engrossed in what they are watching that I think I could wear a tutu and stand on my head and they wouldn't notice. As long as I am the least bit surreptitious I can position myself behind my kids and get all my gifts wrapped while we watch a movie together. This strategy would probably work with a good t.v. show, too. I've found that many individuals with ADHD become as engrossed in the commercials as the show itself, so you can continue wrapping away until you are finished. I tend to wrap a lot of gifts at one sitting, because once I have a work space and my children are occupied I take advantage of it. Now if only they needed as much sleep as I do, I'd be all set to tackle whatever comes my way!

Homeschool Flashback #1

2010-11-27T11:07:00.006-05:00

This was an assignment Josh did for a homeschool writing class. In addition to the ADHD, auditory processing, and sensory processing issues, Josh struggled with social nuances. Some of Josh's struggles he understood and could identify. Other symptoms left all of us baffled, even Josh. I'm glad that even at this young age Josh knew he was smart and strong, so some of my truth messages were getting through to him in the midst of his challenges. It's interesting to me that "I know karate" made the positives and the negatives list. Knowing karate was good for Josh, in that it provided an outlet for his excess energy and helped him develop coordination and self defense skills. It also allowed him to be part of a group sport, but one that was individualized so he could progress at his own pace. Knowing karate was a negative for Josh, because as soon as other kids found out he was training in martial arts they asked if he was a black belt and then wanted to take him on. Josh was never aggressive, so demonstrating his karate skills outside of class was not appealing to him. One of the first things most boys do in social settings is talk about their favorite sports teams and the sports they participate in. Josh was more interested in drawing and creating things than in sports, so he didn't have much to talk about other than that he knew karate. This led to the inevitable challenges to prove his skills, which Josh did only when he absolutely had to for self defense. Even then, he ended the confrontation as soon as he could. This homeschool flashback provides a snapshot of a young boy's emerging self perception. Teaching him at home gave me the opportunity to help him develop a balanced view of himself, which is revealed by this writing assignment as he recognizes some of his strengths despite huge challenges. By the time Josh reached adulthood, he had a mental list of positive and negative things about himself that was accurate and realistic.

Contacts in a Spoon

2010-11-01T12:15:00.004-04:00

I consider myself to be a pretty good problem solver. I think things through, consider various angles, and make my decision based on the known facts at the time. I no longer wear contact lenses, but when I did I had a case to store them in. If I was on a trip and forgot my contact case, I would buy another case and probably pick up some contact solution since if I forgot one I'd likely have forgotten the other. When arriving at a hotel late at night when most stores are closed, upon realizing my omission, I would have been stumped as to how to store my contacts. Then I probably would have wasted a few minutes mentally berating myself for forgetting such an important item. Finally, I would conclude that I needed to head out again in search of a Wal-Mart that was open 24 hours in order to buy my needed supplies. Eventually I would come up with a solution, but not without feeling stressed and frustrated. This type of experience is very different for my outside-the-box thinking family members. In fact, they so often forget things that they take the forgetting in stride. They look for the simplest solution, and don't sweat the fact that they don't have exactly what is called for in the situation. With contacts, this has led to some interesting situations. Once my daughter and my husband both remembered their contact cases, but not exactly where they had set them down. In the morning, both complained that they couldn't see very well once they put their contacts in, and suddenly realized they had inadvertently switched lenses with each other. Another time, after a late arrival at the hotel and a carry-out dinner consumed in the room, I was cleaning up and throwing out trash. Just as I was about to toss out a pair of plastic spoons, I noticed they were aligned in a way my family doesn't typically take time to do. A closer look revealed that the spoon bowls had a liquid in them, and each contained a contact lens. My husband (who has ADHD) had forgotten his contact case, but when he discovered he had left it behind he just looked around for something handy and usable. Recruiting the two plastic spoons into a duty they were not designed for but suited his purpose, he popped his lenses and contact solution into the spoons and carefully set them aside. I guess his problem solving worked great, with the only real issue being the danger of his uninformed wife on a cleaning fit tossing them into the trash. In the end his creative thinking solved his dilemma, took little time, and caused him no stress. Makes it kind of hard to claim that my more traditional methods are better than the atypical ways of my family.

Nature Books and The Leaf Blower Noise

2010-10-11T11:40:00.006-04:00

At this time of year in Ohio we are seeing the leaves change color and fall to the ground. Our outdoor walks provide us with crunchy leaf textures to trample and there is a different "fall" smell in the air around us. A leisurely stroll down the block will show us fallen acorns, black walnuts, and other tree products eagerly gathered by squirrels as they dart to and fro on the ground and along tree branches. We have a squirrel living in the ornamental pear tree in our front yard, and I like to pick up loose acorns and other such treats when I take the dog for a walk and then place the nuts in the nooks and along branches for "our" squirrel to enjoy. When my children were younger we took lots of nature walks, and I gave each of them a bag for collecting pretty leaves from different trees. We used tree identification books to figure out the names of the trees we saw, and we preserved a leaf from each different tree in a nature notebook. After pressing the leaves in a book, we glued them to a page where we listed all the information about what kind of tree it came from, where we found it, and the date we collected it. It was fun to read the book throughout the year and review if the leaf was simple or compound, when we had collected it, and more. Over the years, our collection increased and it was a challenge to see if we could find a new specimen that wasn't yet represented in our nature book.
Those times spent in nature are some of my favorite homeschooling memories for this time of year. My son, Josh, gave me another fall memory that is equally imprinted in my mind. With his AD/HD, auditory processing, and sensory issues, Josh often said or did unexpected things. His impulsivity gave him a tendency to do whatever came into his head, with the result that I often found myself trying to figure out what was going on with Josh based on what I was seeing and hearing. Our special needs children do what comes naturally to them, and often don't realize that not everyone experiences things the way they do. In this instance, Josh starting making weird vocal sounds as he played. I went into my analysis mode as I observed him. Is he stimming? Has he developed a vocal tic? Is he trying to calm and organize? Alert himself? Keep others at bay? Provide sound effects for what he is playing with? Can he stop making the sound if I ask him to? The speech therapist in me tuned in to see if the sounds Josh was making could be considered vocal abuse and could physically harm his voice. As I observed Josh, he seemed content. He could stop on request, but returned to making the sounds a minute later. It was not vocally abusive and his pitch and volume were within acceptable ranges for his "normal" voice. In the back of my mind, I recognized something vaguely familiar about the sounds Josh was producing. Then it hit me and seemed so obvious that I almost laughed at not recognizing it sooner. Josh was reproducing the noise of a leaf blower! Once I realized it, I became aware that somewhere in the neighborhood a leaf blower was in use. It was faint and distant and I had not even registered it. But Josh had an uncanny ability to imitate noises and he heard things that most people don't notice. He did a pretty accurate leaf blower noise. He also made airplane and vacuum cleaner noises, but I recognized them right off the bat. The leaf blower noise took me awhile, but whenever I hear one in use I still smile and think of little Josh's noise imitation talent.

A Child's Description of AD/HD

2010-09-24T19:07:00.004-04:00

This is a page out of Josh's journal. It's a concise entry. He was in middle school at the time, and was taking a composition class with our homeschool support group. The assignment was to tell a little about himself. Except for the final four words, his entire description relates to his AD/HD. Even his initial description of himself as a smart kid is immediately followed by "but"... and goes on to describe some of his ongoing struggles. Josh knew he was smart. He also knew that he was easily distracted and had a hard time completing his work. Even this brief journal entry took him a long time to write due to his distractibility and difficulty with paper and pencil tasks. The handwriting and spelling are not great. But look beyond that for a minute and see the hope peeking through. Josh started by acknowledging his awareness that he is smart, despite his many challenges. He mentions the difficulties matter of factly since they are part of his experience, but they do not entirely define him. It encouraged me to see that Josh realized that I was trying to help him, not "fix" him or change him, but truly help him. With that insight Josh could listen to my suggested strategies knowing that I didn't view him as defective but rather as clearly in need of help. Finally, Josh ended with another positive comment. The exclamation point says a lot. It's not just that he is in karate classes, but he is enthusiastic about karate. So although at first glance this journal entry might appear discouraging, a closer look at the content reveals a healthy balance. Josh knew he had struggles just as he knew he had strengths. This promotes a healthy view of himself, acknowledging his AD/HD while refusing to be defined by it.
It is so important to build up our children in truth, recognizing and pointing out their gifts and strengths. Kids with AD/HD get corrected and directed a lot. They may be very aware of their differences. Others seem oblivious but still need to develop an accurate perception of who they are. Until our children have achieved a realistic perspective of themselves, we need to take advantage of opportunities to help those with learning challenges see the contributions they make in our lives. We need to direct their attention to all the things they do well, even as we are teaching them and redirecting them in their areas of struggle. This developing sense of identity is what you can see emerging when you read Josh's journal entry.

Easy Materials You Make Yourself

2010-09-10T13:13:00.005-04:00

I like to give my children a lot of different ways to learn. My two kids with AD/HD are strong visual learners, and their sensory processing challenges lead them to seek out hands-on experiences. So, besides offering them fidget items when the lesson doesn't have manipulatives, I try to find ways that they can see and touch objects as they learn. I also know that my children are externally motivated (not unusual for those who have weak executive functions) and they need frequent reinforcement or reminders to stick with a task. In case I haven't mentioned it before (though I think maybe I have either here or during my workshops) I am also reluctant to spend a lot of money on things I can make myself. Of course I always think I will go to craft shows and then make whatever has grabbed my fancy once I get back home, but I never seem to do that. But with school materials, I sometimes manage to get inspiration from my recycling bin. The picture above shows a simple set of materials that are readily available and can be used for a number of things. It took me about 15 minutes from start to finish to make it.
First, get a cardboard egg carton. Make sure it's clean and no eggs have cracked and leaked in it. I spray mine with Clorox Anywhere Spray to kill any germs. (Disclaimer: Melinda cannot be held responsible for any icky things you pick up from your egg carton. I am not a doctor...blah, blah...) My egg carton had a little circle indented on the bottom of each cup, and I cut around them to make the holes in the middle of each cup. If your carton does not include these handy, preformed circles, you can just cut your own. The circles need to be large enough for a clothespin to fit through but small enough to hold the clothespin in place. Leave the lid on the carton so you can store small materials inside and to provide a base for the clothespin to stand on. There are many ways you can use your newly recycled materials, so I'll just get you started with a few ideas. I'm sure you will be able to come up with more ideas, and I'd love to hear about them.

Use the clothespins to practice counting.
Practice fine motor skills by having the child place and remove the clothespins
Use as reinforcement by putting one clothespin in place for each completed task
Use as a motivator by placing clothespins in the carton for each task that needs completed. Remove a clothespin as the work gets done, visually depicting for your child that progress is being made.
Paint the clothespins (or use colored popsicle sticks or tongue depressors) to match colors

Making this is easy to make, easy on the budget, and easy on the environment. A winner all around!

Picky Eaters and Trusting Tomatoes

2010-09-02T15:30:00.006-04:00

It seems that most kids have their favorite foods, and other foods they think are yucky. These food preferences do not present a problem for most children, because they eat a variety of foods and can get their nutritional needs met through different foods they willingly eat. For parents of picky eaters, however, you know the challenges, frustrations, and anxiety that can occur when a child has a limited number of foods they will accept. In addition to restricting the number of food items, some children refuse to eat unless the food is presented on the same plate each time and the drink must always be in the same cup. There are children who can tell the difference between brands of food, so even if you find a food the child will eat they may refuse it if you offer a different brand. For example, a child who eats chicken nuggets might refuse to eat them unless they come from McDonalds. For some picky eaters, the shape of the food is also important. They may eat round waffles, but not even taste waffles that are square. For some picky eaters, the color of the food matters to them. My son, Josh, has come a long way with his sensory processing and has expanded his diet to include most foods. Even as a young adult, though, Josh still has moments of uncertainty when he is presented with an unfamiliar food item. Just last week we were able to harvest some of our heirloom tomatoes. These tomatoes have a great flavor, but can be unusual in their colors and shapes. Josh loves red tomatoes and will eat them the way others eat apples. When Josh saw the yellow tomato I was offering him he was taken aback. I believe his exact words to me were, "Yellow tomatoes? Why are they yellow? I don't trust yellow." Trust can be a huge factor for picky eaters. Sometimes parents try to force the child to taste new foods and their pleas and threats backfire and result in even greater resistance. This is especially true if a child thinks he might be forced to do something that is uncomfortable or aversive despite his protests. Understandably, parents are concerned about their child's diet and the need for balanced nutrition. When a child only eats a few foods day after day, it's anxiety provoking. Worse yet, some children suddenly decide that a food they have eaten regularly is now on their long list of unacceptable foods that they will no longer eat. Mealtimes can become unpleasant and a battle ground for concerned parents who are trying to get their picky eaters to just take a bite of food. If mealtimes are that difficult at home, how can you ever go out to eat or eat at a friend's house? It's frustrating and worrisome. Books such as Just Take a Bite offer suggestions and strategies to expand a child's diet. One suggestion offered is to have your child help you prepare the food. That way he can see exactly what you put in the recipe. Another tip is to work gradually toward accepting new foods. Some children react so strongly that they become distressed just seeing a food item on the table that is not on their list of acceptable foods. A goal would be for the child to tolerate the food near them, then on their plate. Even at that point, professionals don't recommend that you insist that the child eat the food. It is a gradual process, with multiple presentations of the refused food over time. It's progress if a child will allow a new food to touch his lips. I used to tell my children that they didn't have to like a food, but I did want them to at least taste it. This may be a helpful strategy for a child with few or mild food aversions, but for the more extreme picky eater it won't be adequate. This degree of resistance goes beyond what typical children do. Considering that mealtimes happen every day, multiple times, it's no wonder that parents feel desperate to help their picky eaters.

Calling All Homeschoolers! Buy Yourselves Some Flowers!

2010-08-23T17:48:00.007-04:00

Greek Mythology - or is it "miss-ology"?

2010-08-16T11:56:00.007-04:00

A few years ago I did a unit on mythology as part of our homeschool curriculum. We learned about Greek mythology as well as mythology that originated in various other parts of the world. Although I found some of the stories to be kind of creepy at times, there's no question that it held the interest of my children. Still, when you have struggling learners even interesting materials tend to be remembered more in general terms than with specific details. My daughter, Beckie, who has AD/HD also has working memory challenges. Allowing her to draw some of the mythological characters helped her to keep them all straight in her mind. She's very creative and artistic, so drawing appealed to her and was a good challenge as she attempted to sketch some very unique creatures. Children with learning differences often struggle to generalize information they have learned. Admittedly, there's not a high need for generalizing information gleaned from Greek mythology so I didn't worry about it too much. I just wanted my children to have a basic understanding and a frame of reference when mythological characters were mentioned in literature and other media. I also taught my children about foreshadowing in literature, so one day when I was reading aloud to Beckie from a non-mythology book I paused and asked her a question about what was read. She made a good prediction about what might happen later on in the story, and I asked her how she figured that out in hopes that she would respond that she recognized the foreshadowing that had just occurred. Instead, Beckie proudly announced, "I'm Cyclops!" I was baffled for a minute, and sat there in stunned silence trying to figure out where that answer came from. Since she does not have one eye in the middle of her forehead and is actually quite lovely, to describe her as "Cyclops" clearly didn't fit. I could not recall that Cyclops were known for recognizing foreshadowing, either. As I rolled possibilities around in my head, an idea struck me and I asked Beckie, "Do you maybe mean 'psychic'?" and she laughed and said that was it. She couldn't recall the term "foreshadowing", so pulled up a word that sort of fit. I love my Beckie for not being afraid to give things her best shot. She's confident and can laugh at herself, even as she boldly attempts to answer questions that she does not have a precise answer for. Let's hear it for all the children like Beckie who try and try again, and who don't let mistakes prevent them from offering their answers and making contributions.

