Homeschooling Parenting: Homeschooling for Adopted and Traumatized Children

Last summer, as we struggled to raise the newest members of our family, I never would have imagined that I would have the time, let alone the inclination, to write an article on homeschooling adopted children in just ten short months. However, due to the techniques we have learned from books like “Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control” and “The Connected Child,” seminars like the one we attended in February 2007 with Juli Alvarado, and the incredible support and prayers from our family and friends, our family has been stabilized and our home has become a refuge instead of a war zone.

Homeschooling my three children is one of the greatest joys and most undeniable challenges I have ever faced. My children are 9, 7 and 6 years old and my biggest test lies in teaching not only their intellectual ages, but their emotional ages as well. I’m certainly no expert, I’ve been homeschooling for only three years, but I hope to give some good suggestions on how to establish routines while remaining flexible, teach to a child’s developmental needs without sacrificing academic content, and some language choices. curriculum we have done in our family that seems to facilitate the kind of learning that many children with special needs thrive on.

Let’s start by talking about routines. I find that foster parents who are faced with extreme behavior often do one of two things. Either they establish such a structure in their children’s lives that their children are repressed and stressed, or they have no boundaries or expectations at all, choosing to excuse every behavior but never retraining their children in appropriate forms of expression. Neither path is useful and when you study at home there is nowhere to hide: you are responsible for their education and you must have a plan. I have found that routines with flexibility offer the best hope for a peaceful home. Let me explain what that looks like.

In my house I have two boys who get up quite early and a girl (the youngest) who is usually an early riser. Instead of getting Rose out of bed before she’s ready and fighting with her all morning because she didn’t get enough sleep, I let her sleep in and use the morning to have breakfast with the kids and focus on them. Often, we play a game together after breakfast, even before they get dressed. (I try to get up, get dressed, and have a quiet moment before either of them get up.) Then they get dressed and brush their teeth. If my middle son, Gabriel, resists getting dressed, we set a timer and see if he can beat it. He loves any game and this one always works. Usually at this time, Rose gets up and needs to curl up so the kids can play together while I tend to her and make her breakfast. Once she’s dressed, we begin our “three R’s” with Mom jumping back and forth between the three kids as they do their math books first. Then Ezra, my oldest son, does handwriting, grammar, and silent reading while I do phonics and reading with the two youngest. If I need a one on one with Rose or Gabriel, Ezra is assigned to read aloud to the kid who isn’t with mom. Younger kids love this and it encourages sibling closeness, which is a good thing since they’ve only lived in the same house for a year!

After an hour of this the kids usually need some exercise and are sent to jump on the trampoline or I let the kids wrestle inside if it’s cold or rainy. During this time I do some homework before bringing them back to read aloud. First, we make picture books related to the unit we’re doing right now (I’ll talk more about Konos later, the curriculum we use for all other subjects), and then we make a chapter book. The younger children are still not very good at hearing, so they are allowed to play quietly on the floor with cars or Polly Pockets while we read the book aimed at the older ones. After talking about what we just read, you can play until lunch. After lunch we do our unit studies with the three children together. The Konos curriculum includes all of the science, history, music, art, drama, physical education, practical life skills, geography, and Bible for each child’s needs. This curriculum is hands-on and we do the projects together, exploring each topic with a variety of media. My kids love this part of the day and they are learning things I never thought they could learn at such a young age because they are doing and discovering instead of just memorizing facts for a test. We do science experiments, learn about famous people, and act out moments from history. We take nature walks, do dissections, and practice positive character traits using puppets or role-playing.

The next part of our day is rest time. Most days this means quietly playing in the bedrooms for an hour while Mom regroups. Some days the kids really need a nap and stay in their beds with books hoping they’ll fall asleep. Right after break time is snack time and every other day we have 30 minutes of computer time for each child. (This is a fun time where the children choose a game to play.) The other days I try to have an easy craft that the kids can do mostly on their own while I clean up and make dinner. One thing we have learned is that television spells disaster for our children. Because of this, we’ve removed it entirely except for the occasional movie. Craft time has replaced afternoon TV time.

By this time, Dad is almost home and often takes charge after a short chat with Mom. He takes the children for a bike ride, plays with them, reads stories or asks them to help him with the housework while I prepare dinner on the table. After dinner, everyone gets ready for bed and we listen to books on CDs, read aloud as a family, or play a family bedtime game for the little ones. Rose and Gabriel go to bed no later than 8 pm most nights and sometimes earlier. Ezra stays up an hour after them to spend time with us alone.

Generally speaking, my children know what to expect from today and this makes a big difference in their attitudes and behavior. What I have just described would be considered a very good day; I often have to change things up because someone needs something slightly different. There are some basic concepts that form the skeleton of our days that do not change much. Morning routines, meals, reading aloud, rest time, and bedtime routines are essential to a successful day. Other parts can be lengthened; shortened, changed or removed entirely if necessary based on what is happening in our home at the moment. Our day is not regulated; it just has a flow.

Since we study year-round, I don’t stress if we have to cuddle up on the couch for most of the day a few times a month. Having my kids in the right learning frame of mind means I know when to move on, and I know when to pack up the tough things of the day and drop everything. My main goal right now is to teach them to trust me, teach them character, and constantly work on reading. The other things will fall into place as their brains heal from the trauma they’ve experienced.

Parents with adopted children typically have an extra layer of issues to deal with on a daily basis that makes homeschooling especially challenging. Adopted children need us so much that homeschooling seems to alleviate problems that are often exacerbated by the public school system which often fails to understand the adopted child as someone who needs an extra dose of understanding. The last thing we want in our human egoism is to have to deal with all those problems ourselves without “rest”! However, I assure you; the rewards far outweigh the headaches.

Gabriel attended a wonderful public school (while still a foster child) with a wonderful teacher, an amazing caseworker, and staff who went above and beyond to help our family. Despite all of this, we were experiencing behavior problems at home due to the stress that school brought into the equation. After six months of homeschooling him, these problems are almost gone. We have slowly been weaning him off the medications he has been on since he was three years old and we are still seeing progress that we never saw until the stress of public school was taken off. Not everyone has the option of studying at home, but we have found that it is the best way to build the relationships in our family that will help heal our traumatized children.

Update: My kids are older now (12, 9, and 8) but this article is still relevant. She wanted to resubmit it in the hope that she might encourage others.