May 10, 2011

All he ever wanted

Discovering musical theater has been a blessing for Nature Boy.  Life is hard for kids with dyslexia because so much of a kid's day is spent in school.  (Thank God for homeschooling!)  I think it's super duper important for kids to be able to spend even more time on their gifts and areas of strength than they do on their areas of weakness.  That's not what the schools say.  They're all, "You're messed up, kid.  And we're here to fix you."  Pshaw.  "Remediation" has its place for sure, but we can't let our kids' gifts and joys get shoved to the back of the closet.

The best homeschooling (and parenting)(and life) advice I ever received was that God knows what our purpose is, what our calling in life will be.  And we are created perfectly to suit that calling.  We are equipped/hardwired for the job we're meant for.  To me that means (you know, just off the top of my head) that a child whose tears are mixed with pencil lead while doing math problems, and who writes notes such as this one, isn't meant to be a mathematician.  And that's okay.



   
Every kid (and grownup!) needs to find his or her niche.  A place to shine.  Music and performing (and nature) are my son's.  Here's a video of Nature Boy performing a solo in his most recent musical.  (Note: If you have an email subscription, the video might not appear in the email.  Not sure why.)


3 comments:

  1. That is great life advice. And that anti math page just breaks my heart. I would have written the same thing as a child...only mine would have been heavily covered with drawings. Wasn't until college that I really had that "aha!" moment of realizing I'm meant to do art and design. I love the space that homeschooling gives for that acceptance so much earlier.

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  2. It makes me sad too. It seems like I've tried everything, but math is still a struggle. As you can tell from the note, so is handwriting. I wish we could just bypass math. I think my son and I would both cry with relief.

    I wonder if creative folks often struggle with math. Do you think it's a right brain/left brain thing?

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  3. I came to your blog from The Ultimate Homeschool Blogroll

    I love how you have seen your son's needs and weren't afraid to veer from what's "normal"! To see him shine in that performance brought tears. He's blessed to have such an in touch mom :)

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