A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

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Gifted & 2e

The Need For More Margin In Families With Gifted Children


Many years ago David and I read the books Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives and The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits by Richard A. Swenson, M.D. Both impacted us in profound ways. David and I took steps to reduce our overload and increase our margin. We did a pretty good job for the most part.

Then we became parents of a high-need baby and margin went out the door. Overload became the norm for quite some time. Frankly, we’ve been trying to adjust ever since.

What Is Margin?

If you aren’t familiar with Margin, Swenson defines it as this:

Margin is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating. It is the leeway we once had between ourselves and our limits.

I’ve lived with margin and I’ve lived without margin. The difference cannot be overstated.

The Real Needs With Gifted Children

Gifted children take more time, more energy and more work. They simply do. Whether they are spirited, highly-sensitive, right-brained or “only” gifted, they simply require more of their parents. More mentally, more physically, more spiritually, more emotionally.

I remember reading an online article about spirited children and one of the experts in the article said something to the effect of forget about the mother of these children having any kind of a life other than keeping up with these kids. They are just too demanding and draining.

I felt both relieved and disheartened.

One thing that has become crystal clear to me over the past few years and especially the past few months is that parents of gifted children have to be even more diligent about maintaining margin in the family life. The parents need it. The children need it. What might be “normal” for the average family in terms of outside commitments could be disastrous for a family with a gifted child.

Hitting The Wall

We hit the wall a few weeks ago. All three of us are worn out. I mean really worn out. As in all three of us need a year-long sabbatical. Caroline just turned eight and we’ve never had a family vacation. Believe me, I’m not saying that as some point of pride. I’m saying it as a matter of fact that people who invest their energy into high-need children and chronic illness often simply don’t have the opportunity to take vacations.

Last week the three of us made the decision we are going to ditch everything we possibly can in an effort to add some margin to our lives. EV.ER.Y.THING. Homeschool co-op, Sunday School, most church, everything. We’re not even involved in that much since all three of us are naturally homebodies, but trying to juggle the few activities we had along with so many appointments for me and now Caroline was simply too much.

I knew Caroline had reached her max when instead of wanting to go to the mall (with the carousel! and Auntie Anne’s!) to use the Build a Bear gift card she received for her birthday, she wanted to order it online.

She, too, is desperate to be home and have downtime.

She, too, is desperate for margin.

Obviously David and I can’t quit work, but other than that everything is on the table, including church. I’m sure that some people reading this will be shocked, but church is one of the most stressful things we do all week (for reasons I discuss in another post).

So how do we as parents of gifted children try to bring some margin back into our lives?

Recognize That Your Husband And Children Are Your First Ministry

Becoming friends with different Catholic bloggers over the years, I’ve become familiar with the idea of the domestic church. I’m not Catholic, but here is an explanation I thought was helpful:

The Council restored the ancient concept of “domestic church” as it declared: “In what might be regarded as the domestic church, the parents are to be the first preachers of the faith for their children by word and example” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, #11).

The early Church began in house churches, where families were the heart of the communities and from which ministers were first called to use their personal gifts to serve the needs of the larger community. The family is the most intimate experience of Church, the place where love, forgiveness and trust should first be encountered. This is the family Church, whose members are called to embody Christ in everyday life.

My first ministry is to my family. The most important person I will ever disciple is Caroline. It is nearly impossible for me to intentionally invest in her spiritual life when my own well is running dry from lack of margin. There is no calling for my spiritual gifts outside of my home that is more important than my own husband and child.

Let Go of Unreasonable Expectations – For Your Family

No one can do it all. We all think we know that, but it is easy to overlook the reality of it in our individual families. Everything seems important. We want to be able to do what other families do.

But you know what? We can’t.

  • Other families aren’t making every single meal and snack from scratch because their son has significant food issues.
  • Other families aren’t dealing with a child with significant sensory issues that overwhelm her every day.
  • Other families aren’t in and out of medical appointments multiple days each week.
  • Other families aren’t constantly researching how to best meet the needs of their off-the-chart child when it comes to his academics.

