Home-Schooling Your Child With Disabilities

There are several approach home-school ideas that you may find appealing, but they cannot find an exact match among the main ideas. Other homeschoolers may design their curriculum for personal reasons. Some people “mix and match” among the various curricula available to determine whether you should create your curriculum or how to adapt your home education, read on.

Home Schooling Your Child With Disabilities

• Determine how your child learns. Teaching according to your child’s way of learning can make the difference between success and struggle.
• Familiarize yourself with the various home school philosophies. Do some research into the types of home-schooling approaches – you may be surprised to find out what is out there. Look at the mainstream ones first, and then look into some of the “offshoots” of the main approaches.
• Talk to other home-schooling families. Not only will you meet and develop relationships with other home-schooling families, but you will also glean ideas for all sorts of lessons and approaches.
• Multiple children require a different approach than just one child. Keep that in mind as you research – would this work with three, four, six, or eight different ages? If a home school approach involves a lot of field trips, for example, and you have a lot of children/students, that approach could be impractical.

Don’t be afraid to design your curriculum. Sometimes, parents can get stressed and worried over whether or not they have the “perfect” curriculum for their kids. But that stress and worry can translate into a rigid curriculum that is not a good fit for your child.

In Conclusion

Although it might be a bit scary to experiment, don’t be afraid to do so. If your student enjoys machines, design a unit study that focuses on core subjects covering them. You can do the same thing with students who love art, science, music, dance, math, or reading. Look at the topic of machines through the core subjects.

• Take advantage of free home school information online. Look at various lessons and how they get ideas for your student. You can look at these as springboards for your customized approach.
• The aspect of customizing your home school is to observe and know your kids. What works for them? What makes them tick? How can you work with, not against, your child’s interests and style of learning? When you embrace this approach, it sets your child up for a lifetime of learning.