James turned out to be a classic right-brain dominant, kinesthetic  male, something we'd never even heard of before we started trying to teach him.  Once we understood him a little better, though, it was much easier to allow him to excel at what he had obviously been designed to excel, while still trying to give him the very best academic skills he could master.  It was a delicate balance for several years, and sometimes we pushed him a little too hard, sometimes we let him slide  a little too much.  Our "saving grace?"  Crying out to the Lord for our son and trying to continually stay open to the Lord's gentle leading for direction for him. 

Parents can find resources for right-brain dominant males and kinesthetic learners by checking scrolling to the bottom of our Family Page. 

James was 18 when he shared this testimony with my Moms' Group in December 2003.

What a Mom Can Do to Help Win Her Teen's Heart

When I was in my early teens I began to fall more and more behind in some areas of my schooling. Math, Grammar, and Spelling were all very hard of me. Some subjects were harder than others, but I think that math was the most difficult for me. But I did very well in the things that I enjoyed, I loved working on things and fixing things.  I also liked music and loved reading.  But, still I was falling behind in other areas.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do the work.  In fact, I wanted to please my parents very much. I just could not understand most of the concepts.

Some of you may have children that are a lot like I was, so I am just going to tell you a few of the things that my parents did that helped me (and some that didn’t) to get through those years.

One of the advantages of home schooling is that each child can learn at their own pace. That may mean being held back in some areas until later when they can understand things better (like I was) and that may mean letting them move several grades ahead that they would otherwise not be aloud to do.

Being aloud to succeed in the things that I could do well was very encouraging. Not being scolded for the things that I could not do helped me as well. If I had been told that I was just stupid or that I could not do the things that other children my age could do, that would have made it harder for me to catch up later on.

When I was about twelve my parents asked me to pray about what I might want to do with my life. When I was younger I had wanted to be an airplane pilot. Later I thought I about working with computers. But by the time I was twelve or thirteen I knew for a fact I wanted to be a landlord. I wanted to provide nice, clean affordable homes for families to live in. And it really helped me through the last four or five years of school knowing what I wanted to do, and being able to work towards that goal as a part of my school. My parents allowed me to work on certain projects around the house and let me spend a few weeks with another home schooling family that was also starting in real estate. And that was like the icing for me through the harder years of my school.

One thing that did not help me was trying to catch up too quickly once I was able to do the work. Trying to do all of the work that I was behind on, all at once or even all in one year, was overwhelming. Of course, any one that gets behind will have to do more than usual, but it might take a little while to catch up to wear they are supposed to be. If they can learn it that fast, then that’s great, but it was not that easy for me.

So in review, some things that helped were being told that I was loved, being praised in things I did well, being allowed to succeed in the things that I could do well, not being punished or scolded for the things that I could not do, having a goal to shoot for, and not trying to catch up to quickly.

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Last modified: August 27, 2008