Update and Apology re: Math Advice

I wasn’t sure where to put this.  So I just choose Let’s Chat.  Some of you might remember me from probably almost 3 years ago.  I wrote a lot about math back then.  Sorry it’s been so long and that I am still so long winded!

We lived in Maine at the time.  I appreciate those of you who PM’d me and asked about us.  We are doing well.  Yes, we did the GAPS diet for 2 1/2 years or so.  And have now added in some whole rice, potatoes, sweet poatoes, org. corn, etc.  The GAPS diet doesn’t fix everything, but it certainly can help some things.  We have also moved to AZ about 1 1/2 years ago, back to our home church and away from the mold which kept my asthma in high alert!  Both things are blessings!  We lost two more babies since we last talked, one at 12 weeks–which was very hard physcially requiring a D&C -named that one Gabriel–and one just this past Apr, named Faith, but we are still prayerfully content.  And we have finally found a few things to help our immune systems, so we are not so sick all the time.  We used to be sick at LEAST once per month or more, and haven’t had anything to speak of in 6 months!  Praise God!  So things are definitely better in my household! But the amazing thing is the work that the Lord has done in me.

I am writing to extend you an apology.

I am a mathematcian by education, have tutored or taught in some capacity since 1991, was homeschooled myself and am homschooling my four children, ages 10.5, 7, 5,5, and almost 4.  But I must ask for your forgivenss.  I should have been more careful in how I gave math advice, and recommended  curriculum.  And I am very sorry for my tone of certainty.  It isn’t that I don’t believe what I wrote (I don’t have time to reread it to make sure I still do…), but it is more that the Lord has taught me some very valuable lessons in these past 3 years, using my very own children.  Please forgive me for any influence I may have had that did not go well for you or yours.  It has been on my heart for a while now to come back and apologize!  Please do forgive me.

3 years ago I was in a rough spot especially with my eldest, my only girl.  I had no idea what I was dealing with and why.

I have since found out the following:

All my children have something called Sensory Processing Disorder.  One of our doctors recently said that SPD was the new diagnosis that the medical establishment came up with to make Austim more palatable to parents.  It is hard to ignore that it is on the autistic spectrum when you look down at church and have one under the table rocking back and forth from overstimulation or loud sounds generate the hands over the ears and a you scared me wail, though I realize some debate it.

I have grieved.  I am human.  I had expectations.  But now I look at it differently, very differently, and I am thankful.

Not perfect by any stretch!  My eldest boy 7 was just in the middle of a serious breakdown and in the midst of his crying, I heard him saying to himself,  ‘This is a horrible night.  This is not in my plan.  This is a horrible night.’  It was all I could do not to fall over laughing.  That has been his serious problem lately…things haven’t been going according to his plan.  No truer words!  LOL  Teaching that one to let go and live without trying to control everything and everyone is going to be a serious challenge.  He was asleep within just a few breaths of his utterance!

My dd is what is called a sensory seeker who can’t get enough sensation and stimulation.  It takes more spinning, jumping, swinging, squishing, etc. to get a regular satisfaction of sensation, and to calm down, and regulate self, etc. I have learned there is a difference between a tantrum and a meltdown.  #2 is that 7 yr old sensory avoider.  The Lord had a sense of humor there.  My girl has really forced him along, painting herself with mud and saying to Mr. Squeamish, ‘Come in, the mud is fine!’ He might try to meltdown over the texture or temperature or look or feel of anything.  Example:  ‘I can’t stand the feel!’ (speaking of wearing underwear).  My personal parenting philosophy gives understanding:  I’m sorry to hear that.  Let me see if I can help you.  gives choices:  Ok, here are two different kinds to choose from (even if that meant going out to get some when able).  And then stands firm:  However, you must choose one.  You must wear underwear.  And if I ever find you without them on, there will be an immediate consequence.  He now wears them without complaint.  Obviously, this is a minor example to represent an enormous spectrum.  I try really hard to equip my children, not enable them or even disable them with why they don’t need to bother to conquer an area that is giving them difficulty (that is within their eventual reach with effort and time), at the same time trying to love and understand who they are and at what point they are.

