Homeschooling ADHD | 16 TIPS

hello friends it's shayla with singing a new song and today i'm going to be sharing 16 easy tips to help you homeschool an adhd child [Music] so while you're here i have two other videos on this topic i also have a video called homeschooling neurodivergent kids plus seven ways cognitive behavior therapy can help and i have a video titled adhd fact and fiction plus our stories so be sure to check those out but i do have another video that you might find interesting if you are a homeschooling uh upcoming ninth grader i have a curriculum haul for that we used for our ninth grader that has adhd so be sure to look for that below also don't forget to subscribe to my videos because in the future i will be sharing more curriculum hauls and curriculum that we have used that has worked for us for our adhd and neurodiverse family speaking of my neurodiverse family if you're new here i am shayla as mentioned and i'm a mom of six i have kids in high school middle elementary school and preschool i also have adhd as well so we have a very neurodiverse mix including adhd among other things we're going on our 12th year okay so over the last 1.5 years my education on the topic of homeschooling adhd and teaching two neurodivergent learners has been quickly expanding so today i'm going to be sharing the 16 easy tips to help you homeschool an adhd child and these are tips that i've learned and been finding very helpful at the end of this video i will also have some resources and essential tools to help support you in this journey and help you make homeschooling an adhd child far more successful and hopefully less stressful i do have a disclaimer i'm not a therapist or a doctor i am just simply a mama with a couple of neurodivergent children and i'm sharing what we have been learning from therapists from doctors from resources they've given us and resources i found on my own over and through the course of the past 12 years so before i jump right in i want to talk just for a minute about the whole homeschool and neurodivergent child combo or choice in our experience and i really believe that this is going to be true for most families that are loving and nurturing a home education is not only a superior choice for an adhd child or a neurodivergent child but i really believe it's an option that has a far greater potential to create a well-balanced child emotionally and intellectually friends if you join some of the facebook groups for parents of adhd and 80d children who are not homeschooling i think you'll see what i mean daily parents write into that group with issues and things they are facing spend some time reading through what parents of public school adhd kids go through daily what parents teachers and adhd kids go through in a public school education to me it's shocking it looks exhausting and heartbreaking it's pretty much common knowledge that the public school system is empirically failing neurodivergent children and adhd children though many parents don't understand this it's too often not necessarily a teacher's fault either so many parents out there are consistently there's friction between parents uh that have adhd children and teachers you guys it's not always the teacher okay maybe it is sometimes but it's not always it's the entire environment and system and the fact that too many adhd children have needs that aren't able to be accommodated in a public school setting lastly before i share the tips i'm going to share i do want to say i am not a doctor and i'm not a therapist i'm simply just a mom sharing our journey and what we have found to be helpful okay so let's dive right in and look at these 16 easy tips to help you homeschool an adhd child or a neurodivergent child so i'm going to start out with nine tips for teaching the adhd child number one some neurodivergent children or adhd children when they see a whole page of work that needs to be read their brain will just shut off or it will go into hyper panic mode i think most of us have experienced this they don't see one word at a time you know they don't see start here and then work your way across the page they see everything at once and they think it's impossible well it is impossible to read you know all the words on a page at once but that's how their brain works okay this happens with tasks too they don't always see steps of action this will happen long past the normal age i know it's common for younger kids to go through this very common and normal it's calling for them to get overwhelmed if they you know say they don't enjoy you told a little child to pick up their room and they get overwhelmed because it's a mess and they don't know where to start yeah that's normal um and it's normal when they're really young to get overwhelmed at a whole page of work but if it's lasting and it's not going away and you've been dealing with this for a really long time um you know that's where you kind of know and this is where a lot of parents end up realizing this child is just you know may have adhd or something so on the topic of reading this will be why there is an aversion to reading for an adhd child and it will last all the way into adulthood and forever if not given the coping skills needed to learn how to study so two things that can help that i know of i'm sure there are more out there but one of the things that i know of to help with this there's there's there's a couple one is to before you give your child the reading tell them you're about to give them some reading and they don't have to read it all at once they can take some breaks if they need i just tell them you know there's going to be a certain amount of work here and they needed to get it done by a specific