There was a time when all three of my children loved the “drumstick” part of chicken.  Since I could purchase a package of drumsticks at the store I thought it was wonderful that they could all have their favorite piece without fighting over which two get the drumsticks and who has to choose a different piece.  This worked out beautifully for a period of time, until one day all three children announced that they would no longer eat chicken drumsticks.  I was baffled, because as far as I could tell nothing had changed.  I bought the same brand I always had, prepared it the same way I always did, only now instead of eagerly eating the drumsticks the children were turning up their noses at this formerly sought after food.  It turns out that those noses were the very key to their sudden reversal in their attitudes about eating chicken.  After some careful questioning (okay, more like Mom’s Inquisition) I found out that as the drumsticks were cooking my son had wrinkled up his nose and told his sisters that the cooking chicken smelled like Shadow, our dog, when he was wet.  If you’ve never smelled a wet dog, please take my word for it when I say that even a clean, wet dog does not smell pleasant.  I’m not sure why that is, but once you have that scent memory in your mind and it becomes associated with a certain food, you surely will not be eager to eat that food item again for quite some time – if ever.

Not only are some childhood decisions based on smells, but vision plays a role in their decision making as well.  I have vivid recollections of handing my daughter a page of math problems only to have her shrink back and refuse to take it as if I were extending a tarantula toward her and expecting her to cuddle it. Without hesitation she would pronounce that the work I was offering her was too hard and would take forever for her to complete.  It took me some time, but I eventually realized that it was not the difficulty of the work or even the number of math problems that was causing my daughter’s reluctance.  It was simply the amount of ink on the page that was overwhelming to her.  She didn’t even need to see what was actually written on the page to know that the amount of print represented more time and effort than she felt she could handle.  We were able to work around this by enlarging the print, covering up all problems except the one she was working on, and focusing on one problem at a time.  Without being visually overwhelmed, my daughter was able to complete all of the work.   When I learned that my daughter was making decisions based on how the page looked to her, I could re-arrange and modify the assignment to make it appear more visually manageable.  It wasn’t the content on the page; it was how the page actually looked that was intimidating my daughter.

If your children are old enough to explain their decision-making process it can offer valuable insight into how they make decisions.  For example, long after my son was past the picky eater stage in his development he occasionally refused to even try certain foods.  I would ask him how he knew he wouldn’t like it if he hadn’t even tasted it.  One time his response was to shrug his shoulders and tell me that “It’s colored funny and looks chunky.”  This particular food offering was a dip that had some small pieces of red and green pepper mixed in.  Since my son is colorblind I’m not sure what it looked like to him, but the appearance was enough to suggest to his brain that he might not like it and should proceed with extreme caution or else retreat.  The appearance combined with his past experiences with certain textures and tastes influenced my son’s decision to decline this particular experience.

We know that young children often learn through hands-on experiences, but I think “multi-sensory” is a more accurate description.  Children learn and make decisions based on what they see, smell, taste, touch, and hear.  Much of this type of learning is incidental rather than deliberately taught.  Children are not bound by logic or mature reasoning as much as by impressions and past experiences.  My children did eventually eat chicken drumsticks again, and with maturation were able to express what was influencing the decisions they made.  It seems obvious but is so easy to forget that children don’t necessarily think the way we do as adults. As we teach them to learn our perspectives they can teach us to see things the way they do.  It’s a fresh, sometimes bewildering, and funny way to look at an experience.  Learn it, laugh with it, and work with it!

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An unenthusiastic writer does not necessarily have difficulty communicating orally.  In fact, you may be working with a student who likes to talk and will go into great detail when they are discussing a topic with you.  If this was your only experience with a child and you were asked to pick out her writing sample you might be hard pressed to connect the verbally-expressive student with the sparse amount of writing she produced.  This same child who can use wonderfully-descriptive terms and lengthy utterances offers up short and simple noun plus verb sentences in writing.

I’m sure there must be a long list of reasons why a child is reluctant to write.  If you can figure out the reason for your child’s disinclination you may be able to address the issue in a way that makes writing tasks more appealing, or at least more tolerable.  I have not found any one solution that flipped a switch and made my children eager to write, but I have had a modicum of success with a number of strategies I’ve tried over the years.  Perhaps my suggestions will inspire your own creative ideas to help your student be less resistant when it comes to written work.

