As you've looked for explanations for your child's puzzling behavior, you may have unintentionally laid blame where it should not rest. You may have caught yourself saying, "Try harder" or "You're being lazy" or thinking thoughts like this. But if your child is struggling with a learning disability (LD), she's climbing a steeper and rockier slope than most and may be doing her very best to cope. You have your child's best interests at heart. So what can you do to help?
Taking steps to see if your child has a learning disability and ensuring the necessary support both at home and at school will go a long way toward helping your child academically. And it can create the conditions for more desirable behaviors. You should also know that researchers have begun to learn which factors predict success in individuals with learning disabilities."Of course, success depends in part on the student and situation," says Tobey Shaw, M.A., principal of the Frostig School in Pasadena, California, a K–12 school for kids with learning disabilities. But based on more than 20 years of research at the Frostig Center, researchers have found that certain factors may have an even greater impact on success than those such as academic achievement, socio-economic status, and IQ. Here's what they found predicted more competent, content, and independent adults:
- Self-awareness — a recognition of not only strengths but also limitations
- Proactivity — such as asking for help on a tough science project
- Perseverance — the ability to stick with an assignment, despite setbacks
- Goal setting — such as making life plans that are concrete and realistic
- Presence and use of effective support systems — actively seeking help, as needed, but becoming more independent over time
- Emotional coping strategies — being aware of stress triggers such as speaking in front of the class and knowing strategies that work best to address stressors like these.
As a parent, you can help shape these attributes and the behaviors that accompany them. "Try things, and know that it's not 'one size fits all,'" says Shaw. Here are some tips to try. They may help steer your child in a more positive direction.
Talking with Your Child about LD
If your child has been diagnosed with a learning disability or behavioral challenge, talking about it openly within the family can make a big difference, says Steven E. Curtis, Ph.D., a school and child clinical psychologist and former special education director at Seattle University."When there's a behavioral challenge, we tend to go to hardcore discipline rather than trying to understand the problem," says Curtis. "We say, 'Kids are out of control in our culture…in the old days, this wouldn't have been allowed.'" That's true, he says, but in the old days, kids were also kicked out of school and onto the street. Then you simply didn't see the "bad behavior."
Changing the "channel" from "lazy" or "bad" to "challenged" is not only more humane, but more effective, says Curtis. Here are some ways to start the discussion.
- Not dumb, just different. Thomas McIntyre, Ph.D., is a professor of special education at Hunter College of City University of New York. He says that we need to help kids see themselves in a different light.
If your child calls himself stupid, help him reframe this so he thinks, "My brain is wired a little differently, so I learn differently, too. Some things come hard to me. It may mean I need to learn some new strategies. And I might have to show my knowledge in a different way. But it doesn't mean I'm dumb – I just learn differently."
- Many kinds of intelligence. There are many kinds of intelligence such as musical, spatial, and interpersonal. As kids move into adolescence, this might be a good time to help them develop a more sophisticated way of looking at smarts, says Curtis. Pointing out strengths and challenges, not only in your child but also in peers and yourself can help overcome black-and-white thinking about intellectual prowess. Then, you can make it clear that just because something's tough today doesn't mean it will be forever. After all, you might add, your own math scores were low in grade school, but got much better over time.
- You're not alone. Curtis helps normalize LD by telling students that many successful and even famous people have struggled with learning. Then he reminds them of the silver lining: "Sometimes when you have a challenge, you learn to be a harder and more effective worker than others. It can become a blessing in disguise."
Prompting Positive Responses
You and your child may have developed some ineffective ways of interacting around schoolwork. Try these approaches instead and be patient both with yourself and your child.- Praise the effort. Rather than punishing a child who screams "Noooooo" in response to a homework assignment, Curtis suggests saying something like this: "Honey, I understand this is difficult. I want you to learn to work through it." Start talking about how to stick with it. Offer encouragement and teach how to persist when things get hard.
Carol Dweck, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Stanford University has found through 20 years of research that children's mindsets can greatly affect their motivation to learn. Those who are praised for being smart come to believe that intelligence is fixed – a demoralizing belief for many people, not to mention those with disabilities. But Dweck says you can nurture a "growth mindset" with descriptive praise that emphasizes effort, process, and strategies tried. And, these are all things we can control, not the gray matter we inherited. - Role-play a better way. It's not enough to simply say, "Do the right thing." If your child is responding to challenges by tearing up paper and putting his head down, you can walk him through what you'd like him to do instead, says McIntyre. "If we're having problems with something, how do we ask for help? Instead of saying, 'I can't do this, I'm stupid,' we say, 'Wow, this is hard. I need to find the answer, or I need to ask for help." At first, engaging in this way may feel a bit forced, but it creates a new mental attitude way in your child for future similar situations.
Here's another way to model persistence. Pick an activity to do with your child, but one that neither of you feels confident about. (For a "Joe Pro jock kind of guy," says Curtis, maybe it's something like a cooking class.) Then you can practice persistence together. - Listen actively. Don't just listen to what your child is saying, but also to the feeling behind what your child is saying. What you "hear" can inform how you interact.