Child Discipline

2010-08-11T08:50:00.003-04:00

Let me start with a disclaimer. I am not a child expert, nor a parenting expert. The things that I share on this blog are intended to be helpful and the reader has the responsibility to apply what they find useful and ignore the rest. With that said, I want to share with you an experience I had years ago with my AD/HD daughter. Beckie was a very active girl with a lot of energy. With her sensory processing issues, she exhibited low body awareness and regulation was a challenge for her. My exuberant, active, and sensory seeking child had trouble sitting through a meal. She wasn't a picky eater, so food aversions were not to blame. She just had a need to move around. A lot. And it didn't matter if we were doing school during the homeschooling day, or if we were having a meal together. That girl had to move. Having been down this path previously with her older brother, I had learned to be more flexible and accommodating. Even so, it's distracting to have a distractible child and it can be disruptive even when that is not the child's intent. I honestly don't believe that Beckie was trying to cause problems, and in fact I don't think she was even aware of her movements sometimes. I would remind her to sit down, and she would look down at her legs with a surprised expression on her face as if to say, "What? I'm up again? How did that happen?" One night during dinner, my sweet Beckie was having more difficulty than usual sitting still. Her father, Scott, decided it was high time Beckie learn to remain seated during the meal. Beckie would promptly sit down as soon as she was reminded, but Scott was getting tired of having to repeatedly request that she return to her chair. After several reminders, Scott decided to kick it up a notch and be firmer with Beckie. The next time Beckie popped up out of her chair, Scott leaned over the table and pointed an index finger at Beckie. Then he used her full name, which every child knows is a serious warning sign. "Rebecca Michelle, you need to SIT DOWN!" At this point, Beckie became very still as she stared at the finger in front of her face. It was so close to her that she went cross eyed. She then looked up at her Father, eyes still crossed, and with amazement in her voice pronounced "Two Daddies!" Totally missing the point, Beckie happily discovered that crossing her eyes made things look interesting and incredibly she was now seeing double with two Daddies in place of one. I was trying so hard not to laugh that I had to leave the room. My husband wasn't far behind me. We looked at each other and Scott said, "Well THAT didn't work!" We continued to work with Beckie on sitting still when it was called for, with the understanding that she needed to mature and eventually would. I was crazy about Beckie, even when her zest for life couldn't be contained. She grew, and was able to sit still when she needed to. Maturation takes time, and refuses to be rushed. We do what we can to promote and facilitate it, and then we get to practice patience. It's so important to keep your sense of humor when you are a teacher and/or parent. Your kids will give you a plethora of opportunities to see the humor even in challenging circumstances.

Speaking Opportunities

2010-08-05T10:11:00.007-04:00

I have been speaking at conferences for over 10 years. I've had the opportunity to speak in multiple states to groups consisting of a couple dozen people up to a couple hundred people, and I love doing it. I've talked to many people who say public speaking, even just the thought of being up in front of a crowd, intimidates them and they will avoid it if at all possible. When I walk into a room to give a presentation and see the podium, microphone, and usually a white tablecloth on a nearby table with a pitcher of water, I slide into the zone. I feel relaxed and at home. I think it helps that I know people aren't really coming to see me personally, but to hear the information I have to offer. I feel honored that God has chosen to use me to share what I have learned to help other people. It's not my great successes that draw people, either. Folks can relate to my struggles, failures, mistakes, and determination to keep trying until I find something that works. I've been at this long enough now that I meet people who heard me speak years ago and they seek me out to tell me that they've applied what they learned from me and it changed the way they related with their child. As they approached homeschooling in a different way the changes improved not just their school experience but their relationship with their child as well. When people hear my workshops and see me with my grown son, they realize that despite extreme challenges we have survived. Not only that, we are extremely close and enjoy spending time together. That gives people hope. I recently had one mom watch my family for a few minutes and then in an awed voice she said, "You seem happy. After everything you've been through, too." I could tell she was in the trenches of homeschooling a challenging child, and seeing a "veteran" homeschooler gave her hope that she could make it, too. I want to let you in on a secret. I am not a natural optimist, nor am I naturally encouraging. No one has ever described me as "perky". I have natural gifts, but I have prayed to have the gift of encouragement. God allows me to encourage, but I have to work at keeping my thoughts right. I'm actually pretty pessimistic when left on my own, and I can see the cloud for every silver lining. Big sigh. Can you imagine Eeyore giving workshops? Anyway, I have trained myself and disciplined myself to work at being encouraging. I have had a measure of success in doing so. When I speak to others, I can see when something makes sense to them. I love to see people looking around when I describe a challenge I've faced, because so many of us with struggling learners feel isolated and our friends can't relate to the challenges we face. Then we meet each other and with great relief realize we are not alone and many others are dealing with issues similar to our own. It's nice to be with people who understand and can relate to our feelings and experiences. Tonight I will be speaking to a home school group for their kick off meeting. As far as I know, I will not know anyone there. There will be a mix of new homeschoolers and those who have been at it for several years. I'm looking forward to this opportunity to encourage and inspire those who, like me, have decided that homeschooling is the best fit for meeting their child's educational needs. Next Monday, I will be doing a workshop on Adapting Curriculum for Struggling Learners with Heart of the Matter (HOTM) during their online conference. I was thrilled when they asked me to do this. I have presented the workshop many times before, but never just online. I am actually feeling nervous, because I am not strong with the technical aspects of presenting. It didn't help that during our first practice run my microphone didn't work, which is the stuff of nightmares for me. The second practice run went o.k. after about five minutes of me freaking out because the microphone was not functioning properly. A substitute microphone seemed to work, but I still feel nervous. It's weird I know, but I would be completely relaxed speaking to a stadium full of people yet speaking online throws me for a loop. Once I learn how to do this and have some experience, I'll be thrilled to know how and expand my skill set. My husband, who is naturally optimistic, assures me that "It will be all right." I'm almost finished putting together a new workshop titled, "So You Think You Can Homeschool?" I can't wait to share it somewhere, anywhere!

Dressing Up A Sensory Guy

2010-07-30T10:15:00.004-04:00

People with sensory issues often have strong clothing preferences. I don't know if this is generally true, but in my experience most men do not enjoy dressing up. The men I know prefer comfortable clothing. They call their attractive dressier outfits "monkey suits" and yank their ties loose at the first opportunity as if their oxygen has been reduced and they need to gasp for air. Now add together "man who prefers comfortable clothes" with "sensory guy" and you'll see the issues faced by my son. A few weeks ago we were getting ready to attend a wedding reception. I informed Josh that he would need to dress up for the event. To Josh, "dress nicely" means wearing jeans without holes. Josh doesn't own a lot of dress clothes for the obvious reasons that he doesn't typically need them and he doesn't like to wear them. I asked my husband, Scott, to help Josh find something nice to wear. They are close to the same size, so sometimes they can share clothing in a pinch. This was a pinch, all right. Scott, who like Josh has AD/HD, didn't spend a lot of time selecting an outfit. He found something that matched and tossed it to Josh to put on. Then Scott was off to do something else. A few minutes later, I found a distressed Josh in my room. He looked truly miserable, although quite handsome. When asked what the problem was, he started describing how uncomfortable his clothes were. The shirt needed to be tucked in, but then wasn't comfortable. The cuffs around the wrist felt odd, but were tolerable. The shirt material was a little scratchy. I tried to tell Josh that it was necessary to dress up for special occasions and he quickly explained that it wasn't dressing up that bothered him. It was being dressed up by someone else. His Dad has made the choices for him, and because Dad doesn't have sensory issues he selected what would work for most men. Josh is the only one who knows how his body feels and responds to clothing, though, so we needed to make some adjustments. A change of pants for a looser fit made tucking in the shirt more comfortable. A belt held things comfortably in place - not too tight, not too loose, but just right. A plain cotton, tagless t-shirt under the dress shirt made Josh much more comfortable. Having the tie a wee bit looser but barely noticeable rounded out the outfit. Josh didn't own any dress shoes and his feet are bigger than Scott's, so he wore his nicest boots and it didn't look too bad. Tomorrow we are going to a wedding, and sensory guy Josh will be dressing himself up again. We bought a pair of dressier shoes (Rockports) that are slip-ons, with a little elastic around the tongue of the shoe for flexibility and comfort. Josh tried on several slip-on style shoes and found that some of the styles bothered him because they did not come up high enough on the back of his heel and he could feel them slipping around. The shoes Josh picked were high enough on his heel and comfortable, so hopefully the sensory guy will be able to relax and enjoy his time at the wedding and reception even though he is in a "monkey suit".

Pink Teeth / Winners of HOTM Online Conference Tickets

2010-07-22T11:18:00.005-04:00

Trying to get a good family picture is challenging. Children aren't big on sitting still and posing in one position. Getting everybody to look in the same direction at the same time seems to be hard enough, let alone have the clothes and hair looking the way you want to remember it. I took my kids to a store where I had a "portrait package" coupon and hoped to get some good shots to frame and share with the grandparents. Since two of my children have AD/HD and sensory processing issues, we went on a weekend so my husband and I could team up to make this memorable photo a reality. Although we usually let our children select their own attire, that day we picked out their clothes so all the items would match and coordinate. Already, we should have realized that the end result wouldn't resemble what we saw on a daily basis, but we had a dream. The children were scrubbed and dressed and we were on our way. Unfortunately, the dressier clothes weren't as comfortable so my children were a bit fidgety right out of the starting gate. We assured them that it was only for a little while, and when we got back home after the photo session they could change clothes. We arrived and headed straight back to the studio in the store. We had failed to factor in the likelihood that going on a weekend seemed like a good strategy to other families as well, and we learned that we were in for a wait. Having to wait 50 minutes might not be a problem for some families, but the dream was seeming more like an impossible dream when my husband and I tried to figure out how we could keep the kids relatively content and clean while we waited for our turn. We thought about buying each child a toy, but that would have pretty much defeated the purpose of going there for the great coupon value deal. We decided to walk through the store at as slow a pace as the kids could tolerate, dragging our feet and hoping to make our store tour last about 50 minutes until it ended back with the photographer. At that point, we hoped our kids would be calm and bored enough that even posing for a picture would sound inviting. At first, Plan B seemed like it just might work. Then we hit a snag. There, directly ahead of us, was a little in-store pizza shop that served flavored icy drinks. Suddenly the children realized they were extremely hungry and thirsty, and I had to admit that the delay in picture taking did push us close to their usual lunch time. I couldn't see making it through pizza without getting some on the clothes, and I wasn't willing to take the chance. Instead, we offered them small cherry icy drinks with napkins tucked into shirt and dress fronts along with close supervision. My husband and I felt relieved, because the drinks would curb the appetites until we could return home for lunch and it was helping to pass the time. As an added bonus, those drinks can't be gulped or the kids knew they would get "freeze brain" so it helped pass the wait time. We were confident once again, that our portrait dream could come true. Having carefully monitored the time, I announced that it was time to make our way back to the photography studio. We should arrive just a couple minutes before our turn with the photographer. The children were happy and ready to go, having consumed their cherry icy drinks with great enjoyment. They turned to me, grinning with pleasure, and that's when I saw not only cherry red lips, but pink teeth! Getting a professional portrait done had seemed like such a good idea, but it just goes to show that plans need to be flexible and you need to have or develop a sense of humor to get you past those "pink teeth" moments.
==================================

We had a random drawing from our subscribers for five tickets to the Heart of the Matter Online Conference.

The winners are:

awakenyourspirit
missmichelle6
TIM MCAULIFFE
D
Amy Mason

Please email me with your Name and email address so HOTM can get you the tickets. If we do not hear from you in the next day or two, we will open it up to the first readers to respond.

North Carolina HINTS Here We Come!

2010-07-14T20:17:00.000-04:00

I thought about using the title "North Carolina or Bust" for this post, but with a sick child, a car in for repairs, having to replace the washer and dryer two weeks ago, and the dishwasher barely sloshing along, I decided that "bust" does not have a good connotation for my family lately. Not to mention the used dryer we bought doesn't dry the clothes any faster than if we held up the articles of clothing and blew on them for several hours. And I have asthma. Ahem. Enough whining about busted things. We are heading down to North Carolina to the HINTS (Home Instructors Need Team Support) book fair. I will be speaking on "Adapting Curriculum for Struggling Learners", "Helping the Distractible Child", and "Sensory Integration". I know at least one of my friends will be there, but since I'm from Ohio I'm hoping to make some new friends while I'm in North Carolina. If you are going to HINTS be sure and stop by the Heads Up booth and say "hi". The Heads Up crew is a fun bunch and would love to meet you! Plus, if you don't stop by they will be bored, and being bored is one of the things they fear the most.
Hope to see you soon!
Melinda L. Boring

More Tootsie Roll Magic for Executive Functions

2010-07-13T17:12:00.003-04:00

When a child is disorganized and distractible, he needs more direct instruction in learning executive function skills. So how do you teach what seems to come naturally to some people? How do you teach a child if you share these struggles with them? Just how many Tootsie Rolls must be doled out before a child learns and generalizes a skill?!?

I recommend the book "Smart But Scattered" by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare. Billed as "The revolutionary Executive Skills approach way to helping kids reach their potential", it is packed with practical ways to identify and address issues related to executive functioning. I found a copy at my library and it is available on Amazon.com as well. As for concerns about too many Tootsie Rolls, I feel your dental pain. Here's the upside with our distractible kids...they love/crave/need variety so the rewards not only can be changed, they should be changed now and then. And if your family is like mine, you do not need more trinkets cluttering up your house. For example, you could use a reward to work toward a larger prize by having two zip-loc bags side by side marked in some way to make them distinctly different. A small set of Legos goes in one bag, with one piece being transferred into the "I did it!" bag with each completed task. You could tape the picture of the completed object on this bag for added motivation. When all the pieces have been transferred the child can make whatever the set was designed to make, or if your child is like my son he can make something completely different! This is also a great way for your child to earn back toys that have not been put away or have been forgotten under the bed or in the bottom of a toy box. In any case, the child is getting rewarded for completing tasks and learning patience while working toward a larger goal or prize. The rewards don't have to be big or expensive, just rewarding. I used to sing the song "I'm proud of you" (from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood) to my kids when they did something well. It cost me nothing and took only a minute, but the children got the acknowledgment they needed. The entire song went like this: “Proud of you, I’m proud of you! I hope that you are proud of you, too.” The song repeats one time and it’s over. To this day, my children remember this song. Since you may not always be physically with your child when she completes a task, try recording a celebratory song on an inexpensive recording device and have her play it for herself when she completes a task. She can keep it in her pocket or you can leave it at the task completion spot. Again, if things tend to get buried or misplaced at your house try using industrial Velcro to keep it in one place. And now...(drum roll)...for the distractible adult here are a couple tips we've tried over the years. First, and only moderately successful but better than nothing, when my easily-distracted husband sets out to do a task I remind him of his goal and loudly hum the theme from Mission Impossible. "You're in, you're out!" I helpfully remind him as he heads out the door. The other tip I've used on those especially scattered, brain fog days is to wear a recording device and tell myself what I need to remember. I record a message, then when I get to the top of the stairs or in another room (yep, it could have evaporated from my brain already) I listen to the message. Usually it's something simple like "I'm going upstairs to get my sewing scissors." Sometimes I throw in an encouraging message like "You're the woman!" just to keep my motivation strong. Check your cell phone for an application that allows you to do voice recordings. That might be a good technology tool for distractible teenagers to use. It's faster than writing things down and we almost always have our cell phones nearby. Plus, cell phones are less likely to be lost than scraps of paper with hastily scrawled notes on them.

Adults with Down Syndrome

2010-07-12T13:20:00.003-04:00

My friend Penny brought this to my attention. I don't know if I can get HBO, but I hope to find a way to watch this when it airs. Here is the trailer:

Sniffing Tennis Balls?