My children, especially my son, loved to doodle and draw pictures but dreaded having to write full sentences.  Sometimes I allowed the children to dictate their ideas to me as I wrote down their responses.  Other times I would alternate writing one sentence and having them write the next sentence.  This is fine to do now and then, but I didn’t want to get caught up in doing too much of the writing because they were the ones who needed to learn how to get their thoughts down on paper.  Because of that I didn’t use this strategy daily, but it was especially helpful when my struggling learner was having a particularly hard day and needed a little (or a lot) of extra support.

Another strategy I used was to buy paper that was blank on the top half and had lines for writing on the lower portion of the page.  That way, my children could do what they loved doing along with what they had to do for school.  They could draw pictures to illustrate what they were writing about and it was like having a built-in reward for completing their work.  It seemed to help my learner who had some challenges because it was not as intimidating to think about writing a few sentences to fill up half a page as it was to imagine writing a full page.

At other times I would pull out the special markers, crayons, gel pens, and colored pencils as a way to add some fun to the writing tasks.  Just mixing it up now and then seemed to help motivate my children, and the novelty of a new pen or glitter crayon helped ease their writing reluctance.  My daughters especially went nuts over blank journals with black paper that looked amazing when they wrote on it with their neon gel pens.  My son was fascinated with the rainbow crayon and the way his writing changed colors as he wrote.  With the popularity of scrapbooking, just think about all of the options in paper designs that you could get for your child to use for special writing assignments.  You could even take a field trip to the store and let each child choose his own paper for an individualized touch.

Many teachers find it helpful to give their students writing prompts just to spark their interest and get the creative juices flowing.  The prompt could be as simple as, “If you could invent anything, what would it be?” or as involved as telling a short story and having the child write how she thinks the story should end.  Sometimes the writing prompt addresses a specific skill such as sequencing events, and will have the student describe something familiar such as all of the steps involved in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  For the child who never seems to be able to think of what to write, prompts can be just the impetus needed to get the ball rolling – or the pencil moving, in the case of the disinclined writer!

When it comes to teaching reluctant writers, you will need more than one strategy at your disposal to get your students writing.  Try the ideas listed above, and keep in mind that some students will be more willing to write on a computer and will thrive with basic keyboarding skills.  For some, maturity will make all the difference, but until then think of ways to make writing fun or at least more interesting.  If you have an orally-expressive child, perhaps he can help you brainstorm ways that would make writing tasks less unappealing.  If your child thinks a four-color pen seems more engaging than a plain pencil, go for it!  The goal is to get the child writing, and you will have plenty of opportunities to fine tune his efforts as his writing skills develop.

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It may be tempting to intervene on your child’s behalf, because you don’t want him to become frustrated and resistant to further schoolwork as a result.  When you see your child’s patience waver and sense the tension rising it is only natural to want to prevent further escalation.  To be honest, it might be easier to at least temporarily bypass the hard task in favor of something more readily achievable.  This is especially true when the child is prone to emotional meltdowns when frustrated.

Some children decide a task is hard, so they anticipate failure and give up without really trying.  They have already made up their minds that this particular task is beyond their reach.  Sensitive children may feel inferior even though they have not failed at the task that has not yet been attempted.  Other children may resent that they have been presented with something they consider hard and therefore feel it is unreasonable for the adult to expect them to complete it.  These children who give up easily or don’t even begin a task that they perceive to be challenging require a discerning adult to figure out the reasons they are so resistant to taking on a challenge.

In my case, I was a child who did not want to do anything that I wasn’t good at or could not quickly master.  For example, I wanted to be able to play beautiful music on the piano, but after a couple years of lessons I realized I had gotten a much later start than most of the other pupils and I would not become proficient in the time I could allot to practicing the piano.  So I quit piano lessons, even though I enjoyed playing the piano, because I wanted to play well or not at all.  I felt the same way about most games.  I played pinball games a few times and decided it was not for me because it would take a lot of quarters and practice to become adept at it and I didn’t want to expend the time or money to learn the necessary skills.

As I homeschooled my children, I initially would respond to their statement “It’s too hard” with “No, it’s not.  You can do this”.  This led to the unfruitful exchange of “No, I can’t” and “Yes, you can” which accomplished nothing other than to fuel the frustration for my children and for me.  Over time, I learned to recognize when my children were just being lazy and when there was truly a hindrance to learning.  Wouldn’t you want to respond to laziness very differently from the way you respond to a child who is genuinely stumped by an assignment?  I sure did.

