Christine Field - Homeschooling the Challenging Child: A Practical Guide

In Homeschooling the Challenging Child, Christine Field has produced another masterpiece, a super-informative how-to book that not only educates, but also inspires. This book provides fascinating research, insightful analysis, and helpful anecdotes, sure to be a tremendous help to any parent of a challenging child. Highly recommended.

Rhonda Barfield, author of Real-Life Homeschooling: The Stories of 21 Families Who Teach Their Children at Home, Feed Your Family, and 15-Minute Cooking

We heartily recommend Christine Field's book Homeschooling the Challenging Child for parents working with children who have learning delays. We found this well-thought-out resource easy to follow and easy to understand. Thank you Christine for your organized book written from your heart!

Tom and Sherry Bushnell, authors of Christian Home and Special Kids and directors of NATHHAN/CHASK

Wow! I can think of dozens of great reasons to read this book. The best reason is that it will help countless parents who have challenging offspring to survive childhood without loss of life or limb! Filled with very practical advice from a mom who has walked the walk, this book will become your new best friend. Christine provides godly counsel to families navigating the often precarious waters of parenting challenging children. She helps us to see the blessings and guides us as we tackle the obstacles. I will buy this book for my homeschool group and highly encourage every support group leader to do the same. This book will provide comfort and wisdom for many stressed-out homeschool parents!

Maggie Hogan, speaker, author of Hands-On Geography, and coauthor of Gifted Children at Home and The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide

A must have for all homeschooling families! We can all find help in Christine's advice, whether you have a disabled child or just a child who knows how to push your buttons, this book is for you.

Jonni McCoy, author and founder of Miserly Moms

A refreshing revisit to the domestic issues of homeschooling, Homeschooling the Challenging Child addresses the various hurdles of training and teaching your child with an emphasis on special-needs learning. Whether your child is a challenging leaner or not, you'll find Christine's book logically progressive, practical, and most of all, encouraging. From one who's been there and still doing it, Christine Field, a true and humble comrade, is a special-needs homeschool mentor to parents everywhere. Highly recommended for any homeschool reference library!

Paul Suarez, Publisher, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Homeschooling brings many challenges to twenty-first-century parents as we learn to unselfishly serve our children's educational, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. When you add to this already monumental mix, a child who is challenged with special needs, it can become terrifyingly difficult, discouraging, and draining. For these parents who are struggling in a storm-tossed tempestwho have seen the clear signs of disability in what should be everyday accomplishmentsChristine Field's book will be a buoyant lifeline of hope, practical advice, and first-hand experience. The transparency and humility with which she shares leads unerringly to the throne of Grace, where we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. I highly recommend this valuable resource.

Diana Waring, international homeschool speaker and author of Reaping the Harvest: The Bounty of Abundant Life Homeschooling

In this book, Christine Field discusses how to homeschool a challenging child. What is a challenging child? Essentially, she says that any child who demands special effort or dedication is a challenging child. I like that definition, because many of the children who are held up as examples of the success of homeschooling can be challenging.

There are several things that make this book valuable to homeschoolers. First, Christine Field dispels a lot of myths that seem so prevalent in the home-schooling community. Second, Field dispels the myth that you should not make use of the evaluation services provided by the public school system or the child psychology community. Most importantly, the author dispels the myth that learning disabilities are discipline problems.

Of course, Christine readily admits that many disciple problems are incorrectly labeled as learning disabilities. As a result, she stresses evaluation as the key. She stresses that you must learn what the problems are before you can address them. To that end, she gives specific suggestions on how to evaluate your child and even refers you to other resources that have detailed evaluation tools such as personality tests. As she says over and over again, the more you know, the better you will be at making an informed decision on how to homeschool your challenging child.

Field gives specific suggestions on how to approach discipline, daily routine, personality issues, and learning programs for a challenging child. When I got done with this book, I felt as if I had been at a weekend seminar that was full of panel discussions between experts in childrearing, experts in education, and parents who had personally dealt with the struggles of raising challenging children.

If you want specific ideas on how to evaluate your child as a unique creation, how to help your child develop into an adult that will be pleasing to God, how to develop a homeschooling program that works for your child, and how to deal with the emotion and stress that results from doing so, you should definitely read this book.

Dr. Jay L. Wile, president of Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc.

I have so many people to thank and recognize. First of all, this book is dedicated to the parents of challenging children. May you persevere in the work the Lord has given you.

A special dedication also goes to Gena Suarez and The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. Thank you for opening my eyes to a new area of ministry and for giving me encouragement and a forum for sharing my struggles and successes.

Thank you to the parents who answered a lengthy survey for this book. Your ideas and insights are at the heart of this work.

Thank you to Sharon Carlson, who has taught me so much.

A special thank you to my husband and children, who teach me new lessons on a daily basis.

May you, the reader, be encouraged and enlightened by what you read here, and may the words and thoughts I share bring glory to God.

I am not a certified teacher. I'm just a mom sharing what I have gleaned along the way in my homeschooling journey. What is written is not intended to diagnose or treat any disorder.

Not every disorder or approach is covered. To do so would turn this into a multivolume special-needs treatise. My intent is to give parents exposure to areas of concern and to point them to resources for further consideration.

Although I am a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois, nothing herein is to be construed as legal advice; it is intended for educational purposes only.