Carol's Story - How She Learned to Open the Gift

Carol Barnier

Carol's Story

God has this wonderful knack of teaching us His most valuable lessons through some of life's most rattling moments. Several of Carol's journeys (both painful and pleasant) are the fuel of her speaking and writing material. Through a long medical ordeal for her son, involving 13 surgical procedures before he was 3 1/2, Carol learned the powerful lesson that she wasn't in control. When she and her husband couldn't bring themselves to medicate this ADHD child, particularly after his already long medical history, Carol found herself doing the unimaginable...homeschooling! That will grow you & rattle you simultaneously. But convinced that it was the best option for her son, she plunged in.

She learned over time that all of the traditional methods that she knew and cherished from her own childhood were a recipe for disaster with this very different child. So through much experimentation, coupled with a belief that this child's energy was a gift from God, she developed strategies and teaching methods that worked with his need for constant motion.

The knowledge gained from this experience led to a web site, Carol's Web Corner, and eventually to her first book entitled, How To Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and On To Learning, published by Emerald Books (YWAM).

Eventually came to realize that the apple hadn't fallen too far from the tree and she learned to come to grips with her own distractibleness-- which prefers to call Gloriously Nonlinear--thank you very much. This led to her second book called If I'm Diapering a Watermelon, Then Where'd I Leave the Baby? and several related talks were born.

In 2009, Carol's third book was published that gave teachers (both homeschool and traditional classroom) dozens of methods for teaching the distractible child. It is called The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles. It's a book that will sit out on your desk for years, so often will you use it.

Carol also launched Sizzle Bop! -- a site dedicated to celebrating, encouraging, and empowering highly distractible people. It's sort of a free on-line coaching/community for families with distractible kids.

This site has three things happening simultaneously.

1-- Carol's meandering thoughts about life with distractible minds (hers, her husbands and her children's), teaching tips, items in the news, odd tilt of last night's moon...just about anything.

2-- Community Comment. Questions are posed to the community, responses sent in, and a final article is sent in which the responses are compiled and organized.

3-- Action Prompts. These are items that intend to prompt Sizzle Bop members to action...action that can only benefit their children and their families. It sort of acts like a secretary to remind of things to be done.

We call our highly distractible kids "Sizzlers". To learn what a light bulb and sizzle have to do with ADD/ADHD, just click to visit now.