When you have a child who is wired differently, you have to absolutely adjust your expectations. Normal for your family is what works and allows healthy margin. What anyone else does is completely irrelevant.

Bringing Margin To Our Families

Making sure our families have enough margin is important. We need to do what we can for the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional well-being of our families even when it involves making hard decisions. The need for more margin is real.

I believe that if we ask God for guidance in these areas, He will help us and so we should ask Him to open our eyes to ways to bring rest and peace to our families. He desires to care for us and our children and we can trust our lives to Him.

This post is part of my larger collection of essays on raising gifted and 2e children as a Christian parent.

In My Shop

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Choosing a Homeschool Approach – Understand Your Child First


There are many websites available that tell homeschoolers exactly how to do their schooling. These approaches focus on a certain way of scheduling, a demanding philosophy, or a particular curriculum. For some families these approaches will work just fine. But for other families they will be disastrous.

Even worse, it is often implied that this is the only way to do homeschooling properly leaving parents who are already struggling with homeschooling feeling even more like a failure. Homeschooling pressures can be tremendous.

I am convinced of the need for many homeschoolers to think outside the box when choosing a homeschool approach.

If you are anything like me, your time is limited. While I am firmly committed to helping Caroline attain the education that best meets her needs, I also have to live the rest of my life. I have a home to take care of, health concerns to navigate, a marriage to nurture, a spiritual life to attend to, family and friends to connect with, and a business to run with my husband.

It seems to me that many popular homeschooling approaches do things backwards.

They require the parent to spend copious amounts of time studying the approach in order to become fully versed in what the particular approach’s guru teaches. The parent then attempts to apply that particular approach to their child.

I’d like to suggest that it is better to devote your time to understanding your child first and then seek out whatever you need that best aligns with who God created her to be.

In my thinking, it is far more beneficial to invest time understanding your child and building a relationship with her than to spend large amounts of time reading other people’s opinions about how to “properly” educate your child.

Very Different Learning Styles

I am a very academic type person. I was the kind of child who liked doing worksheets and could spend my entire day (and night) with my nose in a book. I loved handwriting and geography and had many penpals while I was growing up. I was a whiz at memorizing. I thought creative play was silly and video games did nothing for me. Art was my least favorite special. I would have thrived with a more academic, fact-based, cerebral approach to learning if I had been homeschooled.

My own daughter is nothing like that.

Instead of putting her nose in a book, she would prefer to create imaginative scenarios with her stuffed animals all. day. long. She abhorred handwriting (until we sought out a diagnosis and therapy) and I’m sure the mere mention of multiple penpals would not sound like a fun opportunity but cruel and unusual punishment. She would play Minecraft all day if I would let her. She loves read alouds, but doesn’t like to read. She’s never met an empty box she couldn’t transform into something better and more creative.

We are just soooo different. I had to completely adjust my paradigm to try to understand her. It was like I had to do graduate level work to understand my own child and I have a degree in education!

I have invested a lot of effort into trying to figure out what makes her tick. She just turned eight and I still feel like I’m figuring her out. We’re so different in our learning approaches. And yet even after investing much time in trying to understand her I realized afresh this week after talking with her OT that I need to push the boundaries even further with her learning.

So the thought of spending hours trying to understand the finer points of some homeschooling approach? It’s not going to happen. It’s taking everything I have just to stay a couple steps ahead of my child.

Questions to Ask When Studying Your Child

So how do you go about studying your child? Here are a few questions to get you started.

What energizes my child?

What really excites your child? If it is Minecraft, for example, dig deeper. What is it about Minecraft that energizes your child?

  • The creative aspect?
  • The autonomy aspect?
  • The battle of wits aspect?
  • Because it makes your child feel successful?

Kids love playing Minecraft for different reasons. It feeds something in them. What energizes your child and, most importantly, why?

How does my child learn best?

Contrary to the opinion of some, it is not a crime to teach your child in the way she learns best. I know that is obvious to some people, but it truly is a paradigm shift for others.

We have somehow adopted this idea that learning should be unpleasant and children just have to suck it up and do it even if it creates anger, frustration, boredom, etc.

