Hi,
I’ve posted recently but other than that it has been a year or so
since I’ve had time.
I am the parent of two severely dyslexic boys and wife to a husband who is successful but unremediated (s l o w reader, CAPD,
and good writer if you scribe for him and read it back for his
corrections).
Okay, we found early on as each of our sons hit rock bottom in public school that self-esteem is a serious concern for all parents. These kids are not stupid and when they see little johnny take off reading in first grade (or as in our case twin sister at 5 years old), it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize hey, “I must be stupid.” Our kids went through it but I think what made the difference was when I realized that these kids will probably never make honor roll or academians (this was
before I had read A LOT), I had to find their gifts so they could
know they were good at something.
It is imperative that we, as parents, help these kids find something to shine at…something to show the world they are successful and really good at something. For our sons it was
rock climbing and mechanical/intuition. They could at a young age run every appliance in our home, drive the tractor or our old
beat up truck around the yard to help with yard chores (instruction given first, naturally), they’ve been involved with
many work projects, etc. We also made sure their behavior was
good…they don’t have issues there. The lines are clearly drawn
as to what is acceptable and what is not.
We explained to them that they are not stupid. Their test scores IQ show us that they have above average to superior abilities in some areas. BUT they are dyslexic which means they
have deeper valleys than most people and are far better at other
things than most people..their line is not as straight. It helps
having Dad as an example of success AND as low skills. We have
stressed that we want their skills to be such that they can go to
college and not be shoehorned into only vocational.
We told them to strive to do the best they can do…give 110%
and that is all they can do.
So, keep fighting for your kids but make sure you build them
up and seeek, seek, seek, what they’re gifts are and let them explore them. Life is not just remediation although that must
be given intensively.
Donna
Re: Self-esteem and LD
Hi Donna,
Glad to hear you and your kids are doing well. You haven’t aquirred any rust in your ability to post a well written post (for lack of a better word). You pretty much called it as it is.
Take care.
Andy
Donna,
You are 100% right on. Our son 9 yrs. has been in sped 4 yrs. SLP. He is an excellent wrestler and even the high school coaches watch him. I don’t think there is any kind of ball he doesn’t excel at and his coordination is incredible.
Whenever he is feeling down on himself for not being able to read better we remind him that everyone is good at certain thins. I also made him a word box and we put all the words he knows and new ones he learns in his box. I have him count all the words he knows when he is feeling stumped.
Focusing on strengths rather than weakness is the best thing we can do for our kids. My son is incredibly intuative and can read people like a book so he knows what is going on.