If your child has special needs and/or suffers from a learning disability that seriously hampers his ability to stick to a routine, then homeschooling is your best choice. Not only will he or she be at home with you in a loving, flexible environment, your child will be gaining a quality education, without the attached stigma disabilities often bring in a public school setting.

As his or her parent, you know your child best and can adapt the learning style to best fit his or her needs. Learning from a textbook while sitting at a desk is not the only way to learn and often times is one of the least effective – for any child – especially for long-term retention.

Goal setting is an important part of homeschooling a child with disability. Try establishing a set the number of working hours per week for the child, but allowing for those “bad days” – we all have them.

Structure the learning hours according to the needs and interests of the child. Use the computer, movies, nature, life experiences. Home educating gives you and your child this freedom!

Field trips and other educational activities are also important. You can get help from a support group and visit places of interest while interacting with other children and adults in the group. Take your child out for some activities, so that he can socialize. Let him set his own pace with making friends. This will help in strengthening his self-esteem.

Above all, remember that homeschooling is homeschooling – each child is a unique individual, whether or not they have special needs or a learning disability. You just need to look for the right opportunities and the best alternatives to achieve the your educational goals.

And don’t be surprised if you find some learning disabilities “disappearing”. The problem may have been the setting, not the student!

Here are a few resources that you might find helpful:

• Learning Abled Kids
• Learning Disabilities
• Special Ed Department – a word of caution: in this article, the author mentions working with your public school for testing and other help. My advice is to check into this before you involve the school system as some states have additional requirements and hoops to “jump through” once they have labeled your child as special needs or learning disabled.

Would anyone who has walked this path be willing to share encouragement, ideas or resources they have found helpful? Please leave a comment!

Sue

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:56 am and is filed under Home Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.