- Make a "criticism sandwich." If you need to offer criticism, says McIntyre, do it in a way that motivates, not deflates. How? Sandwich your suggestion with two positives. Start out with something positive: "I like the way you got to work right away and that you remembered the first three steps of this long division problem." Then offer constructive criticism. End on a positive note, saying, "Great, you're getting the front part of this. Now we just have to work on the back part."
- Avoid "word triggers." McIntyre suggests avoiding words like, "no," "don't," "stop, or "why" – especially when combined with "you." Words like these can prompt negative responses. Link back to positive experiences, not negative ones. Instead of, "Why do you always do this?" say, "Remember three weeks ago when you struggled with this? You figured it out. What did you do to solve it?"
- Offer hints and cues. Although that's a positive statement, it still might not be quite enough to help a kid who nailed it yesterday, but seems stumped today. Offering hints or cues, says McIntyre, can help prompt a response and prevent a meltdown. For a child learning to read, it might be something like this: "When two vowels go walking, what does the first vowel say? It says its name." Or: "What happens to the vowel before it when you've got a silent 'e' at the end of a word? Oh, it says its name, not its sound."
- Set behavioral goals. If you're trying to prompt a better response from your child, work up to the ultimate goal, says McIntyre. Maybe you want her to get right to work when you say, "Please sit down and do your schoolwork." Set a realistic goal. Perhaps at first this means that your child gets started with two or fewer reminders, or within 30 seconds. "Then you can start to pull in the reins a bit," says McIntyre, and expect your child to start within 15 seconds.
- Help your child "own" it. Over time, you want to help your child to set the goals, to develop inner control over his or her behavior. One way to do that, says Shaw, is with behavior charts. A child who's disorganized might use a chart to keep track of how well she's keeping her work area clean. This can help your child strengthen her inner direction.
- Make the new behavior beneficial. Punishment might stop a behavior in its tracks if it's strong enough, says McIntyre, but punishment does not teach new behaviors. And, if your child gets loads of attention for doing it the old way, what's the motivation for changing? If you're trying to replace undesirable behaviors with more positive ones, remember that there has to be something in it for your kid.
Building Strengths, Building a Team
No matter how your child is challenged, he has at least one strength. Start there and build on it. Also, help your child build a team who can support him with his challenges.- Find a strength – and strengthen it. "If you have an area of competence, it's easier to work with your challenges," says Curtis, emphasizing the importance of playing to your child's strengths. Is your child a good artist? Then build that up to help her develop a strong self-concept, says Curtis, who notes he's seen better results from a child going to chess club than undergoing psychotherapy. "If you get hooked into something you really like and start to feel happy, you're more likely to work on yourself," he says. "Over and over, I've seen that it works."
- Practice – and teach – self-advocacy. During grade school, you'll likely offer more hands-on support. But this may lessen in middle and high school as your child becomes less receptive to your help. Then you may need to seek outside tutoring for your child.
But, whatever you do, don't adopt a sink-or-swim attitude, says Curtis. "I constantly hear teachers say, 'They have to learn to do it on their own.'" But independence is overrated, he says, especially for children with learning challenges. With kids, parents, and teachers, Curtis makes the point that even CEOs of big companies need a team to be successful.
Shaw agrees, and says that teachers at her school try to use this kind of vocabulary in the classroom: "I know this is difficult for you. What strategy might you use? Who might you ask? "And, she says they work to create an environment where it's okay to say, 'I'm having trouble sitting…. I need to move around.' We see that as being proactive, not disruptive."
- Teach social skills. Part of developing effective support systems is knowing how to interact well socially. For some kids with LD, though, this doesn't come naturally. You need to teach it. One thing you can do is encourage your child to observe others' social behaviors. Curtis has kids brainstorm how to enter a group, watch others on the playground, then copy behaviors. For example, when boys are approaching each other, they tend to tip their heads and nod.
But be careful what your child learns. One child Curtis worked with came back and reported, "I've figured out how to be popular. You are real nice to people, then as soon as they turn around, you start talking about them!"
Also, help provide alternatives to social interactions, suggests Shaw. "If a student has trouble with a peer, sit down and talk about it, asking, 'How did you feel about this, what is another way you could have said that?' If you don't provide a model, a strategy, or thought process, you won't assist them in learning new ways of approaching things."
And, that's the whole idea — helping your child find her way in the world.
Additional Resources
- Life Success for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Parent Guide. (A Project of the Frostig Center.)
- Understanding Your Child's Puzzling Behavior: A Guide for Parents of Children with Behavioral, Social, and Learning Challenges
,
by Steven E. Curtis, Ph.D. - The Behavior Survival Guide for Kids: How to Make Good Choices and Stay Out of Trouble, by Thomas McIntyre
Annie Stuart is a freelance writer and editor with nearly 25 years of experience. She specializes in consumer health, parenting, and learning disabilities, among other areas.This article is made possible by a grant from the American Legion Child Welfare Foundation.
