What is Your Biggest Concern in Homeschooling?

A recent homeschooling survey asked, “What is your biggest concern in homeschooling your children?

The results:

26% Having my child stay focused
23% Making learning fun
13% Finding the right curriculum that my child can learn from and is user friendly
12% Teaching good manners and morals
10% That my child does not feel they are missing out on anything
10% Friendships
6% Helping my child a good self esteem

What is your biggest concern? Please post your comments!

The #1 Breakfast for Your Brain

Brain Bulletin #19 - The #1 Breakfast for Your Brain

Wouldn't it be great to have an elixir that would boost your memory, concentration, and brighten your mood?

You've got it - breakfast! A meal you must never skip. Breakfast is your brain meal. When you wake up you have been "fasting" for about 8 hours. Energy giving glucose levels in your brain have dropped. They must be restored.

Mountains of research have shown that people who eat a good breakfast:

• can do more work
  
• feel calmer
  
• think better
  
• have quicker reaction times
  
• demonstrate better memory
  
• have a more positive attitude
  
• maintain mental efficiency

Simply eating the right foods in the morning can maximize your brain power. Too often, breakfast consists of sugary cereals, waffles, artificial maple syrup, cinnamon rolls, muffins, and donuts - all will produce an erratic brain.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for your brain!

Here is my favorite "Brain Breakfast":

• A quantity of plain, good quality yogurt.
  
• A quantity of frozen blue berries (also known as brain berries).
  
• A teaspoon of pure vanilla. This raises serotonin levels in your brain.
  
• Stir the vanilla into the yogurt.
  
• Fresh or frozen blueberries. Stir in.
  
• Sprinkle crushed walnuts on top.
  
• Sprinkle with cinnamon (balances blood sugar).

Source: www.terrysmall.com

BRAINY BREAKFASTS: HOW BREAKFAST CAN IMPROVE SCHOOL AND WORK PERFORMANCE

Dr. Sears, 2009

Breakfast science. "Breakfast" means just that: break the overnight fast. Eating breakfast allows you to restock the energy stores that have been depleted overnight and begin the day with a tank full of the right fuel. Sending yourself to work or your child to school without breakfast is like trying to use a cordless power tool without ever recharging the battery. If you don't refuel your child's body in the morning after an overnight fast, the child has to draw fuel from its own energy stores until lunchtime. The stress hormones necessary to mobilize these energy reserves may leave the child feeling irritable, tired, and unable to learn or behave well. If you want your child to rise and shine rather than limp along sluggishly at school all morning, make sure your child's day gets off to a nutritious start.

Throughout the brain, biochemical messengers called neurotransmitters help the brain make the right connections. Food influences how these neurotransmitters operate. The more balanced the breakfast, the more balanced the brain function. There are two types of proteins that affect neurotransmitters: 1) neurostimulants, such as proteins containing tyrosine, affecting the alertness transmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, and 2) calming proteins that contain tryptophan, which relaxes the brain. A breakfast with the right balance of both stimulating and calming foods starts the child off with a brain that is primed to learn and emotions prepared to behave. Eating complex carbohydrates along with proteins helps to usher the amino acids from these proteins into the brain, so that the neurotransmitters can work better.

Complex carbohydrates and proteins act like biochemical partners for enhancing learning and behavior. This biochemical principle is called "synergy," meaning that the combination of two nutrients works better than each one singly, sort of like 1 + 1 = 3.

Breakfast research. If your hectic household has a morning rush hour like the one in our home, you may feel that you don't have time for a healthy breakfast. But consider what studies have shown:

Breakfast eaters are likely to achieve higher grades, pay closer attention, participate more in class discussions, and manage more complex academic problems than breakfast skippers.

Breakfast skippers are more likely to be inattentive, sluggish, and make lower grades.

Breakfast skippers are more likely to show erratic eating patterns throughout the day, eat less nutritious foods, and give into junk-food cravings. They may crave a mid- morning sugar fix because they can't make it all the way to lunchtime on an empty fuel tank.

Some children are more vulnerable to the effects of missing breakfast than others. The effects on behavior and learning as a result of missing breakfast or eating a breakfast that is not very nutritious vary from child to child.

Whether or not children eat breakfast affects their learning, but so does what they eat. Children who eat a breakfast containing both complex carbohydrates and proteins in equivalent amounts of calories tend to show better learning and performance than children who eat primarily a high protein or a high carbohydrate breakfast. Breakfasts high in carbohydrates with little protein seem to sedate children rather than stimulate their brain to learn.

Children eating high calcium foods for breakfast (e.g., dairy products) showed enhanced behavior and learning.

Morning stress increases the levels of stress hormones in the bloodstream. This can affect behavior and learning in two ways. First, stress hormones themselves can bother the brain. Secondly, stress hormones such as cortisol increase carbohydrate craving throughout the day. The food choices that result may affect behavior and learning in children who are sensitive to the ups and downs of blood sugar levels. Try to send your child off to school with a calm attitude, as well as a good breakfast.

