No one knows or loves your child like you do. Listen to your gut.

Report cards and parent teacher interviews are coming up. Before someone tells you there is something wrong with your child when you know there isn’t - or - tells you everything is okay when you are sure it is anything but  - remember this:

No one knows or loves your child like you do. Listen to your gut.

From the Elephant Journal blog: "My daughter is the reason I began listening strongly to my instincts again. Something is telling you not to walk away for that split second to grab your coffee from the next room, and you wish you’d adhered to your own advice when she trips and falls. Just a hypothetical example, of course. There are also other times when I’ve listened to my internal mother’s intuition—which began on day one—and I’m so thankful. Especially if you’re thrown into an experience with someone such as a physician, who can sadly be an intellectual bully, you might be less inclined to trust your own parental voice. Make sure you remember that no one has a better “degree” in your child’s behavior than you." more

These days if a child is inattentive in class, easily frustrated, distracted or has difficulty reading and writing chances are someone is going to say they need some sort of test, diagnosis and drugs. More often than not those suggestions come from someone entirely unqualified to make the call.

Having a behavioral issue is so top of mind that just about any of us display some sort of symptom for some sort of disorder at some time or another.

But the risk of over diagnosis is just as troubling as the risk of not diagnosing.

I have a dear friend who is brilliant but she thought she was stupid for years because she couldn’t learn like her classmates. It wasn’t until she was in university - a place she struggled to get to - that she discovered she was dyslexic. Give her an IQ test test and she will fail some sections simply because her brain doesn't see and digest information like the brains for whom those tests were devised. Give the high IQ folks a test structured to engage the dyslexic mind and they will fail miserably.

If your child struggles with reading, is loathe to do it, maybe skips words, guesses at them or says the words appear blurry there could be a number of valid reasons for their complaints. It could be that they don't think they read well, maybe they need glasses, or maybe it's simply a case of knowing their favourite show is on TV ... It's hard to know what the real reason is if they aren't sure how to articulate it, or are afraid to. 

Symptoms for ADHD mirror those for dyslexia very closely. As much as meds can be the key for some kids with ADHD, it’s not the answer for a problem seeing or processing text. 

"It's not always easy to tell whether ADHD or dyslexia is causing your child to be inattentive, distracted, and have difficulty with reading and writing or verbal instructions. In some cases, your child may have both conditions." more

How does a kid know that his “normal” is different from the kid sitting next to him? 

If the words look like this:

on his page how does he know they don’t look like that to everyone else? He doesn’t. All he knows is that everyone else seems to be able to make sense of it where he cannot.

What if things look like they do in this video?

It's called Irlen Syndrome. You probably haven't heard of it and if your child has the symptoms they sure don't have a name for it.

There is a lot of information out there. There are new issues and behaviours and medications in the papers all the time. How do we know how our children learn, what they need and what they might now even know themselves to tell us?

We have to listen to our guts and we have to find a way to talk to teachers and doctors without caring if they think we are neglectful or overly attentive, hypersensitive or out of touch. Ask any parent who is a few years down the road from you and dealing with an issue  and they will tell you they "wish they and known then" ...or that they "had listened to their gut"... when it comes to our kids being proactive is a much better alternative to begin reactive.

Pills Should Be a Last Resort For Kids

Originally Posted January 25, 2012

A mom I know at school told me this story today.


A warning to parents getting kids assessed and coded.




Sarah has two boys, her older son is now in grade five. The first three years of school were not great for him. He was easily bored, inattentive, fidgety - all the things lots of little boys do when in the-sit-still-and-listen environment. In grade three the teacher told the Sarah that Flynn needed an assessment.

Sarah explained that though her boy may not stare at her as she spoke, keep his desk clean and still perfectly still he was quite normal. After several meetings and more frustration the teacher finally said, just try it, give him one of the ADHD drugs for a month and see what happens. 

Wow.

What is going on? Shouldn’t meds be a LAST resort?

So thankfully Sarah knew better and took the boy to her pediatrician who asked the obvious question: What qualifies this teacher to suggest you medicate your child?

She took Flynn for an assessment, paid the couple of grand for it only to find out he was ahead of his grade in all subjects but that he had dysgraphia, no need for a prescription but it explained a lot. 

Sarah had been advised that she should give the school the file it would mean the boy would be coded and get extra help. He was coded, he did not get any significant extra help.

And now that diagnosis is in his file - forever - and here's what she didn't know: it limits Sarah’s future options as some schools and some programs will not admit kids with a learning disadvantage in one area, no matter how bright they are in others. It's kind of like trying to get an insurance policy with a pre-exisiting condition, no one will cover you.

Had she known what the possible drawbacks were to submitting for an IPP beforehand she would have chosen a different route.

We need ALL the information before we can make advised decisions about our kids.

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