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

A Quiet Simple Life

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Why Won’t My Child Play With Busy Bags?


I know some of you will think I am exaggerating, but when Caroline was just over two weeks old I told David she looked bored. And she did. I went out that day and bought a Fisher-Price Rainforest Melodies and Lights Deluxe Gym. She LOVED it.

From the time she was tiny, she always wanted to be held and carried around. Not swaddled. She hated that. Not held on our lap. Not put in a seat where she could look around. Carried around upright. She wanted to be on the move and see everything.

We rocked her to sleep every night for a long, long, long time. Her spirited mind was too busy to allow her to self-soothe and she needed the assistance to fall sleep.

When she was around two, we would put her down for a nap with books to look at. After a while, we would go in her room and find her asleep sitting up. She would not lay down. She would go until her battery literally ran out.

From the earliest weeks Caroline craved variety and wasn’t much interested in stopping. I didn’t fully understand it at the time although it became obvious that she was not wired like other babies I read about.

I have to laugh when I see all of these busy bag ideas on Pinterest. Don’t get me wrong. They are super cute. Like a good mom I created a few things like that for Caroline and it was a total waste of my time. I would spend an hour creating something and she would be done with it in literally thirty seconds with almost zero interest in picking it up again. After all the hours and hours one would invest in making lots of busy bags, do you know how much total time we would have gotten out of them? I would guess about three minutes tops.

Caroline would have done it once and maybe done it a second time.

After that… pffft.

Been there, done that, and time to move on (with corresponding look of boredom or almost disdain that her mother would even suggest doing something again).

She’s now eight and completely into Minecraft. And I’m pretty sure I know why.

It is never-ending variety. It’s always changing. There’s always something new to do or make or discover. It feeds her craving.

If you have a little one who craves variety and leaves you feeling like you can never come up with enough new things for her to do without breaking the bank and/or driving yourself nuts in the process… I hear you.

I totally get it.

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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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Relaxed Homeschooling Curriculum for a Creative Gifted Child


Would it be wrong to start off a post about relaxed homeschooling curriculum choices for the upcoming year and admit that a lot of the time I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing? Would it make you feel better to know that I have a degree in education, am an experienced teacher, and I still find homeschool planning challenging?

That’s honestly how it feels right now. I feel like I have been making it up as I go for the past four years since we attempted homeschool preschool (here and here), did something that I guess was kindergarten (and here), muddled through first grade, and we’ll call last year second grade.

The realization this spring that Caroline is gifted has made that muddling a bit clearer and explains a lot. When I look over the posts I wrote about our past experiences, words jump out at me now because they all point to her giftedness that I couldn’t clearly see at the time.

So if you are looking for a traditional approach curriculum post, this isn’t it.

If you are looking for ideas from a mom who is winging it as she tries to figure out how to home educate a gifted, right-brained child with some significant asynchronous development… I’m your girl!

Homeschool Planning with My Child, Not for My Child

One important realization I came to is that even though Caroline is only seven, I have to plan with her and not for her. I’m not comfortable with becoming complete unschoolers and giving her total control, but we have become very relaxed homeschoolers and that includes (starting this year) letting her suggest a lot of what we are going to be doing. Otherwise, it is just too much of a… I don’t want to say battle because of the negative connotations but you get the idea. I’ve come to the conclusion that the more input she gives, the smoother our journey together will be. 🙂

Yesterday Caroline and I sat down and brainstormed all the things she would like to learn about this year. I already had some things planned, but I also wanted to hear from her. Once she got rolling, she gave me lots of good ideas. So her suggestions are incorporated below.

Learning That Requires Little Writing

Writing is not one of Caroline’s strengths. Because of that, I’m leaning heavily toward activities that require as little writing as possible. Drawing is great, writing is not.

Notebooking and Lapbooking

In keeping with the less writing is better theme, we are going to be incorporating more notebooking and lapbooking this year. The notebooking will include minimal writing and I know there are lots of ways to notebook effectively without it. I will have her dictate to me as necessary. The same with lapbooking. I did design one lapbook to use with her last year that required almost no writing and had hoped to make many more, but time did not allow it.

Tools We Love

We have some learning tools that we love and will continue to use. We have a Dry Erase Board and Dry Erase Markers. These are a must have in my opinion. Caroline loves to draw on the whiteboard and it makes it seem less like work when we use it. I have it mounted low to the floor so she can sit on the floor and draw whenever she would like to do so.

We will also continue to use the Boogie Board. It’s another fun tool.

Boogie Board 8.5-Inch LCD Writing TabletBoogie Board 8.5-Inch LCD Writing Tablet

We still use our Calendar Pocket Chart which is similar to this one, but not the exact same one.

I like using the Fellowes Comb Binding Machine. This is especially helpful when I find old books online that I want to print out and give to her to look at. I also use it to make my own little learning packets on different topics. And we use it to make blank books with white or colored cardstock pages that Caroline wants to do things with on her own.

History and Geography – The Mystery of History

I’m looking forward to doing history and geography with Caroline. It’s arguably my favorite subject area and I haven’t done much with it because she’s had classes for this at co-op the past couple of years.

The basis of all our academic learning this year is going to be The Mystery of History Volume 1 (Creation to the Resurrection) from Bright Ideas Press. Caroline saw the book on my desk and said, “Oooo, what’s this?” (That’s a very good sign!) She’s been completely fascinated with Ancient Egypt and other ancient cultures for quite some time so this is totally appealing to her.

I’ve got the whole kit and kaboodle to do with her.

  • The Mystery of History Volume 1
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Reproducibles Download
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Craft Pack
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Challenge Cards
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Notebooking Pages
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Folderbook Full Set
  • WonderMaps

Caroline specifically asked to learn about Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt so we’ll cover those in TMOH.

