September 1, 2025 • 43 mins
Are you homeschooling a child who thinks—and learns—a bit differently? Whether your learner is gifted, struggles with learning challenges, or you simply feel like the traditional approach isn’t working, there’s a path forward! In this episode of The Colorado Homeschool Podcast, "Unpacking Unique Learners: Homeschool Tips that Work," host Kashia Davis sits down with Shari McMinn—author, seasoned homeschool mom of nine, adoption advocate, and Unique Learners blog writer for CHEC.
Shari brings decades of firsthand experience homeschooling a diverse family that includes both biological and adopted children, some of whom faced significant trauma and learning challenges. She also serves on the board of SPED Homeschool and contributes to multiple resources supporting unique learners. Through her practical wisdom and heartfelt stories, Shari shares what it’s really like to homeschool unique learners—and how to thrive as a family in the process.
Tune in to discover:
- How to nurture strong relationships at the heart of your homeschool
- Strategies for managing structure and flexibility with diverse learning needs
- Tips for creating a peaceful, productive home environment—even amidst chaos
- Insights on holistic approaches, from nutrition to daily routines
- Encouragement for parents feeling overwhelmed, including Shari’s top resources and support communities
Whether you’re just starting out or feeling stuck, this episode offers actionable strategies and real-life inspiration you won’t want to miss.
Don’t miss a single episode that can help you and your family flourish—subscribe to The Colorado Homeschool Podcast today and join a community committed to Christ-centered, parent-directed, thriving homeschooling!
The Colorado Homeschool podcast is a ministry of Christian Home Educators of Colorado. We have been motivating parents to disciple the next generation by embracing home discipleship that is Christ centered, parent directed, and free from government control. We invite you to join us in this mission. If you’re looking for support, resources, and inspiration on your homeschooling journey, visit CHEC.org. Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast and share it with anyone who might benefit from the wisdom shared in this episode!
If you want to support homeschooling in Colorado go to CHEC.org/donate. Thank you! Brought to you by ThePodcastUpload.com Empowering Faith Driven Voices.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think it's really important that we realize that our kids
don't want sometimes discipline and structure.
We resist that as human beings in our sinful nature.
And so it's important to have a
loving, peaceful, calm family home. If
you can structure your home life like that in order
(00:23):
for people to operate at their highest level level.
And when you have unique learners, that gets very
complicated and messy. But I think overall
the relationships need to be primary.
(00:44):
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast,
interviewing experts, parents, graduates,
all here to help you navigate this incredible journey called
homeschooling. And if you're looking for resources, tips and
help, go to check.org you'll find what you need. In the meantime,
subscribe, follow along. Well, hello
(01:06):
and welcome. We're excited to have you again with us today. My name is
Kasia Davis. I'm your host and we have a friend,
a colleague and somebody that you're really going to want to get to know.
Her name is Shari McMinn. She is the author of the Unique Learners
blog for us. Well, and to say like that's the only thing she does is
really an understatement. She has her hands in quite a lot of things at check
(01:28):
at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool conference Update magazine. You could probably talk more to that
Shari. She's, she does. Everywhere I look, there's Shari
involved. So we're excited. Sher's also on the board for
Sped Homeschool and today we're going to talk a lot about that. I don't
know if you know what SPED Homeschool is, but if you are a, a parent
of a unique learner, as we like to call them, then you might. And if
(01:49):
you don't, maybe you should. So, Sheri, thank you for being here.
We really are very blessed. Can you tell us a little bit about your. I
should have done that. Let me just tell you. Shari has a large family. She's
got nine living children, 11 total. So she's lost a
couple and then homeschooling through so many different
phases of life. So can you just tell us a little bit about what
(02:11):
started you in homeschooling, a little bit about how your family grew to be so
big? Yes, absolutely. So I was
married to a wonderful man who absolutely loved children
and we would have had a hundred if it was up to him.
And one thing about him was he was a
Mensa level genius. So he was
(02:34):
always dreaming and doing these crazy things.
And that was my first glimpse of what a
unique learner was. And we started
Having children. And my oldest son is
my stepson from my husband's first marriage. And my
husband just wanted to be happily married and have a big family. And
(02:56):
so that's what we did when we got married. And my
firstborn son had some learning
issues at the public school that he was going to.
And they said, there's this new thing called
homeschooling, and we think you guys would be really good at it. You
should check it out. So I went to the Tattered Cover
(03:18):
bookstore in Denver, we live close to Cherry Creek. And checked
out, actually purchased some books on homeschooling.
There were like maybe two on the shelf. And so we
devoured those and we decided, yeah, homeschooling is a perfect fit
for us because we're hands on family, we like to be
together, we like to, to be outside a lot. And
(03:40):
I have an art background, but I also
love science and math. And my husband, very similar, super
logical left brain, but super creative right brain.
So we went ahead and started homeschooling that son.
And then we were just going to do it for a year to catch him
up. And he had some reading issues,
(04:03):
but we knew he was smart. And
so we continued to homeschool because then the
nextborn son was totally all over the page and
would never have behaved in
an institutional school because he's super curious
and still is to this day. He's 35 and super
(04:25):
curious and likes every day to be different. So we just
continued down that path and we ended up actually
homeschooling for 28 years. I finished a
couple years ago, but my two youngest
kids went into the military. So after high school
graduation, I still helped them do math and English
(04:46):
so that they could boost their ASVAB scores. But
the homeschooling journey for us really got
complicated when we started adopting children.
You know, children who are biologically related to you, who
are born into a healthy, functional family, have
very few issues. I mean, they still can have
(05:10):
some things, but adopted children bring
trauma with them, and they have a lot of baggage from their
very early years when their executive functioning did
not develop correctly because they didn't get the
nurturing they needed up until the age of three.
So we had kids that we adopted
(05:32):
who were extremely dyslexic, who were very
cognitively delayed because their brains were on
fire and they just could not receive and
retain information. So we, we started down the
path of how in the world do we homeschool these kids? We
know that they're smart, but their language
(05:54):
skills were really behind because People had not talked to them.
And so we began layer by layer,
peeling back the people that God created and put in
our family. And eventually we got
on track. And all of my children graduated from home high
school on grade level, but for years
(06:16):
they were behind. And I
just believe that God would show us what to do. And he did.
Wow. Well, Sheri, just in that statement, there's so much
for me to unpack first. Before we go in, I want to
talk about the trauma issues that you dealt with in adoption and
(06:37):
how you work through those. But before we do, I just want to highlight something
that you said right off the bat. You talked about your husband being sort of
a genius and that being your first, first introduction to
unique learners. And I love that because we
specifically. Well, I don't know who started it. Maybe you
started calling this subset of
(06:58):
the help that check provides unique learners because it
doesn't necessarily only mean struggling, right? That's
correct. That's correct. Will you highlight what that means? Because
obviously there comes some challenges in relationships and
other things even with somebody who's extremely gifted.
I think for highly gifted people,
(07:20):
my husband and several of my kids were highly gifted and
are still highly gifted. They think
in different ways than what we do as just a
normal, average intelligence person.
And if you've ever seen the Temple
Grandin film, she
(07:42):
thought in pictures and that's exactly how my
husband thought and several of my children did as
well. And having the
hands on element to help kids be very productive
and do things with their hands is super important.
I'm very, very concerned that we have a screen technology based
(08:05):
culture right now because kids, in my opinion, need to be
outside playing and creating, building tree house,
having make pretend medieval
fights and just all kinds of crazy
things. And of course, you know, anything to a boy becomes a weapon.
