ADHD Learning Styles That Actually Work Ep 3: Follow Their Natural Rhythm

Hello again. Now this is the third in this series. And what if I told you that your unconventional homeschooling methods might actually be perfectly suited for your ADHD child? And for you, especially if you have ADHD. It just, it kind of clicks together. So let me share how following my son's natural rhythm led to deeper learning. So James's learning style when he was younger, so when we lived in DC for 1 year and that was kindergarten, and he was very kinetic, like always touching things, always moving, always like just going, going, going. So during that time I had a lot of— I didn't have like today they've got those fidget spinners and all that stuff. I don't think we were they really had that then. That was back in, in 2008. Nope, 2010. It was 2010. And I don't— well, maybe they did have fidget spinners, but I didn't know of them. And I didn't, I didn't know that he had ADHD. I just thought he was just like me. Haha, guess what? He is. So I got things like— we had lots of Legos We had a Meccano set that had like little, not screws, but nuts and bolts to put all these things together. Anything that was fun like that, any kind of squishy balls. We had like this, I can't remember what they called it, might have been called a Perplexus or something. And it was like this, this, it was like a small ball like this, but it was all like straight pokey things out. And then you could make it big and you can make it small. And he loved that thing. That was one of them. I just had like lots of those kind of things in the house for him and yoga exercise balls. Those were by far the best thing to have for him anyways. So you have to also look at your child and figure out when are they— when is their best energy? Okay. Not meaning when are they, um, hyper crazy, but their best learning energy. Now for my son, that was in the afternoon. In the morning it was a lot of playing, a lot of, um, running around, doing crazy stuff like that. And in the afternoon was when we could read books together and do some math together and stuff like that. So I just always modified my day to fit him. And a lot of times our math lesson I mean, this is kindergarten, okay? So, but I started doing this when he was 3, when we moved back to America. And, um, I take him grocery shopping with me and we always played a game. Whoever could get to the closest to what the actual receipt total is would get to have a chocolate bar. Sometimes I got the chocolate bar, but I gave it to him. So he always knew he was going to get a chocolate bar, but he tried. Because I'm also a Type 1 diabetic, so I don't really eat chocolate bars that much. But yeah, that was our math sometimes. It works. It's great. It's math in the real world. I also tried to create like a natural flow for him. I knew that the longest we could go with reading at that time— he was starting to love Harry Potter, so my husband and I were reading Harry Potter to him, but he was also turning into a speed reader. It was kind of— he didn't get my dyslexia, so that's good, um, but it kind of freaked me out. And when I'd try and read him a chapter in the Harry Potter book He'd be turning pages on me because he was done before I was. And it got to the point that I couldn't read to him anymore. And I told my husband that he had to read to him. So he did for a while, but then James started doing the same thing to him. So we just had to let him read. And I remember, I will never forget this day. It was so like, I was speechless. Okay. So Paul and I were down on the main level. James was up in his bedroom. Tucked into bed, and I was going up to grab something and his light was on. So I'm like, "What are you doing?" I'm reading. I walk in and I'm like, "You need to turn out the light and go to sleep." And he looks up at me from reading his Bible, and I was like, Okay, Mom's gonna walk away now. You've got 10 more minutes, then lights out. Like, it was just like, I was so angry with him for that, but then as soon as I saw he was reading the Bible, it was like, gone. Okay, God. Yeah. So, um, we used a lot of movement and hands-on activities. We went to a lot of So we were living in DC, so we went to a lot of museums and plays and just all sorts of cool stuff. We went on a little boat ride down the, the river there, and we went to the White House. We went to all the, like, the big Lincoln thing and just like all that stuff. And the reason I don't know the name of all these things is I'm also Canadian. And yeah. And I have ADHD, okay? So yeah, please forgive me. Um, so, you know, that stuff— he learned a lot about our history, about America's history, while we were there, and it was fantastic. Um, whenever he'd have those hyper-focus moments, I really tried to pay attention to that. And one of those times was when we were actually in upstate New York, so he would have been first, second, third grade, one of those. I think it might have been second grade, but we had met Jim Weiss— no, it must have been first grade. We met Jim Weiss when we were in, uh, D.C., and he reads the books for Story— like, Story of the World books. And when I was looking for, um, history to teach him. That's what I decided on because we could also listen to it in the vehicle. I had the CD set, I had the books, and the first book we got, um, I don't think it was Ancient History though. I think it was like, I don't know, it wasn't the very first book because I had to go back and buy that later, but I got it for him. And he was so excited when it arrived. And he said, "Mom, can I read it now?" And I was like, "Sure." We didn't have the CDs yet, but he knew that Jim Weiss read this book, and he was intrigued with that man. So he went and sat on the couch, and I stayed in the front room with my computer and did some more work. I was actually attending college online at that time. Mm-hmm. I was going to Liberty University taking the Science of Religion. It was kind of cool. But so I'm doing that and, you know, an hour or so goes by and I'm like, "James, what are you doing?" Still reading, Mom. Okay. Um, so I let him read and I don't know, I don't even think it was a full 2 hours, he comes in puts it on the desk and says, "I'm done. What can I do now?" I was like, "What? What do you mean you're done?" He's like, "I finished it, Mom." I'm like, "You didn't read that. All of it." Yeah, I did, Mom. I'm like, "Can I ask you questions?" He's like, "Yeah, sure." So I like randomly opened up this book and just, you know, searched the page for some questions to ask, and I asked him and he gave me the right answer. Every time. I was like, "Oh my gosh, my child is a speed reader!" And that was him being hyper-focused because he was interested in what he was reading. You will find if you have ADHD, or your child has ADHD, if they're reading something that's not interesting— Nope. Nope. But if it's interesting, like apparently the Bible was interesting to him, Harry Potter, and Story of the World. I don't pretend to understand, but that's what his hyperfocus moment was, and it was crazy. Another thing that I did was I kind of built in breaks throughout the day. And you know what reminds me of this is that— what's it called? Pomodoro technique, where you set a timer for 25 minutes, do what you need to do for 25, and then take a 5 to 10 minute break. That's kind of what I did. Sometimes the time frame was longer, sometimes shorter. It, it depended on what we were doing. So, yeah, it just— I turned his interests, his passion, into learning opportunities for him. And when things weren't working, let me think of an example here. So later on, when we started finding out about this, um, the classical method of teaching, which I really like, um, at that point I'm the one who needed structure, not really him, because I felt like I was doing him a disservice with not having some kind of structure. And that's when I really saw some of his struggles and I would just think of a way to adapt things for him and help him through them. And I can't even think of a very concise example right now. I might later on, but right now it's not coming to my brain. So sorry about the ADHD brain. So in the next episode, We'll be tackling the big transition to college. Oh my gosh, all this natural learning got to meet traditional structure. Not fun. It's been hard. But for now, remember that what looks like distraction might actually be your child unique way of processing information. And if you want to come into my homeschooling community in school— sorry, eating hair— the link is in my description, and it's also in my profile. So I hope to see you there. Thank you.