Homeschooling Sixth Grade With a Traumatic Brain Injury, Assessing, Evaluation and Planning

It is now 4 years since the TBI for Dax. He is not the same as before the accident and his headaches and memory loss continues to burden him. My heart hurts for him and the emotions I have around this whole situation as a mother sometimes makes it seemingly unsurmountable. But I remember to be compassionate with him and teach him to be compassionwith with himself as I work so very hard to model this. (in this moment as I write this I grieve deeply and hear voices of my past say "get over it" "suck it up" "it could be worse". These do not help my friends) To use tools like Tonglen meditation and to remember OMMS - Obstacles Make Me Stronger, this helps. And so I teach him this and his incredibly kind and patient brother Ryder holds the space for him as well. And so I am blessed. And I shift the perspective to something more positive. 6th Grade. I remember my 6th grade well. A significant turning point in my life. I am honored and humbled to be able to support Dax as his mom, teacher, guide, friend. PIANO will continue in a big way, in spite of his feeling like he is not progressing. Compared to his brother he feels he is not, yet he is and as we listened to his recordings he was overjoyed with how far he has come. Ms. Anita has been a blessing sent to us and so I sacrifice to make sure they both have weekly piano lessons. Wise choice for anyone who has had a briand injury - piano was one of the things I researched early on - that it can help with brain rewiring. KETO - this is a challenge with Dax's additction to carbs. I can't keep honey in the house for my tea or he will eat it all in one sitting. So salmon is for breakfast, which he loves thank goodness. And I've become very good at finding good fats to feed his brain as well as supplements like the gotu kola. Things that are now a staple in our home. Earth schooling - this is such fun with Alexander the Great and the Olympians being studied this year. All of our academics will be around these topics and the 8 blocks are laid out well enough. We'll do a bit with the Waldorf Essentials as I like the daily layout that fulfills my "checklist" for academics. Finanical Literacy continues - this is crucial at all ages. It's a good reminder for me and the boys can point out when I'm not looking at my P and L and going by the numbers. A few adjuncts such as public speaking, youtube channel building, fitness and geology. We'll dive in for unit studies. Our list of 6th grade books is a rich one - I'm excited for Dax now. He's finally at a place that he has fallen in love with books - good books. That list is on the site here if you want to see recommended reading for 6th grade. SPANISH - we'll finish level 1 this year. Conversational. For Ryder he'll choose which language he'll focus on for the next 4 years. FRENCH - because this is my joy, we'll still play with French a bit. Pepe Pig while obnoxious still works. I prefer my French movies though. Rubix cubes. Chess and many other board and card games. Yoga and Qi Gong, likely will advance to the next level here and will be a life long benefit. Electronics - Dax is clear he wants to be an engineer. And he's so good. He can take apart his very complicated car and rebuild. He's built and continues to build numerous things from electronics to mechanics. I am beyond proud of him. Lots of BRAIN GYM. This makes a huge difference for Dax. Doing movement patterns, crossing the midline, balancing the brain. Oh how grateful I am for the tremendous innovation and support we have as parents and teachers to help our chidren. Overall, focusing on the positive, focusing on what he can do well and supporting him in areas that are a challenge: Multiplation tables. His memory is the biggest challenge here and I can see him struggle. He just says "mom, I just can't remember, my brain hurts and it just doesn't stay there". So hard for a mom to hear, but that he recognizes the challenge and can now be calm and easy with himself as he gets older is so important. His frustration about his memory has lessoned and he now can mostly take the time to calm his breath and be present, go to his room and just be. This is his emotional intelligence and for that, wow, I'm in awe. I'm beyond grateful and proud of my blessed boys. Dax has overcome so much. He hates and complains every time about the twice monthly doctor visit - what can I do? I think it helps but I don't know. I would rather have that money to buy food or to take us to chipotle for dinner. Sacrifices. Choices. The life of a human. The life of a mom and a family. In the midst of all of this COVID. How do we do it? One day at a time. One breath at a time if needed. We each must do the best we can and remember that we have everything we need - we are whole and if we can just center ourselves, find the eye of the storm and seek that regularly during this time, well, my hope is that truth, goodness will prevail. We will miss all of our summer camps this year - Aikido, Animation, Horsemanship, Volunteering at SPCA. Will next year find out in a new masked separated world? Who knows. For now, I celebrate Dax in 6th grade and our journey begins.