Homeschooling An ADHD Child

Homeschooling your children is harder than people may think. I have to say though that its also so immensely rewarding to be able to be a part of your child's learning experiences.

As I stated in my last post, Hyper Heathen has ADHD and it truly does come with its own set of joys, failures, standards, and learning methods. We have days where I want to grab a glass of wine and lock myself in my room but more often we have days where he shows me a whole new way to look at the world. The way his brain works is a wonderful thing to watch thus teaching ME new things all the time.

We first realized that something was different about HH shortly after he learned how to walk. He would walk in circles constantly, especially whenever he was thinking or talking. We had never seen anything like it but of course we weren't too worried about it with a 1 to 3 year old. As he got older though other things started showing up and by the time he was 4 years old he was diagnosed as ADHD. Since then we've come to realize that Sis had ADD (she grew out of most of it and she mostly just talked out of turn and fidgeted) and I have Adult ADD so he gets it honest.

Hyper Heathen has always been pretty smart even when he was a toddler and we all saw that light of intelligence in his eyes even before he could talk. Since then it has kept shining and I like to think that is in part because we didn't send him to public school. Now I'm not a public school basher by any means (well the New Mexico school system is horrible but that's another post), I have a lot of friends with kids in PS and they are thriving there. I have always felt that each family needs to do what is best for THEM because what works for my child might spell disaster for yours. What I'm saying where HH is concerned is that in a public school setting he would be the "problem child" and considered a disruption because of his hyperactivity.

HH's Combined Type ADHD manifests as hyperactivity, impulse control, interrupting, sleep issues, improper behavior at times, immaturity for his age, no filter on what he says so he ends up hurting people when he doesn't mean too, talking really loudly almost all the time, and at times anger issues when he gets frustrated. I have no doubt at all that in public school he would have to be medicated and we just don't want that. I'm not saying we are against medication just that it's not right for him right NOW. If he asks to try medication in the future then it is definitely something we will consider.

HH being ADHD means I have to be more creative than I did with my older two children which is hard sometimes. Thankfully Pinterest is a huge help when it comes to ideas and I've created an account specifically for homeschool links (the link to it is in the left sidebar). Hyper Heathen tends to do better when he can be active while learning so we keep book work to a minimum and try to do a lot of hands on stuff. Of course, even with the hands on stuff I'm constantly saying, "Focus. Come back here child!" LoL.

The most important thing I try to always remember is that his little quirks are what makes him so special to us. Do I wish the kid would run out of energy sometimes? Oh yeah! Do I wish he would quit talking once in awhile so I can finish a sentence? Yep. Do I ever wish I didn't have to explain to strangers that he wasn't trying to be rude? Definitely. Would I change anything about my Hyper Heathen if I could? Hell no! He's a hot mess at times but so am I. He's one of a kind and he's ours which makes him perfect just the way he is.