Why?

Would we as adults stay in a job that was a terrible fit for us? Would we choose a profession we hated and work every day in it? No. We would seek out something that was a better fit for us as soon as possible.

Why do we think it is somehow noble to force children to learn in a way they hate? 

What drains my child?

What does your child dread? Handwriting, for example? Dig deeper. Why? What is it about handwriting that drains your child? Don’t automatically assume that it is a laziness issue.

Math? Why does math drain your child? Again, don’t assume it is laziness which is what so many parents do when a child is resistant to learning a particular subject.

Why does a particular activity drain your child? And what should you do about it?

What does my child struggle with?

There are different kinds of struggles. Any time we learn something new we have to put forth a certain amount of effort. But then there is the struggle that is demoralizing. This is the struggle that causes children to feel stupid and creates a fear of learning.

Is your child struggling because there is a learning glitch somewhere? Are you asking too much too soon? Do you need a different approach? Don’t be afraid to chuck what you are doing in an area where your child struggles and do something different.

Understand Your Child and Then Plan

Once you feel like you are beginning to understand the unique needs of your child, then you are ready to start researching and determining the best approach.

I would venture to guess that the more outside the box your child is (gifted, twice-exceptional, right-brained, spirited, creative, etc.) the less chance you have of finding an all-encompassing curriculum or educational approach that is going to work consistently across the board.

And that is okay! That’s why we choose to homeschool our children in the first place! To give them what they need, not to force them to conform to someone else’s vision or expectations!

So the next time you meet someone who enthusiastically labels herself as a such-and-such homeschooler, don’t feel intimidated. Don’t be put off by her enthusiasm and confidence in the approach she has adopted. Don’t feel like a failure because you aren’t doing the same thing.

Instead, embrace your child and embrace the freedom you have to tailor her education to her specific needs. In the end, this is why we ended up Relaxed Homeschoolers. You may end up in a different place and I celebrate that with you. Just be sure you choose what is best for your child and your family and not anyone else’s.

New to Relaxed Homeschooling?

I’ve gathered my best posts on creating a peaceful, customized, relationship-first homeschool in one place. Start here: Relaxed Homeschooling.

If you are planning your homeschool year, you may also want to visit my Homeschool Planning Help page. You may also enjoy my Back-to-Homeschool Help hub with planning encouragement, relaxed homeschooling posts, and free printables.

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Homeschooling a Very ADHD Son | From Chaos To Computer Science


Today’s guest post is by Brenda Nuland of Coffee, Tea, Books and Me.

My children were born twelve years apart. My daughter’s first day at the University was the same day my son began Kindergarten. Same husband. Same marriage. Definitely God’s sense of timing and not mine.

But we were thrilled to have a son and looked forward to raising another child, even if we were older and a little more tired by this time. From the beginning we realized this child was different than his sister. For one thing, he did not walk if there was room to run. We never used a playpen with his sister (except when staying at my mother’s small house). He destroyed a few playpens before the age of two.

I had hoped for a normal child, the kind I saw at church all the time. For my daughter was unique in her own way. She was what is called precocious. She had (and still has) a brilliant mind. She could often out think me and I’m no slouch. She would graduate a year early from an academic high school. (I am very pleased to say that her fifth child is a girl just like she was… but I digress).

Deciding To Homeschool A Very ADHD Boy

During this time, two things happened that would change the course of our life. Our son was having a terrible time in first grade and we were deeply concerned that he was being labeled by a teacher who preferred a quiet classroom to rowdy little boys. Her class had a large percentage of students on Ritalin… including my son. I knew he was not slow or stupid. I did admit he had a very difficult time sitting still.

A homeschool Dad from the church we attended at the time warned us that we needed to take our son out of the public schools NOW and consider teaching him at home. He knew our son and was concerned he would believe the labels being put on him and act them out.

Around this time, I also read the book by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay called For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School. To make a very long story short… we began our homeschool journey at the kitchen table on the first day of the second grade.