But my girls were like that too. I
(08:28):
think that highly gifted
students often are
delayed in their social and emotional functioning
so they don't express themselves well. They
can have a very quick, hot temper. That was my husband.
He would just explode for no reason and we
(08:51):
would have to everybody step back, chill out. And it wasn't
that he intentionally did that. He was just reactive.
So he had to learn to control that.
And you know, thankfully we were Christians and the Holy
Spirit filled him and wanted to give him peace
and joy. And that really helped us as
(09:14):
we raised some unique or children
who had similar issues. I would say
especially adopted children have behavioral issues
that are sometimes overwhelming because they do not
trust their new family, their adoptive
family. So you have to really work on
(09:35):
relationships in order to build that trust. But I think
that's true of every type of student learner. The
relationship is paramount. Of course the relationship with God
comes first, then the relationship with the parent and
child and then the relationship with the siblings.
And I'm sort of all over the page here
(09:57):
about this, but I think it's really important that we
realize that our kids don't want
sometimes discipline and structure. We resist
that as human beings in our sinful nature. And
so it's important to have a loving,
peaceful, calm family home. If you can
(10:19):
structure your home life like that in order for people
to operate at their highest level.
And when you have unique learners that gets very
complicated and messy. But I think overall
the relationships need to be primary. I just
was talking to a family at the Rocky
(10:41):
Mountain Homeschool conference who I see year after year, they're
raising their grandchildren. It's very stressful. Their kids have
experienced a lot of trauma. And I said, you've got to focus
on relationship with God and relationship with each other.
The learning will come. Their brains have to
calm down, stop being on fire in order for
(11:03):
them to able to accept the information
that you want to input into them and then they
can put that into long term memory and recall it later.
Well, you've said that phrase a few times now. Their brains are on
fire. Would you. What do you mean by that? I think what happens when there
(11:24):
is lot of trauma in someone's past.
They are in fear, flight and
fight mode all the time. I'm
thinking particularly about one of my daughters who
literally did not get math until her senior year in high
school. Then finally her brain calmed
(11:45):
down and she like, oh, I get
multiplication and division now. But for all those
years she had trust issues and she kept fighting
me on everything. She wanted to run out of the room,
she wanted to argue, she wanted to just
get this glassy eyed look and freeze over.
(12:08):
And this is a primal
instinct that God gives all of us in
order to survive. And so a lot of times
with especially adopted children who were in
foster care, they are in survival mode.
And so they have to learn to trust you and
(12:30):
they have to really learn to trust
God, that He has his hand in their life and
he's got them. And it takes a long
time to develop that. And kids cannot develop that with a
computer. They have to develop that with a human
being. And that human being is their parents.
(12:52):
Yeah, this is much more
than just talking about adoption. However, a lot
of what you're saying I think is applicable to every parent. Like I hear a
lot of families that are struggling with homeschooling. And the root of
it is the relationships, is the structure, is, is
maybe the discipline. And when I say discipline, I'm not saying one
(13:14):
form necessarily because God created us all differently. Right.
But can you go back to that a little bit?
I'm thinking of the verse when you were talking of the boundaries have fallen in
the pleasant places. How did you start that journey of bringing home children
and adopting them? And do you remember that transition? What
was that like? Because your whole everything had to change.
(13:37):
Yes. So what is the backstory to
our adoption is we had a baby that died very suddenly
as an infant and we had. I was
unable to have more children at that point in time.
And I believe God planted the seed in
my husband and my heart to adopt children.
(13:59):
We did not want to do foster care because we
already had loss and we didn't want to give kids back.
That came to us. It's a real
calling to do foster care. We need more Christians to do it.
I personally could not have done it and neither could my husband.
We did get kids who came to us as foster care placements
(14:22):
in a foster to adopt situation. So their parental
rights were being terminated. They were going to be legally
free to adopt. So when we
talked to the caseworkers we adopted through child
welfare through the state of Colorado, we said
that we will take children that are a challenge to
(14:45):
place. We think we're very highly
experienced, hands on parents. We have a, a very, very strong
marriage. We have a strong Christian faith and
we live on. At that time we lived on a farm. We had a lot
of room for the kids. We had plenty of bedrooms, we had
plenty of outdoor space. It wasn't fancy, but
(15:06):
it was adequate. And so
we said we would adopt siblings because siblings are very hard
to place and that we would do a transracial adoption
because that can be a challenge and a difficulty.
There are not enough parents of color to
adopt the children that are needed. And so
(15:28):
we said that we are a white
family, but we would adopt anybody that needs a
family. So we got a
placement of a 5 and a 7 year old who were
siblings and they were African American and
Hispanic from their background. And, and
(15:50):
the age was important because our
youngest child was eight. And I
really, really feel that it's wise
for everyone's safety to adopt children who are
younger than your biological children because first of
all, you do not want to disrupt the birth order. And
(16:12):
second of all, adopted children can have
behaviors that come out of nowhere. And so the
older you're a biological, biological children are, the more they can
help keep those kids safe, but also keep
themselves safe. So we adopted a five and a seven year
old and the honeymoon where they were
(16:34):
perfectly wonderful lasted about six months and then
it was like a hurricane hit us. We were
prepared. The one thing that we probably could
have done is have counseling in place
before the children came to us. A good
Christian family counselor. We actually got one later. But
(16:55):
it would have been helpful to have it before in place
so that our kids could talk to the counselor, our biological
kids could talk to the counselor, my husband and I could talk to the
counselor. We could discuss what fears we might have with
this pending placement. So I do recommend that
for families who are considering adoption, it's also
(17:18):
super important for a husband and wife to maintain a
very, very strong marriage when you adopt. So
our oldest kids were teenagers and they could
babysit while my husband and I would go out
for like an hour or two. But then the
behavior of our adopted children became unsafe
(17:40):
with the older siblings babysitting them. So we had
to have dates at home. And that's something fun that I
include in my book on adoption is I was going to say
dates that you can do 25 things from the dollar
store or. Yeah, I was going to reference the books that Sheri has written, several
books. She's written five and she's got another one she's working on right now. So
(18:03):
from so many different vantage points. And I
love this story of adoption and I think it's a real big part
obviously of your story and how you dealt with the unique learners. But just for
the purpose of our, our podcast today, just talking
to families, not even assuming that it was from adoption. But how
did you, how did that impact your world dealing with. Was
(18:25):
there, was there a shift and you had to do. You already set. Sort of
hinted at that. Was it more relationship focused at first
and you were like, the learning will come. We gotta get like life
balance. Tell me how that. Because at 5 and 7
and you had kids in, in high school down to
eight, you had, you were, you were doing a one room schoolhouse.
(18:48):
So how did that impact your, your education? Patient? It was a
crazy one room schoolhouse, but somehow it worked.
We had a rhythmic routine. Oh good.
So we would get up in the morning at a reasonable
time. We were not early rising farmers.
We got up around 8 o' clock and we helped our
(19:10):
kids do animal chores because they needed
the physical activity first thing in the morning. Then we
would come in and we would have family breakfast. And
if my husband. Husband was available, we do a Bible devotion
at that point in time. And then we would
start on school. And I would start
(19:33):
with the most problematic child,
so the one who had the greatest struggles with reading and
math, and that's what we focused on, was reading, writing, and arithmetic.
