How to tell WHY Your Child is Struggling
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~This is a compilation of Dianne Craft’s article…see www.diannecraft.org, and www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner.~
Many educators who follow brain research believe that there are four “Learning Gates” that need to be properly functioning for a child to have an easy time learning.
The Four Learning Gates are:
- Visual processing
- Visual/motor processing (writing)
- Auditory processing
- Focus/attention processing
Before you begin evaluating your child, you should know that once the process is complete you may be faced with a fundamental choice: compensation or correction.
Many educational experts debate whether it is more beneficial to help a struggling learner compensate for the learning processes that are difficult, or if time and effort should be spent in the pursuit of a correction of the processing problem.
An example of compensation would be for a child to use a keyboard at a very young age to write papers when he or she struggles with handwriting. A correction would be to do a handwriting exercise that eliminates the reversed letters, for instance, and helps the child write more neatly. Another common compensation is to reduce the spelling list required at a grade level for a child who is struggling with spelling. A correction would be to train the child’s photographic memory so that the task of spelling is easier.
Many times this does not need to be a debate. One can easily pursue both compensation and correction simultaneously. Compensation makes the learning task easier while the correction reduces the stress in the child’s learning system so that learning can flow. This is called “opening up the child’s learning gate.”
LEARNING GATE #1: VISUAL PROCESSING
A child struggling with visual processing issues will display some of these characteristics:
- Reading reversals (“was” for “saw”, “on” for “no”, “big” for “dig”, etc.) after initial introduction of the words
- Skipping of small words when reading
- Needing to use finger to track after age 7
- Oral reading that is smooth at the beginning of the page, but becomes more labored the longer a child reads
- Experiencing eye fatigue shortly after reading begins (watery eyes, rubbing eyes, etc.) This particular characteristic is also symptomatic of eye control problems – see article on “Vision Therapy” in HOTM’s February 2008 issue
- Yawning shortly after reading begins
- Continuing to struggle even after being prescribed eye glasses (addressed in “Vision Therapy” article – February 2008 issue)
INFORMAL EVALUATION:
The following informal evaluations can be done at home to help a parent determine of a child is experiencing a blocked learning gate. Be sure, as well, to have your child’s vision acuity checked by an optometrist or ophthalmologist to make sure that this is not the cause of the child’s reading problem.
Eye tracking:With the child standing three feet in front of you, take an interesting object and slowly move it in a left-to-right manner in front of the child’s eyes. Ask the child to keep his eyes on the target. Do this for about four swings of the target. Watch to see if the child’s eyes skip any spot, or if they begin to water. Then slowly move the target in a horizontal figure-eight manner within the child’s shoulder width, making sure that the target is not too close to the child’s face. See if he can look in those various directions without skipping or his eyes looking stressed in any way. Make a note of your findings. There are specific exercises that can be done to strengthen a child’s eye teaming abilities to reduce the stress in the visual learning system.
Cross crawl:Many times, younger children have difficulty reading because they aren’t efficiently crossing the midline of their body. This is the process that normally occurs when a baby is crawling. However, some children develop a “learning gate” problem in this area because they did not crawl, or they crawled but had a traumatic even (such as a fall or back-to-back ear infections) that inhibited this natural process and made it much less effective.
Try this: Stand in front of the child and demonstrate the cross crawling movement by lifting the right knee and tapping it with the left hand, then doing the same with the left knee and right hand. Do this for a minute so the child can observe you. Then ask the child to do it also. Don’t correct the child at first, but let him or her figure it out while you continue to do your cross crawl movements in from of him. If the child can’t do it, and becomes frustrated, then you can start him out by having him march with his legs while you touch the opposite knee with his hands. After doing this for a bit, remove your hands from the child’s hands and let him do this himself.
Make a note of your findings. If you confirm that your child has midline issues, there are specific things that you can do to address this problem.
Reading: It is believed that there are four components to reading successfully:
- Eye tracking ability
- Sight word memorization
- Phonics (letter sounds and word decoding ability)
- Reading comprehension
We can observe a child’s oral reading to help us determine if eye tracking ability is contributing to the child’s reading difficulties. If the child can read, have him read a passage, and carefully watch his eyes to see if he reads to the end of the line, and then starts the new line, but quickly darts back with his eyes to the last line to make sure that he is in the right spot. We all do this once in a while. Watch to see if the child does this frequently. This takes much more effort to read when this saccadic eye movement is occurring.
