Congratulations! You have a right-brained child! You have one of those wonderfully creative children who learns differently and looks at the world differently. If you are a right-brained person, then you already have some idea of what life is like for your child.
If you are left-brained, you may feel completely bewildered about what to do with this little person who doesn’t want to do anything the way you think it should be done!
Right Brain Child
My own Caroline is right-brained. After making it through the high-need baby stage and realizing she is a highly-sensitive and spirited child when she was a toddler, the right-brained discovery was rather anti-climatic. We’ve become accustomed to having to think outside the box with her. Homeschooling a right-brained child was just the next step!
I’ve compiled below what I hope you will find to be The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling a Right Brained Child. I’ve spent hours doing research to put all of this information in one place. I hope you will find it helpful and you will find many resources that will assist you in your homeschooling and parenting journey.
If you know of any good resources I’ve missed, please feel free to let me know about them in the comments!
Please note that the inclusion of a book or link below is not an endorsement of all of its content or the content of the site on which it is located.
Books About Right Brained Children
There are a number of helpful books if the idea of right brain learning is new to you. Kids who are right brained are perfectly normal. They simply approach things differently and that approach is often at odds with our very left brain way of doing school in this culture at this time.
Imagine if things were flipped and school was very right brain. The kids who tend to be more left brain would be the odd ones out and be labeled. Embrace your right brain child and learn as much as you can about her/him!
My Posts About Homeschooling My Right Brained Daughter
I have written for many years about my parenting and homeschooling journey with my right brained daughter. Below is a sampling of my posts where it comes up. Many of these do not explicitly discuss being right brained, but it factors into the content below. You can also check out the Right Brain Learners category.
- Homeschool Curriculum for a Right Brained, Spirited Child
- Homeschooling Curriculum for Gifted/2e Visual-Spatial Learners
- Relaxed Homeschooling Curriculum for a Creative Gifted Child
- 10 Great Amazon Products for Our Creative Homeschool Girl
- Should Elementary Students Formally Study Mathematics?
- Why I Homeschool in the Afternoon and Not the Morning
- Are You Choosing the Wrong Learning Materials for Your Child?
- Our Family’s Experience with Minecraft
- Relaxed Homeschooling in the Early Elementary Years – A Series
- How I Teach Science – Relaxed Homeschooling in the Early Elementary Years
- How I Teach Math – Relaxed Homeschooling in the Early Elementary Years
- How I Teach Language Arts – Relaxed Homeschooling in the Early Elementary Years
- How I Teach History – Relaxed Homeschooling in the Early Elementary Years
- A Sample Kindergarten Homeschool Schedule for a Creative, Dreamer Child
- Must Have Items for Homeschooling a Creative Girl
- My Child Hates Phonics
- The Gift of Creativity and Beauty in Our Homeschool
- Discovering Your Child is Gifted – Does It Matter?
Right Brain Math Workbooks
Right Brain Characteristics
Right brain kids have certain characteristics. These posts give some general information about right brain characteristics.
- Your Child Might Be Right-Brained If … from The Right Side of Normal
- Is Your Child Right-Brain Oriented? from The Homeschool Mom
- Why We Need to Value Students’ Spatial Creativity from KQED
- The Gender Factor from The Right Side of Normal
General Teaching and Curriculum for the Right Brained Child
Right brain children learn best with a different kind of approach. These posts about general teaching and curriculum for right brain kids will give you an overview of how to approach your child’s learning style.
- Teaching Your Right Brain Child from Child Diagnostics
- Right-Brain Learners from The Homeschool Mom
- Left Brain vs Right Brain in the Classroom from Scholastic
- Your Puzzling Gifted Child from Child Diagnostics
- Right Brain Learning from Funderstanding
Reading, Writing and Spelling for the Right Brained Child
Right brain children often learn reading, writing, and spelling very differently from how it is taught in traditional school settings.
- Right Brain Writing from Child Diagnostics
- Reading for Right-Brained Learners from Home EDucators Resource Directory
- Right-Brained Reading from The Homeschool Mom
Math for the Right Brained Child
Right brain children also learn math very differently than is the standard approach in schools. Here are some math strategies and insights for right brain kids.