And I would sit at the kitchen table one on one and
work with each child, working my way up,
usually from the youngest to the oldest. The older kids could
(19:56):
do a lot of work on their own, but I still worked
with them. And while children were waiting
for their time with me at the kitchen table, they would be
doing piano or art lessons. Creative play in
the living room, creative play outside. And
I did try to check on my kids every 15 minutes to make sure
(20:17):
everybody was safe. But apparently they were doing
things at 14 minutes and 59 seconds that I didn't know
about. But, yeah, now that they're all
grown, they're filling me in on those things. I'm like, what?
I can't believe that nobody died from a
bicycle accident anyway. And
(20:39):
then we work our way through the morning routine of reading,
writing, and arithmetic. And then we would then break
for lunch, and the kids would take turns
helping prepare lunch. And then after lunch, we'd
go outside and we'd have recess. And I want you to
know that I played baseball. I played volleyball and
(21:02):
basketball because we had, like, a whole team with all those kids.
And my kids love doing that, and so did I. And
that was probably one of the best relationship builders
every day, is that we just laughed and had
fun. And then I put the younger kids down for
naps. And then older kids, we do science, history,
(21:24):
that kind of a thing. We tried to organize our errands
on just one day a week. That way we were home. It is called
homeschooling, not car schooling.
And we were home to do our schoolwork. And
then everybody. I sent them outside. No matter
how much snow was on the ground, no matter how hard the wind was blowing
(21:47):
or how hot it was, they went outside for a couple hours
so I could get a mental break. And that was important for me.
Sometimes my husband was home during the day, sometimes he wasn't. He
taught college. And he also had our architecture
clients. He was an architect, but he was also
outside working on the farm. And then at night, we'd have
(22:10):
dinner together, and we would just all relax.
And the best thing that my husband did was he took over
bedtime. So he would get the kids teeth brushed in
pajamas, and then read them a Story, usually in the
youngest one's room. And they read all the great books
like Pilgrim's Progress and
(22:32):
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And my
kids just still talk about how they
loved that dad read them a bedtime story every night.
Yeah, those read alouds have been pivotal in our life
as well. We, we loved that time together. Yeah. And then he would pray with
each of them and tuck them in bed. And during that time then I'd be
(22:54):
doing dishes, maybe talking to one kid, helping me, that kind of
a thing. But it was very, very helpful that he was
a hands on dad, super involved in homeschooling.
One of things I think that can happen in a homeschool
family. And then after he passed away, I was a single
mom and homeschooling, and that was a challenge,
(23:17):
but I got through it because I did not
want to re traumatize my children by doing something different.
So we just stayed on our farm and
continued to homeschool and. And
you know, it worked and we just stuck with it. And
that's the best advice I can give anybody is you just do not give
(23:40):
up. Yeah. I'm hearing you say things
that are applicable to anybody. That whole structure, routine
and having a plan. It matters even if you are loosey goosey.
Like I. We're one of the podcasts that we're about to do for
the Colorado Homeschool podcast is on different learning styles and
methodologies. So I was kind of of a
(24:02):
crazy unit study. Let's build things, let's learn
by activities. And then I had friends who were like, no, we're following the
textbooks and we're doing these lessons, you know, from A to Z,
where I was like, no, let's just jump over there. And that doesn't
even matter. Even if I was wild. And that's what I'm hearing you say is
I needed still to have routine. And we did. We had like a
(24:25):
daily routine, a daily checklist of the basics, reading,
writing, arithmetic, and then all the fun was sprinkled in. But even that was on
routine. And that helps regardless of where you are
on special needs or brain trauma or
whatever. We all need that, right? Yes. And I think
that, you know, there were
(24:46):
days when absolutely no homeschooling got done, but
it was still homeschooling. So we might not have done reading,
writing, arithmetic, science, history, civics, but we did,
you know, know family therapy and
just working together. We had a lot of grief.
My husband died. Well, we had a baby that died.
(25:09):
That happened early on. And Then my husband died, and then I
had another daughter who died as a teenager. So we just had
ongoing trauma that we had to work through as a
family. And some days it was just life skills
and that was fine. You know, we were farmers, so some days it was
(25:29):
a lamb was having an emergency at birth and we all
had to go outside and work on that. But
overall, God just really was merciful and
gracious. And now that my children are
adults, it is amazing to me the
wonderful human beings they are, but also
(25:52):
they're super accomplished in the things that they
dreamed as a child. And my husband and I
helped them attain step by step, day by day by day.
Well, Shari, I often reach out to you
whenever I encounter a family that has a specific
need. And I'm always surprised that you're like, oh, you need xyz. Like you
(26:14):
always have the perfect resources. So how, how
did that come to be? Because you're on the Sped Homeschool board
and why don't you talk about what SPED is and, and what they do
and how you became sort of the expert in. I guess you are
comforting people with the comfort you've been given. Right, right.
So I joined the Sped Homeschool board about
(26:38):
three years ago and there's a number of
just excellent people on the board who have raised
special needs children or they have special
needs, licensing, education and experience.
And the Sped Homeschool website
is a vast resource
(27:01):
of all kinds of articles and podcasts and
testing suggestions. Before Sped
Homeschool existed, I actually
was able to get resources through CHEC.
The CHEC guidebook has an excellent chapter called Different
Learners, Chapter 9, I believe it is, and that has has
(27:24):
self diagnostic tests that parents can do for their
kids. I also have been a
longtime follower of Diane Kraft and her
right brain training. I had several
kids who were very dyslexic, delayed readers.
And I did believe in teaching cursive writing,
(27:47):
which Diane really stresses, because
when you make the infinity sign or do
curving letters, you cause your brain
to store things from the right short term memory
to the long term memory in your left brain. And I also
(28:07):
had children who had a lot of health issues. And so
having Diane Craft or her trained
people diagnose
nutritional deficits and how to help
with fish oil and different types of things
was very, very helpful. One of my children had a
(28:31):
lot of issues that related to their gut health. And
because we thankfully lived on a farm, we could
consume raw dairy and make our own yogurt from that
and that really helped the kids. We said,
you Know, the standard American diet wasn't good for us, but the farm
diet was great for us, and we
(28:53):
just really fed our kids brains with healthy
fat. One of the things that I'm
concerned about with children in this day and age is
kids are on low fat or no fat milk at
an early age. And Diane's research
and others that she cites says that our brains in the
(29:16):
midline need healthy fat. So
bacon, milk, fat, that kind of thing. And we were. We raised
hogs, so we had no problem with bacon fat,
but that you need protein in the morning. And so we would
have, you know, bacon and eggs and hash browns or sausage
gravy on biscuits or whatever. We had a hearty
(29:38):
diet, and my husband preferred to have big meals
at breakfast and lunch and then something light at supper. So
we just always have done that, and that really helped. Our kids,
especially our adopted kids, were very malnourished as
young children. When they came to us, their muscle
tone wasn't necessarily very good. My son,
(30:01):
who's 22 right now and in the army, when he came
to us, he was 2 years old and weighed
12 pounds, and his head was huge compared to his
body. Yeah. And so we put him on our
farm diet, and six months later, at his health checkup, the
nurses are like, wow, look at the leg muscles on this
(30:23):
kid. And I said, yeah, because he does trampoline every
single day of his life. And so you have
to look at children holistically, whether you're saying the
word. I was thinking holistically, whether they're your. Birth children,
adopted children, it doesn't matter. We are
whole people that God created with,
(30:45):
you know, a brain and a. A backbone and
a vertebrae and a spinal column and everything,
and it all works together. And just as the church is
an image of all the parts of a body,
we function best when our whole body
is fed and exercised and exposed to,
(31:08):
I believe, outdoor sun and weather. So, speaking of
holistically, some of it can be overwhelming, like, how
do you know where to start? And we just did the Unique Learners
seminar right before the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference. And following that, we did a
meetup, which it was basically just a chance to make
community with people who are like you, in the same boat. And I
(31:30):
love it so much because you see these parents who are desperate, who are
overwhelmed, who don't know where to turn, and they're just. They. They don't
even need, like, icebreakers or anything. They just immediately find one another and start
talking because they're. They don't Know where to go,
what to look for, how to find those resources. And so how,
I mean, we live in the information age and still it's like there's
(31:53):
contradictory information about holistic. Like you said, low fat diet,
high fat diet, I mean, of this. So speak to that. Like,
how do you encourage somebody to find the right.