Also observe if the child begins reading the word “dig” by forming a “b” with his mouth first. Any time a child reverses a letter or word, six months after being taught to read, that is a sign of stress in the child’s visual processing system. Make a note of your findings. There are specific things that can be done to make this process easier for your child.
Colored overlays: At times, a child will experience a mild problem reading black letters on a very white sheet of paper. It seems, to the child, that the white background of the paper is glowing and bright and distracting, making it difficult to see the black letters that compose the text.
One of the ways that you can informally determine if this is an issue is to obtain some plastic colored reading overlays (available at http://www.diannecraft.org/.)
Have the child read a paragraph or a few lines. Then place a blue colored transparency over the next paragraph and have him read. Then place a green overlay over the next paragraph when the child is reading orally. Listen for subtle changes in fluency. Ask him what he experienced while reading with the various colors. Many times the child will say that a particular transparency acted as a magnifying glass, making the letters bigger, and easier to see. There are other colors that you could try, but after working with children in this manner for 25 years, Dianne Craft says that blue and green seem to be the colors that help most often.
If the child does markedly better with one of the colored overlays, continue to use it to reduce the visual stress that he is experiencing. However, it will only act as a temporary aid until you correct the underlying problem, which is lack of eye convergence. The eyes can be trained to work together as a team while reading by doing various home exercises, or by working with a vision therapist using both home and office exercises.
In conclusion, remember that many (most) learning problems appear to be something that they are not, or appear to be caused by something that “seems” obvious, but really isn’t. Many (most) learning problems, are caused by situations that your child will usually not be able to describe to you, because he has no frame of reference other than his own, which may be skewed. It is very important that we take the time to utilize simple evaluations like those listed above. By doing so, we may be able to uncover a hidden skill deficiency that – when corrected – will make all the difference in the world to your young learner.
Also, don’t forget to pray and ask God for much wisdom as you set out to discover what, if anything, is standing in the way of your child’s academic success. He is able and willing to walk beside you as you equip your students to become all that He created them to be!
RESOURCES FOR CORRECTING VISION ACUITY/PROCESSING PROBLEMS:
- Prescription eyeglasses
- Vision therapy from a developmental optometrist
- Brain integration therapy. (This program can be conducted at home.) For more information on this and other “Learning Gate” issues, visit” http://diannecraft.org/.
LEARNING GATE #2: VISUAL/MOTOR PROCESSING – WRITING
The processing glitch that affects children the most is an interference in the writing system (spatial, visual/motor system). The process of writing has not been taken over by the child’s automatic brain, which is the right brain hemisphere. This causes the child to have to use much more energy to write. This can make a child look lazy, uncooperative, and unmotivated because writing is involved in so many learning activities. See if your child has many of the following symptoms of stress in the writing system:
- Reversals in written numbers
- Poor spacing in writing
- Difficulty copying from book or board
- Resistance to learning or writing cursive
- Displaying awkward writing posture, with eye and hand very close together
- No “helping hand” used when writing despite being instructed to do so
- Failure to complete written assignments despite performing well on tests
- Spaces math papers poorly
- Tells great stories orally, but writes very little
- Leaves out letters in a spelling test, but could spell the word orally correct
- Wants to do all math “in his head,” no matter how long the problem is
INFORMAL EVALUATION:
Check your child’s eye/hand dominance: Tear a hole in a piece of paper that is the size of a dime. Have the child stand five feet in front of you and hold the paper with arms extended, in front of him. Ask him to look through the hole and find your nose. As he is looking at your nose through the hole in the paper, you will be able to see his dominant eye.
Now to see if he is using that same eye for close-up work, place a small, round object on the floor about five inches in front of the child’s feet. A toy construction cone is good. Ask the child to hold the paper at arm’s length and look through the hole at the object on the floor. Tell the child to “freeze” his hands when he has sees the object. Then get behind him and cover one of the child’s eyes with your hand. Ask the child if he can still see the object, or if it disappeared. Do the same with the other eye, making sure that the child does not move his paper. The object should disappear when you are covering the child’s dominant eye.
We always use only one eye when looking through a small hole – our dominant eye. If the child found that the object disappeared when you covered his right eye, then he is right-eye dominant. If he is also right-handed, then we call that “uniform dominance.” The brain finds it more efficient to be uniform dominant.
