How To Appreciate Your Struggling Learner

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 You are reading How To Appreciate Your Struggling Learner, posted by Heather Mac, originally posted at Joyful Socks Mom blog.

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After my own personal journey into and out of completely losing it over having struggling learners, I am happy to report that there is joy to be found in such a journey.  Yet, it is still a journey.  A journey of many miles, hard won battles, stumbling and weariness ... a wilderness journey, that you may believe you are completely alone in traveling.

 

Where are you God?  Why is this so hard?  Will things ever get better?

"Pluck up your hearts therefore, and be strong: dread not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God himself doth go with thee: he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Deuteronomy 31:6 (GNV)

God is here.  I promise, He is!  Last time we discussed the changing of ourselves.  Changing our relationship with the trials and struggles.  Changing our direction.  

The next step in the journey is realizing that we must rebuke our denials, fears and overcompensation in our relationship toward our struggling learner.  This only comes with daily prayer, crucifying our need to control, rebuking self-serving thoughts, and a bringing to remembrance the good that God intends for you, your struggling learner and your family.

This is the stop on the journey where we must learn acceptance.

"For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure."
Philippians 2:13 (AMP)

I accept this is beyond my own personal control or power.

I accept that God's ways are far above my own ways.

I accept that God has a plan for my child, a good plan, that is beyond my finite mind to either understand or comprehend ... and I am okay with that.

Let me be clear on this point, acceptance DOES NOT mean giving up on anything better for your struggling learner.
 

Acceptance simply means that I am positioning myself to work WITH what God is doing in my child, rather than working FOR God.  I am working WITH Him and trusting Him, alone, with the results.

Once we have come to this all important step in acceptance, we can then begin to actually appreciate our own struggling learner.  Here are the steps to begin appreciating the struggle to learn with your child:

• Stop comparing your struggling learner to other children.  God's timing is usually not EVER our timing.  Let Him do His work with your child.  At times with struggling learners it appears that their only consistency is their  inconsistency.  Stop comparing them and give it all over to Christ, the only faithful and consistence source for any good thing.

• Start discovering how your struggling learner thinks about & perceives the world.  When we attempt to see life through the eyes of another, we stand only to gain.  We gain understanding, empathy and grace.  These are all gifts to give back to your struggling learner.  Give it a try.  Walk a mile in their shoes.

• Find all the wonderful and unique gifts, talents and abilities your struggling learner DOES have.  Focus on that which is praiseworthy.

“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they exist, and were created and brought into being.” Revelations 4:11 (AMP)

• Celebrate the strengths your struggling learner has and begin to help them utilize these strengths to overcome their learning struggles.  I guarantee that God has birthed something amazing in your struggling learner.  I also guarantee that God will be faithful to birth even greater things in your child THROUGH their struggle to learn.  Case in point, look at all these struggling learners from history: 

Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson,  Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, 

Winston Churchill, Walt Disney

      

We know them and hold them in high regard, not for their learning struggles but INSTEAD for the fruit that those learning struggles produced in them.  Without their personal learning struggles, perseverance and drive to overcome, we may not even have known their names.

• Trust that God has a plan for your struggling learner and He makes all things come together for our good. 

"And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose." Romans 8:28 (AMP)

Please know that you are not alone on this journey.

 

Please journey along with me in the coming weeks:

• How To Completely Lose It Over Your Struggling Learner (Week 1)

• (You Are Here) How To Appreciate Your Struggling Learner (Week 2)

•How My Children's Learning Struggles Made Me A Better Person (Week 3)

•Savoring the Wilderness Journey (Final Week)

Joyfully Learning with You,

The Joyful Socks Mom 

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