Because what works for one family isn't going to necessarily work for the other. So
how do they find their solution? I think this
is really important to discuss. I, I do believe
(32:15):
that God gives parents an instinct
to observe and know what's going on with
their child. And I say start with the first, first thing.
What is the most
out of control situation your child has? Is it
their temper? Is it their health? It's probably all related.
(32:37):
But just work on the first main thing
and sometimes that's relationship. And so that's all you can
work on. But I think that it's really important to
seek the Lord as to what your child
needs because he created your child. What, whether by birth
or adoption, he put your child in your family and
(33:00):
he will give you a gut instinct as to
what's going on. It could be diet. You know,
I love the fact that RFK Jr. Is going to cut
back on food dyes and everything else. I think that's a big
trigger. The second thing that I
think is important, to be in the community
(33:22):
where other people are observing your child, not
judging them, but coming alongside of you and
able to give you advice. And so I recommend two
sources of that for every single family. That's
homeschooling, which is, number one, I do believe you should be in some
sort of a homeschool cooperative group. And it
(33:45):
doesn't have to be, you know, super fancy or anything, but
just get together with a couple other homeschool families, even
if it's just play day at the park, because
then the parents can sit and talk and watch the kids. The kids
have some interaction with other kids, but just
having parents who can say, hey, I'm having a
(34:07):
horrible day, will you pray for me? I don't know what to do
about my child. And it's amazing how God will make
divine appointments and bring the right person to you
to talk about that. The second type of community
that I am a super big believer in is belonging to a
church that is supportive, number one of children,
(34:30):
number two of unique people, and
number three, families who homeschool. And it's
hard to find a church like that. But there are more of them
because the reason you go to church is to
worship with like minded believers and
also to have some sort of accountability
(34:53):
with the elders and the pastors in the church.
There's a lot of women that complain that their husband isn't doing enough.
And I say, is he under the authority of
elders in a church? Well, no, we don't go to church. I'm like, okay,
that's a good gang. Go to a church, help your
husband make friends with the elders and other
(35:16):
men in the church. Encourage him to go to men's Bible
study or just meet one on one with the pastor. Because
husbands have a very hard job. They're supposed to be the
shepherd of the family, but if nobody is shepherding them,
they're not going to know how to lead their wives
and children. And I don't mean in a tyrannical way,
(35:39):
I mean in a gentle and loving way. We raised sheep
on our farm and we were gentle with them. And
Jesus is the good shepherd, he's gentle with us.
And a good shepherding pastor is
gentle with his flock or congregation. So
I think it's very important that you are with like mind.
(36:02):
Then if you can belong to some sort of special
needs group, maybe your kid has dyslexia.
So find some other families that are struggling with
dyslexia. It could be through a library, it could
be through a Facebook page. But learn
from other people what they've tried, what they haven't tried.
(36:25):
And certainly like on the Czech website. I love our
website, it's so huge. Sometimes it's hard to find things. But
on our unique learners page we have
recommended therapists, we have support
groups. If people will just take
an hour out of their day to
(36:47):
find out what is available as a
resource or support for them, I think they would,
they would find something. And it's hard,
especially if you live remotely to find a good church.
We actually drove two hours for, wow,
about seven years to go to a good church that
(37:10):
supported us. And we just packed two hours one way
and take snacks and gas was expensive
but we just made it work because it was, you know,
people say you got to find your tribe. It was our tribe. You know,
there were other people with adopted kids, kids, there were very,
very loving shepherds in the way of pastors and elders.
(37:32):
I'm still friends with all of those people even though I
live far away from them. If I visit, I go to
that church because I consider it my home church. They've been
through everything with me. So I think you
have to prepare for a long battle. And what
does that mean? It means you got to gird yourself, you got to put on
(37:54):
the full armor of God. You got to find your, your tribe, your,
your, your prayer warriors especially.
I think you need to find at least one person, if not
more than that, who can pray regularly for you if you're having
issues. I mean just any homeschool family really needs prayer
covering because the enemy does. Not like, he wants to
(38:17):
devour. Right. Are doing Christian homeschool
discipleship. He does not like it. And he's going to fight
every tooth and nail. He's going to call cause car wrecks and he's
going to cause sickness and he's going to cause husbands and
wives to put fights with each other. So you just
really have to be very proactive.
(38:39):
You know, right now in our country there's,
we're trying to build up our military for defense,
not for offense. And I think that's what you have to do with your family
too. You have to develop your defensive
strategies for when the enemy hits. And I wish I'd
known early on in my marriage that when things start going
(39:02):
downhil, get on your knees and pray right then. Get your kids pray
right then. A lot of times I would just try to solve it in my
own ability and it's like, okay, it's just piling up so
fit. We have to pray. And so prayer should be
your very first battle cry and
get your kids involved with that. And even though they don't know the
(39:24):
Lord, they will see that you know the Lord and
you know with homeschooling more things are hot
than taught. And so your kids see how you're
reacting and hopefully it's positively reacting.
You're going to God right away when Susie and
Johnny are fighting one more time or your husband is
(39:46):
frustrating you one more time. So kids,
there's a lot of chaos right now. Let's just all pray
and praying first thing in the morning, praying at mealtime,
praying during math, praying during science, praying when
somebod does not understand, you know, how
to read. Things
(40:09):
are misfiring in the brain. Yeah, yeah. What I'm hearing from
you, Shari, is him. Exactly.
And the Creator. And he also wants us to find
like minded Christians to do battle with.
I love it. I'm hearing a lot of hope and everything you're saying just
(40:29):
not to focus on the everything but focus on the one thing and
take that one thing to the Lord and you're so right. I call it holy
echoes. When you need help with something or and you just
coincidentally, I mean that doesn't. We just heard this
at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference, one of the keynote speakers said that word
coincidence doesn't exist in the original Hebrew language
(40:51):
because there is no coincidence. God provided those connections,
that comment, that suggestion from somebody and that community, and it
can be found one a time. And Sheri, I feel like we
could keep going, but I hope that this draws people, encourages them,
get some to go look at those resources. We'll link the obviously
the Unique learners blog from check. We'll put that below. But also sped
(41:13):
homeschool. There's so many great resources and Shari's got some great books that she
wrote that you can dig into that too. So all of that will be below.
So thank you so much. Sheri, when we close, we're like, we like to
ask all of our guests and it can be related to this topic or
otherwise, but what would you consider to be the best piece of
advice that you received as a homeschool mom?
