I’ve spent a lot of creative energy on a home education rhythm that provides freedomwithin structure and so I thought I’d document it here.
DISCLAIMER: Please don’t read this post as a how to. I’m not making any suggestions or judgements for families who do things differently. Every child has their own needs and there are endless ways to home educate. This is what works for us. For now. It may change tomorrow.
Here’s a peek at our daily rhythms (watercolor clip art from Etsy).
Gentle Morning
This list is specifically curated to be things David can do after breakfast without my help. These suggestions are relatively quiet and not overstimulating as I do my morning journaling and write in my journal. Five years into parenting and I’m finally back to Julia Cameron’s morning pages.
David is an early reader so these lists work well for us. At earlier ages I used a lot more pictures. He’s not limited to this list, but it can provide a reminder of what’s possible. After the holidays he spent hours sorting sequins and buttons. It was clearly very regulating and creatively fulfilling activity. He’s only just circled back to LEGO.
Starting the Day
Sometime mid morning we’ll find our way to the proper “school” activities. Just as he is learning to respect my work (he calls my morning journaling my “handwriting”) I respect the work he is doing. Whether it is playing with LEGO or “making an invention.” We don’t start our day by the clock.
When a child is focused on a work it is important to them.
In the case of an autistic child it may also be fulfilling complex needs that are not immediately obvious.
(It’s me. I was the autistic child who’s now an autistic parent.)
Instead of suppressing neurodivergent instincts to move, to stim, to dance, to echo, to hyperfocus…
What if we really listened to our own bodies & capacities?
What if we trusted ourselves & our kids more?
Self advocacy means having autonomy to meet your own needs and pursue your own interests. That means our days are flexible and play blends into learning.
To be clear (because someone always says it) this doesn’t mean David does “what he wants” all day long.
Following the child doesn’t mean complete anarchy.
Stay with me.
Freedom within Structure
The central tenant of our home education practice is freedom within structure.
We have certain types of schoolwork that we do each day.
Within that framework David has a lot of freedom.
What emerges is a natural ebb and flow to the day. Periods of concentration and then self regulation. Handwriting then jumping on the trampoline. Math then LEGO.
I don’t mean to suggest that it’s always easy. But when we find our rhythm and everyone is well regulated there is an ease to our day.
This semester we’ve shifted Music and Español to daily (instead of weekly). I also added computer because it’s required for testing and we’re preparing for that. But we won’t be doing that every day.
Art isn’t on the list because mark making (writing and drawing) are seen as the same thing for right now. Some days we draw letters. Some days we draw numbers. Some days we draw shapes. One day for “handwriting” we drew these nested rainbow hearts together. Parallel play is a really powerful support tool.
The Power of Choice
Another opportunity for choice is how we do math or reading or handwriting. I made this list so David can choose between a handful of ways to engage with each subject.
We’re still finding our cadence with this. There are enough options we can mix things up by choosing something new each day. Or avoid repeating what we did yesterday. Our list is laminated so we can keep track.
I believe this approach (freedom within structure) encourages self directed learning that can continue throughout life. Education should kindle our interests and curiosity.
My own home education was similar. My mom was very hands on in elementary, but as I got older I was completely self directed. And I just never stopped learning. I wasn’t doing it because I had to. I was doing it because I love to learn. By the time I got to university my professors just laughed because I took electives that “didn’t count for anything.” 😂
After Lunch
We also have an afternoon list of activities he can do any time after lunch. These are often sensory reset breaks between the more structured “school work” above.
The goal is to be completely done with schoolwork before 3pm. That’s the time of day David is allowed to play Zelda (otherwise he would choose Zelda 24/7). Right now that is proving a strong enough motivation for him to persevere on the tough days.
This is how we’re navigating the tension of structure and freedom. But there’s a lot more to how we home educate. Sensory supports, field trips, gardening, baking, nature walks.
I’ve created a landing page for home education that you can browse here.
I first heard about the Emotional Contagion scale while reading Becca Caddy’s screentime. It is a scale to measure how likely you are to take on emotions of others.
My score is 60 and I am more likely to take on negative emotions (anger, fear, anxiety). That means I’m having an experience that is markedly more intense than most people have when exposed to the same content.
This explains why some people can drink from the “the internet firehose” (as John Naughton calls it) and still function in daily life while I find it impossible to continue coping if I am constantly exposed to anxiety inducing news or angry people shouting at each other. Witnessing intense emotions it physiologically overstimulating and causes dysregulation.
The scale itself is in this PDF if you’d like to see what your results are. It’s based on self reporting your reactions to emotion so it does require a level of self awareness for an accurate score.
Most people would be surprised by this because the stereotype is that autistic people lack empathy (which may be because we sometimes emote or react differently) whereas many of us are in fact hyper empathetic. Katherine May mentions that in this podcast chat with Glennon Doyle.