When I thought my children were just trying to get out of work that they found less interesting than their preferred pursuits, I determined that they needed to finish the assignment even if they claimed it was hard.  I would discuss with them the reality that they would be called upon to do hard things throughout their lives, and they might as well start learning to discipline themselves to work diligently because they would need to be able to do so for the rest of their lives.  Complaining that the work is too hard only makes the task seem more unpleasant as it stretches out for longer periods of time than it would if the children just settled down and got the job done.

During the times when I realized my children had legitimate reasons for feeling that a task was too hard, I responded very differently.  First, I pointed out that we all need help with things and that it was fine to ask for assistance.  When a child proclaims, “It’s too hard!” he has already given up without even trying.  That attitude won’t serve him well in life.  A child needs to learn how to persist and work hard.  So while it is true that there will be times when a child is asked to do something he is not yet able to do, giving up is not the answer.  I told my children that it was fine to ask for help when they needed it, but not acceptable to just decide to give up because something seems like it is too hard.  The mindset of “I need some help to be able to do this” is very different from the mindset of “I can’t.  This is too hard.”  Can you picture teaching your child this lesson?  If so, you will not only be helping them succeed with homeschooling, you will be equipping them for life as adults.

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This was an assignment Josh did for a homeschool writing class. In addition to the ADHD, auditory processing, and sensory processing issues, Josh struggled with social nuances. Some of Josh’s struggles he understood and could identify. Other symptoms left all of us baffled, even Josh. I’m glad that even at this young age Josh knew he was smart and strong, so some of my truth messages were getting through to him in the midst of his challenges. It’s interesting to me that “I know karate” made the positives and the negatives list. Knowing karate was good for Josh, in that it provided an outlet for his excess energy and helped him develop coordination and self defense skills. It also allowed him to be part of a group sport, but one that was individualized so he could progress at his own pace. Knowing karate was a negative for Josh, because as soon as other kids found out he was training in martial arts they asked if he was a black belt and then wanted to take him on. Josh was never aggressive, so demonstrating his karate skills outside of class was not appealing to him. One of the first things most boys do in social settings is talk about their favorite sports teams and the sports they participate in. Josh was more interested in drawing and creating things than in sports, so he didn’t have much to talk about other than that he knew karate. This led to the inevitable challenges to prove his skills, which Josh did only when he absolutely had to for self defense. Even then, he ended the confrontation as soon as he could. This homeschool flashback provides a snapshot of a young boy’s emerging self perception. Teaching him at home gave me the opportunity to help him develop a balanced view of himself, which is revealed by this writing assignment as he recognizes some of his strengths despite huge challenges. By the time Josh reached adulthood, he had a mental list of positive and negative things about himself that was accurate and realistic.

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I’ve been thinking about social skills lately, and how much they impact our children’s lives.  Sometimes I feel confident that with enough direct instruction and practice even the most socially awkward child can succeed and have healthy relationships.  At other times, though, it seems like the hard work of teaching, learning, and generalizing social skills just isn’t enough.  I can have a child who has mastered basic social skills, but unless someone is willing to get to know her and become friends with her, the skill set seems inadequate and incomplete.

When I see a child who naturally picks up appropriate social skills and relates easily to others, there’s a part of me that feels a bit envious.  My child has to work excruciatingly hard to learn skills that develop effortlessly for others.  On top of that, I think children who struggle in this area need a friend even more than those for whom relationships come easily but often find themselves alone in social settings.  I look at the families who just seem to sail through developing new relationships on a regular basis and I wonder what that would be like.  I want to prompt the parents to be thankful and not take their child’s social skills for granted, but I know if I didn’t have a child with obvious deficits in this area I wouldn’t give a second thought to his social skills, either.

         

When my son was young, he did not make eye contact.  He didn’t feel the need for it, since he could hear everything just fine without looking at the person who was speaking.  Over time he learned that other people expected him to look them in the eyes, so he worked hard to discipline himself to meet that need.  He went from one extreme to the other during the learning phase, changing from no eye contact to staring unblinkingly at his conversation partner’s eyes.  This was perhaps more unsettling to others than the original lack of eye contact had been, so once again my son worked to make changes in the way he connected with people.