(41:35):
I, I would say from my viewpoint now
that I'm beyond my homeschooling years, is you just
absolutely never give up. And
I told that to my kids who were struggling. I told that to my
husband. And I said, as long as we're together,
we can keep going forward. So just never,
(41:58):
ever give up and try to see
the child that God gave you. And he loves that
child even more than you do. And he will never give
up on that child. And you should not either. Well, it's like the
child that you said as a senior in high school, finally math
clicked. That would be so exasperating and so hard from a homeschool
(42:20):
mom's perspective. But just to be faithful, plow on,
be consistent, do what we can do. And it's kind of that idea,
right? Like the results are the Lord's, I'm going to be faithful with what he's
asked me to do. And then what he does with that is his
work. Wow. Well, that was encouraging, Sheri. Thank you. That's a
great way to end the conversation. Again, I'm going to post all the links in
(42:42):
the in the show notes so you can find more
resources, help and encouragement. And I hope that this was a blessing
to you all. Thank you, Sheri, for being with us today. Yes, thank you for
having me. It was great. Thank you so much for joining us today.
The Colorado Homeschool podcast is is a ministry of Christian Home
Educators of Colorado. We have been motivating parents to
(43:03):
disciple the next generation by embracing home discipleship
that is Christ centered, parent directed, and free from government control.
We invite you to join us in this mission. You want to support homeschooling in
Colorado? Go to check.org donate in the
meantime, share this with your friends and make sure you subscribe. That really
helps us. Thank you. Foreign.
I think it's really important that we realize that our kids
don't want sometimes discipline and structure.
We resist that as human beings in our sinful nature.
And so it's important to have a
loving, peaceful, calm family home. If
you can structure your home life like that in order
(00:23):
for people to operate at their highest level level.
And when you have unique learners, that gets very
complicated and messy. But I think overall
the relationships need to be primary.
(00:44):
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast,
interviewing experts, parents, graduates,
all here to help you navigate this incredible journey called
homeschooling. And if you're looking for resources, tips and
help, go to check.org you'll find what you need. In the meantime,
subscribe, follow along. Well, hello
(01:06):
and welcome. We're excited to have you again with us today. My name is
Kasia Davis. I'm your host and we have a friend,
a colleague and somebody that you're really going to want to get to know.
Her name is Shari McMinn. She is the author of the Unique Learners
blog for us. Well, and to say like that's the only thing she does is
really an understatement. She has her hands in quite a lot of things at check
(01:28):
at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool conference Update magazine. You could probably talk more to that
Shari. She's, she does. Everywhere I look, there's Shari
involved. So we're excited. Sher's also on the board for
Sped Homeschool and today we're going to talk a lot about that. I don't
know if you know what SPED Homeschool is, but if you are a, a parent
of a unique learner, as we like to call them, then you might. And if
(01:49):
you don't, maybe you should. So, Sheri, thank you for being here.
We really are very blessed. Can you tell us a little bit about your. I
should have done that. Let me just tell you. Shari has a large family. She's
got nine living children, 11 total. So she's lost a
couple and then homeschooling through so many different
phases of life. So can you just tell us a little bit about what
(02:11):
started you in homeschooling, a little bit about how your family grew to be so
big? Yes, absolutely. So I was
married to a wonderful man who absolutely loved children
and we would have had a hundred if it was up to him.
And one thing about him was he was a
Mensa level genius. So he was
(02:34):
always dreaming and doing these crazy things.
And that was my first glimpse of what a
unique learner was. And we started
Having children. And my oldest son is
my stepson from my husband's first marriage. And my
husband just wanted to be happily married and have a big family. And
(02:56):
so that's what we did when we got married. And my
firstborn son had some learning
issues at the public school that he was going to.
And they said, there's this new thing called
homeschooling, and we think you guys would be really good at it. You
should check it out. So I went to the Tattered Cover
(03:18):
bookstore in Denver, we live close to Cherry Creek. And checked
out, actually purchased some books on homeschooling.
There were like maybe two on the shelf. And so we
devoured those and we decided, yeah, homeschooling is a perfect fit
for us because we're hands on family, we like to be
together, we like to, to be outside a lot. And
(03:40):
I have an art background, but I also
love science and math. And my husband, very similar, super
logical left brain, but super creative right brain.
So we went ahead and started homeschooling that son.
And then we were just going to do it for a year to catch him
up. And he had some reading issues,
(04:03):
but we knew he was smart. And
so we continued to homeschool because then the
nextborn son was totally all over the page and
would never have behaved in
an institutional school because he's super curious
and still is to this day. He's 35 and super
(04:25):
curious and likes every day to be different. So we just
continued down that path and we ended up actually
homeschooling for 28 years. I finished a
couple years ago, but my two youngest
kids went into the military. So after high school
graduation, I still helped them do math and English
(04:46):
so that they could boost their ASVAB scores. But
the homeschooling journey for us really got
complicated when we started adopting children.
You know, children who are biologically related to you, who
are born into a healthy, functional family, have
very few issues. I mean, they still can have
(05:10):
some things, but adopted children bring
trauma with them, and they have a lot of baggage from their
very early years when their executive functioning did
not develop correctly because they didn't get the
nurturing they needed up until the age of three.
So we had kids that we adopted
(05:32):
who were extremely dyslexic, who were very
cognitively delayed because their brains were on
fire and they just could not receive and
retain information. So we, we started down the
path of how in the world do we homeschool these kids? We
know that they're smart, but their language
(05:54):
skills were really behind because People had not talked to them.
And so we began layer by layer,
peeling back the people that God created and put in
our family. And eventually we got
on track. And all of my children graduated from home high
school on grade level, but for years
(06:16):
they were behind. And I
just believe that God would show us what to do. And he did.
Wow. Well, Sheri, just in that statement, there's so much
for me to unpack first. Before we go in, I want to
talk about the trauma issues that you dealt with in adoption and
(06:37):
how you work through those. But before we do, I just want to highlight something
that you said right off the bat. You talked about your husband being sort of
a genius and that being your first, first introduction to
unique learners. And I love that because we
specifically. Well, I don't know who started it. Maybe you
started calling this subset of
(06:58):
the help that check provides unique learners because it
doesn't necessarily only mean struggling, right? That's
correct. That's correct. Will you highlight what that means? Because
obviously there comes some challenges in relationships and
other things even with somebody who's extremely gifted.
I think for highly gifted people,
(07:20):
my husband and several of my kids were highly gifted and
are still highly gifted. They think
in different ways than what we do as just a
normal, average intelligence person.
And if you've ever seen the Temple
Grandin film, she
(07:42):
thought in pictures and that's exactly how my
husband thought and several of my children did as
well. And having the
hands on element to help kids be very productive
and do things with their hands is super important.
I'm very, very concerned that we have a screen technology based
(08:05):
culture right now because kids, in my opinion, need to be
outside playing and creating, building tree house,
having make pretend medieval
fights and just all kinds of crazy
things. And of course, you know, anything to a boy becomes a weapon.
But my girls were like that too. I
(08:28):
think that highly gifted
students often are
delayed in their social and emotional functioning
so they don't express themselves well. They
can have a very quick, hot temper. That was my husband.
He would just explode for no reason and we
(08:51):
would have to everybody step back, chill out. And it wasn't
that he intentionally did that. He was just reactive.
So he had to learn to control that.
And you know, thankfully we were Christians and the Holy
Spirit filled him and wanted to give him peace
and joy. And that really helped us as
(09:14):
we raised some unique or children
who had similar issues. I would say
especially adopted children have behavioral issues
that are sometimes overwhelming because they do not
trust their new family, their adoptive
family. So you have to really work on
(09:35):
relationships in order to build that trust. But I think
that's true of every type of student learner. The
relationship is paramount. Of course the relationship with God
comes first, then the relationship with the parent and
child and then the relationship with the siblings.
