Last year was our first year to homeschool, and it was glorious. And horrible. I routinely tell people that homeschooling is the hardest thing I have ever done and the most rewarding. And that is actually true!

I went into the year thinking only that I could do a better job serving my daughter’s quirky educational and social-emotional needs than our local, award-winning public school. I finished the school year … exhausted! But also KNOWING I did a great job EDUCATING her, but also UNDERSTANDING her. I now really see where she is challenged, where she is gifted, and why she does the odd little things she does. All that translates into quite a few changes to our overall curriculum plan, and some of the choices we made.

I will preface this with late in the school year, Grace was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Well, actually, she wasn’t. She was diagnosed with a mild form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, because Asperger’s Syndrome was removed from the DSM-5 as a separate diagnosis and is now placed on the autism spectrum. The Autism Society has a good explanation of the change. But I continue to refer to her diagnosis as Asperger’s, not because I have an issue with the word “autism” but because there are particular set of issues, a cluster of symptoms if you will, that people generally understand when you say “Asperger’s”. When you said mild ASD, or “on the spectrum”, it requires a much longer explanation. Anyway, the point is that a lot of these “key learnings” tie directly to her Asperger’s, but my realizations throughout the year were piecemeal, which is how I am listing them here.

Key learning #1: Reluctant writer

My daughter struggles with writing, both penmanship  and composition. She has some issues with fine motor skills that we have addressed with OT, excessive Lego play, and piano lessons.  In fact, I think we’re due for another run at the therapy gauntlet for this in the near future. But in watching her for a year, I have realized it is more than just grip and hand strength. It is really hard for her to get thoughts from her brain onto paper. And if those thoughts are not already composed? Forget it. And this applies both to composition as well as math … I think the easiest way to describe it is she has a hard time thinking and writing at the same time.

Key learning #2: Memorization is easy, analysis is hard

Analysis may not be the right word, but I cannot think of a better way to describe it. My girl has some mad memorization skills. States and capitals? No problem. Latin vocabulary? Nails it on the first try. Song names and singers for the entire Christian Radio Top 40 catalog? Sure. That paragraph you just read? Let me recite it back to you, nearly verbatim. What was the main idea of that paragraph? { blink, blink } Believe it or not, this took me quite a long time to put together. But this realization has helped me help HER immensely, and has far reaching implications in our curriculum choices.

Key learning #3: Technology is not always the answer

Grace could spend all day, every day on an iPad if I let her. The good news there is iPad access is our single greatest leverage reward we use to get her to complete tasks or being behavior back in line. My first thought was “Great – let’s build a curriculum plan around interactive, online tools.” Haha – not so fast. She still has some lingering auditory sensory issues, and has a very low tolerance for badly produced media. She literally cannot tolerate tinny, scratchy audio. She also is strongly resistant to “talking head” type instructional videos. As in, she leaves the room, completely melts down and just refuses to watch. My theory is she has an overdeveloped sense of empathy, and just cannot stand to watch a video-taped teacher embarrass themselves by droning on and on with no style or appeal. Sound crazy, but my dad has the same issue with the comedy of Will Farrell or Steve Carell. While ridiculous behavior to the point of mockery is the POINT of the humor, my dad is so embarrassed FOR the comic/actor that it becomes uncomfortable for him to watch. Kinda sweet, actually. Anyway, video instruction is not ideal.

Key learning #4: Fear of making mistakes can be paralyzing

I still don’t know how to crack this nut. At her most brittle moments, Grace will melt down or shut down rather than try something she is uncertain about for fear of making a mistake. This runs the gamut – handwriting, recitation, piano playing. We have had MANY heartful conversations about feeling safe to fail, about learning by making mistakes, etc. And intellectually she gets it. But in practice, it is still pretty bad. The only thing, the ONLY thing that I have found to work for Grace is to { gulp } force her to try anyway, and eventually the small success and pride she feels from doing something new takes over and she starts rolling. This means a lot of threats, yelling, punishment and tears. I would love to find something that works in a more positive way, but I haven’t yet.  We have tried stickers, and candy, and checkmark-based reward systems to no avail. But I’ll keep trying.

So that’s is what I learned about my sweet girl this year. Whew! All of these realizations have translated into quite a few changes to our curriculum choices, which I’ll talk about tomorrow.