Despite his determination and ongoing efforts to relate with others, my son struggled with the unspoken rules of interpersonal exchange and many viewed him as simply obtuse.  The dictionary defines obtuse as “not quick or alert in perception, feeling or intellect; not sensitive or observant.”   This was his starting point.  Considering how very many discreet skills he needed to learn to improve his overall social skills what he accomplished was truly impressive.  Even so, I continued to observe other children who called my son derogatory names and who avoided his attempts to interact with them.  When his peers did include my son in play, more often than not it was to cast him in the role of monster or bad guy and then they ran from him, screaming.

It is no wonder that some of the children who struggle socially just want to give up or in frustration decide that most other people are not worth relating to anyway.  The rewards are so minimal in comparison to the effort these children exert trying to learn to relate in ways that do not come naturally for them.  With little apparent success they persevere and wish for friends who genuinely like them, and for insight into the baffling hidden curriculum of social exchange.  It seems that everyone else is in on the secrets of how to relate to others while the struggling child works to understand and interpret mysterious and unspoken rules that exclude and elude them.

       

My son worked with remarkable resiliency to be successful in social interactions.   He became an astute observer as he watched for changes in facial expression and tone of voice the way a scientist studies an experiment.  It seemed as if my son were a stranger in a foreign land, immersed in a language and culture that were unnatural to him.  Gradually and with many bumps along the way, he learned to recognize how others expressed their thoughts and feelings.  My son, who was always caring and sensitive, learned to relate in ways that were more easily recognized by those around him.  He picked up on subtle differences in my facial expressions and would ask if everything was okay.  When I sighed, he would check in with me to see if I was upset about something or perhaps just tired.

My son, and many like him, learn to improve their social skills and overcome their social struggles. There are occasional setbacks and disappointments but they manage to at least get by and develop genuine relationships.  Some who struggle socially will only achieve a modicum of success, while others will become fluent in the language of social skills.  Even for those who appear to be fluent, though, they are like second-language learners who have remarkably mastered the skills necessary to be successful in a foreign culture.

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In time, this desire to learn about the world moves from mere physical exploration to verbal communications.  This is the developmental stage characterized by the child asking questions, many of which are repeated verbatim by the child even though you have already answered the question multiple times.  I think children ask the same questions over and over again for a couple of reasons.

First of all, they truly want to know the answer.  By asking the question over and over they are learning if the answers are always the same.  Knowing that the answer is predictable and consistent is reassuring for a child.  As exhausting as this questioning phase can be, it is important to the child because this is how they learn concepts such as yes means yes and no means no.  The answer is always the same. Without learning this consistency at a young age, a child is likely to continue to test limits in hopes that this time he will get a different result than he has on previous occasions.  Being consistent in your responses will help the child learn that you mean what you say, and ultimately benefits you both as you establish healthy boundaries for behavior early on in childhood.

Another reason children ask so many questions is to keep you engaged with them.  It is an effective strategy to keep the interaction going.  While you are answering his questions you are paying attention to the child, and that is often more rewarding for the child than the actual answers. The question is just a means to an end. If your child has asked you the same question repeatedly even though he already knows the answer it may be the desire to continue conversing with you that is the driving force behind that behavior. There may be times when you have been answering your child’s questions all day long and finally tell him the answer is, “Because I said so!”

Certainly there are times when your child just plain needs to do what you are requesting without hearing a full discourse on the reasons for your request.  This is especially true for those issues that come up frequently and have already been explained to the child.  He knows the answer, and you do not need to defend your position to your child when he is fully aware of your reasons.

Falling back on the response “because I said so” does have some drawbacks to think about.  As home educators we want our children to learn to think logically and develop critical thinking skills.  Part of that process is learned through asking questions and consideration of the answers.  The challenge for homeschooling adults is to determine the child’s developmental level and to encourage the child to ask genuine questions to increase his learning and expand his knowledge.

Another danger of telling a child “because I said so” is that it can result in rebellion, depending in part on the child’s personality and temperament.  For some, any attempt to shut down the child’s questioning results in further attempts by the child to engage in verbal sparring or negotiation.  Have you ever been caught in an exchange with a child who responds to everything you say with, “Why”?  A child who feels he is being ignored may pull out all the stops in an effort to gain or regain attention.