Was it easy? Oh, my… it was the most challenging thing I had ever done. Even more challenging than being an acting department head at the corporation where I once worked. My son cried and I cried. My son stomped his feet and I hit my head against the wall. He threatened to run away from home and I sincerely hoped he did (for just a few minutes).

I had imagined long periods of reading aloud and visits to museums and field trips to the fire department and noticing the lifespan of a caterpillar and perusing books at the library and putting together nature journals and all those lovely things talked about in the books.

I was wrong… forgetting for awhile that I was attempting to teach a very ADHD boy.

Becoming A Student Of My Child

When I would take the whole homeschooling thing to prayer, I always felt the Lord was telling me to become an expert in my son and not methods of homeschooling. Watch him, look at how he learns, notice what he is doing during those rare quiet times, find out his God-given “bent”, become like Sherlock Holmes and look for the hints he is dropping as to his interests and perhaps even… the young man he is to become.

For you see, part of bringing him home to school meant for me to forget my idea of what school meant. Did I really need or even desire to do the same things at home that frustrated him in the school building? For we had the time and the desire for the one-on-one attention he needed.

That’s what I did. I became a student of my student, a detective finding out what makes him tick, how he learns.  Homeschooling, while still a challenge at times, became a journey.  For I learned that if God makes a child a certain way, He will also provide a way for him to become what He intended the child to be… to fulfill his destiny.

Homeschooling My ADHD Son

So we did read a lot of books, many while he was sitting on the living room floor at our former home playing with Legos. We went to the mid-week Farmer’s Market during the seasons it was open and then walked to the library to look for books with wonderful pictures of things he was interested in at the time.

We took a picnic lunch to the park where there were wonderful trails and walked along the trees to find rocks and arrowheads and colored leaves and small animals and learned to look… to observe as if we were scientists.

As he grew older, we used more books along with the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, PBS Specials, videos, DVDs, and all kinds of ways to open the wonders to be learned. We developed a combination of reading and seeing and hearing and doing.

Around age nine or so, he asked to use our computer… a wonderful sturdy Gateway model. He took to it like I take to coffee each morning. It was love at first byte (sorry, couldn’t resist). By age ten or eleven, he was learning from friends on gaming chat rooms how to create simple computer games.

Now, I know this was risky but the computer was out in the open and I could see what was being said. I even came to know these other people by their gaming names. This was all monitored as carefully as possible… and the Internet was not as dangerous then as it can be today.

Homeschooling High School With ADHD Son

I can’t say the high school years were easy. He still hated math. It took two years to get through Saxon ½. I admit to having doubts if he would ever make it in college. For while he was no longer hyperactive, he definitely was (and still is) extremely distracted from an audio perspective.

There came a year we decided it was time to add a community college class or two, in addition to what we did at home and in our homeschool co-op. This would be a test to see how he would handle large classrooms.

It was a challenge at first but then he began to get better… and better… and eventually quite successful. He took his senior year of homeschooling with classes at the community college. He began to get better grades in math.

Finding Success In College And Beyond

He eventually transferred to the University. He began to get A’s in Calculus and Advanced Algebra and the same Physics class his father had to take twice when he was at the University.

The same kid who took two years to get through Saxon ½ was now getting A’s in the advanced math courses? Amazing! But I remembered the specialist I took him to in the first grade had told me that ADHD children were often extremely intelligent but their brain needed time to mature.

That is what homeschooling had done for us… it opened the way to teach the way he needed to learn… and for that brain to catch up with his natural intelligence. Time to go from being called slow and stupid by a teacher… to graduating in Computer Science and working as a Software Engineer today.

I must also admit that the homeschool journey was one I came to love very much. I know teaching one child is different than teaching many at home. My daughter homeschools her five children and I am amazed at how she does it. But God knew in His wisdom I could handle the one… quite challenging… student.

What is my message to you? Be patient, educating your child is a journey of years and not semesters. It is accomplished one day at a time.  Each child is unique but God will give you wisdom. Neither you, nor your child, are perfect people. However, you are the perfect parent (and parents) to raise that child. God does not make mistakes. Even if I thought so when my son was a toddler.