She also expressed an interest in learning about:

  • Australia
  • Russia
  • The Great Wall of China
  • Machu Picchu
  • Lewis and Clark
  • John F. Kennedy
  • Abraham Lincoln
  • The Titanic
  • Strange creatures (Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Ice Monsters, UFOs, werewolves, vampires and Frankenstein)

We’ll probably cover these topics primarily as read alouds and I will probably develop some of my own materials for those.

Science

Caroline’s main requirement for science was nothing gross. I can’t say I blame her! She expressed an interest in making a leaf collection this fall and learning about Venus flytraps.

I have a Homeschool Science and Nature Study Pinterest board where I continue to add interesting ideas. I plan on using ideas off that for our science.

I also have some science activity books and workbooks that I’ve picked up here and there over the years. I plan on having us do different activities out of them.

Fun Fact Cards

For history, geography, science and holiday topics, we’ll be using my Fun Fact Cards. I already have many made for topics we’ll be doing and I’ll continue to add more over the year.

Reading

I am not planning any kind of formal reading curriculum. We read to her all the time. She reads on her own. I’ll have her read to us. She is way ahead of her grade level in reading ability. We make multiple trips to the library each week and always have a large basket full of books. We’ll check out many books related to the history topics we study.

For read alouds, we’ll finish going through the American Girl series. David reads them to her every night and they have been great for giving her an historical reference for many time periods. They’ve read the following series so far: Caroline, Kanani, Isabelle, Lanie, Saige, McKenna, Kit, Chrissa and are working their way through Molly.

I’m thinking we might start going through the Little House on the Prairie books (which I’ve tried in the past and she just wasn’t interested yet), including the newer series about Caroline and the other ancestors when they were younger including The Caroline Years and The Martha Years.

She’s also expressed an interest in my Nancy Drew books she saw so I’m thinking maybe trying to hook her on Trixie Belden first and then move on to Nancy Drew.

We also have a membership to Reading Rainbow online that she accesses with the Kindle Fire and she enjoys that a great deal.

Writing and Handwriting

Writing is currently one of the bugaboos for our lefty, right-brained learner. I’m going to order Handwriting Without Tears and see how it goes. Unless Caroline expresses an interest in learning cursive, we won’t be starting it this year.

As far as formal writing, I’m not planning on doing a formal writing curriculum. I’ll incorporate writing with The Mystery of History and that will be enough for us this year.

The past few years we’ve kept a journal in a Primary Journal. Caroline dictated the content to me and then illustrated it. I’m thinking we will continue to do this as she really enjoys going back and reading what we wrote at various times. Toward the end of last year I had her do bits of the writing and spelling so I’m hoping we will continue to build on that. My hope is that by the end of the year, she will be doing the writing herself.

Typing

Caroline has started learning to type this summer! I’m doing a review for Type Kids next Monday so we’ve been using the program. I’ll save my comments for the review, but so far it has been great!

Math

Math is currently our other area of puzzlement. We’ll be doing a combination of using math websites, Kindle math apps, and some miscellaneous workbooks I’ve picked up here and there.

Bible

Last year we used GrapeVine Studies for the first time. Caroline and I both loved it. We did the New Testament Overview Part 1 last year and I’m planning on Part 2 this year.

Timeline-in-Notebook

Gym

Caroline will be taking a gym class at co-op so I’m not doing anything with this.

Art

Caroline is taking an art class at co-op so this is covered. However, she had many ideas of things to learn related to art so I’m going to incorporate these as I’m able. She was interested in:

And Duck Tape. Lots of Duck Tape.

Music

Caroline has a very nice children’s guitar we bought last Christmas and I’d like to see her actually get into it. I’m not sure if private lessons would be best or what. She has also expressed an interest in piano lessons at times. I’m not sensing anything clear at this point so we’ll just wait and see what develops.

Field Trips

We have not done nearly as much travel as I would have expected when we started homeschooling. Part of that has been financial and part of it has been my health issues. I believe that field trips and travel can be such an important part of homeschooling so I hope we are able to do more in the years ahead.

Caroline suggested a few places she was interested in visiting and I added a few. They include:

Sewing

Caroline really wants to learn how to sew. I have minimal sewing skills and honestly don’t enjoy it because I am too much of a perfectionist. However, I am willing to get it out and see what we can do with it. I have no agenda with this. This will totally be according to her interest level.

Foreign Language

She said she didn’t want to learn one. I’m going to try to find a really fun website and convince her to try it out to see if she changes her mind. David took French in high school and I took two years of German at Michigan State. It would make the most sense to have her choose one of those since we’re familiar with them, but she’s expressed an interest in Spanish. We’ll see.

Games

We already have a good collection of games. I should probably buy a new  UNO deck as ours is quite well used. (Caroline will clean your clock in that game!) Last year I purchased Blokus, Qwirkle and Appletters. I was describing Tiddly Winks to Caroline the other day and think that would probably be a hit. LOL!

Caroline has enjoyed playing Minecraft on the Kindle Fire and is amazingly good at it. Last week we downloaded the full Minecraft to the computer. She only plays on Creative mode and loves it. I suspect she will spend lots of time exploring Minecraft in the coming year.

One game I know Caroline would enjoy is a magnetic dart board. My parents have a really nice one we purchased for my Dad at Restoration Hardware a number of years ago. They no longer carry it, but I found this one online. It’s rather pricey, but I’m thinking this might be something I buy for our family.

That’s It!

So there you go. That’s an outline of our plan for this year. I see it as more of a general roadmap that will change and twist along the way.

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.

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