On the other hand, there are children with personality types and temperaments who are less likely to resist or respond strongly when an adult stops engaging with them.  This child may learn to be increasingly passive in accepting whatever comes his way rather than being actively engaged in interactions and learning. He may learn to be content just going with the flow without questioning where he is headed and why he is going there.

When a child asks the same question they have asked countless times already, I think it is fine to tell him that he already knows the answer and you will not keep answering that particular question for him.  Try to discern the motive behind the child’s questions so you can respond accordingly.  You may recognize that the child just wants your attention, or perhaps the child is truly interested in the topic but doesn’t have the language skills to ask other questions to solicit more information from you.

Answering a young child’s many questions takes a lot of patience and wisdom in knowing how to respond.  Questioning can be a wonderful way to learn new things, or it could be an attempt to keep your attention on the inquisitive child. Next time you are tempted to respond with “Because I said so!” consider how that might contribute to passivity or a rebellion.  Listen beyond the question to hear what is on your child’s heart.  Truly, it takes discernment to know how to respond wisely to a child and his many questions.

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Homeschooling a motivated student is exciting and rewarding, providing a sense of the joy of teaching and affirming our efforts to help our children learn. If homeschooling is supposed to be a wonderful experience, why are so many of us lamenting the fact that our students not only do not eagerly pursue learning opportunities but appear downright unmotivated and reluctant to learn?

If a motivated student reassures us that we are successful teachers, then the converse is also true. A reluctant, unmotivated student can cause us to question our ability to teach our children well. This doubt can lead our thoughts down other paths, where we wonder if we are up to the calling of homeschooling and if we will somehow be holding our children back if we continue. Before you go too far in questioning your ability to homeschool, please allow me to share some of my experiences as a homeschooling mother of a very reluctant, unmotivated student.

I am not a high-energy, easily-excited mom. Nevertheless I worked hard to be enthusiastic when I presented lessons and I tried to make the work engaging and interesting for my children. Imagine my dismay when day after day I called my children to the table to begin our school work and without fail the first words out of my son’s mouth were, “How long is this going to take?”

He asked me that question no matter what the subject matter was, and in fact without even knowing which subject I was about to introduce. In response, I would plaster a smile on my face and try to exude exhilaration for the lesson. I tried to be funny. I worked at being more animated in my presentations. I used up a lot of energy, as if I were auditioning for the role of inspiring homeschool mom. Inwardly, I berated myself for my inability to stimulate a love of learning in my children.

I have always loved learning new things, and I had carefully selected my curriculum. Night after night I strained my brain to come up with something I could do or change that would eliminate the reluctance my son felt toward schoolwork. I was beginning to despair. I had a heart to homeschool my children, but I questioned whether I had the energy and ability to do the job for the long haul.

Then, one day, the circus came to town. Yes, I thought about running off to join it, but once again I didn’t seem to have the right skill set! I was already abysmal as a performer, judging by my child’s desire to get schoolwork over with as quickly and painlessly as possible despite my antics. So I took the children to see the circus, hoping that at last my son would be adequately engaged and intrigued by the novelty of the acts.

My son watched the tigers with great interest. He was so intent while watching the trapeze artists that I’m not sure he even blinked during their entire act. Just as clowns appeared in one circus ring and horses began trotting around a second ring, my son turned to me and said something that changed me forever.

“Mom,” he asked, “When can we go home? I’m bored.”

Of course he had told me on many prior occasions that he was bored. All this time I thought it was my fault for being inadequate as his teacher. Hearing him say he was bored at the circus astonished me and gave me a valuable insight that helped me realize more than ever that homeschooling was the best option for my family. When my child informed me that he was bored at a three-ring circus, at first I was just plain shocked. Once the shock wore off, a sense of great relief came over me because I realized that even if I chose to wear feathers and swing from a trapeze while teaching, this child would become bored within about 15 minutes!

The difficulty my son had with school was not because of any lack on my part as a homeschooler. Rather, it was the way he was wired that led him to be easily bored and inattentive. Once I realized that the attention and motivation challenges were essentially stemming from inside my son and were not due to my ineptness as his teacher, I was freed up to concentrate on ways to help him learn to motivate himself and deal with his frequent feelings of boredom. I began to focus less on critiquing myself and instead became more observant of my son.