My #3 has what is called a low tone neurolgical system and needs ‘alerting’ every 3-5 minutes.  Think of your computer going to sleep if you don’t wiggle the mouse.  No kidding, I have a child like that.  He doesn’t actually sleep, he just shuts down.  They want me to have him jump, hop like a frog, etc. every 3-5 minutes so he can function a bit more alertly (ie see and hear better literally and be aware more).  He is my sweetest and most compliant child and constantly surprises me with his abilities, b/c he is the least with it!  Answers questions way after the conversation is over, or gets frustrated with things b/c they are too fast…like we didn’t wait long enough for himn to answer, etc.  He is teaching us all to be patient.  He has wonderful things to contribute.  He was the first to tell us the other day that Elohim means strong creator or today that El Kana means Jealous God.  My dh processes on a slower speed than me…this son slower than him is teaching dh what that is like.  🙂

My dc, who btw, look perfectly normal, (It was so validating when at the HS convention someone who has a son with down syndrome was talking to me and looking at my babies…and said, that is what we call hidden disabilities.), also have vision processing disorder.  This means eyes don’t work together…actually doing two separate tasks at any given moment, trouble tracking, and all kinds of other things.  One literally can’t see in between focusing (which is a bit slow) far to near or vice versa, dd has very little visual memory.  They also have some auditory processing issues, which can be interesting…literaly can NOT understand you if there is any competing noise and which side you are on is important, too.  And then let’s add ADD/ADHD.  That last one is very humorous.  I didn’t believe it existed.  Truly, in my arrogance, I figured ADHD was b/c of sugar, lack of sleep, and too much tv.  Then I married a man who was then diagnosed with ADD, was blessed with a daughter who is ADHD, and at least one other son with ADD.  Didn’t feed them sugar, made sure they got lots of sleep, and not a lot of tv.  Ha!  My learning to understand my children has really blessed my marriage and helped me be more understanding toward my husband!

We also have some fine motor difficulty, trouble with buttoning at 5 1/2, etc.  Got foam sleeves for silverware recently which really helped two of them.  We work diligently on keeping the pencil grip correct, etc.  And some chewing things issues…I couldn’t believe how fast a child could chew through the neck of a T-shirt.  It looked like swiss cheese!  I have since bought chewys for the sole purpose of chewing!

The most recent discovery (which was a huge blessing!) is dyslexia.  All my children were/are speech delayed.  I had no idea that that is one of the early markers for dyslexia until recently.  I also didn’t know about the hereditary factor.  Or that dyslexia is not about not being able to see things right, but is about not hearing the sounds distinctly. 

Since we found out about the dyslexia, we have been remediating.  There is wonderful hope for dyslexics to read and spell very well!  And my dd was finally able to write a sentence that I dictated the other day for the first time!  See, she kind of tricked us.  She could read Black Beauty independently and discuss it with me.  But back then, when I dictated the sentence.  A cat sat.  She would pick up her pencil and say eagerly, ‘Ok, Mama, how do you spell that?’  I was floored.  The doc said it was a miracle she learned to read at all.  She was doing it all by pattern analysis.  ‘You have the ultimate compensator on your hands.’  I thought, that is great, right?  The ability to compensate is huge.  The drawback is that it hides things.

So here I was, blessed (I have had 8 miscarriages and 4 living children in 12 years–so I do mean BLESSED!) with a very difficult to control self, wild energy and activity girl child, with big limb motions, who pushed me to my limits, confused me, confounded me, and ultimately finally was used by God to teach me.

She is gifted in art, science, auditory memory…she asks deep and extraordianry questions and astounds me.  She has a language based learning disability.  And at a time when some would expect her to be more independent in her schooling (I know I was looking forward to it!), she is not.  The remediation is going well.  And I recently learned a term called twice exceptionaql, which reminded me to not forget the gifts while remediating the disabilities.

Another way of thinking about it…is to strike a balance…dealing with the reality of the different issues without letting those issues define who they are.

And math, ah I’m sure you can see the irony for the mathematician! 

