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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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My exuberant, active, and sensory seeking child had trouble sitting through a meal.

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Strategies for dealing with ADD in children (and potential drawbacks)

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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 [...]

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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. [...]

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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 [...]

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