If the object disappeared when you covered the child’s left eye, then he is left-eye dominant. If the child is also right-handed, then he is considered “mixed dominance.”
Being mixed dominant can be very helpful in sports, such as baseball and golf, but is less efficient for writing. However, if a child has good brain hemispheric integration, then it is not very bothersome for him. If the two hemispheres of his brain are not communicating well for the act of writing, then the writing has not transferred into the automatic hemisphere, and the writing process can be very laborious.
Make a note of whether the child is uniform or mixed dominant. This gives you a clue as to one reason why your child has been struggling with writing. Many times these mixed-dominant children do not develop a hand dominance until they are 4 or 5 years old, as opposed to other children who develop a hand dominance earlier.
Clockwise or counterclockwise circles? Have child write a word with the letter “o” in it, or just write the letter “o.” Watch to see if he writes this clockwise or counterclockwise. If a child is hard-wired to be right-handed, he should be making all letters counterclockwise. If a child is hard-wired to be left-handed, he will tend to make his letters clockwise.
We only are concerned when a child who has chosen his right hand to write with, but is making all letters clockwise like a left-hander. This creates great stress in the child’s writing system. Make a note of this, because there are specific exercises that can be done to take the stress out of this system. We do not have to change a child’s handedness.
Bottom-to-top letter formation: Ask your child to write the alphabet in lower-case print. There is a natural flow of electricity in our body that God put there. When we make our letters according to that flow, writing is effortless. When we write letters against the flow, writing is laborious. Observe, but don’t correct. See if the child makes letter bottom-to-top, which is considered a vertical reversal. See if the child finds it difficult to remember the next letter to write. See if the child writes a mixture of lower-case and upper-case letters. Watch for clockwise letters, and letters that do not go below the line. These are all signs of stress in the child’s visual/motor/spatial system. Make notes. These problems can be corrected, and the stress taken out of the system.
RESOURCES FOR CORRECTING WRITING DYSFUNCTION:
- When teaching, have the child answer as many questions orally, reducing the need to write until you can take the stress out of the writing system
- Eliminate copying tasks because of the labor involved until the child’s writing improves
- Do timed math tests orally, if possible
- Do the Writing Eight Exercise designed by Dr. Getman, to encourage the child’s kinesthetic midline to function well, eliminating both lateral and vertical reversals. This daily exercise, when done in a deliberate, monitored manner, will convert the writing process to the automatic hemisphere. The exercise is described in the manual Brain Integration Therapy for Children by Dianne Craft.
- After the child has a strong midline, then you can use the writing program Handwriting Without Tears
- Teach your child keyboarding to encourage computer use for longer papers
- LinguiSystems has several books that talk about writing issues, such as the dysgraphia described in the characteristics section
- “Smart Kids Who Hate to Write” by Dianne Craft
LEARNING GATE #3: AUDITORY PROCESSING
Your child may be struggling with auditory processing dysfunction if he or she exhibits the following difficulties:
Difficulty remembering sight words, including:
- Trouble retrieving names of letters, words, people, and things
- Laboring over verbal expression.
Difficulty with phonics, including:
- Trouble remembering sounds of letter combinations such as “au,” “oi”
- Difficulty applying phonics rules in a reading setting
- Sounding out the same word over and over in the same reading passage
Spelling difficulties, including:
- Trouble spelling phonetically (the child may spell “team” as “tie” or “went” as “wat”)
- Spelling the same word differently each time
Difficulty sequencing sounds, including:
- Trouble learning and retaining days of the week and months
- The child guesses at words because reading longer words is very hard
- The child puts extra sounds in a word (ie., contribution becomes contribu’ta’tion), “band” becomes “brand”
Difficulty saying longer words:
- Transposing letters: “animal” is “aminal;” “magazine” is “mazagine;” “suddenly” is “sundenly”
- Avoiding difficult words when speaking
The child’s silent voice disappears:
- He or she subvocalizes when reading silently, or needs to read aloud to understand a passage
- He or she needs to repeat the alphabet in his head when writing it out
Difficulty with speech, including:
- Trouble articulating many sounds
- Exhibiting language delay
Difficulty understanding verbal instruction:
- He or she needs to ask for directions to be repeated frequently
- He or she says “what” a lot
- An apparent hearing problem can mimic a focusing and attention issue. The key is determining whether the child really is not hearing and storing the information auditorally, or if the child is not focusing on what is being said.
