Donna Chick, one of CSF New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Ambassadors, wrote about using the Education Freedom Account (EFA) and Education Tax Credit (ETC) Scholarship programs to homeschool her grandson, who faced numerous challenges after years of attending school only sporadically before coming to live with her.
HOW DO you best educate a traumatized 8-year-old boy who had only sporadically attended school? A child who spent three years sitting in a hotel room with no stimulation other than a broken phone while his parents fell deep into the drug world.
This was the question we faced when our grandson came to live with us 18 months ago. When the authorities reached out, we immediately sought guardianship. At that time, he was morbidly obese and had been living on a diet of beef sticks and soda. Climbing a flight of stairs left him winded. He was unable to bend over to reach his shoes and if he could, no one had taught him how to tie them. He had no routine, no sleep pattern. He gagged on healthy food; could not identify numbers one to 10; did not know the alphabet; did not know his date of birth or how to write his name.
His first week with us was rough. He struggled eating healthy food. He struggled with a set bedtime and brushing his teeth. He no longer was allowed to have his cellphone. He did, however, move in with seven cousins. My daughter, her husband, and their seven children had moved in with us a year prior. This meant my grandson had seven immediate playmates all close to his age. This was a true blessing.
Continue reading on the New Hampshire Union Leader’s website.