2010-07-02T09:14:00.006-04:00

My son, Josh, has a well developed sense of smell. His sensory processing issues are sometimes a strength but more often than not when he was younger they interfered with his ability to function and participate fully in activities. When I homeschooled Josh and his sisters, two out of three of my students had AD/HD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) along with sensory and auditory processing difficulties. Not only did they have more energy than I did, I had to repeat myself a lot and keep their sensory challenges in mind. Leaning over to help Josh with an assignment, I can remember Josh informing me that I had coffee breath. Unwilling to forgo coffee, I instead tried to angle my head so that when I spoke the air flow would be directed away from Josh's nose. Picture the way a bird cocks its head, and that's probably about what I looked like as I taught my little fledglings. Although I wasn't right in his face, his overly sensitive nose could pick up the smell of a peanut butter sandwich from several feet away. As with many of his sensory integration challenges, Josh was both sensory seeking and sensory avoiding at times. When I prepared his meals, Josh always had to sniff the food before eating it. Always. Even if it was his favorite meal, very familiar to him, he smelled it prior to eating as if this time I might have slipped something nasty in his food for unknown reasons. Josh wasn't a picky eater, but he sure appeared to be a suspicious one. Over time, I was able to get him to sniff more surreptitiously at least when he was a guest in someone's home or out in public. Josh still occasionally gives an unfamiliar food item a sniff prior to tasting it, but I think that's o.k. because we all tend to notice the smells of new and previously untried foods. Josh's tendency to sniff things wasn't limited to food or drink items. One time Josh was playing with our dog, having him fetch a tennis ball. This is when impulsivity collided with sensory processing and Josh took the tennis ball from the dog's mouth and gave it a sniff. "Ewww! This smells terrible!" he proclaimed, practically gagging before lifting it to his nose for another whiff. "Ugh! That's awful! Plus, it's slimy!" Now his whole system was on red alert since he experienced an aversive smell and an aversive tactile feeling together. I could practically see him shudder. We had to laugh, though, because even after he knew the tennis ball had a bad odor, he went ahead and smelled it again before he could stop himself. When I asked him why, he said something in his brain told him to check again to see if it was as bad as he thought it was. His own second opinion was confirmation enough. Josh still has an acute sense of smell, but over the years has learned to control both his impulsivity and his reactions to smells - even though as his mom I can still tell when he is cringing inside.

Homeschoolers Meeting People

2010-06-30T15:15:00.004-04:00

As homeschoolers, it’s important to make a good impression so people can see how wonderful we homeschoolers are. Homeschoolers have long been the subject of speculation about their social skills, a concern that I personally believe is unwarranted. After all, we meet people all the time. Sometimes we even make a very positive impression.
I’m one of those moms who believes in teaching children how to think and make choices for themselves from a young age. My goal is to train them up into independent adults, capable of critical thinking and able to explain their convictions and not just parrot my beliefs. To work toward this goal you have to start small, by allowing children to make decisions in non-essential areas while the stakes are low. One such area for me was to allow my children to choose their own outfits for the day. My daughters carefully made their selections and chose outfits that generally matched. My son, who is both extremely artistic and colorblind, chose outfits that would look right at home if he were a very young circus clown performing in the center ring. When we ventured out into the community, we appeared, if not fun, at least interesting enough to chat with and get to know a little. When some people found out we were homeschoolers I could see the “Aha!” moment as if that explained the wild outfits. For others, the fact that my children didn’t feel pressured to conform to others’ ideas about what to wear seemed cool and made them a little envious of our freedom. Either way, it was a good conversation starter.
Here is another guaranteed way for you homeschool moms to either meet new people or run into people you haven’t seen for awhile. Trust me, this works for me every time. First of all, tell yourself that you will get up extra early and run to the store to get a few items before the store is crowded. Assure yourself that since no one else will be there, and you are only ducking in and out quickly, you really don’t need to take your shower before you go. In fact, since you will be showering after you get back from the store, it doesn’t make sense to put on makeup because you will just have to reapply it later and that wouldn’t be using your time effectively. After all, you are going early to be strategic like the efficiency machine that you are. So just run a hairbrush through your hair and throw on your sweatpants and an old shirt, and go conquer the first task on your list for the day. Isn’t it great to be getting a head start on your day? Avoid looking in the rear view mirror as you remind yourself that there is NO WAY you will be seeing anyone you know this early. It helps to repeat this to yourself several times. Who else would be crazy enough to go to the store at this hour? No doubt the store will be practically deserted. Whenever you try this strategy, you will either meet someone who sees in you a kind person willing to help them, someone who assumes you are a morning person looking for someone like-minded to chat with, or (best of all?) someone you have not seen for months. This last person is usually someone who seems a bit skeptical of the whole homeschooling thing, and no matter if you see him or her first and try to hide behind a display, you will be spotted. It’s like a law or something. When you have run out of excuses to babble in a vain attempt to explain away your unusual appearance, you can catch up with your acquaintance. Just remember to emphasize that this is your unusual appearance and not at all what your typical daily self looks like. Use words like “exception”, and “atypical”.
Another option is to adopt my other strategy and just relax. In my case, I am now middle-aged and peoples’ expectations for my appearance no longer pressure me. I wasn’t a beauty when I was younger and I’m certainly not getting better with age. When I have these unexpected meetings I try to relax and enjoy the moment. God forbid that I should miss the opportunity to talk to another person because I am worried about being perceived as a weird homeschooler. Someone may still draw that conclusion after talking with me, but it won’t be because I held back.

Why Read To Readers?

2010-06-21T10:34:00.006-04:00

Do you still read to your children once they are proficient readers themselves? It's true that they may read just fine independently and that should be encouraged, but let's consider some of the benefits of listening to someone else read. When you listen to a good narrator, you learn how to pronounce words you may have only read silently and mispronounced in your mind. This is one of the ways I knew my children had been exposed to a new vocabulary word, when they said something that was phonetically correct but not the accurate way to produce the word. Listening to me as I read aloud also exposed them to variations in inflection, volume, and timing which are important components for developing language skills. When I read to my children, even after they were good readers, I could explain vocabulary and themes in the context of what we were reading together. I could pause for discussion, something that typically does not happen during independent reading. Hearing my children's perspectives helped me to see how they express and process information. It gave me insight into some of their personality traits as they learned to think critically about our reading selections. Sharing a book together gave us common experiences which generalized to other activities. We sometimes quote favorite lines to each other or make a reference to a literary character with shared understanding. Another benefit of reading to younger children is that you can tackle more advanced material and facilitate a love for good literature from a young age. Listening to someone else read is good practice for comprehension, as the children are taught to visualize what they are hearing. Good readers can picture what they are reading about, which is why seeing a movie based on a book can be disappointing when it doesn't match what we had imagined while reading. When someone reads aloud it also provides the listeners with good practice for auditory skills. Learning to tune in to the auditory channel is an important skill that impacts many other academic and life skills. I recommend listening to stories performed by a good narrator even for young children who are not yet readers themselves. Learning to listen and visualize will serve them well in their own independent reading endeavors. Memory is enhanced when a visual image is recalled, so encourage your children to picture the story along with you as you read to them. I read to my children even when they were in high school and quite capable of reading without me, because the shared experience meant not only reading together but time together and connections made despite busy schedules. How many of us love to read but are hard pressed to find the time to actually sit down with a book that's not related to work or school with our children? Several years into homeschooling I discovered audio books for me. Again, a good narrator makes all the difference when listening to a story, but having access to audio books allowed me to "read" that way while doing dishes, laundry, crocheting, and other tasks. I still find that I have little time to just sit and read, but I no longer have a sense of reading deprivation as I go about my day with my little MP3 player loaded with audio books. Reading and being read to can be enjoyable for all ages and levels of readers.

The Answer is Yes!

2010-06-14T12:03:00.011-04:00

Yesterday was a big day for my daughter. She graduated with honors with a B.S. in Education from The Ohio State University. She hand embroidered Jeremiah 29:11 on the top of her cap, and I am very proud of her accomplishments and her perspective about her future. Since I homeschooled Beth all the way through high school, I have been asked by many people through the years if homeschooled students can go to college. Fortunately, with the growth in homeschooling we are not considered to be such a fringe element of society anymore. Many homeschool students have found success in a variety of venues. Beth's graduation from college answers that question with a definitive "yes". College is not for everyone, homeschooled or otherwise schooled. But for those who wish to seek that additional education, homeschoolers can hold their own in any setting. What a joy to celebrate Beth's success!

Of course, it seems nothing goes without a hitch when there's a big event and multiple people involved. Beth's graduation was held outside in the stadium at OSU, and the heat and humidity were both high. Both of Beth's grandparents came to see Beth graduate, but grandma doesn't do so well in the heat. Just after I got a text from Beth saying that she wasn't feeling well and felt dehydrated, grandma passed out in the bleachers. We were able to eventually find the first aid station and she is fine, but we were shook up and spent time in the first aid station while waiting for Beth's turn to get her diploma. With a graduating class of over 8,600 students, it took a long time. We did leave grandma with the medics, at her insistence, and popped back into the stadium to see Beth officially graduate. Because there were so many students, instead of calling their names they tolled a bell that sounded like a funeral dirge the entire time students were receiving the diplomas. My two sensory/auditory processing children were beginning to twitch from the relentless ringing.
Next we drove to a restaurant of Beth's choice, The Cheesecake Factory, but they didn't take reservations and there was a 2 1/2 hour wait. We hunted around for other restaurants in the area, but all had long waits so we headed back home. I had potato salad, a fruit and yogurt parfait, and graduation cap cookies on hand, but that hardly made a meal for eight. So we got carryout to go along with it.

My son, Josh, is an author and he broke out of his usual sci-fi writing mode to pen this "Ode to Beth's Graduation":
Ahem.

Rush so we will be on time.
Walk a mile and then we climb.

Hungry since we walked so far.
Left the food back in the car?

Seated up so very high.
Great view of that cloudy sky.

Now the band begins to play.
Half an hour til the parade.

8,600 tassels tall.
Did you have to name them all?

Graduates who have done your best!
Survive this day and pass the test!

Moving speeches, people sing.
Can anybody hear a thing?

Think it's time to go inside
Before this turns to suicide.

People get their PHD's.
Hangin' out with EMT's.

Additional speeches get carried away.
What? You mean we're just halfway?

More interesting show to watch:
Grandma versus the Red Cross!

Sunburn in the first degree.
People leaving. Wait for me!

Diploma time's a living hell.
Someone kill that funeral bell!

Over? Really? Now we're free!
To the Cheesecake Factory!

Two and a half hour's wait?
Fifty bucks for a piece of cake?

Everything else is crazy as well.
Ten miles around the Hilton Hotel.

Home at last. What a day.
Now we get to eat parfait.

All is over, and I'm glad.
...just what year is Beckie's grad?

Collapse.

Sea Monkeys

2010-06-05T10:15:00.004-04:00

When my daughter Beckie was younger she decided she wanted to raise sea monkeys. Since sea monkey eggs can remain dormant for years, they are available in kits for you to raise. The packaging is attractive for children, and I've even seen necklaces that allow you to wear a sea monkey in a little water globe around your neck. Doesn't that sound cute? It certainly appealed to Beckie, and the sea monkeys on the packaging looked animated and eager. Although she followed the directions on how to activate the sea monkeys eggs so they would hatch, the first attempt failed and Beckie had no sea monkeys. Undeterred, she went for it again and the second attempt resulted in several live sea monkeys. Guess what? They weren't nearly as cute as the cartoon sea monkeys on the box. In fact, Beckie's older sister Beth started calling them "Sea Scaries". Sea monkeys are basically a type of shrimp. Shrimp are not that cute. Beckie, however, was proud of her sea monkey family and was determined to see them grow and reproduce to a zillion generations. Since Beckie has AD/HD, it is hard for her to remember to do tasks on a consistent basis. She wanted to check on her sea monkeys daily, and her solution was to keep them in the kitchen. She knew she would be in the kitchen every day, and would see them and have that visual reminder to check on them. This worked great for her. For my part, it was extremely unappetizing to me to see the sea monkeys skulking around their little habitat while I prepared meals. I just trained myself not to look at them after awhile. Beckie's sea monkeys grew, and even had sea monkey babies once. Unfortunately for Beckie, she is only one of three family members with AD/HD and clutter is a big problem in every room in our house. I can't clean as fast as they can unclean, so piles of stuff end up in the kitchen. One fateful day, Beckie's Dad knocked the sea monkeys over and they flooded the kitchen counter. Rather than trying to scoop them back into their little habitat, Dad just dragged a trash can over and swept them all into the trash can. RIP little sea monkeys. Thinking his work there was done, Dad moved on to something else and didn't think to mention the "terrible accident" to Beckie. When Beckie discovered the empty sea monkey container she was understandably distressed. Her strategy to keep them in the kitchen worked for her, but they were not safe from other family members who dump things in the kitchen. Her Dad's strategy was to clean up the mess in the quickest and easiest way possible. The sea monkeys were the casualty. Beckie decided it was safer to have fish in a bowl that mounts onto her bedroom wall, and she has happily lived with her fish pets without having to worry about the bowl getting knocked over.

The Magic of Tootsie Rolls

2010-05-31T09:42:00.006-04:00

My daughter, Beckie, has AD/HD. Now that she's a teenager, her primary challenges are with the executive functions (EF) like planning, organization, and working memory. She also continues to need more prompts and external rewards than her peers without EF challenges.

Beckie and her sister have been sharing a hair dryer for years. It is important to Beth, the older sister, to have the hair dryer put away after use. Beckie couldn't care less if the hair dryer gets put away, so there is little internal motivation on her part to do so. Remember, anything that requires extra steps is not popular with our kids or adults with AD/HD. Additionally, they need more frequent rewards than their "neurotypical" peers. This need often extends into adulthood.

The hair dryer wars went on for a while, with hard feelings on both sides. Since the girls were not able to work out their differences and the hostility was escalating, we met as a family to problem solve together. If something didn't change, the hair dryer wouldn't be the only thing to blow at our house. At one point in the discussion, Beth told Beckie she just needed to remember to put the hair dryer away. "After all, you are a teenager. It's not like I'm going to give you a Skittle every time you remember to put it away. You just have to make yourself do it."

When I heard Beth say that, it was a light bulb moment for me. Having recently attended a conference on Executive Functions, it was fresh in my mind how the presenters shared that many with EF struggles will continue to be externally motivated throughout their lives. Since the EF challenges continue throughout the lifespan, affected individuals also continue to need more encouragement, praise, recognition, and rewards than those without EF struggles. This explains why my husband, who regularly makes the coffee, asks me how it is sometimes before I've even taken a sip. My first thought is, "Um, it's fine. It's always fine?"

I've come to realize that my husband needs that frequent positive reinforcement because making coffee and doing other chores is not intrinsically satisfying to him. He needs to know that his efforts are appreciated. Once I understood that, and realized that my son with AD/HD is the same way, I trained myself to make a point to express thanks for even mundane, everyday things. They need that. I can easily give them that. So when Beth made the comment about Skittles, I realized that Beckie was getting no reward when she remembered to put the hair dryer away. She honestly tried to remember, but since having the hair dryer put away was meaningless to her and she is highly distractible she often forgot. Since it wasn't important to her in the first place, she experienced no internal satisfaction when she completed the task.

I devised a simple plan to help Beckie be more successful, and hopefully end the hairdryer war or at least reach a truce. Knowing that she loves Tootsie Rolls, I bought a bag of miniature Tootsie Rolls and put them in a small bowl in the bathroom. I told Beckie that every time she remembered to put the hair dryer away, she could have one Tootsie Roll. Beckie thought it was a great idea.

Now some of you are thinking, "Why should a teenager need a treat to do what she is supposed to do? Won't that just keep her dependent on external rewards?" Good questions. Here's what I think. By showing Beckie a simple way to motivate and reward herself, she is learning a strategy that she can eventually use on her own. Because her EF difficulties are likely to continue into adulthood, she absolutely needs to figure out ways to reward herself. Would it bother you as much if she were buying the Tootsie Rolls herself and using them as rewards for completing tasks? Probably not, because most of us do this in one form or another. I'm just showing Beckie an example of what she can do to keep herself motivated and on task. In the future, she will know how to do this for herself.