- He or she is easily confused or is never quite sure he understood the speaker
INFORMAL EVALUATION:
If the child hesitates in writing a letter that follows a letter that has a directional component to it, such as “b,” “d,” “p,” “q,” “j,” “g,” then it could be that he has a spatial problem, and had to think about what direction the letter should be written. However, if the child hesitates after writing “e,” or “h,” then you can suspect that he has lost his silent voice…his “thinking” voice, and is having to go back and say the alphabet over and over in his head. With older children, you can ask if they had to say the alphabet over several times in their head while doing the alphabet, and they can tell you exactly where they felt they had to stop and repeat. The efficient storage and retrieval of 26 units is one sign of an auditory processing dysfunction.
Sequencing: Ask the child to say the days of the week, and then the months of the year. The months represent sequencing and ordering unrelated sounds. If this is difficult for the child despite being taught it before, or if the child leaves out some months (they often leave out either October or August, because they start with the same sound), assure him that many children do.
However, these difficulties could indicate that the auditory channel of sequencing is not working as well as it should, and causing your child to struggle with learning. If a child is laboring with auditory sequencing, then the popular way of teaching multiplication tables through skip counting will be more difficult for that child. That child would greatly benefit from using right brain teaching strategies, using the child’s photographic memory to memorize multiplication facts easily.
Word retrieval: The two brain hemispheres have individual responsibilities. When we understand these responsibilities we can see understand where a child’s processing is breaking down in the reading process.
The right brain stores pictures. This means that all of the sight words (words that cannot be sounded out, such as “the,” “many,” etc.) are stored in the right brain after the child has been exposed to these words for several days. The name of the word is stored in the child’s left auditory hemisphere. Normally, when the two hemispheres are working well together, when the child sees the word (a right brain function), the name comes up quickly (a left brain function), and the child remembers the sight word.
To check the efficiency of this process, have your child read a list of words at his grade level. If your child consistently hesitates at words such as “would, what, know, and neighbor,” or if he attempts to sound out every word, then make a note of that. If the child is not reading yet, you can have him read, or attempt to name the alphabet letters that you have taught him. If this is very difficult, then we can assume that this is a child who is struggling with the word retrieval portion of an auditory processing dysfunction. There are wonderful methods to help this child.
Hearing individual letters: This is the auditory channel that is involved in learning and remembering the sounds that letters and letter combinations get. We teach this in great detail in phonics. Have your child read a list of words that are on the child’s reading level (if you don’t have a list, you can obtain one from HSLDA Learning Specialist Department, if you are a member). If your child cannot sound out a word, for example, cannot remember the “f” sound to begin a word, or laboriously sounds out “f-a-t,” and then says “fan,” you know you have a child suffering in this area. If your child is older, and guesses at longer words, because he cannot remember the phonemes (vowel and letter combinations) to sound it out easily, then that child is suffering also in this area. Many times these are children who played the Phonics Game well, and knew all the “pieces” (left brain function), but cannot put it into a “whole” (right brain function), when reading a passage. Make a note of your results.
RESOURCES FOR CORRECTION:
- Speech therapy.
- Brain training with music. Various programs include:
- The Listening Program by Dr. Tomatis helps retrain the auditory processing area of the brain
- AIT (Auditory Integration Therapy) home program that requires a speech therapist to work with parent
- Samonas Listening Program, which requires a professional
- Fast Forward program, which requires a professional. Visit http://www.fastforward.com/
- Interactive Metronomecorrects child’s timing, among other things) non-home professional program.
- LinguiSystems (word games, workbooks, etc.)
- Brain Integration Therapy for Children, a home-based therapy program for parents to administer. Visit http://www.diannecraft.org/
- Specialized reading instruction. Various programs include:
- Right brain teaching strategies (bypassing the auditory glitch)
- Merrill Linguistic Readers (very few sight words)
- Lindamood Phonemic Awareness Program (professional program)
- Wilson’s Reading Program
- Nutritional Therapy:
- Article “Ear Infections: Impact on Learning,” and “Essential Fatty Acids and the Brain,” available at http://www.diannecraft.org/
- Contact a nutritionist or chiropractor in your area
LEARNING GATE #4: FOCUS/ATTENTION PROCESSING
When a child is having to use too much energy to keep his mind on his work, then that is the area that is a learning block to him. This child often has a body chemistry that is upset, and can be changed with simple methods at home. At times a parent finds that working with a professional in this area is most helpful.