And I'm sort of all over the page here
(09:57):
about this, but I think it's really important that we
realize that our kids don't want
sometimes discipline and structure. We resist
that as human beings in our sinful nature. And
so it's important to have a loving,
peaceful, calm family home. If you can
(10:19):
structure your home life like that in order for people
to operate at their highest level.
And when you have unique learners that gets very
complicated and messy. But I think overall
the relationships need to be primary. I just
was talking to a family at the Rocky
(10:41):
Mountain Homeschool conference who I see year after year, they're
raising their grandchildren. It's very stressful. Their kids have
experienced a lot of trauma. And I said, you've got to focus
on relationship with God and relationship with each other.
The learning will come. Their brains have to
calm down, stop being on fire in order for
(11:03):
them to able to accept the information
that you want to input into them and then they
can put that into long term memory and recall it later.
Well, you've said that phrase a few times now. Their brains are on
fire. Would you. What do you mean by that? I think what happens when there
(11:24):
is lot of trauma in someone's past.
They are in fear, flight and
fight mode all the time. I'm
thinking particularly about one of my daughters who
literally did not get math until her senior year in high
school. Then finally her brain calmed
(11:45):
down and she like, oh, I get
multiplication and division now. But for all those
years she had trust issues and she kept fighting
me on everything. She wanted to run out of the room,
she wanted to argue, she wanted to just
get this glassy eyed look and freeze over.
(12:08):
And this is a primal
instinct that God gives all of us in
order to survive. And so a lot of times
with especially adopted children who were in
foster care, they are in survival mode.
And so they have to learn to trust you and
(12:30):
they have to really learn to trust
God, that He has his hand in their life and
he's got them. And it takes a long
time to develop that. And kids cannot develop that with a
computer. They have to develop that with a human
being. And that human being is their parents.
(12:52):
Yeah, this is much more
than just talking about adoption. However, a lot
of what you're saying I think is applicable to every parent. Like I hear a
lot of families that are struggling with homeschooling. And the root of
it is the relationships, is the structure, is, is
maybe the discipline. And when I say discipline, I'm not saying one
(13:14):
form necessarily because God created us all differently. Right.
But can you go back to that a little bit?
I'm thinking of the verse when you were talking of the boundaries have fallen in
the pleasant places. How did you start that journey of bringing home children
and adopting them? And do you remember that transition? What
was that like? Because your whole everything had to change.
(13:37):
Yes. So what is the backstory to
our adoption is we had a baby that died very suddenly
as an infant and we had. I was
unable to have more children at that point in time.
And I believe God planted the seed in
my husband and my heart to adopt children.
(13:59):
We did not want to do foster care because we
already had loss and we didn't want to give kids back.
That came to us. It's a real
calling to do foster care. We need more Christians to do it.
I personally could not have done it and neither could my husband.
We did get kids who came to us as foster care placements
(14:22):
in a foster to adopt situation. So their parental
rights were being terminated. They were going to be legally
free to adopt. So when we
talked to the caseworkers we adopted through child
welfare through the state of Colorado, we said
that we will take children that are a challenge to
(14:45):
place. We think we're very highly
experienced, hands on parents. We have a, a very, very strong
marriage. We have a strong Christian faith and
we live on. At that time we lived on a farm. We had a lot
of room for the kids. We had plenty of bedrooms, we had
plenty of outdoor space. It wasn't fancy, but
(15:06):
it was adequate. And so
we said we would adopt siblings because siblings are very hard
to place and that we would do a transracial adoption
because that can be a challenge and a difficulty.
There are not enough parents of color to
adopt the children that are needed. And so
(15:28):
we said that we are a white
family, but we would adopt anybody that needs a
family. So we got a
placement of a 5 and a 7 year old who were
siblings and they were African American and
Hispanic from their background. And, and
(15:50):
the age was important because our
youngest child was eight. And I
really, really feel that it's wise
for everyone's safety to adopt children who are
younger than your biological children because first of
all, you do not want to disrupt the birth order. And
(16:12):
second of all, adopted children can have
behaviors that come out of nowhere. And so the
older you're a biological, biological children are, the more they can
help keep those kids safe, but also keep
themselves safe. So we adopted a five and a seven year
old and the honeymoon where they were
(16:34):
perfectly wonderful lasted about six months and then
it was like a hurricane hit us. We were
prepared. The one thing that we probably could
have done is have counseling in place
before the children came to us. A good
Christian family counselor. We actually got one later. But
(16:55):
it would have been helpful to have it before in place
so that our kids could talk to the counselor, our biological
kids could talk to the counselor, my husband and I could talk to the
counselor. We could discuss what fears we might have with
this pending placement. So I do recommend that
for families who are considering adoption, it's also
(17:18):
super important for a husband and wife to maintain a
very, very strong marriage when you adopt. So
our oldest kids were teenagers and they could
babysit while my husband and I would go out
for like an hour or two. But then the
behavior of our adopted children became unsafe
(17:40):
with the older siblings babysitting them. So we had
to have dates at home. And that's something fun that I
include in my book on adoption is I was going to say
dates that you can do 25 things from the dollar
store or. Yeah, I was going to reference the books that Sheri has written, several
books. She's written five and she's got another one she's working on right now. So
(18:03):
from so many different vantage points. And I
love this story of adoption and I think it's a real big part
obviously of your story and how you dealt with the unique learners. But just for
the purpose of our, our podcast today, just talking
to families, not even assuming that it was from adoption. But how
did you, how did that impact your world dealing with. Was
(18:25):
there, was there a shift and you had to do. You already set. Sort of
hinted at that. Was it more relationship focused at first
and you were like, the learning will come. We gotta get like life
balance. Tell me how that. Because at 5 and 7
and you had kids in, in high school down to
eight, you had, you were, you were doing a one room schoolhouse.
(18:48):
So how did that impact your, your education? Patient? It was a
crazy one room schoolhouse, but somehow it worked.
We had a rhythmic routine. Oh good.
So we would get up in the morning at a reasonable
time. We were not early rising farmers.
We got up around 8 o' clock and we helped our
(19:10):
kids do animal chores because they needed
the physical activity first thing in the morning. Then we
would come in and we would have family breakfast. And
if my husband. Husband was available, we do a Bible devotion
at that point in time. And then we would
start on school. And I would start
(19:33):
with the most problematic child,
so the one who had the greatest struggles with reading and
math, and that's what we focused on, was reading, writing, and arithmetic.
And I would sit at the kitchen table one on one and
work with each child, working my way up,
usually from the youngest to the oldest. The older kids could
(19:56):
do a lot of work on their own, but I still worked
with them. And while children were waiting
for their time with me at the kitchen table, they would be
doing piano or art lessons. Creative play in
the living room, creative play outside. And
I did try to check on my kids every 15 minutes to make sure
(20:17):
everybody was safe. But apparently they were doing
things at 14 minutes and 59 seconds that I didn't know
about. But, yeah, now that they're all
grown, they're filling me in on those things. I'm like, what?
I can't believe that nobody died from a
bicycle accident anyway. And
(20:39):
then we work our way through the morning routine of reading,
writing, and arithmetic. And then we would then break
for lunch, and the kids would take turns
helping prepare lunch. And then after lunch, we'd
go outside and we'd have recess. And I want you to
know that I played baseball. I played volleyball and
(21:02):
basketball because we had, like, a whole team with all those kids.
And my kids love doing that, and so did I. And
that was probably one of the best relationship builders
every day, is that we just laughed and had
fun. And then I put the younger kids down for
naps. And then older kids, we do science, history,
(21:24):
that kind of a thing. We tried to organize our errands
on just one day a week. That way we were home. It is called
homeschooling, not car schooling.