Asking Beckie to try to remember to do a task that was not important to her just didn't work. She meant to, intended to, sometimes did remember to, but not with adequate consistency. Now, every time she goes into the bathroom, she sees the little bowl of Tootsie Rolls. It is a visual reminder and incentive several times a day, even though she only dries her hair once a day. She is aware that one of those treats will be hers if she remembers to put the hair dryer away. Guess how many times she has forgotten to put it away since the Tootsie Roll plan has been in place? Zero! She has not forgotten to put that hair dryer away a single time, and it has been several weeks since we implemented the plan. Did this teenager benefit by an external reward system? The results would indicate an absolute YES!

The hair dryer war seems to have ended peacefully, and Beckie has had great success while learning a strategy that will serve her throughout her life. She reports that she feels she has met the challenge, although she adds with a grin that once in a while she has forgotten to take a Tootsie Roll reward.

Facial Recognition and Social Implications

2010-05-27T09:00:00.004-04:00

Most of us have times when it's hard to recall someone's name, although we recognize the face. We readily admit, "I'm terrible with names" as a disclaimer when we first meet someone so he won't be offended in the future if his name slips out of our grasp. This difficulty with name recall is both common and understandable. Unless an individual's name makes it from our working memory into our long term memory, and pretty quickly, we are not likely to remember it in the future. For most of us, it is easier to recall the visual information and appearance of another person's face than the auditory information of a name. Sometimes we recognize someone but can't remember the context in which we met them. Church? Community activity? Friend of a friend? Because this is such a common experience, most people are pretty forgiving if we've forgotten the name but at least show recognition that we have met before. Often, there is mutual forgetfulness and the other person does not remember our names, either. No harm done.
My son, Josh, has significant working memory challenges. I realized over time that my son not only was unable to recall names, neither could he readily recall faces. He had no difficulty recognizing those of us he interacted with on a regular basis, but for those he saw infrequently he honestly had no memory or context for knowing them. It would be unsettling for him when virtual strangers (to his mind) would call him by name and initiate a conversation. Josh has never been good at faking anything, so he would genuinely ask, "Do I know you?" or "I'm sorry, but have we met?" Unfortunately, this attempt to be polite and seek clarification had negative social implications. People naturally feel hurt when others don't remember them, especially people whom they remember quite clearly and have shared past experiences. I remember a mother of one of my daughter's friends coming up to me and telling me that Josh asked who she was and she told him "I've only known you for YEARS." It was true, but months would go by in between each brief contact and Josh never transferred the information to his long-term memory so each contact was starting fresh - for him. If I told Josh who people were and when he had seen them before, it sometimes jogged a vague memory for him.
There is a name for this "face blindness", and the term is "prosopagnosia". In severe cases, individuals have difficulty recognizing their own family members, friends, and even themselves. Many people with autism, PDD, and Asperger Syndrome experience prosopagnosia. I guess Josh had a fairly mild version, and I wondered if what registered in his mind's eye was like a snapshot of faces, rather than the more dynamic version of faces changing to reflect a variety of emotions. Since Josh used to have difficulty recognizing different emotions expressed on faces, I thought maybe he only had one still picture in his mind and if it didn't match what he saw there was no recall. I don't know for sure, and Josh has improved over the years. It's too bad that there's not facial recognition software we could install in our brains to help us make the connections. I have worked with many children with autism who focus on part of something rather than seeing the whole. If this happens when a child looks at a face, he may see just the nose, or only the mouth, and not how those parts comprise a face. I have had children stare at an object I've held in front of my face, without recognizing that there was a person holding the object. If a face is viewed as individual component parts without seeing the whole, that face is not likely to be recognized in the future.
For our verbal children with the language skills to express themselves, we can teach them strategies to ease the social tension. Having someone admit "I know lots of people have trouble remembering names, but I even have trouble remembering faces sometimes" may prepare others in advance so they won't be offended or surprised when they have to reintroduce themselves. For our nonverbal or less verbal children, we can advocate for them by explaining the challenges of prosopagnosia and reassure others that it is not a personal slight when our children don't acknowledge them with recognition. My hope is that when we explain that there is a neurological glitch, others will be more flexible and accepting and won't misinterpret our struggling learner's behaviors in a negative way.

Please Try Again

2010-04-27T10:28:00.007-04:00

Sometimes companies use the marketing strategy of offering the possibility, in addition to enjoying their fine products, of actually winning additional prizes. The prize offerings are often in the form of financial winnings, but may include the lure of exotic vacations or new cars. I don't buy products just because they offer the potential for prizes, but if it's something I would buy anyway I certainly take the time to read the bottle top, box flap, or inside the bag to see if I've won anything. (So far, nothing, but I'm only middle-aged so I guess it could still happen!) Usually, my message reads something like, "Please try again" or "There are many chances to win" (insert here, but you probably won't) so...please try again. It doesn't surprise me when I don't win, since the odds are against it and it's not like I'm trying day after day to strive for a prize. One day, though, I was feeling a little discouraged and opened a wrapper without realizing it was one of those "might win a prize" wrappers. When I read, "SORRY YOU DIDN'T WIN!" it was like an unexpected dig. "Wait a minute!" I cried out in my mind. "I wasn't even trying to win that time!" In my discouragement the message translated into "SORRY YOU ARE A LOSER! AGAIN! AND PROBABLY ALWAYS WILL BE!" Gee, and I just wanted a little treat.

I started thinking about the messages we communicate, and how our struggling learners might be translating them. I might say, "That was a good try" and my child might mentally translate that into, "I did it wrong again". I can see how easily my own perfectionist tendencies might be perceived by my children as "Nothing is ever quite good enough." I can say, "Let's keep working on this" and "Work hard and do your best", but depending on the child's temperament and interpretation of my tone of voice it might be perceived as criticism rather than encouragement. For most of us, we can shrug off those "You are a loser" messages and get on with life. For those with learning disabilities who struggle, day after day, with tasks that are unavoidable and reoccurring, it is harder to ignore and resist that message. Day after day, they struggle to complete work. A math fact or phonics rule they "knew" yesterday eludes them today. They do not know why, they cannot explain it, yet they experience the frustration of having material seemingly evaporate before they can nail it down. So they start the learning process over, or repeat work that in their minds they believe they should already know. They notice that other people seem to have it much easier, and even when no one else says it they draw the conclusion "I am not a winner". Every day, it's like they are opening the wrapper or bottle to see if today they will be a winner. Over time, resignation sets in along with the belief that winning is for someone else.

There are no easy answers here. I have no quick fix to offer, or sure-fire rapid remedy to make your child feel like a winner. Every child is different, as are teachers, parents and families. What I can offer is more of a life strategy, a paradigm shift that views struggles as a part of life. I shared my own struggles with my children (at age-appropriate levels) and taught them that everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Some are more visible than others, but the fact is that we all need others who are strong where we are weak. Likewise, we all have something to offer. I believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I shared that belief over and over with my children. I made it a point to focus on the whole child, not just the academic areas and disabilities and differences. Despite the diagnosis, I would not allow my children to use it as an excuse for not developing good character traits or not doing as much as they were able to. Are some things harder for you than others? Do you sometimes feel like you are a loser? Sure. Does that feeling make it true? Absolutely not. Speak the truth to your children, boldly and repeatedly. Say it out loud so they can hear your own mental battle resolve. It might sound something like this: "I sure have a hard time doing this, and other people make it look easy. Sometimes I feel like a loser. But you know what? I'm not! Even though I might feel like a loser, I know I have a lot to offer. Nobody is good at everything and I'm not, either. But that doesn't make me a loser." By talking it through, your children are learning from you. They will see how you acknowledge an emotion and tackle a thought that is not healthy or true. Over time, they will learn how to battle the "I am a loser" notion with the truth that they are individuals with great worth and value in many ways. Next time you get the message "SORRY YOU DIDN'T WIN!" think about translating that into a message that reflects gratitude and appreciation for all you have to offer. Be resilient and teach your children to be resilient. Don't fall for the "You are a loser" message. The next time you are faced with a challenge, "Please Try Again", because there truly are many chances to win.

Special Needs Expenses and Help

2010-04-23T09:30:00.005-04:00

Having a child with special needs and learning struggles can put a strain on your budget. There are so many expenses with doctor's visits, therapy, tutoring, specialists, and medications that the overall cost is overwhelming. As a speech/language pathologist and homeschooler, I could address some of my children's needs on my own. I was a speech therapist before I became a mother, and felt blessed that I had an education background as I navigated the paths to finding help for my children's struggles. It helped that I could do the speech therapy myself, but I still needed resources to help with the other diagnosis and treatment for identified areas of need. I relied heavily on input from my occupational therapy friends (thank you, Amy!) and had weekly visits to a psychologist for over three years. Actually, my child had the visits but there were times when I could have used more help for my own struggles as his mother! I took my two AD/HD children to social groups, parent-child programs, group activities, and more. There was a significant financial expense as well as a personal cost since I almost always had to be in fairly close proximity to help them be successful and to train and advocate with others who worked with them. My husband has always been supportive, but does not have the special needs background that I do and I was the one doing the homeschooling. As such, my husband just saw all the bills come in for all the interventions and programs we tried. We've never had money just to throw around and I wanted to be responsible with our family resources and have something to show for my efforts. Yet I'll admit, even when I heard about treatments that sounded too good to be true, my heart still had a burst of hope wondering if it might actually be THE thing that changed our lives for the better. What kind of mom would I be if I didn't at least give some consideration to something that might make a huge difference in my children's lives and ease their struggles a bit? Some of the more outrageous proposals I was able to talk myself out of attempting, but there were others I explored more thoroughly. Some were rather expensive explorations with minimal or no returns, and I try not to think of what I could have done with that money had I not fallen for the marketing strategies and testimonials that sucked me in. Still, I have to say that as a parent desperate to find and do anything to help my children, I would have had more regrets had I not at least given some things a try.
Even if you have insurance, it may not cover all the therapy sessions your child needs or the other medical expenses you incur. Here's what I have learned over the years:
1. Most medical professionals will work with you on financing. If you are self-employed or uninsured, sometimes they will agree to charge a lower rate than what the insurance companies are charged. Talk to the billing department and tell them how much you can afford to pay each month. If you are at least making monthly payments, you are much less likely to have your bill turned over to a collection agency.
2. Some agencies (like those with United Way) have sliding fee scales based on ability to pay. You have to share what your income is and how many are in your family and so on, but you may be able to afford therapy that otherwise would not be available to your child.
3. Check with your local school district, even if you are homeschooling, if you feel comfortable in doing so. Some schools will provide therapy and other supports even to homeschooled students. It varies from district to district, and I always recommend checking with Home School Legal Defense Association (www.HSLDA.org) prior to contacting your local school district. HSLDA members can speak with their region's special needs coordinator for additional suggestions, including homeschool-friendly specialists and consultants in their area.
4. If you personally know someone who is trained in an area that your child needs help, think about an exchange of services. What do you have to barter with? I saw a friend's child for speech therapy in exchange for her watching my children for a few hours now and then. It was worth it for both of us! More recently, I had two friends with sons in need of some speech therapy. I tried to persuade them to drive with my daughter (who has her permit and needs more hours of practice before getting her license) in exchange for speech therapy. They didn't go for the idea, but because they were friends I saw their sons anyway. Try not to take advantage of your friend with professional training, but instead think of something that won't bust your budget that you could offer in exchange for their professional expertise. They should be able to give you ideas and show you how to implement strategies at home.
5. I don't have personal experience with this organization, but I came across this website some time back and thought it might be helpful for a family feeling buried under medical bills with ongoing expenses and no end in sight. It's called "NeedyMeds" and has information on medicine and healthcare assistance programs. There is more information on the website www.NeedyMeds.org and if you are a low income family or are uninsured or under-insured this organization may be of help.

Crossing Midline

2010-04-15T15:12:00.005-04:00

If you've had a child in speech, occupational, or physical therapy you may have heard about the importance of "crossing midline". When my children were younger, I heard from therapists that it was very important for babies to spend time on their tummies. In addition to helping the brain make connections as the child views things from different perspectives, changes in positioning provides different proprioceptive and vestibular input. Being on the tummy encourages a child to push up with her arms, which strengthens the upper body muscles. This is important for a growing child so she can develop the muscle tone and strength needed to reach over her head or move the arms outward and across the body with a good range of motion. Without such development, the child will have difficulty sustaining a physical posture or repeating motions without rapidly fatiguing. Therapists also work on helping a child to "cross midline" in a number of ways. When a child can reach her right hand across to the left side of her body and vice versa, she is crossing her midline with her arms. In addition to these large movements, a child crosses midline when reading as her eyes move from one side of the page to another without moving her entire head as she reads. The tongue crosses midline as it moves food from side to side to position the food onto the molars for chewing. When any of these activities occur, information is transferred from one brain hemisphere across the corpus callosum to the other brain hemisphere. The corpus callosum is a fibrous band between the two hemispheres and allows for the exchange of information between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This side-to-side sharing of information is important for fluency in processing and acting on information received. When information is not readily crossing from one side of the brain to the other, there is usually a learning glitch or struggle. In the picture above, you can see that this child tended to paint in the same area, primarily on the right side of the paper. This same child, when the paint utensil was placed in his left hand, painted primarily on the left side of the page. This was just one indication that he was not readily crossing midline and might need some help to develop in that area. One of my favorite resources for addressing this and other brain processing issues is the book Brain Gym. It provides descriptions and illustrations of simple exercises that promote crossing midline, increasing alertness, improving handwriting, readiness for reading, and more. The exercises can be done by both children and adults in just a few minutes prior to a specific task. I have used the "brain buttons" and other exercises from Brain Gym to increase my alertness when feeling the fatiguing effects of a long car trip. With my AD/HD children, I had them do some exercises between school assignments to ready their brains and bodies for focused attention to the task at hand. Such simple exercises are easily implemented and help the brain develop pathways across the midline of the brain, resulting in more efficient processing and learning.

Social Skills and Proximity Friends

2010-04-05T11:05:00.006-04:00

My son, Josh, is an introvert. In many ways, this is a blessing. It means that he’s not necessarily lonely just because he is alone. He is comfortable being with himself, and by himself. He also likes people, and enjoys spending time with them. It’s just that socializing is not a pressing need for Josh, and it drains his energy after awhile. From a very early age, Josh struggled with social nuances. He didn’t feel the need to make eye contact, and his facial expressions often gave no clue as to what he was thinking or feeling. He had to work to learn to read body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc. It did not come naturally for him, and the effort he exerted often yielded small returns. Here is just a glimpse of what he experienced as he grew up.

Imagine trying to say the right thing, and using the correct words, but still being rejected because somehow you said it wrong and offended someone. Imagine going up to a group of children and asking if you can play with them, only to have them ignore you and run away to play with each other. Then watch as within moments another child approaches the group and is instantly included in their play. You don’t know what you did wrong. You tried to do as you had been taught. You realize that somehow others know things about interacting and making friends that you don’t know, and these secret rules are frustratingly out of reach. How should you proceed? An adult shows interest in you and says you are friends, so you invite her over to play and she gives you an odd look and goes to talk to your Mom. Other adults seem to do that a lot, and Mom just looks sad and kind of baffled. Doing what came naturally to you didn’t work. Using the social skills you rehearsed and practiced with your Mom didn’t work. Your Mom seems to be the only real friend you have, and while you’re appreciative it’s still hard not having friends your own age. Real friends, not like the forced ones in the group your parents have to pay for you to attend, with other kids who don’t really get the unwritten rules of social skills any better than you do. You want friends, so you try and try again. You’d like to think of yourself as optimistic and resilient, but others view you as a pest who can’t take a hint. What hint? They never actually came out and said anything, so how are you supposed to know what you are doing that bothers them? Or maybe it’s something you are not doing, that they think you should be doing. It’s all so confusing. People say you are too blunt, but you say things as you see them and are truthful. Others talk around the point, but never just come out with it. Maybe they don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it hurts more when things build up and you don’t even realize it until it’s too late and you’ve lost another potential friend and truly don’t understand what went wrong. Sure, you have proximity friends. Those people who say hi to you and ask how you are. By now you’ve learned they don’t really want to know how you are so you just tell them “fine”. That’s how people do it, right?