Often a parent will say of such a child: “He can focus on movies, video games, or Legos for hours, but can’t focus on his schoolwork for more than five minutes.” It is important to realize what is going on, so we don’t become frustrated with this type of child. Movies, video games, or Legos require little energy because children find them interesting and undemanding. On the other hand, a history or math lesson requires much more effort on the child’s part. If the child has an “energy leak” in a certain area, then he will have to work much harder to remain focused. Therefore it is important to determine whether a child is struggling with an academic task because of an actual learning block, which causes task avoidance (because of its difficulty), or a focusing problem.
Many times these children are struggling with sensory integration issues that make them look unfocused.
We’ll look at the characteristics of a child struggling with a focus issue, and a child struggling with sensory integration issues separately, even though they often overlap.
The official terms that are often used for children who have difficulty remaining focused on a task that they are capable of doing are Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
ADD refers to a child who is not acting out or moving around, and can even look attentive during a task, but is generally absorbed in his own thoughts and daydreams to the point that he gets little done in the amount of time allotted.
A child who is thought to be ADHD is generally hyperactive. This child has a motor that is always running that he seems incapable of controlling. He does everything in a hurry, and some part of his body always appears to be moving, which keeps him quite distracted.
The hyperactive child (not just hyper-fidgety) is usually easy to spot in a group. The inattentive child, on the other hand, is not easy to spot. This child just appears to be slow in finishing work, or in following directions. He or she may seem lazy or uncooperative.
In a homeschool setting we do not have to focus on labels, or official diagnoses most of the time. We just need to discover if the child we are working with exhibits enough symptoms to warrant further exploration on this topic. In homeschooling we can focus on the solution, rather than a label.
Since learning is all about energy output, we should ask ourselves why a child has to expend more energy to remain focused on a task than his or her siblings. Once this question is answered, then the action becomes clear.
ADD Checklist
- Distractibility
- No persistence with a task
- Inconsistency in performance from one day to another
- Excessive daydreaming during a school related task
- Needs to have mom next to him or her in order to finish work
- Forgetfulness (of previously learned material, daily plans, etc.)
ADHD Checklist
A child struggling with the more active form of a focusing issue will display some of these characteristics:
- Excess motor activity (something is always moving)
- Impulsiveness (acts without thinking much of the time)
- Insatiability (never satisfied with an activity)
- Poor response to discipline
- Moodiness
- Sleep disturbances (very restless sleeper)
Remember, that to be a real focusing issue, the symptoms must present themselves in more than one setting. It is important to differentiate between a child whose main problem is focusing, from a child who is exhibiting task avoidance because of academic struggles. For example, if your child’s Sunday School teacher says that he or she listens attentively to lessons, and participates lively in the discussions that follow, but “gets silly” or doesn’t complete assigned worksheets, you can consider that this child has a learning glitch instead of a focusing problem. The child with difficulty focusing frequently does not attend to orally presented information enough to participate well in the ensuing discussion.
On the other hand, if your child’s karate teacher says that he needs to continually redirect your child’s attention during lessons (those that are very active and hands-on), you might consider that this child is struggling to maintain focus when his peers do not need to expend any energy for this task.
How You Can Determine if Your Child Has a Focusing Issue:
- Checklists, such as the one above help identify a child with an issue.
- Pediatricians can help decipher the observations you have of your child.
- Conners Behavior Scale, or BASC can be obtained by your physician. These are informal questionnaires to be completed by parents and other adults who work with your child in an academic setting. The results are calibrated to determine if the child is merely at risk of an attention problem, or actually is showing attention problem symptoms in more than one setting.
- Sunday School teachers, co-op teachers leaders, and other adults who work with your children can help determine if he or she is experiencing a problem.
RESOURCES FOR CORRECTION:
There are two ways that children who have to expend more energy than their peers to focus can be helped. One way is to use compensation, and the other is to employ correction of the problem.
Since it takes time for any correctional program to work, we really need to do both procedures. We compensate for the problem, while designing and implementing an effective correctional program.