It’s the same old story of autistics being told we are “worse at” dealing with something when we are in fact having a completely different experience. The test involves physiological reactions that your body has to emotional content and I’m amazed that most people don’t feel these things in their body. Food for thought as I consider boundaries with online platforms during an election year.
This seems like another potential language for whole to part thinking (gestalt cognitive processing):
Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe wrote in “Rewilding: The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery,” rewilding pays attention “to the emergent properties of interactions between ‘things’ in ecosystems … a move from linear to systems thinking.”
Continued reading indicated this area of research may have originated with Dr. Barry Prizant and then abandoned by his peers (along with Gestalt Language Processing.)
Here is an early study of his (bear in mind this was written a long time ago and is more deficit based than his current work.)
Gestalt cognitive processing is when experiences are held as primarily episodic memories. Gestalt cognitive processors process events as a “whole” that is made up of very specific parts. They are whole-to-part thinkers. They have a hyper-awareness of specifics and details in events that make up the entirety of the event, episode, or “whole” for them. … If something within that whole changes, it can be very distressing for a gestalt cognitive processor.
Morgan Schafler says that perfectionists are people who “consistently notice the difference between an ideal and a reality,” and more often than not, have “a compulsion to bridge the gulf between reality and an ideal.” In her view, the perfectionist holds a kind of creative tension that contains an energy capable of creation or destruction.
My initial research into GCP seems to originate within the context of SLP who specialize in GLP. One SLP referred to monotropism in relation to GCP.
I’ve saved some quotes here, but I don’t completely agree with everything presented as monotropism in this paper. I think this is based on somewhat outdated research and a narrow view of autism.
“To a person in an attention tunnel every unanticipated change is abrupt and is truly, if briefly, catastrophic: a complete disconnection from a previous safe state, a plunge into a meaningless blizzard of sensations, a frightening experience which may occur many times in a single day. Following such an episode it may take a long time for any other interest to emerge.”
“For a monotropic thinker, if something does not work out as anticipated there are no alternatives available as there would be for a polytropic thinker. Instead of the projected outcome there is total disaster (Lawson, 1998). Total disaster is strongly demotivating.”
“features of the environment which seem obvious to people with diffuse rather than tightly focused attention may be entirely missed.”
Do we get stuck because we see the whole finished thing in our minds?
Is it executive function or is it GCP?
Do we struggle to find a way in because we are not sequential thinkers and seeing the whole is overwhelming?
Can Iteration be a tool?
The idea does not have to come out fully formed.
What about “rejection sensitivity?”
Could this be happening because we are reliving every rejection we’ve ever experienced? Does it also happen when we are already struggling with flaws (deviations from our internal gestalt) and someone points them out or criticizes it’s unbearable?
How can we rewrite our gestalts?
Can we make more space for imperfection, experimentation, iteration, and discovery?
I think I’ve done this with gardening and pottery and it’s all to do with who I learned those things from and how I think about them. Can I invite that sense of ease and curiosity into other pursuits?
It was Christmas Day and I was sitting at the kitchen anxiously trying to finish a weaving to submit to an exhibition about motherhood.
Here’s a video showing the weaving process. I made data weavings recording each time I was interrupted by tying a knot.
I barely finished and photographed that work in time for the deadline. Looking back that first weaving (smaller and less textured than the one in this video) wasn’t a strong piece and I’m not surprised it was rejected.
But the rejection stung because I was also told off for being unprofessional by photographing my work on a wall that wasn’t white. I felt like the art world was a secret club I didn’t have the passcode for. *
The next year I submitted another weaving to another show. No snooty response, but it still didn’t connect.
One submission a year clearly wasn’t working for me.
So my 100 Submissions project was born.
This was an energetic shift from holding each submission so closely to casting a wider net.
I managed 11 submissions last year and the strangest thing happened…
There’s some bit of luck in submitting the right piece at the right time.
But I think the real magic was putting myself out there without worrying if I had a “chance.”
This led to…
– exhibiting my art for the first time
– speaking at my first author event
– my first publication in an academic journal
That’s a lot of firsts!
I’m going to share this process – not to brag – but to encourage you to put your own work out into the world.
I meant to share this process in real time, but I quickly became overwhelmed at the amount of admin work involved (emails, mailing art, etc.) and I couldn’t keep up with writing Substack posts too.
Here goes!
I kept track of everything in Notion. If you have the bandwidth I found this really useful because you can resuse / adapt submission materials instead of starting from scratch each time. This way you can build up some momentum.
Submission #1 – NWA Book Fest
Venue: NW Arkansas Book Festival
Cost to Submit: None
The first acceptance I had was to do a book reading and signing at a local book festival (NWA Book Fest). It was a great learning experience which I wrote about here.