time okay maybe like the end of the day or before lunch or you know whatever time you choose another option you have is you can cover part of the work so get a sticky note or a piece of paper and just like put it over part of the work so that when they first look at it they only see a small portion of what they need to read and later have them read the rest eventually they'll get to a point where they can't handle that whole page and they won't get so worked up it's just something they have to work up to now this is a tip i actually i can't take credit for this tip i learned this tip from so so so much of our journey has been you know me researching things on my own in the last two years i have been finding more and more support and this particular piece actually came from our curriculum provider so we use my father's world and uh every year after you purchase my father's world curriculum one of their counselors or one of their staff members call you and they will pray with you and ask you how the ear is going it's awesome i just i love our curriculum provider for so many reasons but that's just one anyways this year the particular person that called me the staff member she actually happened to be a what we call a veteran homeschool mom she was finished homeschooling i believe and she had graduated a couple kids and she had um children or a child with adhd and she is the one who shared these tips with me okay so moving on tip number two when teaching your adhd child it's helpful to know that there have been so many studies done that have discovered that the adhd brain is different it's not wired the same as a non-adhd brain there are differences in size there are differences in what parts of the brain are overactive and under active there are chemistry differences as well specifically in serotonin and dopamine learning the differences and how they affect a person with adhd can be extremely helpful in understanding dealing with and teaching an adhd child or person a really eye-opening article i found that did a good job of explaining the differences can be found at the very well mined the adhd brain versus the non-adhd brain and i will link to that and the blog post that corresponds with this video okay so tip number three they make i can't remember what it's called like melamine paper i'm not sure if that's the right word for it but it's paper that is essentially see-through you can see through it but it's colored and they will have it in specifically green and blue i've seen it in those colors but i've seen it in other colors as well i think there's something special about the green and the blue though which is why you'll find it in those shades most but what you do is you you when you invest in these they're just little slips and you can cover the reading your child is reading with that and they can see through it and something about looking through and seeing that color and seeing the words through the colored paper has a relaxing effect on the brain and helps the adhd brain to calm down enough to focus on the reading and better comprehend what they're reading so i knew a young woman who had a learning disability and this helped her especially when she was going to college so tip number four when it comes to teaching your adhd child one of our adhd children does best if they only study a subject for 20 minutes then they will put that subject away and go on to the next subject they can do up to 40 minutes at this stage actually so 20 to 40 minutes but then they will put that away and they will go on to the next and then they will do 20 to 40 minutes on that subject and then go on to the next and eventually they're ready to rotate back around to the first subject and they do this on the same day but this really seems to help keep them from daydreaming more so than if they were just to study the one piece for a full hour or two so splitting up the study sessions with certain subjects can seem to help tip number five audiobooks for a nero diverse family or even just a big family are a game changer and a time saver they will help save you as the mom or dad is so much time if you have an adhd child with an audit audio processing glitch however that's not going to help you the audio is not going to help and it's not uncommon for there to be an audio processing glitch if you have an adhd child um but for those of you that have you know a very near idea verse family it is something that can help save you some time because when you're working with an adhd child you know you're going to be spending more time with that child and you're not going to have as much time overall so audiobooks are a great time saver okay tip number six now we know everybody knows too much screen time is bad we all know this but if you are a 100 screen free family you might want to reconsider this there are some subjects that you can do online or on screen that the child has to interact with and that interaction process can help keep their brain active and on topic and help them stay on task of course you wouldn't want to do it for every every subject some people um there's one one of the myths that um involve adhd is that it's from too much screen time and this has been debunked this is not true uh too much screen time does not cause adhd it is for most people a genetic factor tip number seven i can't say enough good about christian liberty christian liberty you can find them online i will link to them in the blog post that goes with this video they have a testing service and they have an add-on for a counseling session or a recommendation service where they recommend certain curriculum specific to your child's unique needs i had a wonderful counselor when we did this her name