Trusting the learning process

My twin girls are in kindergarten. They learned all of their letter sounds before kindergarten. A little in preschool, a little from homeschooling but what really helped them get it down concrete was a leap frog movie. It made it fun for them and gave them a tune to remember, along with fun images and games in their heads. Now they are in school and are writing their letters again and being exposed to sight words. A couple weeks ago they brought home their first book but long before that they were walking around the house with notebooks copying every word they could find and coming to me and asking what the words say. They are writing notes on their own and surprising me with them. They are writing notes to extended family and asking me how to spell their names or certain words. They love to read to me and me to read to them. They are engrossed in reading. I never saw this with my son. He never had an interest in writing or reading. Over time we did reading lessons and flash cards and he learned to memorize really well but the love of learning just wasn't there.

Looking back I can see now how I was killing his love of learning. I was so concerned about whether or not we would see learning problems as the Spina Bifida clinic pretty much promised we would. I wanted him to "stay on track" and not "fall behind". He already has so many physical issues. I didn't want him to have learning issues as well. How hard would that make it to find a job in the future? I was trying so hard to push it all into him. I think he felt my anxiety and therefore exhibited some himself.

I wasn't like this with any other subject and especially not math. I could see that he understood math pretty well but reading stressed me out! In time it stressed him out too. I rubbed off on him. It took a while for me to notice what I was doing and even longer to stop. I still worry about him but I am realizing that there is a healthy, helpful worry (better put as concern) and a not so healthy and obsessive worry. In time I learned to take deep breaths and really calm myself down before we started our reading session. I had to tell myself that he will learn and that I need to trust that he is trying. I worried I was an awful teacher and that added to my stress, I also had to trust that when the Lord told me to homeschool he knew mine and Carl James' limitations and Carl James would learn what he needed to learn, when he needed to learn it. Watching my twins learn to read has been really healing for me. We haven't done anything different for them yet they are picking it up so much faster and with much more accuracy.

I realized that they learn different and what didn't work for Carl James worked for the twins, but that's not totally true. The twins never had the pressure, they only had formal school in preschool and this part of kindergarten, they never got formal homeschooling from me, they were only 4 and I was too busy with Carl James. Yes they were involved but I wasn't stressed about their learning, they had time and so when I did teach them it was carefree and fun. There were so many of the things that were the same in their schooling. Same preschool teacher, same mom, same games and reading lessons but even the things that were the same at home were really and truly different because they had a different feel to them.

As I have eased off and tried to make reading fun, he has learned to relax as well but it doesn't take much to get him tense again. As the twins have gone around the house writing things, so has he.

He wrote this being silly. I was so excited when I saw it because he actually tried to take a guess at the spelling!



Just this year he started to enjoy drawing pictures. We tried to expose him to writing utensils and even finger painting at a young age but he never took interest. He finally enjoys coloring and drawing! So it's no wonder he didn't enjoy writing. He has started to write funny words with the magnetic letters on the fridge and leaves them up for his dad to see. The words may not be spelled right but you can tell he has got a pretty good handle on phonetics.

It's hard to put into words the subtle yet very crucial changes he has experienced. It's hard to explain the anxiety I have felt to give him the best possible chance at life but even harder to explain how I suddenly don't feel the urge to push him. How I suddenly have this trust in his ability and his timing. I have been blessed, I stopped a cycle that could have been more detrimental than his learning disabilities. I am learning to trust the learning process and to enjoy the ride!!