Takeaway: Author events are a massive energetic drain.
What I learned was I simply I don’t have capacity for book festivals at this time. This was a very short appearance and it took me quite a long time to recover. So paying to be a vendor for a full day (or weekend) event would definitely push me past capacity.
Here’s a clip of actual footage of me after the event. †
“Success” isn’t worth it if it pushes you into burnout.
Submission #2 – Carve Out Time for Art
Venue: Instagram
Cost to Submit: $25
I considered this application to be a complete shot in the dark.
I was stunned at the invitation to takeover Carve Out Time for Art on Instagram. This one gave me big imposter syndrome, but was actually a delight. This was one of the first acceptance emails that came in, but the takeover itself didn’t happen until much later in the year.
Before I did this takeover I pretty much thought “everyone who wants my book already has it so I should stop talking about it.” It’s easy to fall into this trap when growth is slow or nonexistent. Reaching people beyond my normal subscribers brought a breath of fresh air. I made some new friends who followed me here! *waves* And sold a couple copies of my book. Not loads, but it broadened my horizons.
Submission #3 – Stay Home Gallery
Venue: Art Gallery (Paris, TN)
Cost to Submit: $10
Next, my textile piece Maternal Mental Health was accepted to an art exhibition about paradox in caregiving. Here’s a statement from the curator Tara Carpenter Estrada,
“In Together/Alone, the paradox of emotions between “never alone” and “very lonely” felt by caregivers is given the spotlight. The societal devaluing of care-work places the responsibilities of care (and self-care) on individuals. Without structural support, a tension can arise between love and devotion, and resentment or anxiety— the need for alone time, and the need for togetherness.”
Takeaway: Try to align your expectations with reality.
Because this was my first time exhibiting art outside university I really wanted to travel to the gallery opening. The whole situation was confusing because it was a hybrid show. On one hand it was a physical exhibition at an artist retreat – so I had to mail my work. But the main exhibition was on the Stay Home Gallery website. The physical location was not open to the public and was only seen by the artist residents. So there was no opportunity to visit and see the work in person. I was a bit heartbroken, to be honest, because my expectations weren’t aligned with reality. But it was my first tiny baby step into the fine art world.
The next thing I knew I was being published in an academic journal. My piece, The Benefits of Asynchronous Friendship, exploring my collaborative project with
I have a lot to say about this one that should probably live behind a paywall, but I found this process very challenging. I’m an academic – my day job is teaching university theatre courses – but I’m a theatre instructor. (Not an autism researcher.) And I’ve never written for an academic journal before.
Takeaway: Academic writing = time consuming revision.
The challenge came from writing a piece that was “too academic” to be creative and “too creative” to be academic. The editor didn’t quite know what to do with me. They literally said, “it is neither beast nor fowl.” 😂
In the end, we decided to treat it as a creative piece, meaning I had to strip out the research I’d done and root the writing in my lived experience. It was a stronger piece afterward, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Trying to edit this piece whilst also running a crowdfunder almost killed me.
If I submit in the future it will be a visual artwork which wouldn’t require revision.
Cut, Torn & Mended was an open call for members of Spilt Milk Gallery including a virtual exhibition and printed zine. I submitted my bricolage, The Mental Load, which I created as a self regulation process after publishing my first book.
The Mental Load / 2023 / broken toys, detritus of motherhood / 28” x 25” x 8”
Takeaway: Virtual exhibitions are perfect for large or heavy works that are hard to mail.
There’s no way I could afford to ship this piece due to it’s size and fragility so a virtual exhibit & zine was a perfect fit.
View the virtual exhibition or purchase a copy of the Cut, Torn & Mended zine here.
Anthropology of Motherhood Culture of Care was curated by Amy Bowman-McElhone, PhD and has traveled from Pittsburgh Three Rivers Art Festival to Dyer Art Center at National Institute for the Deaf.
This is also the only exhibition I participated in that had funding to pay the artists.
The work that was originally submitted was my 360 VR piece From Where I Stand. Once we started talking about the logistics of the VR headset the curators asked to show My Brain on Motherhood instead. It felt like a double acceptance because they considered both works worthy of exhibition.
I also learned that this work was not the physical object itself, but the video. This makes sense in retrospect, but wasn’t obvious to me until they asked to exhibit the video. I changed the details in my portfolio to list this as a video piece.
Takeaway: Video works are low cost. They don’t require framing or postage and are always “ready to hang” if a screen is available.
I have a few other video WIPs I need to finish up and get into my portfolio. I’m also keeping an old iPad to display works as needed.
Every submission was aired, but for me this submission was about putting myself out there and doing something for myself outside of my “professional” portfolio.
