When you are coaching areas of challenge you need to make sure that your child’s emotional gas tank is full. One mom taught me to do that by:
Key #5 - Discovering and speaking each other’s learning styles and love language:
At the beginning of my educational therapy days in the nineties, I went into a home to help a mom who was in tears. The mom felt so guilty because the only thing that seemed to help her daughter was putting her daughter in her son’s room which they painted deep blue with glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. So, in the daylight, the mom felt like she was sending her daughter to the dungeon, while she laughed and sang with her son in the bright sunny kitchen. I tested her daughter. She was mixing up her letters and a little behind in reading, BUT her visual memory was her superpower and workbooks were her friends! I tweaked the kind of workbooks to include letter reversals and visual memory as the road to reading. She was also highly distracted by anything that moved and any sound. Anything she did hear sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher. So, we made sure that she was practicing skills that she had already learned when working independently in the solar system room. The mom planned activities that her son could do in another room so that she could spend one-on-one time teaching her daughter new concepts.
Concerned, she later asked me to test her son, and sure enough, Mom was right about needing to separate her kids for them to be able to learn! He was very talkative, needed a lot of motion, had poor auditory memory, and had challenges in listening and following directions. That’s why the mom would sing, dance, and stand on her head to get his attention to get information into his memory. The very things that her son’s memory needed were the very things that impeded her daughter’s ability to learn!
She did the love languages quiz with her whole family. She made sure that, regardless of the different learning environments, each family member felt loved in their own love language. Huge smiles were on the parents' faces when I left. Dad hugged his wife whispering how incredible she was. They called me something like, “The Homeschool Doctor,” making house visits. My mission was to affirm and confirm what a great teacher she was, customize how she was using her curriculum, and supplement with some visual therapy for her daughter in the form of workbooks and auditory therapy in the form of computer games for both her son and daughter.
We are now closing in on the finish line of this chapter. May the Holy Spirit fill you with love, joy, and peace that surpasses understanding. May you know and receive your God-given identity! May the Father give you your next steps. May your child(ren) be the first fruit of your prayer. And may you experience a breakthrough that lasts a lifetime! Pay close attention to the end of this last story, this could be your child.
EVERY BRAIN IS GIFTED AND EVERY BRAIN HAS CHALLENGES
There was once a child who, when he was little, had a big head and was labeled mentally retarded. All his teachers said that he was “unteachable.” His math teacher said, “That’s right, I can't teach him because he already knows everything that I know!”
Pay attention to the child in front of you. Just because you don’t understand them doesn’t mean that they will not create the next invention or harbor the next idea that completely changes our world.
Why couldn’t this child be put in accelerated math and science classes by teachers, mentors, mathematicians, and scientists who love what they teach? Why couldn’t this child be assigned a social skills coach, and simply have tutors in his areas of challenge?
His teacher sent home a note saying he was unteachable. Instead of his mom reading that note word for word, she improvised and told him “that he was too smart for his teachers to teach and that he was going to change the world!”
He was home educated, and trained in piano and violin, which helped build and strengthen those genius neuropathways he already had. He hung out with mathematicians and applauded when they solved great problems. As a young adult, he spent years developing his social skills in art galleries and museums. Sure enough, it was a mom who was right again!
This child was Albert Einstein, and he DID change the world!
There was not just one way to teach Albert Einstein,
and there is not just one way to teach your child!
It's time to discover the GENIUS in your child!
The adventure is finding the right key, for the right door, in the right season...
You don't have to do it alone!
I am just a tap-a-way! (™)
Free Resources: Free Resources: https://www.atap-edu.com/post/keys-to-learning-at-genius-when-learning-doesn-t-come-easy-resource-links Did you miss the Fourth Key? Here's the Link. https://www.atap-edu.com/post/keys-to-learning-at-genius-when-learning-doesn-t-come-easy-key-4-of-5 Additional Free Resources: https://www.atap-edu.com/post/keys-to-learning-at-genius-when-learning-doesn-t-come-easy-resource-links