{guest post} Homeschooling a child with special needs

Note from Joan: Today, I'm featuring a guest post from Susan Mathis. Susan, who blogs at thecouponcupboard.com, is the homeschooling mom of three and wife of one.  She lives with her family in the suburbs of Washington D.C.

As I've been walking in the homeschooling world, one of the hardest things for me to address is what's "different" in our family. I tried to describe the process of Sarah being diagnosed with Asperger's, sensory processing disorder and more in this, the final part of a 3-post series on our educational journey, but it's so hard.

I was thrilled that Susan put it into words so well and wanted to share her thoughts with you today.

Nothing captures my feelings about this issue more than the following:

Welcome to Holland

(copyright 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley, all rights reserved)

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of  going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.

For those of us who homeschool, the issues are even closer to home because we are so invested in our child’s education. Here are a few things I’ve learned through the years.

Let go of your former expectations.

One of the biggest moments of healing came for me when I realized that our family was never going to be on the cover of Homeschooling Today magazine. I had to come to terms with the fact that my son was not going to be able to meet the expectations I had created before his diagnosis.

Embrace new ones.

The next important hurdle is to set new expectations and goals. It can be so easy to fall into the trap of, "Oh my poor child. Well, he just can’t do anything, so I’d better do it for him."

The bottom line is that, while no child can do everything, most can do something.

If he’ll never be an opera singer he can still bless people by singing "This Little Light of Mine" in church or at a nursing home. He may never write the great American novel, but he can help an elderly neighbor clean her yard. And really, if you’re that elderly neighbor, what would you rather have him do?

Find the right support group.

Stay away from places and people that make you or your child feel bad. We actually left one church that we loved when it became obvious that our son was being shuttled off to a corner away from the more gifted kids; that's when we knew that God had a better place for us.

Be honest.

The hardest words I’ve ever spoken were about my son, and his various conditions.

The good news is that, without exception (except for the church we left) people have responded the same way: "Oh, I’m so sorry. You know my {fill in name of random friend of relative} has the same problem."

Reach out.

Share what you’ve learned with others. So much of what we’re dealing with is not dealt with by the general population, so it is important that we help each other. We need to marshal all our resources together to help our children be all that they can be.

Another note from Joan: I think this last point is what really inspired me to feature Susan's guest post today. I'm at the stage in my journey where community has become incredibly important to me. Community with fellow parents, with fellow Asperger's or SPD families, with fellow homeschooling families, with fellow work-at-home moms, with fellow bloggers, with my in-person friends and family members... that's what keeps me going as we've made some huge changes in our family's life in the past year! Thanks to all of you who have been there to support us - and to support Susan and her family, and all the families out there like ours. You ARE appreciated.