If you’re new around here I’m passionately dedicated to the Wheel of Time and have recently reconnected to the community. Last April I submitted a WoT Idol parody video turning Wheel of Time characters into Sesame Street style puppets. I wrote about the experience here:
Do you hear us… are you listening? was “curated through an open submission to members, without a defined theme, nor a selection process. All members were invited to have their work included. The process of removing the selection committee allowed for a more democratic way of exhibiting our artists’ works, free of judgement or censoring and for all voices to be heard with equal importance.”
For this exhibition, members were invited to submit two works, and I submitted Meltdown and Meltdown Prevention. It felt like a nice opportunity to exhibit these works together and both were included.
If you’d like to see this exhibition it is archived here.
Takeaway: Exhibitions and open calls can come in many forms.
The way Spilt Milk Gallery includes both curated and member exhibitions is a big inspiration in how I’ve decided to structureNeurokind.
Submission #9 – Euphoria Quilt Project
Venue: Instagram
Cost to Submit: FREE
When I saw this project by
Euphoria Quilt Project I knew I wanted to submit a block, but I didn’t know if I had time to make one. Eventually I realized I could utilize the crazy quilting skills I’d developed while making my gleeman’s cloak and I made a quilt square from textured scraps.
This piece will be included in a quilt representing gender expansive joy organized by Eliot Anderberg. You can see some of the squares that have been submitted over on Instagram.
I wrote the following about my square, “Embracing into my neuroqueer and nonbinary gender identity means leaning into the fact that I may appear eccentric. I explored that in this project by using the “wrong” side of several fabrics and improvising a “crazy quilted” design. Gender expression is also tied up in sensory experience for me so I also included some soft stimmy textures.”
If you’re new here and didn’t know I was nonbinary maybe give this a read…
Submission #10 – HNDL Magazine
Venue: Instagram
Cost to Submit: FREE
HNDL stands for Highlighted Neurodivergent & Disabled Life and is a “magazine featuring the work of creatives who identify as neurodivergent, disabled &/or chronically ill”. Give them a follow over on Instagram.
After such a wild run of acceptance I was sure that this one was going to be my first rejection of the year. You’ll notice this is the second work I submitted to a queer space. I’m a baby queer – only openly identifying as nonbinary, ace, and neuroqueer as of last year. So I felt some imposter syndrome stepping into these communitites, but I’ve been embraced into these spaces with open arms.
There’s something about exhibiting in NYC that feels like a right of passage. Even when I was packing up my work to mail it didn’t feel real. Luckily I had some friends who visited the exhibit on my behalf and documented that it was. (Thanks to everyone who sent me photographs and videos. You can see my work in situ here.)
“Through sculpture, the 13 exhibiting artists make objects that stand outside of normative interpretations of usefulness and conventionality, thereby expanding our worldview and possibilities for engagement. If queerness is an act of making things strange (or challenging norms), strangeness identifies potential points of rupture within social conditioning.”
Takeaway: Submit the maximum amount of works possible (if you can.)
I actually created a new piece specifically for this call, but when I saw that there was the opportunity to submit 3 works I also included Meltdown and Unravel. It’s always nice to give the curator choices.
Some people have asked how I know about opens calls.
The truth is by serendipity.
Over the years I’ve connected with a variety of artists with similar overlapping interests. Many of them generously share opportunities (often on Instagram stories) which spark my interest.
Huge shoutout to these lovelies who often share art exhibitions and residencies:
And Tamzen Bryantwho shared the local book festival.
I’ve also really loved being a member of Spilt Milk Gallery who hosted 2 of these exhibits.
I hope I’ve demystified the process and inspired you to submit your work.
I wish you the best in making work and putting it out into the world. The next one I’m working on is a piece about roots for Motherlore Magazine. And if you’re neurodivergent I’d love to see your work submitted to Neurokind.
It’s not scary. We’re all people making things happen.
Cheers,
P.S. I’m rubbish at marketing, and this has been on my “to do” list for over a year. But I finally made a new footer to remind people I wrote a book / have courses / love comments. 🥰
I’m a Renaissance Soul so I always have lots of irons in the fire. Here are just a few of the ways that we can connect. (Psst… comments and shares are my favorite. And they’re free!)
* We don’t have white walls in our house so I purchased a large sheet of white hardboard from the hardware store. There is a small hole drilled that lines up with a nail in Davy’s nursery where I often hang works to photograph them. I also have a smaller board I can set up on an easel and photograph in the backyard. Light is almost always the problem so I tend to use a tripod for portfolio photos even though I hate them. I also have a small white IKEA table I use to photograph 3D works. Here’s a peek at my set up. It’s a relatively inexpensive solution. If your work is small and lightweight you could probably get away with a piece of foamcore and a pin stuck in, but my larger works have needed a nail to hang from.
† (That’s Odo from Star Trek Deep Space Nine.) It took a lot out of me.
