May 7, 2025 – Special Needs Learning: Home Is Best!
Special Needs Learning: Home Is Best!
May 7, 2025
Deborah Wuehler
God Equips Those He Calls
Roger Smith
The Horse Whisperer’s Need
Adam and Dianne Riveiro
Special Needs Learning: Clarity In the Midst of Confusion
Dara Halydier
Home Really Is Best
Mercy Every Minute
Deborah Wuehler, TOS Senior Editor
God Equips Those He Calls
In the beautiful journey of homeschooling, some of us walk a path paved with unique and often difficult challenges—homeschooling children with special needs. Let me remind you today that your child is not defined by their diagnosis but by the unique purpose and plan that God has for their life. He knit them together for His unique purposes and there are extraordinary blessings to discover.
Homeschooling children with special needs requires extra patience, creativity, wisdom, and strength, but God equips those He calls. And you are perfectly called and chosen to be their parent, their advocate, their teacher, and their cheerleader. Let His perfect wisdom and His perfect Word be your guide. Philippians 4:13 reminds us: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Let this truth anchor you when the days feel long. And know that there will be fruit as you persevere: “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9).
When your special needs child is home, you will be the one to celebrate every milestone and take joy in the progress that others may overlook. They will learn in the best and most healthy and comfortable environment there is. Adapt your curriculum and expectations, and cherish the vibrant learning that homeschooling allows.
You are not alone in this calling. Lean on Christ. He is shaping both your child’s heart and your own in ways that will reflect His glory as you keep your special needs children Home. Where They Belong.
~Deborah
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Roger Smith
The Horse Whisperer’s Need
Special needs designation can encompass a vast array of conditions and situations, so these words may not exactly fit your story, but consider a new way of thinking about learning challenges.
Monty Roberts is the real-life horse whisperer that spawned stories, books, and movies. Many practitioners copy his work. But it all started with a disability.
Monty did not know his vision was different than everyone else, but he had monochromatic vision. That is, he sees no color at all—only shades of gray.
Naturally, he had great trouble in school because he could not learn his colors. The failures he faced drove him to love horses, who didn’t care if he knew his colors.
The very thing that made him a failure at school made him famous in the horse world. Because of his gray-scale vision, he noticed things in horses’ behaviors that others overlooked. He recognized patterns of communication between the animals and their handlers. From that, he developed a language to “talk” to wild horses that made him highly successful.
What was a disability proved to be a special gifting.
Search for the positive side of your child’s challenge. It could be part of a special “Able-i-ty.”
About the author
Dr. Roger Smith is a family doctor in rural Louisiana, where he and his wife, Jan, raised four adventurous children who are all grown, making their own mark in the world. He speaks and writes on parenting issues and produces brief videos that can be found on Facebook @ParentingMattersNow.
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Adam and Dianne Riveiro
Special Needs Learning: Clarity In the Midst of Confusion
Hi there! Adam here today, and you’ll likely notice the lack of humorous stories or poignant anecdotes in my article. “Why so serious?” you ask. It’s simple: teaching special needs children is a subject Dianne and I are deeply passionate about due to our son Adam Jr.’s autism and intellectual disability. Our journey has been an incredibly personal one, and it’s gone through many twists and turns since AJ’s diagnosis over ten years ago.
The problem with giving counsel on how to teach your special needs child (in 300ish words, no less!) is that it’s like nailing Jell-O to a wall. “Special needs” can refer to a host of physical, cognitive, or emotional disabilities, and what works for your family may not work for mine. However, Dianne and I want to pass on some lessons we’ve learned over the years that will work for every special needs family, no matter the situation.
- Be prayerful: Nobody knows your child or cares more for them than your Heavenly Father. Bathe your child’s situation in James 1:5 and seek wisdom from above: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
- Be mindful: Consider your child’s individual needs when making decisions about schooling options and teaching styles. Don’t give in to the pressure to put your child into a mold that doesn’t fit.
- Be helpful: Special needs parents often have to hyper-focus on their child’s needs because they are often unmet by so many different parts of society. But as you seek help, remember to be a helper. Pour into the community you’re trying to draw from. A helpful servant’s heart keeps a selfish heart at bay.
Special needs parents, let me humbly suggest two books Dianne and I have written that can help you: Hope from Our Heart to Yours: A 30-Day Devotional Journey for Special Needs Families and Ministering to YOUR Children with Special Needs: The Journey to a Biblical Philosophy of Parenting. We want to help you on the journey!
-Adam
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About the author
Pastor Adam and Dianne Riveiro live in Easton, Massachusetts, where Adam serves as the pastor of Liberty Baptist Church. Together, they’ve authored several books, including their newest book Ministering to YOUR Children with Special Needs, published by Ready Scribe Publications. Parents to four amazing kids—Bethany, Kaylee, AJ, and Peyton—the Riveiros are deeply committed to helping special needs families discover joy and contentment through Christ.
Dara Halydier
Home Really Is Best
Your children are uniquely made. God made you their parents because He knew you were what they needed. Teaching kids who don’t follow the learning norms is challenging, but it will make us grow closer to God as we lean into Him for direction and guidance. Our public school system and much of homeschool curriculum is geared to the left-brain, visual learner. If your child is right-brain, or left-brain and oral, kinesthetic, or auditory, they could be labeled as special needs. You throw in dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, autism, or other disabilities, and the world of teaching doesn’t know what to do. This is why it is best to teach your special needs child at home.
Homeschooling offers your child one-on‑one tutoring rather than one-to-twenty or more in a school. There, in the safety of your home, they can grow and learn at their pace and in their way. You can offer respect and understanding that they will not get in a larger group. You will know when they need a break or a different approach. You can learn ways to teach them to compensate.
We never allowed our kids to use their differences as an excuse. They were still required to do the work, but we were able to accommodate their special needs. By understanding that they processed differently, they also sought out answers. For one child, this led to low self-esteem and anger. We were able to instill in him the knowledge that he is lovable just like he is, and he learned anger-control tools. He struggled with these issues through college but has overcome them as an adult.
By being at home, we were able to teach to our kids’ strengths and support them in their weaknesses.
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