The lack of visual memory means that we can’t fall back on spelling the word because it just doesn’t look right without ___, which is what most of us do b/c we have bought the myth that English is difficult and its rules only work 50% of the time, so there are 50% exceptions to those rules.  Ask most people and you will get the agreement that English is just hard and weird.  We actually weren’t taught the rules.  I am amazed that we weren’t.  I love learning them as I teach them to my duaghter.  I now know why HAVE is NOT a sight word, but is HAVE instead of HAV.  Or why frolicking has a k though frolic doesn’t, and that the u with the q is not really a vowel, and that every word and syllable in the English language has a vowel, etc. etc. etc.  98% of English does have rules.  There are only about 2% exceptions!

The lack of a strong visual memory also means that learning the basic math facts can be a real trial.  You can’t learn them visually, you can’t just write them a million times as a dyslexic with visual processing issues…counterproductive!  I truly believe the Lord does have a sense of humor.  And my creativity has definitely increased!  She is slowly mastering the addition and subtraction facts.  She almost has them.  Yep, 10.5 years old and still working on that.  🙂 and a mathematician’s daughter.  Can you imagine?  I am so proud of her!  We plan to start on the multiplication ones this year!  She’s excited.

Funny thing is, I kept holding her back because of all this.  Her mind was able, and she was willing…but she couldn’t produce the facts on demand, or used her fingers, counted, etc.  or couldn’t spell ANYTHING.  I have learned to be her scribe.  She composes beautifully and FAST.  I have to type to keep up.  She recently wrote a 7 page letter to her friends.  She copied the type in her own beautiful handwriting.  It took her a month to do.  It was painstaking.  She was diligent and committed!  And I have gone on and taught her higher math skills…continuing remediating the facts…knowing that one day…those other skills will catch up with her!  I don’t give up on the skills, but I don’t hold her back any longer because of the struggle with them.

All that said, I have recently realized that though years ago, I embraced the concept that I needed to teach the children I have and not the children I think they should be, I forgot to include me.  I need to teach from who I really am and not from who I think I should be.  Imagine my surprise when someone recently gifted us with an entire level of MUS at my daughter’s level and two sets of blocks (I haven’t ever been even seriously tempted by this curriculum.), and my dd took to it like a duck to water.  Extreme excitement now when we do math.  Moves with joy and velocity when it is math time…with hand claps, dances, and singing.  Finally understands a certain aspect of place value that I couldn’t seem to get across, and flying through this book 2-3 lessons in a day!  Any gaps are being filled in rapidly…light bulbs coming on…the whole bit!  Yeah! Yahoo!  I’ve already ordered the next level.  She can’t get enough.

I had surrounded us with amazingly wonderful curriculum and resources.  Extraordinarily high quality everything was on my shelves.  I had 4 or 5 maths, histories, and several sciences, LAs.  I am known in my circle for finding awesome material.  All stellar.  But very little was actually working for us.  The truth is there are many great curriculums out there.  But there is only one family just like mine…or yours.

My dear friend helped me purge all my curriculum except the MUS and the dyslexia remediation that I am using.  I am actually going with something totally different and new for me.  Something that will curb my OCD, is complicated enough for me-so I won’t have to make it harder, a serious tendency of mine, and has a beginning and an end, no more smorgasbord for me, and comes complete in the box with checkboxes.  I admit it, I have succumbed to checkboxes.  And I am so releived!

I shared that with you b/c I believe that the Lord is teaching me to not be so adamant!  I walk in my shoes.  You walk in yours.  I can’t ever truly get walking in your shoes, nor you mine.  Another dear friend asked me recently for a curriculum recommendation in LA.  My experiences have given me an education of which I would never have thought.  I might have opinions about methods sometimes, but not necessarily strong preferences for curriculum.  Maybe leaning toward one that includes a particular element.  But what works for her is what works for her.  And she gets to choose.  So I was glad to give her a little input, some information that I had gathered.  But championing just one, I no longer do.  We are each fearfully and wonderfully made–uniquely.  Praise God!

With respect,

Joanna

It is well with my soul!