Life-Long Success
Success doesn't happen overnight. It's a continuous process of understanding your strengths and challenges, and then making adjustments as needed.
Activities for Daily Living
Children with LD grow into adults with LD. While you may be most focused on helping your child to develop academic skills, don't forget to teach them practical "daily living" skills. These skills will give them confidence about their future independent adult life.
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Coping with LD
Being a parent is hard work; raising a child with LD adds other layer of difficulty. Whether you're just learning about your child's LD or you've been managing it for years, don't forget to take care of your own needs — a "balanced" parent benefits the entire family.
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Family & Marriage
Having LD in the family can be tough — on the relationship between parents, and between the child with LD and his or her siblings. When you learn how to balance the different needs of family members through a team approach, everyone benefits.
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Play, Enrichment, & Holidays
While your child may struggle with academics, you can help him or her to find success and joy through other extracurricular activities. Encourage your child to explore and discover new interests and passions, whether it's for music, sports, animals, or astronomy.
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Financial Matters
Supporting your child with LD will impact your wallet. Your child may need a tutor for extra academic support or a counselor to help build some social skills, or you and your teen may be looking ahead to college. Take heart: resources are available.
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Coping: Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities
The school year is officially in full swing. Class scheduling conflicts have been resolved, books have (hopefully) been covered, supplies purchased, and homework routines established. The never-large-enough boxes on kitchen calendars are filling up with carpool schedules, music less....
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Effects of Learning Disabilities on a Family and MarriageLissa Weinstein, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the doctoral program in clinical psychology at City College and The Graduate School of The City University of New York, as well as an associae director at the Pacella Parent Infant Center. She has worked as a clinical psychologist f....
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Success Outside of School
There's More to Life than School
School can be a tough place for kids with learning difficulties. Academic demands, coupled with feelings that he's different from his peers, can lead to stress and frustration and may be the first step on the road to damaged self-esteem. You know th....
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Learning Disabilities and the Arts The arts are more than a fun, superficial way to keep kids occupied. Art activities can help children with learning disabilities begin to overcome the challenges they face in learning in many different ways. Of course, having a learning disability does not necessarily mean that a pers....
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Are You Recharging Yourself? Special needs children are likely to be high maintenance children. Whether a disability is developmentally, neurologically or medically based, these children require significant time, attention, planning and support. They are sensitive on many fronts. Their emotions, behaviors, likes....
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Summer Exploring and Learning Tips: Beyond Booklists Have you ever stopped to think about ways to help your child get better prepared for the start of the new school year — by practicing the skills that he or she has learned during the summer months? Well, now is the time! You've already got a list of summer reading books from your chi....
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15 Holiday Survival Tips Have a second helping of stuffing, stay up past bedtime, shop ‘til you drop and eat cookie dough right out of the bowl — it’s the holiday season! For many of us, this is a time to focus on fun, friends, and family, flipping our schedules upside-down and filling our days with exciteme....
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Reaching for ResilienceIn earlier columns, I have written about the social-emotional side of learning disabilities, and drew attention to some characteristics and behaviors, also called success attributes, that have been shown to be important (even predictive) of success. As the summer months approach, I'm ....
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Asking for Help and SupportA rarely discussed and frequent experience of special needs parents is wanting and needing to ask for help from other family members and friends. Many reasons may impede you from enlisting assistance: fear of disappointment, letting go of control, not knowing how your child's behavior....
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Managing a Child's Learning Disability: Celebrate Every VictoryThrough all of the pain and frustration we experienced, in spite of the disappointing teachers and tiresome administrators, the overriding memories that rise above it all are the people who were there for Danielle. Teachers fell into three categories: the ones who did no harm, the one....
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Preparing for Special Holiday Events Ben Franklin said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and we all know how applicable this advice is during the holiday season. Special events or changes in schedules and routines can be exciting, but can also be disruptive and stressful. This is especially true for chil....
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Managing a Child's Learning Disability: Believe No One My work experience has taught me to seek the best minds on a particular problem or subject and to value their opinion. This does not extend to my personal life where a more cynical stance exists. The challenge was to combine my professional and personal processes into a more beneficia....
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