And we were home to do our schoolwork. And
then everybody. I sent them outside. No matter
how much snow was on the ground, no matter how hard the wind was blowing
(21:47):
or how hot it was, they went outside for a couple hours
so I could get a mental break. And that was important for me.
Sometimes my husband was home during the day, sometimes he wasn't. He
taught college. And he also had our architecture
clients. He was an architect, but he was also
outside working on the farm. And then at night, we'd have
(22:10):
dinner together, and we would just all relax.
And the best thing that my husband did was he took over
bedtime. So he would get the kids teeth brushed in
pajamas, and then read them a Story, usually in the
youngest one's room. And they read all the great books
like Pilgrim's Progress and
(22:32):
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And my
kids just still talk about how they
loved that dad read them a bedtime story every night.
Yeah, those read alouds have been pivotal in our life
as well. We, we loved that time together. Yeah. And then he would pray with
each of them and tuck them in bed. And during that time then I'd be
(22:54):
doing dishes, maybe talking to one kid, helping me, that kind of
a thing. But it was very, very helpful that he was
a hands on dad, super involved in homeschooling.
One of things I think that can happen in a homeschool
family. And then after he passed away, I was a single
mom and homeschooling, and that was a challenge,
(23:17):
but I got through it because I did not
want to re traumatize my children by doing something different.
So we just stayed on our farm and
continued to homeschool and. And
you know, it worked and we just stuck with it. And
that's the best advice I can give anybody is you just do not give
(23:40):
up. Yeah. I'm hearing you say things
that are applicable to anybody. That whole structure, routine
and having a plan. It matters even if you are loosey goosey.
Like I. We're one of the podcasts that we're about to do for
the Colorado Homeschool podcast is on different learning styles and
methodologies. So I was kind of of a
(24:02):
crazy unit study. Let's build things, let's learn
by activities. And then I had friends who were like, no, we're following the
textbooks and we're doing these lessons, you know, from A to Z,
where I was like, no, let's just jump over there. And that doesn't
even matter. Even if I was wild. And that's what I'm hearing you say is
I needed still to have routine. And we did. We had like a
(24:25):
daily routine, a daily checklist of the basics, reading,
writing, arithmetic, and then all the fun was sprinkled in. But even that was on
routine. And that helps regardless of where you are
on special needs or brain trauma or
whatever. We all need that, right? Yes. And I think
that, you know, there were
(24:46):
days when absolutely no homeschooling got done, but
it was still homeschooling. So we might not have done reading,
writing, arithmetic, science, history, civics, but we did,
you know, know family therapy and
just working together. We had a lot of grief.
My husband died. Well, we had a baby that died.
(25:09):
That happened early on. And Then my husband died, and then I
had another daughter who died as a teenager. So we just had
ongoing trauma that we had to work through as a
family. And some days it was just life skills
and that was fine. You know, we were farmers, so some days it was
(25:29):
a lamb was having an emergency at birth and we all
had to go outside and work on that. But
overall, God just really was merciful and
gracious. And now that my children are
adults, it is amazing to me the
wonderful human beings they are, but also
(25:52):
they're super accomplished in the things that they
dreamed as a child. And my husband and I
helped them attain step by step, day by day by day.
Well, Shari, I often reach out to you
whenever I encounter a family that has a specific
need. And I'm always surprised that you're like, oh, you need xyz. Like you
(26:14):
always have the perfect resources. So how, how
did that come to be? Because you're on the Sped Homeschool board
and why don't you talk about what SPED is and, and what they do
and how you became sort of the expert in. I guess you are
comforting people with the comfort you've been given. Right, right.
So I joined the Sped Homeschool board about
(26:38):
three years ago and there's a number of
just excellent people on the board who have raised
special needs children or they have special
needs, licensing, education and experience.
And the Sped Homeschool website
is a vast resource
(27:01):
of all kinds of articles and podcasts and
testing suggestions. Before Sped
Homeschool existed, I actually
was able to get resources through CHEC.
The CHEC guidebook has an excellent chapter called Different
Learners, Chapter 9, I believe it is, and that has has
(27:24):
self diagnostic tests that parents can do for their
kids. I also have been a
longtime follower of Diane Kraft and her
right brain training. I had several
kids who were very dyslexic, delayed readers.
And I did believe in teaching cursive writing,
(27:47):
which Diane really stresses, because
when you make the infinity sign or do
curving letters, you cause your brain
to store things from the right short term memory
to the long term memory in your left brain. And I also
(28:07):
had children who had a lot of health issues. And so
having Diane Craft or her trained
people diagnose
nutritional deficits and how to help
with fish oil and different types of things
was very, very helpful. One of my children had a
(28:31):
lot of issues that related to their gut health. And
because we thankfully lived on a farm, we could
consume raw dairy and make our own yogurt from that
and that really helped the kids. We said,
you Know, the standard American diet wasn't good for us, but the farm
diet was great for us, and we
(28:53):
just really fed our kids brains with healthy
fat. One of the things that I'm
concerned about with children in this day and age is
kids are on low fat or no fat milk at
an early age. And Diane's research
and others that she cites says that our brains in the
(29:16):
midline need healthy fat. So
bacon, milk, fat, that kind of thing. And we were. We raised
hogs, so we had no problem with bacon fat,
but that you need protein in the morning. And so we would
have, you know, bacon and eggs and hash browns or sausage
gravy on biscuits or whatever. We had a hearty
(29:38):
diet, and my husband preferred to have big meals
at breakfast and lunch and then something light at supper. So
we just always have done that, and that really helped. Our kids,
especially our adopted kids, were very malnourished as
young children. When they came to us, their muscle
tone wasn't necessarily very good. My son,
(30:01):
who's 22 right now and in the army, when he came
to us, he was 2 years old and weighed
12 pounds, and his head was huge compared to his
body. Yeah. And so we put him on our
farm diet, and six months later, at his health checkup, the
nurses are like, wow, look at the leg muscles on this
(30:23):
kid. And I said, yeah, because he does trampoline every
single day of his life. And so you have
to look at children holistically, whether you're saying the
word. I was thinking holistically, whether they're your. Birth children,
adopted children, it doesn't matter. We are
whole people that God created with,
(30:45):
you know, a brain and a. A backbone and
a vertebrae and a spinal column and everything,
and it all works together. And just as the church is
an image of all the parts of a body,
we function best when our whole body
is fed and exercised and exposed to,
(31:08):
I believe, outdoor sun and weather. So, speaking of
holistically, some of it can be overwhelming, like, how
do you know where to start? And we just did the Unique Learners
seminar right before the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference. And following that, we did a
meetup, which it was basically just a chance to make
community with people who are like you, in the same boat. And I
(31:30):
love it so much because you see these parents who are desperate, who are
overwhelmed, who don't know where to turn, and they're just. They. They don't
even need, like, icebreakers or anything. They just immediately find one another and start
talking because they're. They don't Know where to go,
what to look for, how to find those resources. And so how,
I mean, we live in the information age and still it's like there's
(31:53):
contradictory information about holistic. Like you said, low fat diet,
high fat diet, I mean, of this. So speak to that. Like,
how do you encourage somebody to find the right.
Because what works for one family isn't going to necessarily work for the other. So
how do they find their solution? I think this
is really important to discuss. I, I do believe
(32:15):
that God gives parents an instinct
to observe and know what's going on with
their child. And I say start with the first, first thing.
What is the most
out of control situation your child has? Is it
their temper? Is it their health? It's probably all related.
