It Takes Two To Teach

I never knew the weekend could be so good.   My husband and I worked with our two children to deliver the educational materials their teachers had sent since the cancellation of school earlier in the month.  We're not "teaching" the children in the same way that a home school parent would be doing, we're just delivering the material and helping them complete it where needed.

This is challenging for each of my children in totally different ways.   My son does the bit where he loses his mind at us on a regular basis.  In order for him to work well during school hours, we're giving him Adderall.  Of important note here, this is by his request.   It helps him focus.   He can get work done when he takes it.   We're even letting him help decide how much he should take and if he prefers the long-acting or the short-acting option.

My son doesn't like the Adderall for any other time except school.  It helps him work, something he wants to do but has a hard time doing when he can't slow down his racing brain.   There is a price to pay though—he gets emotional.   He will get upset and react in a way that is way overboard and not age-appropriate.  It's like he's regressed emotionally into a more child-like state.   However, if he can just sit down and do the work, he does a beautiful job.

The biggest challenge with him is the change.  There are new things coming from his teachers regularly as they try and get a consistent work week planned for each child, including online lessons with the teachers.   For the most part, every work he's doing is similar or exactly what he was doing at school but the overall package is anxiety-provoking to him.  Friday was a good day, today was not.   Hopefully, with the new work schedule now in place, things will go more smoothly for the remainder of the week.

My daughter has the opposite "problem" as my son.   She wants to work.   She wants to work and gets done with assignments so quickly that I can't get through the teacher emails to figure out what to try and do with her next.   All of her work requires pre-work to get it ready, like putting a book on her refreshable braille display, preparing materials in braille by me or coming up with things she can do that are mentally stimulating, if not exactly where they are in the curriculum.

The VI teachers have been working on a way to get materials to us.   They have to first compile it and then they have to get it to us.   Today I got an email that they could drop materials at a food bank within a time window and we could pick it up there.  No meeting.   No saying hello.   Drop off and pick up.   That's fine, it's materials.   We need materials for my daughter.  Badly.   Today I kept her reasonably busy, but she fills in with extra work while I flounder to find the next thing.   For example, today she wrote four word problems for me to solve.   They were good ones too.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Thank You Note Writers:  My children both wrote Liam and his parents a thank you note for the butter chicken they cooked for us.   Their son, Liam, who is in my son's class, wrote a note explaining how butter chicken was his favorite.   He started with, "I washed my hands before I wrote this."  So the three of us washed our hands thoroughly and then wrote Liam a thank you note back.   I wrote one too, practicing my braille writing skills.   We sealed the notes up with sealing wax and some fun sealing stamps and then the entire family walked over to their house, placed the notes on the front porch, rang the doorbell and left.