Education for Special Needs – The Sacrifice & The Benefits
I have so much respect and admiration for parents that make the committment to educate their child at home, particularly when that child requires Special Education.
Not only does it often mean that the decision for either Mom or Dad to give up working, or possibly even a career, it also means embarking on a course of challenging themselves to take on a role for which they have more than likely never been formally trained.
Homeschooling any child when you have never been trained as a teacher can be daunting enough if you have little or no understanding of what Home Educating entails, but to take on that committment when you know your child has Special Needs – and many parents must surely wonder if their best is going to be good enough – can only be seen as pretty much the ultimate demonstation of a depth of love that only a parent can have, or understand.
There are those that say that only a specially trained teacher or caregiver has the knowledge or expertise to educate and teach a Special Needs child, but I personally don’t know if I can buy into that. Surely having that level of patience that only a parent of a child can have, and having that intimate understanding of your own child’s abilities, mannerisms and personality, must play an awfully important part.
While in some ways having other more experienced homeschoolers to turn to for advice, support and encouragement can be beneficial, I believe there can be just as many pitfalls associated with doing that. Many homeschoolers make their own homeschooling activities unnecessaily expensive, overly time consuming and cumbersome. In addition many of their experiences might well not apply in the case of a Special Needs Child.
But there is a thought I have about educating a Special Needs child at home that I find particularly exciting.
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