It’s that time of the year again. We reflect on the year that has passed, our accomplishments, our failures. We walk into the New Year with hopes to fulfill our resolutions of eating better, working out. You even take action and buy a monthly gym membership and only go once.
If you are shaking your head in shame, don’t fret! Here are some resolutions that will stick. Make this year a year of acknowledgement. It’s hard being a parent of a child with a learning disability. It’s even harder being a kid with a learning disability. Trust me – I know from personal experience.
ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR CHILD.
“She can’t ________.” She can’t pay attention. She can’t understand this or that. She can’t learn Spanish. It’s understandable. Our “deficiencies” are pointed out every day.
Let’s start the year off with, “She can!” Parents of LD children sometimes forget to acknowledge all the strengths we do have. We are hard workers. Willing to help others. Builders. Problem-solvers. Take the time to think about your child’s strengths. Write them down.
Activity: Have all of your kids write down what their strengths are. Do the activity with them.
Examples of Strengths: I’m a good friend. Good sister. Good at putting things together. Good Listener.
Ask why? I’m a good friend because I’m loyal.
Have them post their strengths somewhere in your home where they will see it every day. Put a note in their lunchbox one day with the word “LOYAL.”
Year of Strengths.
Please stop talking about your kids while they are in the room. It’s just plain rude. Invite them into the conversation. Ask them how they feel. Let them find their voice. You’ll be surprised about what they have to say and what insights they have.
When I found out years later that I had an IEP (Individualized Education Program), I thought, “Wait, so a whole team of professionals and my parents made decisions about my education behind my back, so to speak, and I was never asked what I wanted or how I learned?” It felt a bit like betrayal.
That was 1991, when the phrase “learning disability” was something no one talked about. But now, legally, we are invited into the conversation in 8th grade. But does your child know how his learning difference affects his day-to-day?
Can you imagine a day when your child runs his own IEP meeting? He can.
You have to stop talking for him and allow him to “practice” finding his own voice. Help him understand that his learning disability is not a LEARNING disability and allow him to discover his learning STYLE.
For instance, I have auditory processing disorder. “They” always put me in the front of the classroom. Someone could have told me, “Meg, your hearing is so good that it picks up every noise. I want you to sit in the front of the class so you can only pick up my voice.” Easy like Sunday morning.
Listen to your kids. Talk to them like real people.
Year of their voice.
ACKNOWLEDGE YOURSELF.
YOU are doing the best that you can. Stop. Read that again. You are doing the best you can.
Parents always tell me (even now when their kids are 30 years old) if I knew then what I know now, I would have done X, Y, and Z. The truth is, we do the best we can with the information we have at the time.
Trust yourself. Listen to yourself. A whole team of professionals can tell you what is the best for your child. Remember that you know your child the best. Make sure you are doing everything you can for your child to become a self- advocate which means allowing them to fail. If you protect your child, they will never learn how they learn. It’s the most important lesson you will ever teach them.
Year of trust.
I can imagine the struggles you and your child have been through because I, too, have lived the frustration, isolation and helplessness in my own learning difference. It’s been an interesting journey of self awareness. To break down, disassemble societal parameters that we are taught, taking our perceptions of good:bad, right:wrong, smart:stupid – and trying to find or create a place, space where we live and thrive that is not defined by others or the world around us.
Our faith is put to the test daily. Yet people forget that we see the world in ways you can’t imagine. Beautiful. True. Honest. Kind. This ain’t easy. It’s hard, but we get through because of our support. Because of you. So give yourself the biggest award for doing everything you ever could, can and will for your child. It all comes from love. How beautiful is that?
Happy New Year.
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Megan Hayden, coach and founder of Process This, a leadership program for students with Processing, Dyslexia, ADD/HD, Language Based Learning, and Executive Functioning. Here students explore and design their own learning style by identifying their strengths, and gaining leadership skills through self-advocacy and peer to peer mentoring. As a child, Megan had reading and writing specialists, speech therapists, and tutors. She knew she was different but did not know why. She got good grades but no one knew her “dirty little secret”. Megan could not read. As an adult, Megan Hayden is a youth motivator providing insight and strategies for parents and their children on the “how to” succeed from the inside out.
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