Breakfast sets the pattern for nutritious eating throughout the rest of the day. When children miss breakfast to save time or to cut calories, they set themselves up for erratic binging and possibly overeating the rest of the day.

Source: Brain Bulletin http://www.terrysmall.com/newsletter.asp

© 2009 Terry Small Learning Corporation. All rights reserved.

When Autism Behaviors Are Physical Pain

When a child has a high fever or an oozy rash, doctors typically work to find the cause and end the problem. However, when a child is flapping or walking on their toes, the symptom is considered normal behavior for autism and the search for answers ends there.

This week we had an encounter that, on a small scale, typifies the struggles our kids have. I took my daughter to Occupational Therapy and she came out an hour later incessantly chewing her tongue. The therapist was talking about her new stim and suggesting therapeutic options to address it.

Meanwhile, I was asking my daughter if there was something wrong. After repeatedly getting no reply, I shoved my finger in her mouth and found several pieces of lettuce stuck in her gums and teeth. She had to deal with that discomfort for an hour because of it was deemed 'typical autistic behavior' instead of considering that there might be a problem.

This past year my daughter went through a period of severe aggression. The “professional” response: family counseling and behavior modification. Real issue: she had kidney stones and once she received treatment, the aggression ended.

Dr. Krigsman has found gastrointestinal disorders in children that posture.

Behaviors are symptoms. Behaviors are communication.

Listen to your children, even if they can’t speak. Push your doctors, therapists and teachers to use your kids’ behaviors to search for underlying problems. Behaviors are sometimes the only clue we have in helping our children.Libby Rupp is the mother of an awesome little girl and an autism advocate. She maintains the website http://www.herbsforautism.com/

This article was written by Libby Rupp. The source of the article is from the Age of Autism newsletter http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/11/when-autism-behaviors-are-physical-pain.html

Jeff and Laura's two cents worth:
We have had personal experience with a child who at one time exhibited severe behavioral symptoms that caused him to receive the diagnosis of autism. Once the layers of stress, illness, and toxicity were removed his autistic behavior became less and less. He was definitly responding to pain and the doctors were unable to figure out what was causing the pain and therefore the behavior. It was actually us, his parents, who finally figured out what was causing him pain after many months of research and finding the right doctors. Once he was brought out of the autism he was able to talk and explain what it felt like - that the pain was so bad he would have rather died than lived with the pain in his gut. The scary part is he can slip back into that autistic world if he starts to eat the wrong foods, be exposed to the stessors that he once dealth with, and becomes toxic again. We've seen it begin but we've put a stop to it immediately.

Just in case you are reading this thinking our son is not autistic since he no longer exhibits the severe behaviors associated with autism let us shed light on this. Our son is still autistic. He will always be biologically autistic. His brain works differently. He sees most things in terms of black and white, he does not read body language, inferences and double meanings are confusing, and he has a difficult time with social skills. Language is difficult for him compared to the average person because he has to use a lot more energy to particpate in a conversation. He has many other challenges that are from being autistic but he is considered high-functioning. It's common for someone to meet him and not realize he is autistic.

For several years now we have been convinced that autistic children are experiencing such severe pain or discomfort (not sure from what) that it causes them to writh on the floor, flap their hands, scream, rock, chew on themselves, have angry outbursts, hit, seek solitude, not respond, and many more symptoms of autism. Think about it. Have you ever experienced severe pain from child birth (women), a migraine headache, hormonal changes that made you feel like you were going to go crazy, or even sever depression? If you are female and you live past the age of 40 - 50, you probably will. Women, or men, who have experienced these kinds of sensations in their body and brain will tell you that sometimes sitting alone in a dark room and rocking is all that you are able to do.

For more information read Gastrointestinal Pathology in Autism: Description and Treatment
http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/0405-conf-akrigsman.php

Find out how Neurodevelopmental Movement Can Help Your Child

Neurodevelopmental Movement programs are helping children with special needs function better in school and life.

Sponsored at the The ARC of Kitsap and Jefferson Counties

Parents, specialists, and caregivers are invited to attend a fascinating discussion on Neurodevelopmental Movement for developing brain maturity and bringing calm to the sensory, motor and nervous system.

Find out how doing Neurodevelopmental Movement helps children maximize their potential and become happier, healthier, more calm and more motivated. Excellent for children with learning delays, frequent emotional outbursts, ADD/ADHD, Autism, anxiety, sensory processing disorders and developmental delays.