was ellen longboss she had a ton of experience with neurodivergent children she was very compassionate she had so many wonderful tips for us that helped us and i highly recommend looking into that if you haven't done it yet um i highly recommend doing this before the seventh grade or somewhere around the sixth and seventh grade before you get very close to high school years tip number eight if you have other children you may need to hire help by the way i'm so sorry about all the noise above i could hear my three-year-old he's trying to play with his train set and it's uh giving him trouble i think so he's he's quite unhappy with his train set right now anyways and that's partially why you're hearing all this thumping too it sounds like thunder but it's not it's just my three-year-old okay tip number eight though if you have other kids you may need to hire help it's likely not going to be possible for you to meet the educational needs of all you all of your children run the home keep on top of meals plus be a parent at the same time it's all just a bit too much when you have a neuro divergent child or an adhd child and this is something that i did not learn until the last probably two years and unfortunately i learned it a little late for my own health i have kind of run myself into the ground trying to be all of the things and i do believe it's partially from the stress of trying to be all of the things and there was some other factors in there as well but i just want to say to those of you that are trying to do it all um you may not be able to and if you get to a point where you can't just don't feel bad about it it's not because of a failure on your part this last year i reached a point in our home school where i realized i could no longer do as much as i was doing myself fortunately we have a really great private christian school in our area and they have a homeschool program so i'm still able to homeschool all the children but i was able to hire some help some grading help and some transcript help for my high schoolers and this is something i highly recommend if you have a lot of children you're trying to teach to and meet the needs of having that adhd child or a neurodivergent child is not the same as having a homeschool that does not have neurodivergence okay so this brings me to tip number nine spouse support and understanding is critical homeschooling and neurotypical along with a nearly diverse child is as i mentioned not the same as regular homeschooling at all your workload is doubled for each special needs child you have or each neurodiverse child or each adhd child that you have okay it's really difficult to find homeschooling moms that have graduated neurodivergent children but over the last couple years i have been finding a couple and a key theme i'm finding and that's being reinforced to me that i'm hearing and this common theme is that educating a neurodiverse family requires both parents involvement it's not a one-person job i know a lot of homeschool dads work full-time and that homeschool moms wives don't want to burden their husbands if your husband isn't able to help very much you're very likely going to need to hire tutoring help okay so now we're going to talk about six random helpful tips number one is many adhd children have learning disorders as well i think the ratio is like 30 of children with adhd will have other learning disorders if your child's doctor does not seem to know much about learning disorders ask them to refer you to a specialist that knows more about it it's really important to know the exact areas where there's disconnect because then you know what steps to take to support your child's developmental needs so that the struggle is minimized number two patience is so critical it's a key for families with neurodivergent children spouses need to remind each other of this probably quite often and they're going to need to remind all of their children including their neurodivergent and their neurotypical children life can be so difficult for parents with children with additional learning needs especially if they don't have support tip number three random tip here adhd asperger's and neurodiversity runs in families or neurodivergence runs in families be sure to read my adhd facts and fictions post or watch the video tip number four don't take neurodivergent signs lightly i know people who desperately wish they had sought help for their kids when they had the chance but they didn't i know situations that and i've actually even had them in my own extended family which is a very narrow diverse mix where the neurodivergent family members would just lead very troubled lives and sometimes would even disappear for years at a time because the rest of the family didn't understand them they would leave the family and then the family would be wondering are they dead or alive without intervention and help a neurodivergent person or a person with adhd is a great example may go on to lead a very difficult lives and have a lot of relationship troubles as a person with adhd and neurodivergency on both sides of my family i can fully attest to this number five with adhd people it's really common for the brain to run out of steam around two to three p.m and for it to take a couple hours to recharge so if your child is having daily meltdowns pay attention to what times the meltdowns are happening also pay attention to what's causing them is it random or is it around the same time each day for one of my children with adhd it's always around the same time and it's crazy because it's the same time i kind of run out of steam and can get overwhelmed really easy and it's always from two to three i learned that this is common for an adhd