Mind Retrofit

Alright, it is now the third week of January and I am still trying to find my groove. The holidays threw everyone off and school was out the door. I tried several times but it just didn’t work, Daniel was unable to focus and I had to spend a lot of time trying to help him be able to have peace of mind. Ariel and Joshua were a bit chaotic too and all of us together made for a pool of madness at times. The beginning of January I started once again with the school, it has actually been pretty good.

I changed my format and it seems to be working a lot better for all of us.

I have a script so ingrained in my head with school and for some reason I have had such a hard time getting away from it. I continually  try do standard school procedures. I don’t know why when they failed me. I did not thrive in that environment, it made me very tense and even angry at times to be confined to a chair. I was not allowed to get up and walk so I would talk, then I would get in trouble, and that would cause me to have to sit on a bench when recess would come. I was unable to get any of my aggression out so the same pattern would happen when we got back into the classroom. I wanted to be on the merry-go-round the whole time, if not that, then the jungle gym, hanging upside down.

As the weeks have progressed I have taken into consideration me, how I am able to teach.

I have spent a great deal of time learning how the kids are able to learn and how they are able to retain, but I needed to add myself into the equation for this to be successful. I decided to change some things like science experiments and or crafts and art activities in the morning to help everyone with sensory input. After that we have lunch and a little bit of free time for all of us because I (we) need to reboot. Then we go back into it with reading, worksheets, music, games or just go to play time. I am trying to keep my mind still so I can do things without feeling overwhelmed or hitting my sensory overload.

I had been doing experiments and activities at the end and it proved to be very hard for me.

I was stressed if we did not get to them, I was stressed because I was dreading all of the sensory activities and how each child was going to respond and then I was stressed because that was around the end of the day and I would have to start to prepare dinner, which is another high sensory thing for me. I do enjoy it but if I am already overloaded it becomes extremely stressful. Me being stressed made everyone stressed and school was no fun.

I am really happy that it has been working better the past couple weeks.

Daniel is once again starting to get involved and actually showing interest. I think a large portion of that is because I have been giving him more sensory input. I really got off track because during the holidays I just did not have it in me. All of the kids have different sensory issues and some are like mine and some are what set mine off. I have found that Ariel seems to be a lot more like myself and Daniel and Joshua have the sensory needs that cause mine to flare. I know that me not being able to stick to my normal routine has caused all of us to get off track and has caused many melt downs, mine included.

The good news is we are getting back on track, that is all I can do and we hopefully will be back to our “normal” routines very soon.  I am starting to read a lot more on unschooling too, I think a nice balance of that and structure is what we need.