Aug 10, 2020
'Tis the season for back to school! With the ever-present COVID-19 pandemic and mask mandates, a large number of parents will be looking at homeschooling as an option for the first time this fall. If you have a child with special challenges, this can be a particularly daunting decision-making process…but it doesn’t have to be. I’d like to share 10 tips for homeschooling a child with autism.
If your child has very specific interests (and most people on the spectrum do) start there and work your way out. Charlotte Mason talks about “spreading a feast” for our children and having autism doesn’t make them exempt from that. They deserve the feast, too. But the journey might look different. Start where your child is at. If his special interest is hats, start there. Let me give you an example…
“Did you know one of our presidents was known for his hat? His name was Abraham Lincoln. He even carried important letters around in the hat – isn’t that cool? There’s actually a book that tells all about it – I can read it to you!” (This is history happening).
Then maybe you mention that there was this speech Lincoln gave in a place called Gettysburg and you pull out a map to show him where Gettysburg is (Geography). You could say, “it’s pretty far away from where we live – let’s figure out how far (Math). He gave that important speech while he was there because everyone in the country was fighting with each other but he loved our country so much he thought it was worth fighting for (more history).”
We’ve now moved from a hat to the Civil War.
And if he’s interested in the war, well we’ve fought a few of them so maybe next we’ll talk about the American Revolution and our founding fathers and how the government is run and oh where did they get all those ideas for how to run it? I hear Alexander Hamilton (as well as the other founders) read a lot of Greek and Roman stories…and didn’t those stories talk a lot about how to be a good citizen?
And now we’ve moved from hats to Plutarch.
You are, essentially, becoming Amazon for your child. “If you liked this, you’ll love…” You are helping them make the move outside of their comfort zone one baby step at a time. You can do this with any topic – just find the beginning of the thread (your child’s interest) and follow it as far as he’ll let you.
This is not to say your child cannot learn to adapt over time or that he wouldn’t benefit from a consistent routine (he would) but when we are looking at the HOW’s of homeschooling, you need to look at your child first and a not a pre-determined schedule.
An example of this might be if a science curriculum is laid out to be taught five days a week but on Wednesday your child spends most of his time falling apart or would rather be in his own world, then you don’t force your child out of his world to learn the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates. What you can do is join him in his world and accept the fact that science is not gonna happen Wednesday. This brings us to our next point...
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Show Notes