Homeschooling Without a Car

Well, you’re going to have to buy a car.

It’s the first thing almost everyone says to us when we come upon one of those life transitions:
  • When I was pregnant with C (public transport with a baby?);
  • When I was pregnant with J (public transport with a baby and a toddler?!);
  •  When C was diagnosed with mobility issues (walking and public transport when your son needs walking therapy!?!);
  • Again when C was identified as gifted (all those extension programs, you’re going to need a car!);
  • When we began homeschooling (how will you get to all the activities?).

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2e in the Family – Loving the Alien in Us

One of the first things that you read about when you start to learn about what it means to be neurologically different, is that it can feel like being an alien, the veritable ‘Stranger in a Strange Land‘.

In our family, it was both a shock and a relief to realise that when we were looking for answers to why our children were developing outside of the box that we were also finding the answers for ourselves as well.
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Those 2e Eggs Just Keep On Popping Up

Those 2e Eggs Just Keep on Popping Up, yellowreadis.com Image: Toy pan with four toy eggs on wooden floor

You know, when I started this parenting gig, I didn’t really know a lot – hell, what parent does? There’s been highs and lows – the highs are really really high, the lows . . . let’s just say that the Mariana Trench has a lot going for it.

But somewhere along the line, I kind of got the impression that if my kids were hitting the milestones at roughly the right time, “all was well”. (The right time, of course was statistically figured out with a bell curve. They’re really neat and rather mathematically beautiful. I actually like them, as an idea).

Somewhere, in the depths of over eight years of overwhelm, the bit of my brain that used to sigh with relief when my kids hit those milestones exactly on time got rewritten. Now, when a nurse or doctor assures me that something is perfectly normal, just what they expected of child brain/body/whatever development, I go into full-fledged panic mode. Even though the maths part of my brain keeps reassuring me that my kids have to fall inside the middle of the bell curve for some things, another, perhaps more realistic part of my brain will go “you keep believing that if you like, buster, but I’ll be over here locking myself in the panic room.”
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Book Review – Writing Your Own Script

Book Review: Writing Your Own Script, A Parent's Role in the Gifted Child's Social Development, yellowreadis.com Image book cover artoon children

‘As parents, we may really want to believe the common wisdom that if we place our children in a typical childhood setting, “They will be fine.”  It can be difficult to separate what others say and what we believe to be true. As parents, we don’t always trust our own instinct. We should.’

 
Finding practical ways to help people understand and work with your neuro – atypical children can be hard. Even when you understand what your child needs to thrive, how do you go about convincing others? I found Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustavson’s new book “Writing Your Own Script: A Parent’s Role in the Gifted Child’s Social Development”, helped me to understand that journey into the unknown.

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