I noticed that there were certain times of the day when my son was more alert, and that it did not always coincide with my own states of alertness. I observed that when he was physically active for a short burst of time he was then able to attend to his lessons for longer periods. My son showed me that when he was emotionally upset or over-excited about something that we tended to have less productive days and my attempts to push him usually backfired. As my self-doubt regarding my ability to teach my child receded, I was able to direct that mental energy into finding out what my son truly needed.

In addition to my great revelation at the circus, over time I became more and more convinced that homeschooling was ideal for a learner like my son. I could accommodate his needs and give him the attention he needed to stay on track and learn. Each year of homeschooling I was better equipped because of the previous year’s experiences. My son came to understand that even when I didn’t understand some of his challenges I would steadfastly believe he was capable of learning, and I would never give up.

There will always be people with more impressive credentials, but we do not need to compete with them. As homeschooling parents, we are more invested in our children than anyone else. We have the motivation to help our kids, year after year, to teach them and show them love. Homeschooling can be challenging, but it can instruct the teacher as well as the students as situations arise. In my case, I always tell people that with all the learning and motivation challenges I faced, my children made me be a better teacher than I wanted to have to be. In the end, though, I am a better teacher and mom because of the things I learned while homeschooling my children.

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I am a pretty linear thinker, and although I’d like to think that my box is large I am definitely an “inside the box” kind of thinker. This was one of the challenges I faced in parenting Josh, because my own responses to situations were logical and predictable to anyone who knew me. Even though I tried I just could not anticipate how Josh would respond in many situations. Novel experiences were the most unpredictable, and I’m sure that even Josh did not know what he was going to say or do in advance much of the time.

For example, our local library had weekly story times for preschoolers, and Josh looked forward to attending each program. Josh tended to observe rather than take part with most of the activities, though. He sat on my lap and watched the other children sing songs and do the motions to finger plays. When the librarian read books, Josh would push forward to get a better view of the pictures, but he usually sat on his knees so he wasn’t blocking others’ views. For Josh, the true highlight of each week was the flannel board story.

The librarian would tell a familiar story, using the flannel board and various flannel pieces. Even though this was his favorite part of the 30 minute program, Josh could barely contain himself and wiggled and hopped around while the story was being told. With frequent reminders and prompts to sit down so that others could see, Josh waited for what he really liked best about the flannel board.

Each story seemed to spark ideas for a hundred others in Josh’s imagination, and our librarian was kind enough to give Josh free reign with the flannel board following the official story time. With or without participation by others, Josh would tell his original stories or take the existing story and give it multiple alternative plots and conclusions. Inevitably, Josh’s stories would include a battle of some sort. He could take the most peaceful setting and turn it into an epic battlefield.

Since Josh like flannel board stories so much, I bought him a huge set of Bible flannel board pieces. I thought it would be a great way for Josh to learn some Bible stories. He loved it! As my oldest child, I thought he might like to teach some of these stories to his younger sisters and it would be good practice for his oral language skills, too. Josh dutifully repeated the story I taught him, and then devoted his energy to expressing his creativity and imagination.

Another flannel board battle ensued each time the carefully organized Bible set was brought out for a new story. I am a Mom who likes things to be in their proper place, and the flannel board set had outlines of the pieces on each storage board which greatly appealed to my desire to have things organized. Josh, however, liked to select pieces for his stories willy-nilly and (gasp) even took pieces from different boards and stories that were not grouped to together. He even mixed up the Old and New Testament pieces. It was horrible! Okay, it is probably not that big a deal to most people, but it was a battle for me to give up my neatly arranged flannel board pieces so that Josh could express his God-given creativity.

Josh is now a young adult, but he still remembers the flannel board stories with great fondness. He remembers making up many adventurous tales and having a lot of flannel pieces to work with from our large Bible flannel set. His favorite, he recalls, was the time he put the kneeling Jesus figure behind a large clay jar on a table turned on its side to provide cover. From that position, Jesus proceeded to shoot stars at his disciples across the room. And so it went in the imagination of a young boy, who believed that Jesus could do anything including spraying stars wherever He wanted them to go.

Whereas some people lament their lack of creativity, Josh and other outside the box type of thinkers find they have to stifle their creative urges many times throughout the day. It was always a challenge for me to find good boundaries that allowed Josh to follow his many ideas that led him in a myriad of directions while redirecting him to get his school work completed. Getting the academic work done did take us longer on some days when Josh pursued some of his imaginative ideas, but I wouldn’t squelch the creativity of my son for anything.