DATE: Friday, November 6th, 2009TIME: 7 pm to 9 pm
LOCATION: Central Kitsap Presbyterian Church, 9300 Nels Nelson Rd NW, Bremerton, WA 98311
CONTACT: Sherry CharlotKitsap Parent to Parent CoordinatorArc of Kitsap & Jefferson Counties
360-377-3473

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE

1. In high school, Public Law 94-142 mandates a free and appropriate education delineated in an IEP that spells out specific services. LD students receive these; they don’t have to seek them out. This law does not apply at the college level. Instead, there is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a far reaching, but rather non-specific law. To gain access to accommodations and services through this law, LD students must document and make their disability known, and in many cases, identify the assistance they need to succeed in college, and then self-advocate to get this assistance.

2. There is much less structure.
Programs for LD students at the high school level are extremely structured and supportive. Students take a specified schedule of classes that is the same each day. The same group of peers are in most of their classes. Teachers consistently review their expectations and monitor student progress. This is not the case in college, where each day’s schedule can vary widely, and each class consists of a different group of students. College professors rarely take attendance, check to see if reading assignments are being done, or concern themselves with the quality of the notes being taken by students. Students have to analyze each class and professor to determine what will be required for success. This varies from class to class.

3. There is greater academic competition.
Unlike going to high school, going to college is a voluntary matter. Poor achievers and unmotivated students rarely reach the college campus. Consequently, students moving on to college find themselves in a “bigger pond” where peers have higher abilities and drive, and teachers have higher expectations. Memorization may have carried the day in high school, but high level analysis and synthesis is what is needed now. In terms of both the quality and the quantity of their work, LD students must be more productive than they have ever been before.

4. There is need for greater independence.
The nature of high school LD programs tends to foster dependence in students. This presents a major problem in the college setting, where students are required to function in a relatively independent manner. High school students don’t have to declare a major, and for the most part, their course of study is prescribed. This, of course, changes dramatically in college. College students must make important career choices, and must carefully plan their sequence of courses, to include selecting from an imposing array of elective courses. They must make good use of the many hours they are not in class and learn to fully utilize the many learning resources available on campus. Further, students must learn to establish and maintain work and study schedules, while balancing their academic and social lives. Decision-making and problem-solving skills become paramount.

Students must complete life activities such as doing laundry, paying bills, buying groceries, and scheduling appointments, and they are responsible for scheduling their time daily to see that all of these things happen!

Source: Learning Disabilities in the College Setting: A Different Ball Game than High School By Stephen S. Strichart, PhD http://www.conquercollegewithld.com/differences.html

The Myths of the Teen Mind and Homeschooling

The Myths of the Teen Mind
Broadcast: Midmorning, 10/13/2009, 9:06 a.m.

For years, teenage impulsiveness and immature behavior was attributed to hormones. More recently, scientists have suggested the teenage brain is the problem. One psychologist says that theory is all wrong, and believes teenagers are capable of being far more mature and productive than we think.

Guests* Robert Epstein: Psychologist and visiting scholar at the University of California San Diego. He is the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today and author of several books, including "The Case Against Adolescence. "

During the interview he says: "In more than a 100 cultures around the world, there is no teen turmoil....Any culture that severs the connection between young people and older people creates this problem. In other words, if you isolate young people from adults and you trap them, as we have done, in this peculiar world of their own where they learn everything they know from each other and, of course, in our culture everything they know comes from divisions of the media and fashion industries. If you do that, you isolate them from adults and then if you treat them as if they are still children, which really makes some of them very angry and depressed, you create adolescence. "..."They actually have almost no meaningful contact with adults here. In fact, according to research, teens in the United States spend about 70 hours a week, that's most of their waking hours, in contact with their peers. You compare that [cut off by interviewer] ... They spend on average a ½ hour a week with their dads on average, 15 minutes of which is spent watching television. Now compare that to cultures where the child/adult continuum as it's called is still intact, in those cultures many of which are developing nations, teens spend on average 5 hours a week with their peers versus 70 here. Who are they spending their time with, they're spending most of their time with usually same-sex adults learning to become adults.

That's really what the teen years were through most of human history even in the west, it was a time you learned to become an adult. Many homeschoolers don't have the adolescent problems, at least not nearly the rate of children who attend school away from home. It makes total sense because older homeschoolers generally do spend more time with adults learning to be adults and less time with their peers.

We've seen this in our own as well as friends' children. The more time children/teens have spent (over the school years) away from the parents in a school program the less the child revears the parent's the authority and knowledge as a base to operate from. We witnessed this when our child went to public school for kindergarten. Within two weeks we, the parents, were no longer seen as the knowledgeable adult in our six year olds life, it was the teacher who 'knew everything'. When we began homeschooling, for first grade, about a month later mom and dad were the ones who then 'knew everything' and no longer teachers.

I wonder if the transfer of authority diminishes, over time, the parents position in the child's life as the person to refer to for decisions regarding choices in life.

To hear more listen at: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/13/midmorning1/