(32:37):
But just work on the first main thing
and sometimes that's relationship. And so that's all you can
work on. But I think that it's really important to
seek the Lord as to what your child
needs because he created your child. What, whether by birth
or adoption, he put your child in your family and
(33:00):
he will give you a gut instinct as to
what's going on. It could be diet. You know,
I love the fact that RFK Jr. Is going to cut
back on food dyes and everything else. I think that's a big
trigger. The second thing that I
think is important, to be in the community
(33:22):
where other people are observing your child, not
judging them, but coming alongside of you and
able to give you advice. And so I recommend two
sources of that for every single family. That's
homeschooling, which is, number one, I do believe you should be in some
sort of a homeschool cooperative group. And it
(33:45):
doesn't have to be, you know, super fancy or anything, but
just get together with a couple other homeschool families, even
if it's just play day at the park, because
then the parents can sit and talk and watch the kids. The kids
have some interaction with other kids, but just
having parents who can say, hey, I'm having a
(34:07):
horrible day, will you pray for me? I don't know what to do
about my child. And it's amazing how God will make
divine appointments and bring the right person to you
to talk about that. The second type of community
that I am a super big believer in is belonging to a
church that is supportive, number one of children,
(34:30):
number two of unique people, and
number three, families who homeschool. And it's
hard to find a church like that. But there are more of them
because the reason you go to church is to
worship with like minded believers and
also to have some sort of accountability
(34:53):
with the elders and the pastors in the church.
There's a lot of women that complain that their husband isn't doing enough.
And I say, is he under the authority of
elders in a church? Well, no, we don't go to church. I'm like, okay,
that's a good gang. Go to a church, help your
husband make friends with the elders and other
(35:16):
men in the church. Encourage him to go to men's Bible
study or just meet one on one with the pastor. Because
husbands have a very hard job. They're supposed to be the
shepherd of the family, but if nobody is shepherding them,
they're not going to know how to lead their wives
and children. And I don't mean in a tyrannical way,
(35:39):
I mean in a gentle and loving way. We raised sheep
on our farm and we were gentle with them. And
Jesus is the good shepherd, he's gentle with us.
And a good shepherding pastor is
gentle with his flock or congregation. So
I think it's very important that you are with like mind.
(36:02):
Then if you can belong to some sort of special
needs group, maybe your kid has dyslexia.
So find some other families that are struggling with
dyslexia. It could be through a library, it could
be through a Facebook page. But learn
from other people what they've tried, what they haven't tried.
(36:25):
And certainly like on the Czech website. I love our
website, it's so huge. Sometimes it's hard to find things. But
on our unique learners page we have
recommended therapists, we have support
groups. If people will just take
an hour out of their day to
(36:47):
find out what is available as a
resource or support for them, I think they would,
they would find something. And it's hard,
especially if you live remotely to find a good church.
We actually drove two hours for, wow,
about seven years to go to a good church that
(37:10):
supported us. And we just packed two hours one way
and take snacks and gas was expensive
but we just made it work because it was, you know,
people say you got to find your tribe. It was our tribe. You know,
there were other people with adopted kids, kids, there were very,
very loving shepherds in the way of pastors and elders.
(37:32):
I'm still friends with all of those people even though I
live far away from them. If I visit, I go to
that church because I consider it my home church. They've been
through everything with me. So I think you
have to prepare for a long battle. And what
does that mean? It means you got to gird yourself, you got to put on
(37:54):
the full armor of God. You got to find your, your tribe, your,
your, your prayer warriors especially.
I think you need to find at least one person, if not
more than that, who can pray regularly for you if you're having
issues. I mean just any homeschool family really needs prayer
covering because the enemy does. Not like, he wants to
(38:17):
devour. Right. Are doing Christian homeschool
discipleship. He does not like it. And he's going to fight
every tooth and nail. He's going to call cause car wrecks and he's
going to cause sickness and he's going to cause husbands and
wives to put fights with each other. So you just
really have to be very proactive.
(38:39):
You know, right now in our country there's,
we're trying to build up our military for defense,
not for offense. And I think that's what you have to do with your family
too. You have to develop your defensive
strategies for when the enemy hits. And I wish I'd
known early on in my marriage that when things start going
(39:02):
downhil, get on your knees and pray right then. Get your kids pray
right then. A lot of times I would just try to solve it in my
own ability and it's like, okay, it's just piling up so
fit. We have to pray. And so prayer should be
your very first battle cry and
get your kids involved with that. And even though they don't know the
(39:24):
Lord, they will see that you know the Lord and
you know with homeschooling more things are hot
than taught. And so your kids see how you're
reacting and hopefully it's positively reacting.
You're going to God right away when Susie and
Johnny are fighting one more time or your husband is
(39:46):
frustrating you one more time. So kids,
there's a lot of chaos right now. Let's just all pray
and praying first thing in the morning, praying at mealtime,
praying during math, praying during science, praying when
somebod does not understand, you know, how
to read. Things
(40:09):
are misfiring in the brain. Yeah, yeah. What I'm hearing from
you, Shari, is him. Exactly.
And the Creator. And he also wants us to find
like minded Christians to do battle with.
I love it. I'm hearing a lot of hope and everything you're saying just
(40:29):
not to focus on the everything but focus on the one thing and
take that one thing to the Lord and you're so right. I call it holy
echoes. When you need help with something or and you just
coincidentally, I mean that doesn't. We just heard this
at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference, one of the keynote speakers said that word
coincidence doesn't exist in the original Hebrew language
(40:51):
because there is no coincidence. God provided those connections,
that comment, that suggestion from somebody and that community, and it
can be found one a time. And Sheri, I feel like we
could keep going, but I hope that this draws people, encourages them,
get some to go look at those resources. We'll link the obviously
the Unique learners blog from check. We'll put that below. But also sped
(41:13):
homeschool. There's so many great resources and Shari's got some great books that she
wrote that you can dig into that too. So all of that will be below.
So thank you so much. Sheri, when we close, we're like, we like to
ask all of our guests and it can be related to this topic or
otherwise, but what would you consider to be the best piece of
advice that you received as a homeschool mom?
(41:35):
I, I would say from my viewpoint now
that I'm beyond my homeschooling years, is you just
absolutely never give up. And
I told that to my kids who were struggling. I told that to my
husband. And I said, as long as we're together,
we can keep going forward. So just never,
(41:58):
ever give up and try to see
the child that God gave you. And he loves that
child even more than you do. And he will never give
up on that child. And you should not either. Well, it's like the
child that you said as a senior in high school, finally math
clicked. That would be so exasperating and so hard from a homeschool
(42:20):
mom's perspective. But just to be faithful, plow on,
be consistent, do what we can do. And it's kind of that idea,
right? Like the results are the Lord's, I'm going to be faithful with what he's
asked me to do. And then what he does with that is his
work. Wow. Well, that was encouraging, Sheri. Thank you. That's a
great way to end the conversation. Again, I'm going to post all the links in
(42:42):
the in the show notes so you can find more
resources, help and encouragement. And I hope that this was a blessing
to you all. Thank you, Sheri, for being with us today. Yes, thank you for
having me. It was great. Thank you so much for joining us today.
The Colorado Homeschool podcast is is a ministry of Christian Home
Educators of Colorado. We have been motivating parents to
(43:03):
disciple the next generation by embracing home discipleship
that is Christ centered, parent directed, and free from government control.
We invite you to join us in this mission. You want to support homeschooling in
Colorado? Go to check.org donate in the
meantime, share this with your friends and make sure you subscribe. That really
helps us. Thank you. Foreign.
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