And most importantly… they are a work in process. You will be astonished at how everything you are doing one day at a time will come together and that young man or young woman will become the person they were intended to be all along.

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Discovering Your Child Is Gifted – Does It Matter?


Venturing into writing about having a gifted child is a whole new area for me. I wrote recently about discovering Caroline’s giftedness. In part, I wrote:

As evidenced by the topics in my header, I’ve always known that Caroline had unique traits. But I never really researched the gifted angle seriously because… I don’t know. I just didn’t. Even though I’m gifted and qualify for Mensa so it would make sense she would be gifted, I just didn’t zero in on this with her. Maybe God’s restraining hand? However, after digging into the reading I have zero doubts. Some of the characteristics made me laugh out loud because it’s just SO OUR LIFE! There was one list in particular that zeroed in on some very. specific. things. that just astonished me how accurately they described Caroline.

I’m not going to say much about this here since I try to protect Caroline’s privacy online. But a gifted child is not the same thing as having a smart child. Gifted is different and it brings with it a whole set of challenges and opportunities. Like most gifted kids, Caroline’s development is asynchronous in some significant ways and so I’m struggling to determine the best ways to meet her needs and address areas that need focus. And have all of us stay sane in the process.

So what made me decide to write about giftedness? Well, I’m writing about it today because it is time to force me out of my comfort zone and write about it.

Giftedness: Why Does It matter?

I put off writing this post day after day because I feel so inadequate to the task. I feel like I’m just starting to figure out what this means for us and, frankly, it’s overwhelming. I feel ill-equipped to give any kind of insight on this topic. It’s hard to even draw on my own experiences because Caroline and I are gifted differently in some significant ways.

I was also a K-12 public school child so my frame of reference for what it means to be gifted in an educational setting is completely different from our homeschooling situation. (As in, we had professional specialists working with us. In Caroline’s situation, I’m the specialist.)

But I do know one reason why it matters. Identifying Caroline’s giftedness (and, in the process, revisiting my own) matters because it shows me I am not alone on this journey. Discovering other parents who wrestle with the same issues and questions is important both for Caroline and for me as her mother and teacher. A child’s giftedness changes your life. It means adjusting your expectations. It also means experiencing some amazing joys.

Those of you who have followed my blog for many years know that I wrote very little about life with Caroline after I had her. I had a very public long-awaited pregnancy, but then it just changed. I didn’t write because I didn’t know what to write. I didn’t want to write something I would regret later on. Our early years were not blissful days of a perfectly photographed baby, but rather parenting a high need baby. The first four years were HARD. And so I just kept my blogging mouth shut for the most part.

Caroline will be eight in a few weeks and I just now feel like I have enough experience under my belt and distance from the early days that I can write with some sense of clarity. David and I can see the fruits of our labors to this point. Discovering Caroline was gifted brought all of it together somehow.

Identifying A Child’s Giftedness Matters For The Parents

So is it important to know your child is gifted? Yes, I think it is. Obviously it is important for the child. Gifted children often feel that they don’t fit in and understanding you are wired differently can make a big difference in knowing who you are and the unique ways you are blessed.

But it’s also really important for the parents. It’s important to know that your child is different in a good way. She does demand more out of you. Her asynchronous development is normal. And there are plenty of families like yours out there.

The first four years I felt very alone. I felt like almost no one could relate to our struggles. It was very lonely. I learned to keep my mouth shut in real life because to discuss our challenges almost always brought judgement and condemnation, even from people who probably meant well. Our confidence as parents took a terrible hit during those years. I don’t want other people to experience that and if my writing can help just a few families through those tough times, then it was all worth it.

Do you know which six words bring a smile to my face quicker than almost anything? “I’m so glad I found you.” Of all the comments I receive on here, that is the one that makes me smile and glow inside every. single. time. Because I know someone else doesn’t feel alone any longer. And it makes my heart sing to know that is true.

It matters because it gives us hope and confidence as parents to move forward and love our kids in the way they uniquely need.

This post is part of my larger collection of essays on raising gifted and 2e children as a Christian parent.

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