In determining the best way to correct a child’s processing problem that is affecting his ability to focus on a task, we need to consider that this child likely has an upset chemistry. The basis for this assumption is the long history of the use of medication used with children with a focusing issue. These medications are designed to help the child focus with more ease, by making the neurotransmitters responsible for the process of focusing, more available to the brain and nervous system.
If a parent decides to try some medication for this purpose, then the child’s pediatrician is the place to start. Sometimes parents try various medications, only to find the side effects to be unacceptable. So it’s a good idea to also consider alternative ways to help balance the child’s upset body chemistry.
Other times the parents are not interested in pursuing medication at all, but realize that their child is struggling too hard to focus, so still needs some help in producing and releasing the necessary neurotransmitters. This is when parents often turn to a nutritionist, naturopath, chiropractor, or nutritionally oriented physician to explore alternatives that seem to help so many children.
We will explore both compensations and corrections for these struggling children.
In homeschooling we have a unique opportunity to help the child learn how to control his own behavior, through gentle behavior modification. We also have the opportunity to give this child more time and attention, taking the burden off of his focusing system.
We can plan school days that help this child gain as much information as possible from the material, without the frustration of always being behind, or not knowing what to do. It is very rewarding to work with these learners in the home setting.
COMPENSATIONS:
Employ one-on-one tutoring. Children with attention problems thrive when an adult works one-on-one with them. These children struggle to complete work on their own, and find the frequent reminders to hurry up and complete their work debilitating. (See “Managing the Homeschool Teaching Day with a Struggling Learner” in the section following, to learn how to get this important time with your child, while still working with your other children).
Choose a curriculum that does not require mainly independent work (such as a computer curriculum program, or a self-paced program. These types of programs can be a HUGE stress producer for a focus challenged student!)
Reduce workbook exercises and busy work, such as copying and repeating math problems, as much as possible.
Buy good quality earphones for this child. He could use them to block out distracting noise, or you could have him listen to classical music softly while working on assignments.
Keep this child close to you throughout the day. Your proximity makes a big difference in his ability to focus. You do not always have to interact with him. Just be near him. Even when you are teaching another child, this child can be next to you with his earphones on, completing his work.
Group assignments. When approaching a math page with many problems on it, put a star by those you want him to do in that sitting period. If you are only having him do some of the problems on the page, not all, then he can put a large “X” over the ones he doesn’t have to do. This is very satisfying for the child. If you can’t do that, then use construction paper to cover the problems on the bottom half of the page so he doesn’t have to see them when he is working on the top half. (Sometimes this adjustment, alone, can make a very big difference in the attitude at the beginning of an assignment.)
Focus on study skills. If your child is prone to make mistakes when doing math problems, have him mark all the similar problems with red, and do them first. These children don’t transition well, because transitions require more focusing power. Doing all like problems together greatly decreases their need to focus, ensuring few errors on a page. (Another simple, yet extremely effective idea.)
Take breaks. Many little breaks, versus one big break, helps these children stay on task. (If you’re teaching young boys, this is a biggie!)
Involve dad. Assign one subject for dad to do with the child in the evening when he is home. Dads often have a different approach to teaching, and the child gets the important one-on-one time that helps him be successful. Make sure that dad knows the chunking approach, and how to reduce mundane, repetitive tasks.
Use more right brain strategies, since these employ color, humor, weirdness, etc., to put “Velcro” on the information presented. These children may not necessarily be right brain learners, but the engaging aspects of right brain strategies keep them interested, and uses less focusing energy. For example, when explaining a new concept or showing how to memorize material, make it fun by having your child help you draw sketches with colored markers.
Adjust your expectations. Your other children may complete tasks without constant reminders, or may actually be able to perform chores without your intervention. If your special needs child could do that, he gladly would. He wants to please also, but does not have the physical ability to bring this about. He is as disappointed in himself as you are. If you have asked him to do three things, and he completed just one, and comes to you, think about saying, “Let’s do the other two tasks together.” This takes such pressure off the child, and models how to get several tasks done in a row, without the feeling of failure.
If your child had a disabled arm or leg, it would be so much easier to adjust your expectations without feeling that you weren’t teaching him how to be responsible. This child has as real a disability, but because it is not visible it can so easily be seen as sloppiness, irresponsibility, or laziness. God will help you find the right way to work with your child.
CORRECTIONS:
Medications: Even though most homeschooling parents are not interested in the use of medications to help their child focus, the discussion is included here, since there may be times when it is necessary, even if it is only for a short period of time.