- Right Brain Math from Child Diagnostics
- Right Brain Math Strategies from Child Diagnostics
- The Making of a Wizard and the Crafty Side of Math from Blog, She Wrote
- More Right-Brained Math Ideas from The Homeschool Mom
Other Bloggers with Right Brained Children
- Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom
- Heather at Blog, She Wrote
- Tricia at Hodgepodge
- Chellie at The Planted Trees
Parenting & Enjoying Your High Need Baby
Great resource. My kid is very visual. I have to check some of books out.
Thank you so much for sharing these various resources for right brained child. I’m a right brained person same with my little boy too. I aslo homeschooled him since mainstreamed schools are mostly for left brained learners.
Darlene – You are very welcome! I’m glad you found them helpful! 🙂
I am so happy I found this site! I just started homeschooling my 8 year old son who was diagnosed with ADHD in Kindergarten. He struggled even with medication. So when I started homeschool, I noticed that even on his medicine here, he was still having the same issues. Except on his medicine he also had no appetite,didn’t want to drink, had headaches and tummy aches. The first day I stopped giving him his medicine was the best day we have had. The following day however was awful. What I have noticed is that it’s not the lack of focus that’s his problem. It’s his lack of interest or frustration he gets when he can’t get something right away or if it’s just too boring to keep his attention. That led me to start doing my own research and I discovered the whole right brain/left brain. My son was cookie cutter right brain and I felt so relieved that others were experiencing what I was. I was in tears almost everyday and it broke my heart to see him so defeated. So thank you for the resources you have posted. I plan to implement most if not all of these next week. My question now is what do you do for behavior? I read that behavior charts aren’t a good idea for right brained thinkers/learners so I am just trying to get some advice on what has worked for anyone else. Thanks so much!
Hi Rebecca,
I’m sorry it took me a few days to respond!
Re: behavior… Are you asking what kinds of consequences when he does something wrong? Are you talking willful disobedience and defiance? Or something else? I think discipline with these right brained kids can be really tricky both in terms of reasonable expectations and what is an effective consequence.
Does he have any other quirks in addition to the ADHD? For example, is he highly sensitive? Those kinds of things will impact the best way to discipline a right brained child too.
Sallie
Hi Sallie!
So sorry it took me so long to reply. To answer your questions, Yes! LOL
He is extremely defiant and I think unusually angry for an 8 year old child. He has been diagnosed with ADHD and ODD and yes he is very sensitive.` He is sensitive emotionally and sensitive to sounds and even the way things feel such as tags on his clothes.
He gets angry over ANYTHING you ask him to do. He lashes out, throws things, hits the walls and this is for things he should already be doing on his own such as cleaning up after himself or brushing his teeth. He lies, he TRIES to be sneaky but always gets caught doing things. He is very much “glass half empty” and complains more than anyone I have ever met. We just took him to the Museum of Life & Science for his first homeschool field trip and when we had to leave he complained non stop about the fact we couldn’t stay longer, the fact they closed too early, the long drive back, the music we listened to. Not one mention of how much fun he had, no thank you for taking me and the next day when I asked him to write about his favorite things at the museum, he couldn’t think of one thing!
I have tried “unschooling”, being very relaxed, and starting the day later and allowing him to stay up a bit later and get up later. I’ve tried worksheets, ABC Mouse, tons and tons of different things to keep him interested and I feel like I am going to lose my mind most days. I know in my heart home school is best for him but finding a way to get him to do it and me not feel like a failure is the hard part. We have tried reward charts but he ends up only doing the things to get his reward, NOT because it’s the right way to behave. Then when he doesn’t earnt the reward he will get so mad and say he hates this family and it breaks my heart because we do not raise him this way. I am just at my wits end I guess and looking for all the support I can get.
Oh Sallie thank you for posting this. I never heard about being right-brained until I found your blog. My son and I fit all the descriptions. I always felt I had some aspects of ADD and I struggled in school. Last night it all became clear why I felt that way, I am right-brained and was never really adjusted to school. My son is home educated. Both he and I were very high need babies, highly sensitive people, and right-brained. I was raised by a left-brained mom who tried her best to love me, but she couldn’t understand me. My son has the benefits of having a mom who has experienced them all. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Hi Nat,
You are very welcome! I’m so glad this page is helpful. Even though I don’t write specifically about right brain every time, most of my posts about homeschooling my daughter reflect that reality in some way. I hope you find lots of encouraging information here.
Sallie