You join a small group of other guys at your church, thinking the smaller group might help you actually develop relationships. You care about these guys. But although they spend time with each other throughout the week, you are rarely invited to join them. You plan something at your house and invite them, but they all have excuses why they can’t make it. You’ve been told you are intelligent, kind, caring, and creative. But somehow a “weird” or “quirky” vibe seems to trump all that. Gradually you come to accept that the true friendships you develop will be rare, and you will treasure them at a deeper level than those for whom relationships come easily. You will enjoy your proximity friends during those brief interludes when your paths cross. You will continue to make attempts at speaking the social language of those around you. It will always be something of a mystery to you, why some reject you and others will be friends. You learn to appreciate the friends without having to understand the reasons why.

You have a lot to offer.

Some people allow you to show just how much.

Homeschooling the Challenging Child

2010-04-01T13:28:00.007-04:00

This is an interview with Christine Field, author of Homeschooling the Challenging Child. Christine has wisdom and experience that she shares freely to help those who are facing learning and behavioral challenges with their children. Though years may pass between our meetings, it is always wonderful to reconnect with Christine. We were able to grab a few minutes during a recent conference to do this video interview. You can see Christine's book here: Homeschooling the Challenging Child
I hope that you enjoy the interview, and I encourage you to visit Christine's web site for more resources at www.homefieldadvantage.org

-Melinda L. Boring

Visual Skills - Beyond Visual Acuity

2010-03-25T09:48:00.006-04:00

When a child struggles with school work, one of the first recommendations I make is to have an evaluation completed by a developmental optometrist. A child can have 20/20 vision, which means that her visual acuity is within a normal range. Yet some children with good visual acuity may not have good vision skills for other visual processing tasks. "Eyesight" is not the same as "vision". In my son Josh's case, his eyesight was excellent. But when I had him evaluated by a developmental optometrist at age 6, I found out that he had difficulty with some visual processing tasks. First, the optometrist confirmed for me that Josh was colorblind. I had suspected that, since my brother is also colorblind and I had noticed some indications that Josh might be as well, but the simple test done in the eye doctor's office made it official. Second, and to me this was even more important because I hadn't noticed any indication of difficulty, the doctor was able to assess many aspects of Josh's visual processing abilities and revealed that Josh's eyes were not working optimally to complete vision tasks. Josh was unable to sustain focus at a set distance without quickly fatiguing during the task. I watched the examination with fascination, as the doctor held the stimulus in front of Josh's eyes with the instruction "Tell me when this starts to get fuzzy." After three trials, with Josh's response coming sooner each time, it was clear he was having a hard time with this particular task. I had no idea that Josh was having trouble seeing clearly when items were fairly close to him. This information was hugely important for me to be aware of, since at age 6 Josh was beginning to do more up-close academic work during homeschooling with writing and various workbooks. I had also been spending time each day working with Josh on his reading skills while unbeknownst to me, the words were going out of focus while Josh was just learning to decipher print. Josh, of course, didn't know that what he was experiencing was any different than what others experience so he had no reason to try and tell me what he was going through with the various visual activities we engaged in each day. Josh's visual processing difficulty was significant, though fairly mild when compared to some of the visual processing challenges children can experience. Josh was prescribed glasses to wear only for school tasks requiring close-up work. Within a year, Josh's struggles with vision tasks had resolved and he no longer needed glasses. Other students who struggle with visual processing skills may need to practice exercises designed to help them develop their vision so that both eyes are working together efficiently. If a child has undiagnosed vision problems, he may present as inattentive, hyperactive, fidgety, unmotivated, and more. Think about it. If you are trying to read and the letters appear to be wiggling around on the page or go out of focus while you are trying to decode them, you might become a reluctant learner. Some of our children don't stay in their seats and seem to have a short attention span, which makes perfect sense if we are asking them to do something that is beyond challenging for them. Yet they don't realize that their experience is different than others' so they have no way of telling us what is going on with their vision. Would you enjoy reading if you couldn't sustain visual tracking across a line of print and instead picked up words above and below what you were trying to read? If reading is that difficult, it is not pleasurable and someone who experiences those types of vision challenges is not likely to choose to read for enjoyment and may become quite resistant for tasks that prove so frustrating time and time again. Some of our students do not do well with academic tasks, and it's important to be aware that they may be capable of understanding the material but struggles with vision may hinder them. A developmental optometrist can do a full battery of tests and provide precise information on what vision struggles, if any, are impacting a child's ability to function in accordance with her ability. They can offer treatment suggestions and strategies to address any areas of deficits in the visual realm. Heads Up offers two books that are packed with ideas for working on vision skills at home for additional practice. Seeing Clearly offers checklists and activities to help children and even adults improve visual skills. Developing Your Child for Success offers information and activities for young children (beginning around age 4 years) to work on vision skills needed for reading, writing, eye-hand coordination and more. I never would have known just by looking at Josh that he had any difficulty with his vision. I could easily have drawn the wrong conclusion about him and lowered my expectations as a result. I am so grateful that I had him evaluated and that his vision problem was identified and treated. Josh had several other learning challenges, but at least we could eliminate one of the many hurdles in his path.

Be The Match!

2010-03-15T19:18:00.007-04:00

I am both excited and nervous when I think about finding a match "out there". Once I send in my information and it is put on file, anybody looking for someone like me could find it. It might happen soon, or there might not ever be anybody out there who is a match for me. I have to be ready at any time to respond to my potential match. I can't control if and when things might happen. But if it does, I know it will be worth it and I will be ready at the right time. Let me explain.

For those of you who know me personally, try to stop freaking out now. I am NOT leaving my husband of 25 years. Scott and I are doing fine. I'm talking about "Be The Match", the National Marrow Donor Program. I work with medically fragile children. I have friends and relatives who have gone through serious illnesses. I have heard stories of people struggling with health issues, and I've often wished I could do something more to help them. The Be The Match program allows me to be available in a way that could be life changing. Signing up is easy and straightforward. Just go to this site: http://www.marrow.org/ and read the information. If you decide to join the registry you simply fill out some information on line. Then, if you qualify to be a potential donor, you will be sent a kit and further information. Once the kit arrives, just follow the directions, do the cheek swabs and mail the completed kit back. Your kit will be processed and you will be added to the donor registry. If you are matched for a donation, the doctor will decide which of two different procedures to do. From what I read, it seems that the discomfort is minimal and the recovery time is brief. It seems like a small sacrifice when there is the possibility of saving a life.

If your health is good and the desire to make a meaningful difference in this way appeals to you, I encourage you to consider joining the registry. Even with the millions of people who are already part of the registry, there are still many people who are unable to find a match. You might be the one among millions who could be an answer to prayer.

Tickle My Back, Mom!

2010-03-11T10:59:00.006-05:00

My youngest child, Beckie, has always been cuddly and affectionate. As a newborn, she quieted as soon as I picked her up and held her cheek next to mine. I thought she recognized my voice, but it was the skin-to skin contact at least as much as my words to her that seemed to calm her. As she grew, I noticed that when others picked her up her little hands immediately started fingering the material of the holder's clothing. She gently explored the feel of earrings, necklaces, scarves, and even daddy's whiskers. At age three, I took her with me to a craft show. Knowing how she loved to touch different textures, before we went in to the show I reminded her to look with her eyes and not her hands. She looked both sad and surprised as she protested, "But Mommy, to look IS to touch." Those were her exact words, and it confirmed that I had a very tactile learner and that I needed to allow her to touch some of the items that caught her interest. I ended up telling her that if she saw something she wanted to feel, she could ask me first and I would find out from the vendor if Beckie could touch the objects to see how they felt in her hand. As she grew older still, I heard the same request every day during our homeschool time when I was reading to the children: "Tickle my back, Mom!" If you are familiar with sensory integration (AKA sensory processing), you know that tickling can be aversive and irritating to some children. In Beckie's case, she was sensory seeking and had lower registration for tactile input so the tickling was alerting to her. When she is just listening and not actively moving, it is hard for her to focus. Her AD/HD leads her into daydreaming and distractions. She recognized this about herself, and one strategy she found that seemed to help was to have her back tickled. The light touch was enough to help her stay alert and focus on listening to what I was reading. I became adept at one-hand holding or propping a book, depending on the size of the book, and using my other hand to trace lightly over Beckie's back. I tried using a wooden backscratcher once, but that didn't have the same effect for Beckie. I tried a backscratcher with metal scratchers, but that was also not acceptable to Beckie. When I became too absorbed by what I was reading or needed a drink of water and would thus cease the tickling, Beckie noticed immediately and either wiggled against me to prompt me back to task or grabbed my hand and placed it where it clearly belonged - on her back again! Sensory input can be calming or alerting, and each individual's response to input varies. Often, as in Beckie's case, our children show us over and over what they need and what works for them. Be observant and sensitive to individual differences, and take advantage of the strategies that work.

Right Brain Learners

2010-03-06T12:13:00.005-05:00

The "right brain" learners tend to see the big picture and don't focus on all the details. These are the students who take a more gestalt approach to learning. With my right brain learners, I've found that they are satisfied if they just get the gist, and "close enough" is good enough for them. I may have been a bit too successful in not passing along my own perfectionist tendencies! I am also a "left brain" learner, preferring to do things in a logical sequence with attention to detail. This video is a reenactment of part of a geography lesson I did with my daughter, Beckie, who is definitely presenting as a right brain learner. I hope you enjoy this clip of "right" meets "left" during our homeschooling moments. For more ideas about working with your "right brain" and "left brain" learners, see my workshop "Adapting Curriculum for Learning Differences".

Inexpensive Game You Can Make

2010-03-04T09:58:00.014-05:00

Today I want to share an idea with you for an inexpensive game that you can make using simple household items. The inspiration for this game was a young boy I am working with to develop simple turn-taking skills. I wanted to begin by teaching him a short, simple game like Tic-Tac-Toe, but his fine motor skills aren't yet developed enough for him to make the marks on a page without great effort. I wanted the game to be fun and easy for him to play so he would stay engaged in the learning activity. My young friend does better with 3-D manipulatives at this stage of development, so I took an empty cardboard egg carton and cut it to the size I wanted. That left me with a perfect grid for Tic-Tac-Toe as you can see in the picture above. Next, I gathered up blocks in two different colors so we could use those instead of writing X's and O's. I removed the label from an empty frosting can and washed it clean so I could store the blocks in it. The child and I took turns placing a block in one of the egg cup spots, working to get three in a row. The game is more visually appealing to the young child, and it's easy to show when there are three blocks of the same color in a row. It also offers some tactile input for the hands-on learner, and removes the demand of writing for the child with fine motor difficulties. If you don't have blocks, you could substitute two different colors of another object such as milk caps or pom-poms. Just find something that will fit within the egg carton space and that is available in two colors, and you are set to go.

For some children, this game can be used to focus on taking turns without the added task of learning the rules for Tic-Tac-Toe. In that case, you don't even need to sort manipulatives by color since you just need objects that are small enough to fit in the egg carton compartments. The simple back and forth of placing items might be a starting point for some children who have difficulty sustaining attention and interacting with others. For children on the autism spectrum, this is one more way to work on extending interactions and giving a sense of task completion.

In addition to using this game to teach Tic-Tac-Toe and turn-taking, you could use it as a reinforcer. Each time the child completes a task, they could put a block in the egg carton. Another idea is to put a number of blocks in the egg carton to represent tasks the child is asked to do, and remove one block each time another task is completed. When the carton is empty, it's break time. Put some non-skid shelf liner under the carton to stabilize it so it doesn't slip around too much. For children with fine motor challenges, I've used Velcro on the bottom of each egg cup and stuck the egg carton onto strips of Velcro on a plastic cafeteria tray so the egg carton stays put while the child works with it.

There you go! An easy and inexpensive game that can be used multiple ways and made with items you probably already have on hand! Have fun!

Colored Overlays for Reading

2010-02-28T21:27:00.004-05:00

I presented several workshops at the Indiana Association of Home Educators and mentioned that some people find it easier to read when they use a colored overlay. For those with Irlen Syndrome, formerly known as scotopic sensitivity syndrome, having colored lenses or overlays can help a struggling reader read more easily. For more information about symptoms, self tests, and treatment go to www.Irlen.com. I am not trained in the Irlen Method, but have used colored overlays with my children to help them focus and manage printed information. A mom who attended one of my workshops decided to try a blue Heads Up reader with her son, a struggling reader. She has given her permission to share their experience here:

I was at your workshop yesterday and I was amazed at how you were speaking of my son! Almost everything you said described my 11 year old, Avery. I know he's dyslexic but he has not been technically diagnosed. Well, to make this quick...He has trouble concentrating when he's reading, it takes a long time and he starts daydreaming. I bought a blue Heads Up reader. I never believed in magic wands until last night. I gave it to him and said, "Here, put this on the page." His face lit up, he exclaimed, "That's awesome!" and he started reading a pleasure book I bought for him at the conference. He was up early this morning and read for 2 hours straight using his, as he named it, Avery Focus Helper.
Thank you for your ministry and for all of the great information you gave yesterday. I feel much more empowered to help my son reach his full potential!

Here is her follow-up one day later:

p.s. He's still reading, even to and from church today with his little AFH.

Very exciting! I love hearing stories like this and knowing that a low-tech solution can make such a difference in a child's life. As someone who loves to read, I am thrilled for Avery who is just beginning to discover that reading can be fun.

See you in Indianapolis!

2010-02-24T17:53:00.002-05:00

I will be heading to Indianapolis tomorrow to speak at a homeschooling conference. My Heads Up crew (Scott and Josh) will be with me to man the booth in the vendor hall. I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends and meeting some new ones. Hope to see some of you there! I will be presenting these workshops:

1. Helping the Distractible Child Part 1 - (preschool through elementary)
2. Helping the Distractible Child Part 2 - (middle school through young adult)
3. Adapting Curriculum For Learning Differences
4. Developing Receptive and Expressive Language Skills

Get Back Up and Don't Give Up

2010-02-18T11:33:00.006-05:00

Years ago I convinced my brother to go skiing with me. I had been skiing once prior to this, and I never made it off the easiest slope known as the "bunny hill". The easier slopes provide a rope tow up the hill rather than the chair lifts used by more advanced skiers. I shared all my skiing knowledge with my brother, which took at least two minutes, then set him free to practice his new skills. As I was holding the rope tow on my way to the top of the slope again, I saw my brother about half way down the hill. As I watched, he wiped out and just flopped onto the ground. Then I noticed he wasn't moving. In my mind, I became his rescuer. With my novice skiing skills, I pictured myself as a keg-toting Saint Bernard braving the winter cold to get to the victim of a mishap, but I was determined to reach my brother as quick as my wobbly legs and skis could carry me. I zoomed (only in my mind) down the hill toward him, and just as he managed to push himself into a crouching stand I plowed him over and took us both several feet further down the hill. Ta-dah! Have you ever been "helped" like that? Someone with good intentions directed your way but leaving you feeling bowled over? I've felt like that during some of my homeschooling challenges. I've met people who seem to find me normal enough until they find out I'm a homeschooler. At this point they helpfully question my competency and qualifications while providing me with an extensive list of topics that I must cover or my children will be permanent outcasts from educated society. This exchange concludes as I am trying to figure out which concern to respond to first and they slowly back away, shaking their heads and murmuring that they could NEVER homeschool their children. "I can't either!" the small voice in my head replies. "What am I thinking?" Plowed over again. Other times the challenges come from my own homeschool students. I may think I have a lesson plan so exciting that even my struggling learners will flow right along with the lesson and beg for more. In my enthusiasm, I might be several minutes into an activity before I become fully aware of the blank stares of my children. Why, they actually look...(gasp!) bored with my incredibly thought out and creative lesson designed specifically to promote their love of learning. But they don't love it! Plowed over again. When something or someone knocks you flat, get back up and don't give up. Just as my brother cautiously got to his feet again and continued to conquer the "bunny hill" slope, and as I carefully avoided knocking him off the slope, you can't let setbacks define you. A face plant in the snow is rough. Being re-planted by a circumstance or by someone "helping" you is also rough. But staying down is not the place to be. Rest a bit if you need to, before picking yourself up. Just don't stay down so long that you get frostbite. No matter how many times it takes, get back up again. It will be so much better than remaining in a plowed over position. It will be worth it. I promise.

