Friday, February 25, 2011

End of expensive Tutoring

After lots of encouragement from other Moms, I have decided that I will order the Barton System myself and teach it to my son. On the message board for Dyslexic Homeschooling, there are several Moms that use the Barton System themselves with fantastic results. After watching Susan Barton's 3 hour video on dyslexia, I know she is a great teacher, thorough, and explains everything extremely well to where you can understand it. This gave me the encouragement I needed to stop paying $520 a month for tutoring, and take it on myself. My son completely level 1 in his first week. I will be ordering level 2 today. My husband decided he wanted to help as well, so we will watch the DVD's together and learn how to teach my son. I can't wait!!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Day 5

Well, today we got our program, Speaking Naturally, from my friend Rachel, along with the headset from her father. I can't wait to load it onto my son's computer and start using it! I think it is going to open up a world of creativity since he won't be bound by using only simple words he can spell. Nor will either of us be bound by the frustration of  him trying to spell words correctly. I hope creative writing can be something he can enjoy now. Thank you so much to Rachel and Papa for these wonderful tools!

Now, onto more side effects of the Vyvanse I am taking note of:  First, my son has become a very organized person. From voluntarily putting all the shoes away neatly on our shoe cart, to folding his napkin in even 1/4 folds. It's very interesting. We were at a neighbors house the other day, and she offered him some sugar free jell-o. He was excited for the "rare" treat, ate it slowly and indulged in every bite, then went to the sink and washed his jell-o cup along with all their other dishes in their kitchen sink. I couldn't help but laugh. Here we are in a strangers house, for the first time, and my son is washing their dishes! They were appreciative and a little weirded out at the same time I think. Hahaha. Then he decided to start cleaning up their grandson's play room. Well the 4 year old grandson did not appreciate this by any means and it started a bit of an argument between them. My son got a little upset and came and sat by me. The neighbors noticed my son's insistence to clean up and commented that he is quite the "neat and tidy" child. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that one...if only they walked across the street and saw his room in its present "disaster" condition.

And the second thing I am noticing is his unhappiness with everything in every situation. He is just not happy. I wouldn't say he is sad, or angry. He is just not happy. Unless I engage him in conversation about what he wants to talk about. Now, don't get me wrong, I am in no way opposed to talking to him about what he wants to talk about, however, I simply can't talk about video games and how annoying his sister is ALL DAY! So, with that said, I do think we will need to supplement with a wellbutrin or something to that effect. We took him to Dave and Busters last night, which has lots of video games and he is usually ecstatic to go, but not last night. He was mopey and just not his usual excited self. My husband took him to get a video game with his gift card and he seemed happy for all of 5 minutes. So, we are trying to engage him more and find what makes him happy.

We think we may have come up with a way for him to get his tutoring at a discounted rate, so please pray that we are able to go through with it, as we check into the resources I have found.

Lastly, I have connected with some awesome homeschooling Moms through different blogs, groups, and just searching for hours and hours, hahaha. As I connect with individuals on a more personal level, I find that there are so many Moms out there dealing with much harder situations than I can even imagine. Moms with 3, 4, 5, and 6 children, all with an array of learning differences. Everything from Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, to Phonemic Awareness issues, OCD, ODD, and then things I had never even heard of. From daily therapy to fighting the school district for the rights their children deserve. As I went into Dave and Buster's last night, I saw a Mom walking with her physically and mentally challenged teenager. It was inspiring as well as heart breaking. These are the Moms that are going to get me through all this! These are the Moms that I will devote time to each day to be sure I encourage and give them praise for what they do day in and day out. I don't mean pity, because trust me, pity is the last thing they need. They need encouragement and a "job well done" for what they endure on a daily basis. So high five to you Moms!! You are my encouragement that I can and will make it through the day. And I hope in return I can encourage you to keep on keepin' on!

Love to all :o)