brain it's a common time for them to need a break so we learned how to curtail this this is one thing we learned through therapy we learned how to curtail just the overwhelmed drama that can happen during that time with some self-care taking a break going outside drinking water doing something relaxing or even exercising another thing that therapy helped us with is to pay attention to what the meltdowns were over and therapy also helped us to know what to do in those situations okay number six parents of neurodivergent children regardless of the education choice need various forms of support and they need tools if you're not able to find support in your local homeschool community or from your extended family i highly do recommend finding a therapist that aligns with your views that will support you in your homeschool journey so this last tip is a big one it's one that i really thought long and hard about even touching with a 10-foot pole but it's something that i feel is so important that i just could not leave it alone tip number 16 has to do a discipline in the nearly divergent child and i've separated this tip from the rest because it is so important friends it's not uncommon for the adhd child to test a parent's patients more often than a neurotypical child it's so critical for parents to know and remember that a neurodivergent child one with adhd for example their brain is working differently it is so easy for parents of adhd kids to think their kid isn't even trying okay this isn't true this is one of the reasons that parents have adhd children need support they need to remember that these kids are trying most of them don't want to be a disappointment when they mess up oftentimes they feel bad enough simply for messing up for disappointing you even though they don't know how to convey it you know even if they seem defensive part of that is because they really are trying so hard but it doesn't seem to be recognized once you understand this and know some of how the adhd brain works and once you learn more about adhd you'll understand why many forms of discipline simply do not work with adhd kids adhd kids and people are exhausted their brains are constantly racing so they forget what the rules are a lot and they forget what they're supposed to be doing often but it isn't usually on purpose they're not purposefully disobeying most of the time parents need to remember their adhd child is trying much harder than it appears and that they usually have good intentions when i talked to our children's doctor about some of the issues we were having with our hyperactive adhd child she gave me some advice that worked miracles for us she told me that when we ran into problems with our child take him to a quiet room away from all the others make sure to make eye contact with them which is actually harder than you think with an adhd person because it's not uncommon for their eyes to be like jack batty all over the place once you have eye contact with them though simply just talk to them but you must keep it very short especially if the child's worked up our doctor warned us that the adhd child is only going to hear the first few words spoken so those words need to be really meaningful to the point we started doing this and as long as we do it just like the doctor said it works very well for us each child is different though what works for one may not work for another and it may take some time to figure out what's going to work best for your family and that's why i do recommend therapy because therapy can help you find what is going to work i also highly recommend love and logic there are many videos just look up love and logic videos on youtube also look up nicholeen peck she has some positive parenting solutions and a lot of videos on positive parenting for help in dealing with discipline issues and positive parenting techniques so in conclusion parenting and homeschooling and adhd child is a big deal it's not a lie issue as you know if you have an adhd child the more support and information you're armed with i really believe the more successful the journey will be and the more parents and children will be able to thrive together an additional resource you guys might want to look into that we have only recently found so i can't vouch one way or the other for it yet um eventually i will let you know our conclusion on it but it's brain integration therapy by diane kraft diane craft has a lot of help and information for neurodivergent children she also has a youtube channel with information that you can check out go to my blog post that corresponds with this article for all of those links you guys thank you so much for watching be sure to like this video if you enjoyed it and subscribe for more hit the bell for notifications so you don't miss more of my videos as they roll out again i will be sharing more curriculum choices in the future that have worked for our adhd children and i will be having other just general curriculum hauls as well and more homeschool content for you guys because that has been requested here thank you guys for watching have a beautiful day [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] we will [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Mountain Homestead Family

Views: 16,305

Keywords: homeschooling adhd, Homeschooling ADHD | 16 Tips, adhd, homeschooling, adhd and homeschooling, homeschooling for beginners, Tips To Help You Homeschool ADHD Kids, Attention Deficit Disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, homeschool mom, homeschooling adhd boy, homeschooling adhd girl, homeschooling adhd child

Id: _m2RqArJ-y8

Length: 26min 35sec (1595 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 26 2021