Sallie

My name is Sallie and I’m married to a United States Marine. We have 4 children — a daughter and three sons. We are currently stationed in Arizona but will be moving to North Carolina in the spring. We all love the Lord very much. I have a heart for missions and God blessed me with the opportunity to go on a medical mission trip to the Philippines in 2000 and recently allowed me to serve as the Prayer Coordinator for a trip to Poland.

We have been in every school situation imaginable. We began our school journey in DOD schools, moved to homeschooling while stationed in Okinawa, back to charter schools when we arrived in Arizona, and then on to homeschooling our Aspie while the others stayed in public and/or charter schools. We recently passed the 4 year mark of our oldest sons diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome, an autistic spectrum disorder, and his continued problems and lack of help in the school systems are what brought us back to complete homeschooling of everyone in our family. We had planned on using CLASS at the beginning of this year because of their record keeping resources. However, we realized the children needed to be de-brainwashed and so have been using a method of learning similar to unschooling. We are big history lovers in our family and we read old books like they might not be there tomorrow. We have a growing library of antique books and they have been the best asset to our school than any other item. We have used the past 4 months to focus on learning things we would not learn in a typical school setting and to expound upon what we already did know. We’ve used outside resources like the art center and library classes to supplement. Our daughter just finished a class on the Constitution at our local Freedom Library and won a scholarship for her paper. We must be doing something right. Or, at least that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it

In addition to being on the autism spectrum, our oldest son has also been diagnosed with tourette’s type tics. He spent several days in the children’s hospital this past April so we could rule out epilepsy. The professional diagnosis is “that’s just the way he’s wired” and that is so true of many, many children. God did not create everyone equal to fit in the same cookie cutter molds. Our youngest son exhibits many of the same autistic spectrum tendencies, though he has not been professionally diagnosed, and several within our extended family are blessed with many beautiful children with disabilities. The initials for Asperger Syndrome are AS. My husband and I like to say that our son is AS God made him! We believe that each and everyone one of them are; that they do not have “disabilities” but special gifts that God gave them to reach other people. I’m not a professional and my experience is limited to my own small world but I am praying that my articles will be an encouragement to other moms to accept the beauty and specialness of the children they have been blessed with knowing that God knows the plans he has for us!