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Life with the distractible and disorganized can be discombobulating. I live with three family members who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and due to challenges with inattention and forgetfulness often items get lost or misplaced. Sometimes my kids will ask me if I’ve seen something that’s gone missing. Since I like things to be organized and put away in a logical place, there are times when I can locate the missing object because I put it away instead of leaving it out where it was dropped.

I have systems for cleaning and organizing. The problem is with implementation and cooperation from the rest of my family. I have a strong need for things to be put away where they belong so I can find them when I go looking for them. Just last night I pulled out all the ingredients to make a delicious smoothie, but when I went to get my smoothie maker only part of it was in the cupboard where I keep it. I had a blender base with the pitcher and a lid, but the ball on a stick part used to help move the mixture around in the pitcher was missing. I looked in all the places I could think of putting it, but only one place really made sense to me and that was to store all the smoothie maker parts in the same location. My husband came into the kitchen and joined me in the search for the missing part.

After looking in the same places I had looked, and striking out just as I had, my husband began looking in places that made no sense to me but just might contain the lost tool so they warranted a look. Even then we could not locate our smoothie tool, so we…looked in all the same places again! I’m not sure why we do this, as if the missing item that wasn’t there previously will somehow show up if we look again in the exact same place. This strategy was also unsuccessful, so we moved on to asking our children if they knew where the missing piece was hiding.

This is not generally a good strategy, either, because we are talking about distractible people who misplace things all the time and absentmindedly leave things in odd places. But it was worth a shot, since we had nothing else to go on at that point. Both children stated where they might have placed it, but neither actually remembered doing so and the item wasn’t where they suggested. This time, my husband decided to try substituting a silicon spatula in place of the missing tool, with the result that we had delicious smoothies with bits of a chopped spatula mixed in. I think I swallowed a piece.

Those types of lost items are frustrating and inconvenient, but not nearly as alarming as missing driver’s licenses, phones, or my personal nemesis the missing wallet. Not my wallet. Remember, I have a “wallet place” where my wallet lives and is predictably located when I need it. My daughter and husband have misplaced their wallets multiple times, though, and it sends me into a far greater panic than they experience. While my mind is racing with all the possibilities and security risks, they are unsystematically roaming the house looking in odd places for their wallets. Sometimes they leave the house for a minute and I realize they are checking the car to see if it’s there. Or maybe on the sidewalk, or in the grass, or…well, you get the idea.

My daughter will, at times like these, casually ask me if I’ve seen her wallet. She acts like it’s not really a big deal because it’s bound to turn up sooner or later, and she really believes that! Hunting for her wallet is like a treasure hunt and is only mildly irritating if she doesn’t find the wallet. I, on the hand, begin mentally listing all the items that will need to be replaced or cancelled.

My husband is more subtle about searching for his missing wallet or other items, and rarely asks me to help him look anymore. The reason he doesn’t bother seeking my assistance is because I’m not much help at finding whatever he has lost. I look in logical (to me) places where I would leave my wallet, for instance, and since I have a “wallet spot” I don’t have too many places to look.

Even when my husband doesn’t come out and say that he’s misplaced something of importance, I can recognize the signs. He enters a room scanning it like a secret service agent taking everything in at a glance. Then he moves around the room, picking up papers and small portable items while surreptitiously looking under and around them. He never panics, and never tells himself not to bother looking in strange places because he knows the missing item could be anywhere. While I fret about possible identity theft, my husband remains unruffled as he continues his quest for the missing wallet.

I no longer reach the panic stage as quickly as I used to, because more often than not my husband and daughter do find their missing wallets. Rather than berate themselves for having lost them, they congratulate themselves on another successful recovery. I would like to avoid the stress of “Where is my wallet?” but I do admire the resiliency of my family members who just don’t sweat it when these events happen. They take it in stride as casually as a driver stopping for a red light, doing what the situation calls for and moving on.

Speaking of moving on, I just heard my husband in the next room quietly asking himself, “Now where did I put my keys?”

I am quite confident that he will find his keys, no matter how strange a hiding spot they are in, because his experience and resiliency will win out. Keys, your time on the loose is limited. Give yourselves up! You will be found.

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