Mountains and Valleys, educating the special needs child — organization

Once a child receives a diagnosis, especially one with a learning difficulty attached to it, it often feels like every minute they are not trying to learn something new or practicing a skill is a minute lost.  A minute that they will never get back.  A minute that sets them that much further behind.  A minute that spreads the gap that much wider between them and their peers.  That is exactly the panicky feeling that I had for years after my son's developmental regression. And if hours or heaven forbid; a DAY went by that he was not working on...

How come nobody ever told me that? Mom is a synonym for manager. What kind of management do we oversee day in and day out you may ask? Here is the short list. Managing people As soon as a household is more than one person, the awareness over who's responsibility it is to do which "job" is so important.  I found an awesome template for household chores to motivate and remind the kids to get some chores done without hounding them. Here is the link to Confessions of a Homeschooler. There is a chore chart for younger kids and for older...

*Warning* If you are the parents of children that fall asleep as soon as the car is in motion then I am entirely too envious of you and this post is not for you. This is one area where we are not blessed. My kids NEVER sleep in the car.  From the time my kids were newborn we were trekking them across the province, so you would think that I would be an expert when it came to being prepared for long car trips. Yet this holiday season, I found myself sitting in the van with the kids loud and...

Today's post is less about education and more about patting ourselves on the back for our good intentions and allowing and accepting our imperfections.  This is important for all parents...or anyone that works with kids. What can we do about the chaos in our lives? We can laugh at it!  When you have children your daily life becomes chaos. You think to yourself; as soon as I can sleep through the night things will get better. I will get organized. Then they sleep through the night and and you all of a sudden have way more stuff to organize. Then...