My Learning Farm Is My Love Letter to My Children

Laying the Lonliness of Learning Difference Bare

There is a side to raising children who learn differently that people don’t always see. It can be incredibly lonely. It is sitting through evaluations and hearing about skill gaps, scores, deficits, and areas of concern while knowing that none of those numbers come close to describing the incredible child sitting beside you. It is knowing something is wrong long before you have the language to explain exactly what it is.

I remember telling teachers that something wasn’t right. I knew my children were capable. I knew they were bright. But I also knew that learning was harder for them than it should have been. So we tried more intervention. We practiced more. We waited. We evaluated. We tried something else. And sometimes, while the adults were busy trying to figure out what was happening, my children were the ones paying the emotional price.

Raising my kids has been the BEST experience of my life and they have shaped everything I do in my life-I am eternally grateful for all they have taught me!

There were tears. There were skills that simply weren’t developing despite tremendous effort. There was damage to self-esteem and growing anxiety. There was counseling, private evaluations, school assessments, accommodations, and yearly IEP meetings, absence to due anxiety, homeschooling and more support from professionals and caring adults. There were also plenty of tears from me. Sometimes you hold it together through the meetings, ask your questions, advocate for what your child needs, walk to the car—and then finally fall apart.

Back-to-school nights and teacher meetings were different, too. While other parents were introducing themselves and looking around the classroom, I was finding a quiet moment to pull a teacher aside and talk about an IEP. Before school even started, I was often sending emails explaining my child, their learning differences, what had worked, what had not worked, and what they might need.

I wasn’t doing those things because my children couldn’t learn. They absolutely could. They simply learned differently. I wanted the people teaching them to understand that difference and recognize the capable, creative, funny, wonderful human being behind the paperwork.

For a long time, I was searching. Searching for the right intervention. Searching for better instruction. Searching for answers. Searching for someone who understood what I was experiencing as a parent. More than anything, I wanted someone to look at my children and say, “I see what you see. They can do this. We just need to find the way that works for them.”

It has been a long road. At times, it has been an incredibly hard and lonely road. But there have also been parts of the journey that have been so beautiful. I have watched my children grow into themselves. I have watched them discover their strengths, develop confidence, learn to advocate for themselves, and find the things they love. I have watched them begin to understand that learning differently never meant they were less capable.

My "kids" are young adults now-but they will always be my "babies" and I will always support them in every way I can.

Those experiences are at the heart of why I created My Learning Farm.

Everything I do here is shaped by what I needed as a parent during those years. My hope is that compassion, understanding, patience, love, and joy come through in every part of My Learning Farm—from specialized academic instruction and homeschool consultations to our classes, summer programs, and support for families navigating special education.

Of course, I want children to make academic progress. I want them to become stronger readers, writers, spellers, mathematicians, and learners. But I also want to protect something equally important along the way: their confidence. I want children to know that struggling with a skill does not mean they aren't smart. Needing explicit instruction does not mean they have failed. Taking a different path does not make that path less valuable.

I want My Learning Farm to be a place where a child can struggle without feeling ashamed. A place where we can say, “That didn’t work. Let’s try another way.” A place where effort is noticed, small victories are celebrated, and children have room to discover what they are capable of doing.

I want parents to feel that same sense of safety and understanding. When a parent tells me that homework takes hours, their child cries over reading, spelling never seems to stick, or they are worried about an upcoming IEP meeting, I understand that there is usually much more behind those words. There may be years of worry, frustration, appointments, emails, meetings, evaluations, and sleepless nights behind that one conversation.

Because I have been that mom.  And I am still that mom.

My children's journeys have shaped everything I do—the difficult chapters and the beautiful ones, the evaluations and the victories, the tears and the celebrations. They are why I kept learning, asking questions, seeking training, and searching for better ways to teach children who learn differently.

Ava and Ryker are the heart of My Learning Farm.

In so many ways, My Learning Farm is my love letter to them. It grew from everything their journeys taught me about perseverance, compassion, advocacy, confidence, and the importance of truly seeing a child for who they are—not simply for what they can or cannot do on a particular assessment.

And now that love extends to every child who walks onto the farm and every parent who arrives carrying questions, worries, hopes, and dreams for their child.

If you are walking this road right now, I hope you find people who see the whole child; I am eternally grateful to the village of people who have wrapped around my children and I.  I hope you find instruction that meets your child where they are while still believing deeply in where they can go. And I hope your child discovers that learning differently is simply that—different.

At My Learning Farm, we will keep growing skills. We will keep building confidence. We will keep finding different ways when the first way doesn't work.

And we will keep making room for understanding, heart, love, and a whole lot of joy. 🌱💛