Like a Gazelle Through the Mess

2010-02-15T13:03:00.002-05:00

Many people with AD/HD and learning challenges also struggle with organizing their possessions. Add to that the difficulty with time management that often accompanies disorganization, and the result can be extreme clutter and cringe-inducing messes. Unfortunately for those of us who like to have things neat and orderly, the cringing is usually emanating from us, not those who created the clutter fest. Another unfortunate fact is that the organizing strategies used by those who are naturally organized do not typically work for those who tend to be clutterbugs. (I think I made up a word there, but if you are one or live with a "clutterbug" you'll know what I mean.) Because the messes and the clutter bothers me, I have spent a great deal of time trying various strategies to conquer the piles and bring order (and may I add, inner peace for me) to my surroundings. My ways do not work for my family. I have tried methods that made no sense to me, but promise to work for the naturally disorganized - but they, too, have failed. My daughter has a very messy and cluttered room, but she does not struggle with it because it genuinely doesn't faze her. Once I pointed out that she should at least have a clear path to her bed instead of a few cleared off patches on the floor. "Doesn't it bother you to be surrounded by all the mess?" I asked her, trying not to appear as appalled as I felt. Her reply was "No, not at all! I just leap like a gazelle through the mess to get to my bed." She said this quite proudly, as gazelles are truly admirable in their graceful maneuvers and Beckie is truly athletic and probably capable of some gazelle-like moves. I couldn't think of anything to say at that point, so I withdrew to regroup and try again another day. My husband, Scott, also tends toward cluttering things up and not noticing them so his solution is to wait until things get really bad and then grab a trash bag and start stuffing things into it. While the initial result is less clutter, it is followed by weeping and gnashing of teeth when the kids find their prized possessions mixed in with trash. Not to mention they are even less likely to sort through a trash bag than things that are out in the open in their rooms. My son, Josh, who has the most severe AD/HD in my family, has been the one to conquer his disorganization with the greatest degree of success. His room is the neatest of the three children's rooms. He figured out what works for him, and now he is the one taking up the challenge of helping Beckie. I am standing aside and letting Josh work with Beckie on this. I'm hopeful that she can still be like a gazelle without all the mess and clutter.

I'm weird, you're weird, we're all weird now!

2010-02-09T10:40:00.003-05:00

Today's blog post is by a guest blogger. My daughter, Beth, is a special education major and shares her experience with a young friend who has Asperger Syndrome.

I am notorious at reading too deeply into simple statements, but this struck me as profound.

I was baby-sitting for a near and dear family for me. Upon returning from a short bike ride to drop off the younger of two brothers to soccer practice, the older brother and I had an extremely brief conversation. It went something like this:

M: *mumbles something about himself being a "stupid-dumb head"*
Beth: Hey, I don't like the sounds of that. You are not a stupid-dumb head!
M: I know, sometimes I say things like that.
Beth: Well, I don't like those words. They aren't true. And I bet your mom doesn't like them either.
M: She doesn't mind.
Beth: If I mentioned to her that you said that, would she be sad?
M: Don't mention it to her, okay? It doesn't mean anything. You don't have to mention it.
Beth: I just don't want you to say those things about yourself. I like your head. I want you to like your head too!
M: Okay... I'm just weird.
Beth: Oh?
M: Yeah. I'm weird. You're weird too. Everyone is weird!
Beth: Yeah, but you know what? Being weird rocks. Let's scream it.. ready? 1, 2, 3-
M & Beth: BEING WEIRD ROCKS!!

What makes this profound is my buddy in this story has Asperger's syndrome. He is a quirky boy, and fitting in isn't always easy. However, strides have been made, society has come a long way. Self-confidence and self-love is a rare find in individuals such as these, and it warms my heart to know that these kinds of children can proudly scream "Being weird rocks!" in place of being a "stupid-dumb head." Having a difference can be isolating, and it's encouraging to know that not only can people cope with this, they can be proud of their differences too.

We still have so far to go, though. However, I do think it's important to celebrate these small steps, for they are significant.

Sensory Issue: He's sniffing EVERYTHING!

2010-02-04T09:58:00.005-05:00

A friend contacted me recently to ask for some suggestions for helping her son. He is on the autism spectrum and recently has started sniffing all kinds of things, even dropping to all fours to sniff the floor at Wal-Mart and stopping to sniff at light poles. This behavior is especially embarrassing to his siblings. My friend asked her son to stop sniffing things and he told her he can't. She came to me to see if I could suggest something inexpensive to try with her son. Here is an excerpt from my reply to her:
You are both right - he needs to stop the gross/embarrassing behavior, and...he can't. I always try to think about how every behavior, no matter how quirky, is meeting some kind of need. We do things that are somehow rewarding to us. With that in mind, you can't just tell a child to stop smelling objects because something in his brain is telling him to do those things. But in your family, in our society, those things will never be acceptable. So you have to try to come up with something that meets those sensory needs and is also an acceptable behavior. Some of the solutions might still be considered "quirky", but there are degrees of quirky and some are easier to take than others. For the sniffing, try soaking a cotton ball in something with a distinct smell and keep it in a snack-size ziploc bag for portability and easy access. You might want to have several separate bags with different smells, and when your son feels the urge to smell something you can redirect him to one of the cotton balls. (Ideas include: cologne, coffee, air freshener, extracts - peppermint, lemon, cinnamon.) You know what smells your child can handle and what ones might set him off, so you choose what works for you. If you discover a favorite scent, you could apply it to a handkerchief or piece of material that he can keep in a pocket and pull out to sniff as needed.
My friend decided to try various aromas on cotton balls and used a large pill case to house each scent separately. The pictures above show her solution, and here's what she says about it.

I bought a pill holder and put cottonballs scented with different things inside each of the seven compartments.
Now, whenever my son has the urge to sniff, he can grab that, open one, and smell away. I used vanilla flavoring, coconut, perfume, lotion....anything that had a strong smell and I tried to find some different from each other. Still quirky, yes....especially in public...but way less quirky than dropping to all fours and smelling a floor in public.

Adult AD/HD Regulating Alertness

2010-01-31T13:09:00.002-05:00

One of the things that always puzzled me when my son Josh was younger was how he tended to be extreme in his degrees of alertness. He was very hyperactive much of the time, but when I managed to get him to sit down at the table or on the couch to do school work he became downright lethargic. He'd go from spinning around like the Looney Tune Tasmanian Devil one minute to propping his head on his hand and looking groggy the next. It's as if he couldn't regulate himself to anything in between the two extremes. Now Josh is a young adult, and his AD/HD sister is in her late teens and I see the same issue of regulating attention manifesting in a slightly different way. My AD/HD husband Scott, my son, and my daughter all tend to fall asleep if they are sitting still listening to a lecture. Keep in mind they are not sleep deprived, so I don't think lack of sleep is what's causing it. Every single week in church, they are fine during the music portion of the service. They are fully awake during the meet-and-greet time. But once the sermon begins and they are sitting still and quiet, they close their eyes and fade away. At first I thought it only happened at church, but that's not the case. It happens any time they are required to sit quietly in one spot and just listen. I recently attended a meeting with Scott and Josh to hear a speaker discussing issues that affect adults with AD/HD. In a room with about 20 people, I looked around and saw that only Josh and Scott were in the "I'm not sleeping but my eyes are closed and I LOOK like I'm sleeping" state. So I wonder if this is something many adults with AD/HD struggle with, or if my family's manifestation is somehow unique. When Josh has a fidget ball with him, he is better able to regulate himself and stay awake and alert. When Scott takes notes, it helps him focus. When Beckie doodles, she attends better to what is being said. Yet if none of these strategies are implemented in time, they drift away and miss many points from the presentation being offered to them. They need to plan to use the strategies prior to finding themselves in an attention-challenging situation, but planning does not come naturally for them. By the time the need for a strategy becomes clear they may already be drifting away.

Clark Lawrence

2010-01-23T15:08:00.003-05:00

I know this is a very late announcement, but Clark Lawrence will be speaking at the CHADD of Columbus meeting tomorrow, January 24, 2009 at 2:00 in Gahanna, Ohio. His topic will be “Developing a Positive ADD Lifestyle”. Clark is Director of the Executive Function Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

A discription of his topic:

Positively addressing adult ADD requires more than working on the problem areas (goal-setting, procrastination, etc); people with ADD also need to adopt a lifestyle that works with their ADD to overcome its effects - as opposed to continually working against their ADD. This talk will address the lifestyle problems of people with ADD and offer a vision and techniques to create a positive ADD lifestyle

The meeting is being held at Mifflin Presbyterian Church, 123 Granville St., Gahanna, OH 43230

Melinda had the opportunity to interview Dr Lawrence at the 2009 CHADD conference in Cleveland, Oh. Here is the interview.

Homeschool Pumpkin Bread Recipe

2010-01-21T09:39:00.003-05:00

This cold time of year reminds me of a time, many years ago, when we had an ice storm here in Ohio. Like many homeschoolers, I like to take advantage of natural events and find ways to incorporate learning into daily activities. So on this particularly icy morning, I went out into the yard and found a stick that was thickly coated in ice. I took it inside and showed it to the children, who were fascinated with seeing the stick that now looked similar to an icicle. We set it in a bowl so we could observe it and see how long it took for the ice to melt. With AD/HD children, simply waiting for ice to melt would be torturous. So we needed to do other things and periodically check in on our stick. We started a cooking activity to make pumpkin bread. I wanted the kids to be actively involved and thought it would be good if they learned some skills and practiced mixing, adding eggs, etc. When it was my son Josh's turn to add an egg, he managed to crack it but somehow the egg ended up on the floor. Amazingly, the yolk stayed intact. After examining it, I invited Josh to poke the yellow part of the egg with his finger to see what would happen. How could I forget in that moment that my son had sensory aversion issues with such textures? He reminded me by quickly putting his hands behind his back and leaning away from the egg. Then he came up with a solution that would satisfy his curiosity about what would happen if the egg were prodded as well as protect his fingers from a slimy assault. We used the icy stick for poking the egg, then cleaned up the mess and discussed how having raw egg on the stick might somehow affect its melting time. I didn't know about the "incidental" learning that took place that day until the next time I made pumpkin bread. I asked the kids if they remembered how to make pumpkin bread and Josh quickly piped up, listing the ingredients and how to mix them together. When he came to the part of the recipe when eggs should be added he said, "Then you get out four eggs and Mommy puts in the first one, then Beth Lee puts in the next one, then I drop one on the floor and poke it with a stick..." Clearly, this is a special family recipe that just might be passed down through the generations. Especially if there are future homeschoolers!

Fidget to Focus

2010-01-14T17:32:00.004-05:00

I (Melinda) had the opportunity to interview Sarah Wright, co-author of the book Fidget to Focus. This book has great ideas for children and adults and is packed with practical ways to use fidgeting as a strategy to help increase focus. The book is also useful as a resource when you need to advocate for your child's use of fidget objects like the ones in our Heads Up Fidget Bundles. Fidget items can help those who need them and Sarah helps explain why it's worth giving them a try.

Wipe! Wipe!

2010-01-09T11:27:00.003-05:00

Some of you probably thought this post would be about potty training, but no. This is for all of you with children who don't like to get their hands dirty. Some children are oblivious to messes and don't mind having a dirty hand or face. Other kids become distressed if even one finger has come into contact with a substance they don't like to feel. I have worked with children who remind me of Monk, the obsessive compulsive detective who calls for his assistant to hand him a wipe whenever he shakes hands or touches something he deems undesirable. Recently I was sitting with a young boy who was eating a snack, and he got some frosting on his hand. In a near panic, he turned to me saying, "Wipe! Wipe!" and held out his hand for help in removing the frosting as quickly as possible. Right next to him was another child totally indifferent to the feel of frosting covering her face and hands, happily licking the frosting from each finger. My son Josh was in the "Wipe!" camp when he was young, and my daughter Beckie was such a sensory seeker that she deliberately smeared food on her face and hands and loved messy art projects. Both of them needed to work on sensory processing and awareness, but today I am going to suggest a strategy for the sensory avoidant, "Wipe!" children. I didn't want to overwhelm or traumatize my avoidant son, making future attempts to increase his tolerance even more challenging. But I did want to expand Josh's acceptance of various textures, smells, and sensations. I knew I couldn't just put materials out for him to explore and expect a different response from him. Josh was already doing what came naturally to him, and that was to limit or avoid his exposure to certain materials. So I put finger paints, pudding, hair gel, etc. into Ziploc bags. For some of the bags I added in small objects such as decorative erasers for added input as the materials were investigated and experienced through touch. Sometimes I double bagged to prevent leakage, and in addition to sealing the bag I added a layer or two of packing tape along the seal. Then I modeled tracing a finger over the bag, poking it with my finger, smashing it with my palm, etc. and encouraged my son to do likewise. Touching substances through a bag felt safer to him, and the limited boundaries of a Ziploc bag appeared more manageable to his young mind. Since Josh was also sensitive to smells, the bags eliminated or at least minimized odors. As Josh became comfortable with the materials in the bags, I would gradually introduce a small amount of the material without a bag. With repeated exposure over time, Josh learned to process all the sensory input and no longer avoided touching materials directly. I found, with Josh and other children I have worked with, that many children are more willing to touch a substance that I present to them on my own hand instead of on a table or piece of paper. I'm not sure if that's because seeing it on me implies that it is safe to touch, or if it's the skin to skin contact that is reassuring, but in any case it's worth trying with your kids to see if it helps them as you expose them to a greater variety of sensory input.

Turn Your Recorder On

2010-01-07T09:00:00.003-05:00

My son, Josh, and my youngest daughter, Beckie, both have auditory processing difficulties. Although when they were officially evaluated by an audiologist they had some differences in the auditory tasks in which they struggled, they both demonstrated poor working memory. This means that although their hearing acuity is fine, they process the incoming auditory input in an atypical manner and they are unable to hold information in their minds long enough to remember it all and act on it. So they might remember the first thing they heard, or the last thing they heard, but if it's a long segment they are likely to lose information. I used strategies like pairing visual information with auditory information, and I utilized gestures and demonstrations nearly all the time. I had them look at me before I gave them directions. I had them repeat back to me what they heard so I would know if they were not complying with me or if they never got the information in the first place. This is an important strategy for parents and teachers, because you should not be disciplining a child for not doing what you've asked if he never received the information completely in the first place. I also did activities specifically to work on improving auditory memory and attention. One activity I did with all my children was have them repeat back exactly what I said to them, increasing the length of the segment a little at a time. For example, I would say something like, "The cat walked to his bowl." We would practice that until they could say say it verbatim. The next sentence would be, "The white cat walked to his empty bowl." The next sentence might be, "The white cat slowly walked to his empty bowl, hoping to find it full of food." This stretched their attention span and challenged their auditory memory skills a little at a time. I also reminded the children to make a mental picture about what they were hearing, since the internal visual cues would help them remember details. One day, while doing this activity, I noticed that Josh was tapping himself on the temple every time I started with, "Ready? Listen to this." I thought to myself, "Great! Now on top of the AD/HD, sensory processing difficulties and auditory processing problems, I've given this kid tics!" I wasn't sure I really wanted to know the answer, but I finally asked Josh if he realized he was tapping himself on the head every time it was his turn to repeat something. He promptly said, "Yes! I'm turning my recorder on!" My little hands-on guy could relate to pushing a button to record something, so he had implemented a tactile strategy for himself. (Whew! Big sigh of relief for me since his head tapping wasn't caused by tics after all and I hadn't done anything to cause them or mess up my kid!) Once a child comes up with their own strategy, we can use it knowing that it makes sense to them. After Josh showed me that he identified with "turning the recorder on" I generalized that strategy for other listening tasks. When teaching any subject, I would prompt Josh to turn his recorder on because the next point was very important. Before giving him a multi-step direction, I would prompt him to turn his recorder on and picture himself doing the task. His strategy became my strategy with him, because Josh taught me something that worked for him.

Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner

2010-01-03T19:42:00.003-05:00

My friend and colleague, Kathy Kuhl, has written an excellent book (Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner) that provides practical strategies for struggling learners as well as being a wealth of encouragement. Kuhl interviewed homeschooling families with children representing a variety of special needs such as autism, AD/HD, learning disabilities, and more. Many hours were spent interviewing, researching, and compiling information into this reader-friendly and very organized book. Kathy's book is available at Heads Up by clicking on the "book" category on the web site. I had the pleasure of presenting with Kathy at a conference last October, and while we were there we grabbed a few minutes to do this interview. So here it is, the first "Kuhl and Boring" video presentation for your enjoyment!

Hello Again!

2009-12-30T11:26:00.005-05:00

Hello friends! I haven't blogged for awhile, but I'm back now. I've been feeling like the deflated lawn decorations in this yard so I thought I'd take a picture to give you a nice visual symbol as you read. I came down with a cold on November 25th, and it quickly turned into a sinus infection, ear infection, and lung infection for which I've taken numerous medications and...I'm gradually improving but still not over it. My right ear drum perforated and I've been like the auditory processing struggler who says "Huh?" for the past several weeks. I've decided to try to get back to some of my regular activities and hope that full recovery will happen ANY DAY NOW. There's never a good time to be wiped out of commission, but I think the month preceding Christmas was especially inopportune. This is the first year that I've ever been unable to get Christmas cards sent before Christmas. I started my gift wrapping the day before Christmas and recruited my family (okay, "coerced" would be a better word) to help with the wrapping and food preparation. Did you know you can wrap gifts for someone with AD/HD while they are in the same room as long as you put a movie on to watch? I did very little shopping other than online, and am very grateful for Amazon's selection that allowed me to shop from home. When Christmas Day arrived, I felt a bit like Dr. Seuss's Grinch proclaiming:
"It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags! (Or Christmas cards from the Borings!) " And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas, " he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
Well I know that Christmas means a whole lot more, and I hope that my Christmas traditions never overshadow the birth of Christ. How comforting it is to know that nothing I do, or don't do, can stop Christmas from coming or minimize its gift to mankind in any way.
It was wonderful to spend time with family. Even our rescued dog, Slapshot, did great being in a new place with new people. I used to worry about how my kids would do with the relatives, and this year I was worrying about how the dog would do. He was very subdued and calm, I suspect due to the Christmas sock he had eaten, but he made a very positive impression on his new extended family members. And so, though I coughed through the Christmas season like Dicken's Tiny Tim, I join him in saying "God Bless Us, Every One!" and may your 2010 be filled with peace and joy.

The Biggest Loser - of Important Items

2009-11-27T14:13:00.006-05:00

If you've been following this blog for awhile, you know that I prefer things neat and orderly. My family, on the other hand, casually consider themselves slobs and refer to themselves as "Slobonians". Clutter doesn't bother them, so it is very hard to motivate them to clean up and put things away where they belong. My youngest daughter has AD/HD and the impulsivity and inattention result in clutter, misplaced items, and zippers left unzipped on backpacks. I have found some of her things in the oddest places, and she has no recollection of how they got there. This week, while at my part-time job as a speech therapist, I got a text message on my phone from Beckie. She is taking a couple of classes at a community college and was texting me to accuse our dog of taking her calculator out of her backpack because it was missing and she knew it was in her backpack the day before. While it's true that our recently rescued dog has yet to learn what he is allowed to chew on, I thought it more likely that she left her backpack unattended and someone stole the calculator from her backpack. In any case, it was distressing since it was an expensive calculator and...it was borrowed. I was not happy with having the expense of replacing the borrowed calculator and then having to buy Beckie another one since she will have more math classes to take in the future. A few hours later, Beckie sent me another text to let me know she had found the calculator. One of the other students in her math class had found it on the sidewalk the day before and recognized it as being Beckie's calculator and returned it to her. Yea! Beckie admitted that she had left the zipper open on the pocket she used for her calculator, so it could have fallen out without her knowing it. Whew! What a relief. That is until my husband Scott got a call from Beckie's cell phone in the afternoon, and it wasn't Beckie calling him. Beckie's cell phone had been found in the grass near the local elementary school and the person was calling to say she'd leave it at the front desk in the school office. Scott managed to reach Beckie at home, and she insisted that it was impossible for her cell phone to be found by a stranger when she was positive it was at her friend's house. (Why would she leave it at her friend's house instead of in her hand where I usually see it? Who knows?) Beckie reluctantly agreed to walk to the school and retrieve her phone, though she was still adamant it had to be some kind of mistake. Except that it was there, to her amazement, and she learned that it had first been found a couple blocks away from the school at a place she had not walked past that day. We are all mystified. I pointed out to Beckie that she had lost an expensive calculator and a cell phone in the same day, thereby making her "The Biggest Loser" in our family so far this week. Since this time both items were returned to her, I think she was secretly amused by the title. She was definitely angry when the calculator was missing, and if she had even known her phone was missing she would have been upset. Perhaps this will help her remember to zip up pockets and so on. Time will tell.

A Math Teaching Tip

2009-11-16T16:14:00.007-05:00

Working with a variety of modalities also increases the likelihood of later recall of material. When we incorporate auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic input in subject areas where our children struggle to learn, we will also be helping them learn to pay attention for longer periods of time. With that in mind, I want to share with you one of my more successful teaching activities that kept my children engaged and made the material we were studying more memorable for them.

When my son was having trouble with the concept of “borrowing” in math, I lined up my children in place value positions, gave them Cuisenaire cubes and rods, and we acted out a story. I was the sheriff from Robin Hood (one of their favorite movies at that time) and came to collect taxes from the “ones” child. When she didn’t have enough cubes to pay her taxes, I showed her how to “borrow” from her neighbor and explained that she could only borrow 10 cubes from that neighbor. We did the same thing for the “tens” child borrowing from the “hundreds” child, and enacted several scenarios for practice.

I had lined them up in birth order with my youngest, Beckie, in the ones place. My middle child, Beth, was in the tens place. Josh, as the oldest, was in the hundreds spot. I recently asked my children if they remembered doing that activity, and they responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!” Josh also pointed out to me that a variation of the activity has continued over the years, because Beckie asks to borrow money from Beth, who in turn asks to borrow from Josh. He blames me for this generalization of a skill learned in those early years of our homeschooling. Before you feel too sorry for him, I want to point out that I’ve also taught him how to say “No” nicely to refuse requests.

Geography: She's having none of it!

2009-10-23T10:23:00.004-04:00

I'll admit that I'm not strong in geography. I have a feeling that my children learned as much from the PBS show "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" as they did from me. But I'm o.k. with that. As long as they learn it, I'm happy. I do have some good geography materials by Cindy Wiggers, and I made it through all of the U.S. Geography book with my children. At least at one time they could name the states and capitals, and they know how to label mountains and rivers on maps. My daughter Beckie and I are currently working on world geography. I am learning it along with her, since if I ever knew this information the files must have been deleted somewhere along the way. (When this happens, I blame one of the car accidents I've been in for killing off some brain cells. They've been minor accidents, but I think whiplash and trauma might have messed with my brain for stuff like geography.) While we were learning about North America, we pulled out maps and had the globe in front of us. I would ask Beckie to locate various landmarks, oceans, etc. Following along in my curriculum instructions, I asked Beckie to find Nunavut. Beckie, whose AD/HD manifests in both a short attention span and a tendency to blurt things out, is not good at hiding her frustration. She glanced at the globe for a few moments, then informed me that she didn't see "None of it". Ah...and did I mention she has auditory processing difficulties as well? Being the adaptive instructor that I am, I showed her the spelling of "Nunavut" and encouraged her to look pretty far north on the globe. With that support, she was able to find it but continued to tell me that she could find "None of it" for several other items that day since she was amused by her own misunderstanding and pun. At least she's having some fun during a subject that does not hold her attention easily.

See? I'm not dumb!

2009-10-21T07:34:00.003-04:00

Have you ever heard your kids say something like, "See? I'm not dumb!" ? I don't know if there's a connection to learning disabilities or not, but I've heard this type of statement from all three of my children at different times. It bothers me, because I have never told them or believed that they were "dumb" and in fact I went out of my way to be sure they knew I thought they were great. Sure, AD/HD has its challenges and my children may not always present as if they are on the ball. But I, the mother, never waivered in my belief that they brought a lot to the table even if what they brought was not traditionally appreciated! And how can I explain my "neurotypical" daughter also trying to convince me that she's not stupid even when I never thought she was? Maybe it's just a manifestation of self-doubt and a glitch in self-esteem that everyone experiences at times. Yesterday, I was talking with my daughter about her struggles with math, and she quickly pointed out that she got an A in English, adding "See? I'm not dumb!" Let me back up and say that I told her I knew she could do the math and was smart enough to understand it. I told her that her teacher was new to teaching this course and that sometimes the way information is taught can make the subject matter more difficult. I encouraged her to take advantage of the math lab, where she might find someone who could explain how to solve the math problems in a way that made more sense to her. I encouraged her to problem solve how she could help herself, and reminded her that I was proud of how hard she's working. Hey! That could be in a parenting book! Except...somehow Beckie was still worried that she didn't measure up in my eyes. When my children imply that they think I might have the opinion that they are dumb, I feel both surprised and saddened. I want so much for them to know I love them no matter what, and when they make statements like that I feel like I have failed them somehow. Then on top of that guilt, I feel dumb for not communicating my unconditional love to my children. So I ask them, "Do you know that I love you no matter what?" and they tell me yes and we hug. See? I'm not dumb, either!

I Love Someone With AD/HD

2009-10-18T12:01:00.004-04:00

I picked up a button at a conference because it caught my eye as I was walking past. It reads, "I love someone with ADHD". Having a husband, a son, and a daughter who all share that diagnosis I placed the pin on my nametag to wear for the rest of the conference. In reality, there are many people in my life who have been diagnosed with AD/HD and I do love them. But I thought it would be interesting to see which of my three family members would:
1. Notice the button and actually read it.
2. Ask which "someone" the button represented.
Once again, my family surprised me. They all noticed the button and read its message, though at different times throughout the day. When my husband, Scott, read it he sighed and hugged me. When my son, Josh, read it he grinned and hugged me and said, "I love you too, Mom." When my daughter, Beckie, read it she beamed with pride and gave me a hug. I guess this means I'm doing something right and my family feels secure in my love for them since they all three assumed the message was about them!

Down Syndrome: More Alike Than Different

2009-10-16T11:33:00.004-04:00

This is a great video featuring several adults with Down Syndrome sharing a glimpse into their lives. It is encouraging and fun to watch. I like having this type of reminder to look past the diagnosis and see the whole person. We are not our labels, our children are not their labels, and sometimes we can exceed what our labels imply about us. I've watched this video several times and every time it makes me smile.

My Joke Answer Is...

2009-10-15T15:10:00.003-04:00

If you work with AD/HD children, you know how easily they get bored. It's a balancing act to find work that challenges them without being so simple their attention wanders or so difficult that they become frustrated. My personal goal when teaching is to try and have the child working in an area of strength and achieving success about 80% of the time at a minimum. The more difficult work (in our case, things like listening tasks without visual or tactile cues) takes up about 20% of the time. I want my children to learn to sit down for sustained periods of time. They do need to listen without having a bunch of props to grab their attention. So I work on those things but make sure that they are experiencing success in their assigned tasks at least most of the time. One of the aspects of AD/HD that makes finding such a balance tricky is that our kids may perform differently from day to day or in various settings. This is especially true if the AD/HD is comorbid with other learning disabilities. So how can we tell if we are accomplishing the goal of challenging our children without frustrating them? Sometimes we just have to read the body language and listen to what our children are saying. "This is stupid" may well translate into "I don't understand and I feel stupid." "I'm bored" may mean "I need to move around and find ways to alert myself again". A child who looks droopy may be fatigued on a task and needs to switch to something else for awhile and then come back to the first task. In my daughter's case, I often get unmistakable clues by how she responds to a question. If she is muttering under her breath, I am challenging her and approaching melt-down levels. If she answers matter-of-factly, I am usually right on with getting her to think but not frustrating her. Since Beckie likes variety and creativity, if I don't provide enough amusement in our lessons she will often deliver it herself. I knew she was not feeling challenged when I asked her a question and she gave it a few second's thought before replying, "My joke answer is..." and then went on to tell me the real answer. This was Beckie's way of letting me know she knew the correct answer but it was not very interesting to her and her joke answer spiced things up a bit. The longer you work with a child, the better you become at reading their cues and figuring out when you are challenging them too much or not enough. Don't worry if you don't feel like you have a good grasp on it yet. In my experience, children show us over and over again what they need until we recognize it. If we don't catch on right away, they will give us many more opportunities.

The CHADD Conference

2009-10-11T16:11:00.008-04:00

I just got back from the CHADD Conference (Children and Adults with AD/HD) yesterday and it was great to attend some sessions and connect with old friends. I did a video interview with Sarah Wright, one of the authors of the book Fidget to Focus. I also interviewed Kathy Kuhl, author of Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner and Clark Lawrence of the Executive Function Center. I enjoyed re-connecting with those folks and it was a blast to interview them considering I have absolutely no expertise with any videos other than my home videos! I suspect it is far easier to interview than to BE interviewed, but all of my "subjects" were informative and appeared relaxed. I also got a kick out of meeting Kim, who approached me the first night there to tell me she had seen the video I did with my daughter about the Sock Boxes for ADD-Friendly sock organization. A few others recognized me from this blog or other conferences where I've been a presenter and were nice enough to make a point to come over and say hello. I met Deisie from Chicago, who sat with me through two sessions and then came to my panel presentation the next day. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up presenting at CHADD in a few years herself. I answered a question in Chris Dendy's session and she said she liked my idea and might use it in her future presentations. How cool is that to have someone you admire (and her books are on my shelf) like your idea enough to use it? Woo-hoo! I left the conference motivated to keep advocating for our children with differences and with a few new ideas to work on to add to my skill set when working with these kids. I heard stories that helped me keep things in perspective. Things with my children could be worse. Things with my children could be better. I'll keep working to support and encourage them as we teach each other through life. Stay tuned for those author interviews as a future blog posting.

It's So Obvious (to our kids)

2009-10-01T13:41:00.003-04:00

Have your kids ever given you an incredulous look because the answer to your question is so obvious - to them? I'm pretty sure I've given that kind of look to my children many times, even though I know they are outside the box kind of thinkers. In fact, I'm not sure they know there even is a "box". Some things just seem so apparent to me that it's hard to remember that my kids don't approach life in the same way I do. Our kids can feel that same kind of frustration if we don't immediately understand their way of thinking when something seems very obvious to them. A few days ago I was preparing to do some school work with my Beckie, and she was flitting around the house burning up some excess energy. I called her in to the dining room, and she came right away. I turned my back to take our books off the shelf, and when I turned around she was gone. I arranged the books for the first subject of the day and called Beckie back into the dining room. She popped right over, but when I leaned over to clear some space on the table for our globe, she darted off again. This yo-yo action in and out of the room happened several times within a couple of minutes. I called her back, and asked her why she kept leaving the room when she knew it was time to do school. That's when I got the look that said, "Why are you asking me a question when the answer is so obvious?" I waited for her reply, truly not knowing the answer, and she simply sighed and said, "To dance!" She said it in that way kids have of letting you know you should have known the answer but they will try to patiently explain it for you. I think that's a good reason and a way for hyperactivity to be expressed in an acceptable way, though it explains in part why school sometimes takes us longer than I expect it too. In fact, if we didn't actually have to get anything done, I might have joined her in dancing.

