Category: Learning Differences and Disabilities

• Storm is Coming

  

  Dear Hallie, I love books! And there is nothing quite like sharing good books with the people I love, especially my children! I still have a basket full of our favorite board books (including Snuggle Puppy and Pajama Time) waiting to be read to my grandchildren. No hurries, please! As my babies got a little…

  Laura Spaulding

  August 21, 2025

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Unity in Diversity, Words to Hallie

• The Relativity of Success

  

  Dear Cade, Two decades ago, when you first entered the world, I wasn’t much older than you are now. I was young, naïve, and full of hopes, dreams, and expectations of the kind of man you’d become one day! Slowly but surely, you’ve blow every one of those hopes, dreams, and expectations to bits! When…

  Laura Spaulding

  March 21, 2025

  Family and Faith, GT and Twice Exceptional Kids, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Unity in Diversity, Words to Cade

  ADHD, adult children, belonging, Children, college, Education, Faith, Family, gifted and talented, grace, graduation, growing, growing up, joy, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, motherhood, mothers, neurodiversity, Parenting, seasons, siblings, son, strength, success, truth, twice exceptional

• More to the Story

  

  Dear Hallie, I can’t believe we’ve managed to keep you alive for 16 years. I believed I was a great mom until you were born, realizing I just had two somewhat predictable children before you – your older sister eager to impress and your older brother eager for peace. You were born the unpredictable third…

  Laura Spaulding

  July 10, 2023

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Unity in Diversity, Words to Hallie

  autism, Children, daughters, Education, Family, grace, high school, joy, mothers, Parenting, teenagers

• Seasons Always Change

  

  Dear Lacey, After entertaining the idea of moving last year, Dad and I decided to settle in and get you and your sister graduated before leaving our beloved home of 15 years. Then the first week of March, just after my sycamore tree finally sprang back to life, a house came on the market tempting…

  Laura Spaulding

  June 10, 2023

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning and Healing Through Nature and Creation, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Unity in Diversity, Words to Lacey

  anxiety, cancer, change, Children, death, Education, Faith, Family, flood, grace, Grief, healing, homeschool, hurricane, joy, moving, natural disaster, nature, Parenting, recovery, seasons, survival, teenagers, trees

• The Things that Matter Most

  

  Dear Cade, You challenge me! You challenge me in ways all 16-year-olds challenge their mothers, but it’s so much more than that! You also challenge me in ways only an absent-minded professor challenges and confounds everyone they meet. While you miss obvious and practical realities staring you in the face, you’re more awake to the…

  Laura Spaulding

  March 20, 2022

  Family and Faith, GT and Twice Exceptional Kids, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Unity in Diversity, Words to Cade

  Children, church, diversity, Education, Faith, Family, gifted and talented, grace, high school, joy, Parenting, siblings, teenagers, truth, twice exceptional, unity

• Grocery Stores and Dirty Floors

  

  Dear Kori Jane, In the two years between Daddy and I’s wedding day and you crashing our party, I used to love going to the grocery store. Perhaps because I’d lived with my own mom right up until that very moment, so the thrill of being in charge of filling a refrigerator and pantry with…

  Laura Spaulding

  June 5, 2021

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Kori Jane

  childhood, Children, creating, Education, Faith, Family, grace, graduation, growing, growth, high school, joy, Parenting, siblings, spiritual gifts, teenagers, writing

• Sports, Space, Racecars, and Excavators

  

  Dear Cade, Daddy and I both, for different reasons, hoped that our first child would be a boy. I’d always dreamed of an older brother, so I thought it would be ideal for my oldest to be male, but for your sports loving Daddy he dreamed of shooting hoops and playing catch with his son…

  Laura Spaulding

  April 23, 2021

  Family and Faith, GT and Twice Exceptional Kids, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting Teenagers, Unity in Diversity, Words to Cade

  Children, college admissions, counseling, Education, Faith, gifted and talented, grace, healing, high school, home, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, Parenting, teenagers, test scores, twice exceptional

• Sycamore Trees

  

  Dear Hallie, I feel sorry for everyone who has never discovered the intense magic and utter delight of a soak in a hot bath. There is nothing for me this side of heaven that quite compares to the sensation that spreads as I sink down and let the water engulf me. And then even after…

  Laura Spaulding

  March 7, 2021

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning and Healing Through Nature and Creation, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Hallie

  beauty, childhood, Children, covid19, Faith, grace, growing up, joy, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, middle school, motherhood, Parenting, teenagers

• Covid-19 Home School

  

  Dear Lacey, Every August for the last 12 years in anticipation of a new school year, the same conversations fill our home, the same shopping trips are taken, and the same prayers are prayed. Conversations that beg the questions- what if there are no friends in our classes, who will we sit with at lunch,…

  Laura Spaulding

  March 22, 2020

  Family and Faith, Individualized Parenting and Education, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Words to Lacey

  anxiety, beauty, Children, corona, covid19, Education, Faith, Family, grace, high school, homeschool, homeschooling, invisible illness, joy, junior year, learning differences, Learning Disabilities, middle school, Parenting, social distancing, top ten

• Charm Bracelets

  

  Dear Hallie, When I was in the fourth grade, I sold enough Girl Scout cookies to win the custom-made, sterling silver, James Avery, puppy dog charm. This was back when the awards were special enough to motivate the selling of a ridiculous number of cookies. Turns out the hours of door-to-door selling followed by more…

  Laura Spaulding

  June 22, 2019

  Family and Faith, Learning Differences and Disabilities, Parenting through Grief, Trauma, and Loss, Unity in Diversity, Words to Hallie

  cerebral palsy, Children, Disability, Faith, Family, flooding, friendship, grace, Grief, Parenting