Teaching a Difficult Child

All children learn differently. Some are visual learners, some can learn through oral presentation, and still others are self-staters. When I started homeschooling, I accepted that not all my children would learn the same. What I didn't know was, that I would have one child that would challenge me, my patience, and my time.

When you have the child that you just can't seem to motivate, that loses task, fiddles, plays around, procrastinates, works on one problem for what seems like an hour, what do you do? Many parents, lose patience.

They want to give up, throw their hands in the air and send them back to school. It is a tempting choice and one I would consider often on those days when my patience is thin and my will to endure is gone.

The one thing you do need to remember is that the journey isn't easy, and if you don't give up the tools that you give your child will last them a lifetime. I had to remember that when dealing with my child. She wasn't going to get the tools from public school. We had tried that and the only thing she had gotten was frustration, a sense of failure, and a lack of comprehension of what they were trying to teach her. She was just a number to them. Taking on the task of equipping her with the right tools was what I had decided to take on to prepare her for the world.

It wasn't easy, but we adapted to fit her needs. My ultimate goal was to teach her that she could adapt. We started out slow, and at a steady pace. We took the following steps:

Review this will enable you to assess where you need to set your goals.
Remembers that goals are fluid and can be modified.
Outline by starting with daily assignments that meet the child's learning style.
I started with our child, working on one subject a day because she had difficulty jumping from subject to subject. Each time she did her mind would take a long time to readjust and focus. In order to get her to the goal of moving from task to task I needed to get her mind used to the process of staying on task first.

Add In one subject to the day. After about three weeks of just doing one subject a day. I began to combining two subjects to complete per day. This was gradual and it began to shift her mind to handle more than one task a day. We eventually worked up to 7 subjects a day.

Keeping a Calendar is one of the greatest tools that anyone can use when multi-tasking. But this is an essential tool for the difficult learner. At the beginning of the day we would go over the day's lessons and activities that needed to get done. This gave her a visual point of reference and she could check off when she completed the task listed. You cannot overwhelm a child that has a difficult time learning.

Giving them a syllabus with all their assignments for the quarter, semester or year will only overwhelm them. They begin to look at all that they have to do and begin to panic. If you do then their brains shut down and cannot move forward. Integrate a little each day into the routine until you reach your goal.