Spared from Envy

2009-09-27T13:52:00.003-04:00

Today at my church the topic of the main teaching was parenting and the great influence that our parents have on us. My daughter, Beth, attended the first service and expressed her gratitude to me for being a good parent. Ah...there's nothing like getting some appreciation from your offspring. My younger daughter, Beckie, gave me a hug and pointed out that it was a good thing she was my daughter. Upon further elaboration of this thought, Beckie explained that God had spared me from having to feel envious because if she had been someone else's daughter that is surely what I would have felt. I would have wished she were my daughter, resulting in envious feelings as I watched her being a member of a different family. So God gave Beckie to me to parent and enjoy, and she fully expects me to do so with humble gratitude! Two girls, two different "take away" messages. I do agree with Beckie that God blessed me with the privilege of being her mother, and the mother of Josh and Beth as well. Plus, I got to homeschool them all. That must be why I'm barefoot much of the time - He blessed my socks off. Just ask Beckie.

Learning in Waiting Rooms

2009-09-25T08:08:00.005-04:00

As long as I've been a homeschooler, I always seemed to have some very portable items I could grab as we headed out the door so we could work on something in waiting rooms. For one thing, my kids were NOT good at the waiting part whether it was a doctor's office or a grocery store line. For another thing, I thought they might as well be learning or reviewing rather than complaining or getting into things. Now that I have an IPhone I have downloaded all kinds of educational aps so I always have something to do while I wait. Yesterday I had an appointment with my allergist, and while waiting for him in the examining room I pulled out my phone to work on my Spanish skills. I especially appreciate being able to push the speaker icon and hear the Spanish phrases spoken aloud. I was diligently concentrating on learning the phrases when my allergist walked in. He said, "Hi. How are you?" just as I pushed the speaker icon and my phone loudly pronounced, "Tengo hambre" which means "I am hungry". I sheepishly looked up from my phone and told my doctor, "I guess I'm a little hungry?" He laughed and said a few Spanish words to me so that we could further our rapport before getting down to business - in English, so I'd actually understand what he was saying besides discussing our hunger. That was not the only part of the visit that amused me, however, as I had earlier been reviewing my information with the nurse. This office has transferred all of the patient information to computers and it was all typed in by hand. The resulting file on me indicated that I get vitamin B injections (I never have) and that apparently I use my asthma inhaler as a nasal spray. Interesting picture. I do have an asthma inhaler, but since it's for my lungs I use it as, well, an asthma inhaler. I have two nasal sprays for my allergies, so it really never occurred to me to also sniff my asthma inhaler. I think I set the record straight, but now I really want to see what my primary care physician record says that I'm up to! Waiting rooms are a great place to learn all kinds of things.

To Tell, or Not to Tell?

2009-09-19T11:13:00.004-04:00

I've met many parents who are pretty sure their child has AD/HD or some other learning challenge but they are hesitant to make it official by having their child evaluated and diagnosed. The fear that a label may limit their child, be inaccurate, or be used in discriminatory ways is valid. When my son, Josh, was approaching school age I thought about the advantages of private schools with smaller class sizes. Several people suggested that I go ahead and enroll him without telling the school personnel about his AD/HD diagnosis so they couldn't turn him down. That was before we knew he also had an auditory processing disorder. I was assured that once he was enrolled in the school, they couldn't kick him out just because he had a diagnosis and they would be forced to work with him. Wow! For one thing, Josh was pretty easy to pick out of a group as being different than his peers. I'd give it 5 minutes tops before things became unavoidably noticeable. So basically I would have had to keep him out of sight until school had officially started. Then there was the whole idea of the people he would be spending hours with each day being tricked into having a student that they weren't prepared for and apparently didn't feel equipped to deal with in their classroom. That made me feel sorry for Josh and for the teachers, since having someone who was "forced" to work with my child because I had hidden some vital information from them just didn't sit well with me. I loved that boy, and the thought of sending him somewhere that he might not be wanted didn't make sense to me. I had the same dilemma when it came time for Sunday School at church. I didn't want to bias the teachers against Josh by telling them all his struggles, so I coached him on the way there and dropped him off like all the other parents with their children. The Sunday School teachers, bless them all, are volunteers in the church and most don't have training as educators - and for most kids that's just fine. But to do the "drop and run" with a special needs or challenging child is not a good idea, as I came to realize. Every week, the other parents would pick up their children and happily leave. When I came to pick up Josh, I inevitably got pulled to the side and told, "I need to talk to you about Josh." Then I heard, week after week, a full litany of complaints from frustrated and bewildered teachers who were describing things that were not unusual for Josh but were not typical for most children. For example, Josh was not adept at sitting still for long. He was not deliberately disruptive and was never disrespectful, but his need to stand at the table while coloring his page instead of sitting in a chair like everyone else was considered problematic. His sensory issues led him to sit at the back of the group on his carpet square, and everyone else was huddled together and bumping into each other which Josh was carefully trying to avoid. But that meant he wasn't "with" the group because he had made a row of one - just himself! And the list would go on and on until I was finally allowed to leave with my miserable son who knew that somehow just by being who he was he had screwed up again and people were unhappy with him. Those experiences led me to advocate more and be preemptive with anyone I left Josh with for any length of time. When there was a sub or a new Sunday School teacher, I made a point of telling them a bit about Josh and strategies that would help them, and I was careful not to dwell on the negatives. I shared Josh's strengths, too, for I found that if I became negative about my son others felt free to share every little thing they saw as being wrong or weird about him. I was well aware of Josh's struggles and it served no purpose other than to discourage me when others felt the need to complain about him. All this, and he wasn't even doing anything "bad" on purpose! When someone was going on and on about all the things Josh did or did not do, I learned to quietly point out something that he had done right, or I'd share something that Josh had enjoyed learning in their class previously. This seemed to derail some of the negativity some of the time. Just as with our kids, nothing works all of the time but something will work some of the time. We need strategies for working with those who are in a position to care for our children, and hope that something will work some of the time. Whether you are a natural advocate or a reluctant one, if you have a child with a learning difference or special challenges, you must be an advocate unless and until your child one day develops the skills to advocate for himself. In my experience, being deliberate in my advocacy was hard but preferable to what happened when I just waited and hoped things would work out for the best.

Making the Most of Your Time

2009-09-17T11:14:00.004-04:00

“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NASB)

When you are homeschooling a special needs or struggling child, you are not always on the same timeline as others. The curriculum you use needs to be adapted and usually one of the biggest modifications involves time.

Our children with various challenges and differences do not develop at the same rate as those who are typically developing. They need more time to learn skills and retain information. They may mature more slowly and need additional practice and support to progress. My son could take two hours to do an assignment I thought should take twenty minutes, and it was the same way with chores. Other children have medical issues like seizures that can interfere with their ability to remember previously learned skills. They need to re-learn information, and that takes time and makes the rate of progress variable. So given those kinds of situations, how can we make the most of our time and be good stewards of that resource?

One lesson I learned about my use of time was that I really needed to focus on my goals for each of my children. Once the goals were in the forefront of my mind, it was easier to eliminate things that were not conducive to helping achieve those goals. When everything is treated as being equally important, there is no priority and the important issues may get pushed aside by lesser matters.

With my son, Josh, it became clear that he was not going to be able to do many different subjects in a single day and finish all of his work. Although he didn’t need as much sleep as I did in those early years, I didn’t want him spending all day and then the evening trying to get his schoolwork done, struggling all the while. I homeschool for many reasons, including helping my children develop a love for learning. Spending too many hours on school tasks seems like a good way to achieve burnout for all of us. My husband and I agreed to focus on the basics with Josh, and limit the amount of time spent on highly structured learning tasks.

I had to pare down my long list of what I would like to do and instead think realistically about what I could do each school day. Because Josh and his sister, Beckie, had learning challenges I had to eliminate some of the supplemental material I had originally planned on and limit the work to the core essentials of their education.

In addition to recognizing the best way to invest our time, we need to try to teach our children to make the most of their time. Many kids live in the moment, which is a perspective that has blessings of its own. Without losing that ability to fully experience life as it happens, we need to gently guide our children to consider future events and plan for them in a thoughtful manner. This does not come naturally for most children, and there may need to be consequences that occur as part of the learning process.

Here is an example from the Boring family homeschool: I have a lesson planned and go over it with the kids. They start goofing around, are not working on their assignment even though they know what is expected and are capable of completing the work. I do not mind spending more time on a lesson if my children do not understand something. However, when it is clearly a matter of choice and they are choosing to be silly, they are wasting their time and mine and there will be consequences. I think that the children should experience the consequence of their poor decisions so that hopefully they will make better choices next time.

With that goal in mind, we started “homeschool homework” when the children were wasting time. I would set a time limit for a certain assignment, and if they did not complete it within that period, they had homework with Dad when he got home. This kept them accountable to Dad, and kept them from more play time until their homework was done. This worked well for us since my husband did not have to plan or teach the lesson but could just follow-through with what I had assigned.

Making the most of our time will be manifested differently for each of our families. We all have limitations and demands on our time. Finding balance, remembering our goals, and investing time in our children will allow us to experience the satisfaction of time well spent.

Easy to Make Matching Game

2009-09-11T16:55:00.007-04:00

Here is an idea for an easy matching game for colors and sizes using recycled materials you probably have in abundance. Start saving the plastic lids from jars - peanut butter, mayonnaise, milk and juice jugs, pop-up wipes, etc. When you have a collection of lids, take a plain file folder and arrange the lids however you like on top of the file. Trace around the lids, then remove them and color in the circles to match the lid colors. I didn't color in the circles for the small milk jug size since most of my small lids are the same color, but you could match colors on that size as well if you have a variety in your own collection. I outlined my circles in black to provide a greater contrast to make the target stand out. Store the lids in a gallon-sized zipper bag and you have a quick and easy matching game. The larger lids are great for little hands or for those who find fine motor tasks difficult. To make the game more durable, laminate the file folder. You'll be able to re-use this game with your own children, plus it's a great portable game to take with you since it's lightweight and doesn't take up much room. It's an inexpensive, fun way to help kids learn and a great way to recycle those lids.

ADHD Friendly Sock Boxes

2009-09-04T15:51:00.006-04:00

My daughter, Beckie, has a sock problem. She is disorganized and tends to have her things strewn about the house and can't seem to find socks that match. The two most common outcomes are:
1. She wears the first two socks she finds, which usually don't match, and it gives her a clownish look.
2. She "borrows" socks from my sock drawer which I unhappily notice on her feet later.

In this short video I share with Beckie an AD/HD friendly way to organize and keep track of socks. I hope it is helpful for your family as well!

Flower Follow-up Pictures

2009-09-02T14:34:00.003-04:00

Here are my annual "Back to Homeschool" flowers. I picked carnations, because they tend to last pretty long and I like the way they look. (Plus, they don't trigger any allergy symptoms or give me an immediate headache the way some flowers do!) I brought home two different cards and let the kids decide which one to sign. Beth picked one card, and the two with AD/HD picked the other. Sometimes they really do seem like twins born 5 years apart. Beth saw the card and immediately jotted a message. Josh and Beckie both looked at me and said, "What am I supposed to write?" I guess I could have dictated something awesome that would make me sound like Super Mom. Instead, I made them think of something with the only stipulation being that they had to sign their names somewhere on the card.
I like that carnations are sturdy. They have nice strong stems and can survive having the vase tipped over and refilled a few times. They are probably not considered to be the most beautiful flowers, but are quite lovely and the aroma is not overpowering. They have staying power and can last a couple weeks and still look good, which is a long time in the fresh-cut flower world. Sure, they can be damaged, but they are not as fragile and finicky about their conditions as many flowers are and that allows us to enjoy them longer. So I guess I want to be like my carnations, lovely in my own way and able to last while doing what I'm created to do. I want to share in a pleasing way without being overpowering. I want to outlast a spill or two and go on despite them. I want to thrive in the conditions I'm in without demanding a certain amount of this or that in order to bloom. I want to be there for my kids when we bump into a learning hurdle - again - and not let the bumps wipe us out. Like my carnations, I want to stay strong and provide a beautiful example for others to enjoy. I want my presence to be pleasing and worth seeking out. I'm not there yet, or even close, but it's something I like to think about and hope someday to attain.

My friend Joyce

2009-08-29T18:23:00.002-04:00

Recently I spoke on the phone with my good friend, Joyce Herzog. Although separated by many miles we are connected through our similar philosophy that all children can learn and there are many ways we can help them. Joyce has been an experienced educator both in private and public school settings, and she tutors students who are struggling to learn. Talking with Joyce leaves me humbled, for the woman is like a walking library of knowledge and wisdom. Although she's already authored multiple books, there are many more books inside of her just waiting to find their way into print. Lest you think Joyce is merely an intellectual, I need to mention that she has a delightful sense of humor and is one of the most creative people I've ever met. If one solution doesn't work, Joyce can come up with several more things to try in a matter of minutes. Give her a topic and she can come up with games to teach it and practice the concepts. Tell her a child's diagnosis and she can tell you how to compensate for weaknesses and teach to the strengths. Always optimistic and realistic, Joyce knows and shares strategies that work. Sometimes health issues slow her down physically, but her mind is hard to keep up with at times! She has so much mental energy and enthusiasm that it stimulates listeners to think of creative possibilities for themselves. I encourage you to check out her website at: www.JoyceHerzog.com

Joyce has time-tested, educational products on her site as well as advice for homeschoolers. My personal favorites on the site are the "Hints" section and the "Links" list of resources for special needs and struggling learners. At Heads Up, we only carry products that we can whole-heartedly recommend as meeting the highest standards that we would want for our own family. Joyce's books, Timeless Teaching Tips, Learning in Spite of Labels, and Choosing and Using Curriculum are available at our website www.HeadsUpNow.com

Annual "Buy Yourself Flowers" Reminder!

2009-08-23T17:00:00.004-04:00

It's time for my annual exhortation and reminder for all you homeschoolers who are starting a new school year to buy yourself some flowers! This is a tradition I started for myself years ago, and since then I have been urging my fellow homeschoolers to join me in starting a new school year out right with some lovely fresh flowers to commemorate the onset of another year of homeschooling. Please feel free to join me in this tradition even if it is your first year of homeschooling or if your child is in a more traditional school setting. All are welcome! I began this tradition to help myself get excited and enthused for another school year. Having a learner who struggled with numerous challenges, school was never an easy time for either of us. As the "Back to School" specials and commercials increased in frequency during August, I found I was having to take deep breaths and tell myself, "It's going to be all right, Melinda. You've made it this far. You know this is the right thing to do, and you can do it." While other moms in my neighborhood were counting down the days until school started and making plans to meet for coffee the first day school was back in session, I knew that my work would just be picking up again at that point. So I started buying myself flowers on our first official day of school for the year. I would select a nice bouquet and a card for my children to sign for me. At this point I have to confess that one year I was especially dreading the onset of school because the previous year had been so rough. The coming year held no guarantees that things would be any less challenging, so I selected a "With Deepest Sympathy" card for my children to sign. With their impulsivity issues, it wasn't until after they had scrawled their names on the card that they noticed the "With Deepest Sympathy" part at the top of the card. Then I heard cries of "Mo-om!" and we all had a good laugh together. Besides, I think it's o.k. for our kids to know that sometimes homeschooling is hard for us, too. Still worth it, but hard at times. Most years I pick out a more optimistic card to go with the flowers, remembering to avoid those dark purple crunchy ones that my cats seem compelled to chew until the vase spills. Last year, my daughter who graduated from our homeschool in 2006 bought me the flowers and picked out a card. Perhaps this will lead to an even better tradition where the children buy you flowers! But until that point, please join me in buying yourself flowers and share this idea with your friends as we embark on another school year.

*The photo above was taken on 8-13-09 in Chillicothe, Ohio by my daughter, Beth.