Hi Deb,

You are so welcome to email me any time! I'm glad to help.

 

There are several thoughts and questions that I have derived from your email...

Questions:

What is your son's disability? You may be right that the handwriting issue is connected... I might have a better insight on the relationship between the two if I know what the disability is.

 

What does school look like in your home? Many times a parent's way of teaching and the child's best way of learning are different and this will cause difficulty and make mom and child feel exhausted and burned out!

 

Thoughts:

If there is 'a fight' when you are trying to teach him, you may have to re-win his heart. To learn, one must love the teacher. God gives us a wonderful example of this in His word. He must win our hearts and then we can learn and change. Don't fight with your son, this will only provoke him to more anger. Find other ways for him to do his work (other than writing it.) Some ideas: dictate, daily oral language, acting out, record onto a cassette tape, draw a picture, tell a story, create a game, build with legos... the list goes on. Use what fits with the information he has been taught. Then use copy work to improve handwriting.

 

Work on copy work for handwriting -- 5 minutes daily.. increasing it every couple weeks or so by 2 or 3 minutes. I wrote an article about handwriting in our free ezine. I'll try to post it to the blog for you to read at www.homeschoolblogger.com/cberry. You can also find some information there about winning your child's heart.

 

Don't give up! God has equipped you to train up your child. If you are not sure what to do, ask Him! He will tell you, or put someone in your path that can help. If we allow Him to remove our preconceived ideas of how learning and teaching is supposed to look like, He can teach us how best to reach our children.

 

You may want to consider attending our mom's retreat in April... it sounds like you need a break and some encouragement! :)

 

I pray this has helped.

 

Blessings,

Christie