I’m not proud to admit it, but I’m guilty of contributing to this feeling of failure with our youngest son. His disability is invisible. It’s hard to remember to keep my expectations appropriate. I’m often frustrated when I have to explain something again or when he needs yet another reminder.
Kids with learning differences are painfully aware of the gap between them and their peers. They may struggle socially as a well as academically. Most school environments are not set up to foster success in our kids.
As parents, it’s hard to watch our kids struggle with shame and low self-esteem. We want them to walk with their heads held high and know they can contribute to the world.
Keep these four tips in mind when parenting your child with learning differences.
Focus on Strengths.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is not my natural tendency. This is also not where the school system focuses. If a student is struggling, they get extra time and services in the weak area. Imagine if we made rabbits spend more time in water because they struggle with swimming? Of course not! What if we let our kids put their extra energy into their area of strength? Research shows engagement, productivity, and self-esteem rises. [1] I encourage parents to read Strengths-Based Parenting for compelling stories of what is possible when we focus on strengths.
Understand Behavior is Related to Brain Function.
We’re tempted to see misbehavior as controlling, manipulative, or disrespectful. Children who misbehave are sometimes labelled as “bad” or “defiant.” I always do better with kids when I see behavior as a can’t instead of a won’t. This causes me to look for a collaborative solution instead of a punishment.
Set Students Up for Success.
Look for ways to create an environment where your student will thrive. This might include good brain food, essential oils that increase focus and decrease anxiety, sensory breaks, and visual reminders.
Redefine Success.
Society tells us that independence is
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How do you increase self-esteem for your student?
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The Auditory Learner
From the beginning, we’ve always had a tune (some catchier than others) for each piece of memory work. We’ve memorized skip counting of numbers, science facts, history facts, Latin vocabulary and grammar, locations for geography, Bible verses, an extensive timeline, and English grammar. My auditory learner could study using an mp3 player with headphones or in the car while we drove.
The Visual Learner
This is the child who I was worried about because she could never remember our phone number. However, we always practiced in the car where I would say it and have her repeat it. One day, she saw it written on our white board and memorized it on the spot and never looked back. I’m embarrassed it took me that long to figure out because, much like me, if she doesn’t see it, it doesn’t happen in her world. Our memory work songs were only helpful to her as reinforcement after she had read and re-read the memory work. Visual learners may also benefit from copying the memory work. Additionally, visual representations of certain memory work–creating charts or color-coding it–can be great tools. Our visual learner is a great example of how memory can be developed. She struggled early on and seemed generally clueless about the memory work. Memory Master which came naturally to our auditory learner seemed an insurmountable goal for our visual learner. However, she was diligent, and by the time she was 9ish, she was totally owning her own memory work and retaining exponentially more and more. Now her memorization skills could put most people to shame.
The Kinesthetic Learner
While I think all learning experiences are more robust with an experiencial or kinesthetic piece, some students can only learn if this piece is in place. We ended up with one of these, too. He’s the kid who has to jump each letter of his spelling words out on a trampoline and has to experience something concretely to really understand it. A verbal explanation or even a diagram aren’t good enough. He has to experience and feel it. He takes in memory best when singing and listening to the song while seeing it written down and doing matching hand motions. Then he doesn’t understand the words until you can stand on the “X” where JFK was shot or walk the battlefields of the Civil War.
Despite all of their differences (including one who has documented brain abnormalities), they have all found their niche in how to memorize their memory work. They’ve committed a ridiculous amount of information to memory, and we’re watching how our now Logic and Rhetoric stage students are able to use that knowledge as the foundation of their education as they add strong analytical and communication skills to their repertoire.
If you use memory work in your homeschool, what works for your students?
]]>God, in His infinite wisdom (or humor), graced us with 3 kids and 3 different learning styles.
PJ, The Auditory Learner: While he’s a bright kid that doesn’t miss much, he prefers auditory input. He’d rather listen to a book than read it and never misses a work.
Mia, The Visual Learner: Mia doesn’t hear much. Most goes in one ear and out the other. On the plus side, she tunes Ty’s constant loudness out more easily when trying to complete an assignment. She gets it from me. I tried for a year to get her to memorize my cell phone by telling it to her over and over and over and over and over (well you get the point) again. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to write it down for her. After she memorized our home phone and both of our cells that I had written on our white board in under 5 minutes, I realized she must be our visual learner. Since she’s only an emerging reader, this makes her a bit of a challenge to teach.
Ty, The Kinesthetic Learner: Shocker, right? Not only does Ty need to be in constant motion but he only learns from doing. No amount of “Don’t touch/eat that it’s hot/spicy” works. He just has to experience. We really can all benefit from kinesthetic learning but kinesthetic learners tend to only learn this way.
So how does this play out in Classical Education? We are teaching all of our kids as if they are currently still in the Grammar Stage (although PJ’s really an early emerger to the Logic Stage). That means we are inputing in as much information on as many things as possible. We do this through a lot of memorization and reading. We memorize through:
Song: Luckily even visual and kinesthetic learners can get songs stuck in their heads. It may just take a couple more repetitions than the auditory who only has to hear it once.
Flashcards and visuals: Picture cues are a huge help to Mia since she tends to visualize it when she’s trying to remember it. My new favorite site is Quizlet which lets you create or use custom flashcards and play a variety of games with them.
Body motions: We often go through our memory work with body motions and hand signs. While it’s great for any body to be up and get the blood flowing, these are things that particularly keep kinesthetic learners engaged.
Since Mia isn’t reading independently, I read a lot of picture books that pertain to the subject matter at hand. Sometimes we stop and act out certain parts.
As I said before, anyone can benefit from kinesthetic (sometimes called hands-on) learning so we do a lot of experiments, crafts, builds, and field trips. For example, we experimented on chicken bones while studying the skeleton and visited a couple colonial sites and Williamsburg to reinforce the Revolutionary time period in history.
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