Conversations on Twice Exceptional Homeschooling
It is hard to live through dark times. When the world narrows. If all you see are the horrors outside. Feeling trapped. When the only place you can go is . . . your home.
Continue reading “How to Survive Dark Times: A Letter to Friends”
Even if you can’t be there in person on September 20th to protest for action on climate change, there are things you can do.
We will not be able to be there: our family’s disabilities mean hanging out in crowds at the best of times is a bad idea. But even if (like us) you can’t be there in person, there are things you can do to help with the climate strike.
Continue reading “Climate Crisis: Things You Can Do When You Can’t Even”
When, all those years ago, we decided that homeschooling was the right choice for our deeply asynchronous children, I kind of hoped that this would mean an escape from age-based norms and expectations. We would be free to craft the curriculum and activities that ‘fit’ our kids without the limitations that came with the age-grade lockstep that is the traditional way schools organise learning.
Gosh was I naive.
Because, whether I like it or not, almost anything to do with children is organised based on these traditional age-grade levels. Finding places that ‘fit’ my kids and their very different needs has been like ground-hog day. Reliving the same situations over and over again, with only the surface details changing. And each time feels like another walk through extracurricular purgatory. . .
Continue reading “Living in Extracurricular Purgatory”
Adapting our homeschooling environment to support our kids needs has been a work in progress that has taken years of trial and error. I personally love the idea of self-directed learning and unschooling, but I have had to adapt it to fit the needs of my children.
As much as I would love to be able to say ‘you can do whatever you want’ and let it happen (with me strewing and facilitating, but having the kids in charge), it hasn’t happened. Instead, we have taken a lot of slow, small steps in that direction, and have had to treat it as more of an end goal than a blueprint.
Over time, (and with an understanding of their neurological differences) I have come to understand why my children need support and why those supports need to be different for each child.
Continue reading “Creating an Unschooling Environment for my 2e Kids”
Recently, I’ve realised how hard it can be to do all the things. I have lists of things I have been staring at in a state of almost-horror, and the longer the lists get, the more I hide from them. It has taken me a while to realise that the reason I am not getting ‘things’ done – is because we’ve stumbled into one of those times when busy takes over. It’s not just the Christmas season, though that’s usually enough for me to go into full-on hide in the cupboard mode.
Continue reading “I’ll Be Over Here … Hiding In The Cupboard”