- Serotonin boosting medications:
- Ritalin (short release time)
- Concerta (sustained release time)
- Antidepressants (Zoloft, Prozac, Effexor, Wellbutrin, etc.)
- Stimulants:
- Adderall (amphetamines)
- Dopamine boosting medication:
- Strattera
All medications come with the risk of side effects, of course. Parents must weigh the potential benefits against the potential risks before deciding whether or not to use medications.
DIET:
It has been known for over 20 years (starting with Dr. Feingold and his famous Feingold Diet) that by reducing sugars, colorings, and preservatives, children with attention disorders have a much easier time focusing. (I have personally had incredible success here.)
Many parents report that when they change the diet of all children at home, that they see a tremendous difference in learning ability and behavior. Some of the diet recommendations that seem to be the most effective include:
Reduce sugar intake. It’s the hidden sugars that get us in trouble, such as the sweeteners in fruit juice, boxed cereals, granola bars, fruit rollups, soft drinks, chocolate milk, pancakes, waffles, etc. Remember that a Snickers candy bar has about 30 grams of carbohydrates, and 35 grams of sugar. When you add the two together, you get 65 grams. Without realizing it, we often feed our children this same amount of sugar by just giving them juice and a bowl of cereal. For many children, consuming this much sugar contributes to their difficulty focusing and controlling their moods.
Increase raw fruit and vegetable intake. As we know from the research in books such as Children with Starving Brains by Dr. Chandless, many children are low in essential vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. These children either are not getting the daily nutrients they need for their brain to function well, or they are eating the correct foods, but are not absorbing the nutrients found in the food.
The enzymes contained in raw foods greatly assist the digestive system in absorbing nutrients. This can make a huge difference with some children. To make this difference, parents always had grapes, apples, bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe, and other fruit around to eat, and made sure the children had three servings a day. These parents also kept a plate of raw vegetables such as carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, and green pepper strips along with plenty of ranch dressing around for lunch.
Use less processed food. As the pioneering Dr. Feingold, and many of the researchers following him, found when food is boxed, it is filled with preservatives. Those preservatives can be very toxic to a child’s nervous system. Processed food also has no life in it. The rule of thumb for brain-healthy eating is to shop as much as you can in the periphery of the grocery store, where the plugs are in the walls. Buying food that is refrigerated in the store ensures you that the life-giving nutrients are still in there. When it is canned or boxed, the live nutrients, such as the fats that are good for the brain have been removed so that they do not turn rancid on the shelf. Of course, there are some good brain fats that are not refrigerated…such as cans of tuna or salmon and mayonnaise.
Increase water intake. Children are often tired because they are dehydrated. They do not drink enough water during the day. A great book that details all the symptoms of being low in water intake is Your Body’s Many Cries for Water by Dr. Batmangahlidj. He recommends that children drink half their weight in ounces of water. Making adequate water intake during the day a family priority is very helpful for many families. Water helps eliminate histamine and other toxins from the body.
SUMMARY:
There are many things to consider as we teach our children and discover any struggles they may be experiencing. We must keep in mind the “big picture” as we teach. It is so easy to get caught up in being disappointed that some of our learners will struggle and that these struggles will cost us time, and effort, and work and usually, patience beyond our ability on most days. Remind yourself that God Himself has placed this child in YOUR care. He has done so because no one else is as uniquely equipped to parent him/her and educate him/her as you. No one else.
As you consider the suggestions in this article, I encourage you to bring each one before the Father. Though these things are a mystery to us, something to be figured out like a puzzle, they are no mystery to Him. He knows. He knows the exact path that your sweet student needs to take in order “unlock” his/her ability to learn and flourish in all things. And, He is so very willing to share the details with you. The One who created our sons and daughters has enormous plans for their future and we are privileged to be a part of bringing that to pass.
Darnelle is a wife and a mother to 5 children: 4 homeschoolers currently in 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 11th grades and one college sophomore. All 5 children have been home schooled from preschool. She has experience teaching in public, private, parochial and special schools but her favorite . . . is home school! Her certification is in the areas of special education and remediation. Her writing aims at assisting parents in finding and then correcting trouble spots that often cause academic problems and struggles. Children – and their parents – who are free from the burden of academic struggles, can begin to love learning again, just like God intended! Visit her blog, All Things Work Together.
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