Don't want to label....but

Homeschooling the ADHD Child

Homeschooling an ADHD child can be a real challenge. Here are some of the issues we deal with regularly in our home:

• Distractibility - cannot keep on task when given an assignment
• Frustration - low frustration levels when given an assignment that is confusing or repetitious
• Boredom - easily bored with repetitive tasks like spelling and handwriting, or math facts
• Clueless - unless you are working with a gifted child, you will reach times where the information just isn't understood
• Careless - sloppy work and careless mistakes
• Endless school days - unaware of the concept of time and prove this by taking 3 hours to complete 5 math problems
• Insanity - can drive even the sanest parent to question their sanity
• Noise - 3 or more children chattering away at the same time, tapping pencils, rolling desk chairs across the floor; child 2 distracts child 1 while child 3 has disappeared to who knows where
• Grace - God's grace is sufficient, for His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

Homeschooling an ADHD child will present you with a unique set of challenges. Because of the existence of learning disabilities in a large percentage of ADHD children, the parent's teaching style must match learning styles of these children as much as possible. Most ADHD children are just not good classroom learners, so attempting to recreate a classroom at home will not benefit the child, or you as the homeschooling parent.

Allowing your child to read standing on his head or in the frog position might work better than sitting at a desk or kitchen table. Some children do better reciting math facts while jumping on a mini-trampoline or hopping around the room. Allow your child to try different learning environments. The biggest challenge for parents who were classroom learners themselves is giving up the classroom paradigm.

Unit Studies and Hands-On Activities are a great choice for at least one or two of the child's subjects. We choose a topic, such as Inventors, and create a study based on this topic with activities in History, Science, Creative Writing, Vocabulary, Spelling, and sometimes Math.

It is possible that your ADD/ADHD child is a Kinesthetic Learner or Gifted Some children, especially the gifted ADD/ADHD child, may learn best with a modified form ofunschooling.