Hey there! Welcome to Mommy on the Spectrum, a homeschooling blog written with neurodiversity in mind.
Let’s face it. Traditional school is not for everyone. We expect children as young as 6 to sit quietly at a desk and fill out worksheets. We expect older kids to listen to lectures on topics they don’t care about or aren’t relevant to their life. Probably worst of all, we teach to the average student with disregard for an individual’s unique skills and challenges. Teachers are overwhelmed. Parents feel lost. Kids become frustrated and upset. No one is happy.
Can we do better? Can we be different? Yes, I believe we can.
The Vision
I’m Erin. As the blog title suggests, I am autistic, but there is another factor. I am also gifted. This combination of giftedness and autism is known as twice-exceptional, and it makes finding the right education even more difficult. For me, school was too easy. It was boring. I didn’t need to try or do my homework to get straight A’s, until I did, and my lack of reading comprehension, study skills, and social skills became problems.
You know what would have helped me? Homeschooling. Homeschooling allows for intentional education, to focus on enhancing a child’s strength while improving weaknesses. It lets us come up with the right accommodations (sensory break anyone?) while matching the difficulty of the work to the child AND focusing on topics they find interesting. It sounds magical.
The Catch
When I had my own child, I knew I wanted to go down the homeschool route. I started researching everything I could: Montessori, Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, unschooling, natures schools. I quickly became overwhelmed, and that’s with a psychology degree focusing on development and behavior! We have this great thing, homeschooling, and yet, there seems to be a huge barrier to implementing it.
The Goal
So, that’s why I wanted to start this blog: to share resources, to make mistakes and learn from them so you don’t have to, and to show you maybe homeschooling is not as hard as you think.