A Taste for Travel

Hi All, Bhakti here 🙂

I’m sitting in our home base in Colorado, as we prep for our next slow travel through Western Europe. I’m thinking a lot today about what amazing things happened that got us here. A homeschool family, episodic worldschoolers with a deep affection for animals, nature and great food! So first thing is first. How did we become homeschoolers with the freedom to travel the world?

Well, that story starts in the brain.

One of the amazing things about Home/World-Schooling Jagger is the opportunity to teach “real world” skills that aren’t often a part of a traditional education. So today I want to talk about executive function.

Executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircraft on multiple runways, the brain needs this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals, and control impulses.

Center on the Developing Child- Harvard University

Ironically these skills are often grouped into the term “soft skills” but these are the hard and fast building blocks for lifelong success and happiness.

I remember back when Jagger was in a traditional school, his math skills were clearly advanced. He could solve complex algebraic equations in first grade. So imagine our shock when the teacher put him into a remedial math group. Now I am not one of those parents. I could not care less if Jagger was gifted in math. I’m certainly not, lol! Still, this seemed illogical…. until we talked to his teacher who described an in-class kid I had never met. His anxiety was so high at school he would hide under the table or run away from teachers when presented with a problem he couldn’t solve. Long story short this led to a LONG conversation with an incredible teacher who ultimately shared her perspective that a kid like Jagger might be able to survive traditional education, but an integral piece of who he was would ultimately be lost. What do we as parents say to that? Oh well, who cares? This led us into a deep dive thorough the murky waters of public and private school education and ultimately to the decision to homeschool.

Truthfully, I thought homeschool was a place for religious zealots and hippies or weirdos. I was right…. kind of…. lol! While I’ve met some amazing religious homeschoolers and some extraordinary against-the-grain weirdo awesome homeschoolers…an increasing number of us are just like me. Folks for whom the standard educational model just wasn’t a good fit for one reason or another.

I could write a novel on what we discovered in the following years… maybe someday I will, but for now let’s go back to that kid hiding under the table and escaping his teachers.

Once we made the decision to bring him home, the anxiety reduced to a manageable point almost on its own. But the skills of self-regulation, time management, multi-tasking, following instructions, focus attention were ultimately where the learning needed to happen. Jagger loved to learn facts, he recited information like an encyclopedia! What he didn’t have were the tools to manage his interests, break things down into clear steps, regulate his emotional condition while pursuing an interest. That’s right, executive function skills.

Okay, let’s address the elephant in some of your rooms. I know some of you (especially those “in the know”) are thinking, “I see you neuro-diverse kiddo”. Don’t fret. I do too. But realistically, show me a neuro-typical one and we can chat about that very personal part of our story.

How do you teach executive function? Stay tuned for my posts about teaching this kiddo all sorts of skills from all around the world with every teaching tool I’ve got in my toolbox! Enjoy the ride through all my successes and failures at supporting an extraordinary kid through an extraordinary childhood.

*Posted with special permission from Jagger who believes it’s important to share our whole story and how we became a family with, A Taste For Travel ❤

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