One in five children have dyslexia. If your child’s teacher or some other professional tells you that your child is dyslexic, your instant reaction may be one of fear and anxiety. That’s the normal reaction of any parent who cares about their son or daughter. How you act after that initial emotional surge will have a great impact on your child’s ability to deal with dyslexia.
There are seven mistakes that parents of dyslexia make. Let’s go over each one.
Thinking Dyslexia is Only About Reading
Reading is absolutely about difficulty in reading. Unfortunately, that is where most people stop. In the rush to get help for reading, parents often ignore the many other dimensions of dyslexia. They ignore the tremendous emotional impact that dyslexia has on children. And, parents may not realize that dyslexia is often accompanied by other conditions. Difficulty with math (dyscalculia), trouble with writing (dysgraphia), struggling with understanding time, and problems with distinguishing between different directions (directional awareness) all are can appear alongside dyslexia.
Allowing Dyslexia to Hurt Your Child’s Self-Esteem
Your daughter or son may have recognized they were different long before any official determination they have dyslexia. They watched friends start to read and they couldn’t. They were embarrassed when they couldn’t read in front of friends or in class. This can seriously wound their self-esteem. Many dyslexic children will do anything to show they are not different. This includes not telling their parents how they feel when friends can so something like reading that the dyslexic child cannot do.
Ignoring the powerful feelings dyslexia brings out is a key mistake. As a parent, you need to watch for subtle signs that dyslexia is emotionally hurting your child. If a child becomes quiet, seems to pull away from friends or members of the family, or refuses to participate in those read together sessions you used to have together, something is going on. You need to surface those emotions so you can both deal with them.
Not Openly Discussing Dyslexia with Your Child
Helping your child discuss their, up to now hidden, feelings can be one of the greatest gifts you will give children.
To help surface those feelings you will need to understand dyslexia and it’s effects. Obviously, you don’t need a doctorate degree in learning disorders before you talk to your child. But, you will need to know some of the basics of dyslexia to help your child deal with their fears. Your child needs to know that they are not alone. One in five people have dyslexia. And once someone knows they have it, there is a a lot that can be done to deal with it. Your child needs to be confident the two of you can work together to overcome dyslexia.
Thinking Your School Will Take Care of the Dyslexia
Leaving help with your child’s dyslexia solely to their school is a big mistake. Even if you are blessed with a terrific school, you need to work together with your child’s teacher and other professionals to evaluate where your child stands, agree to a plan to help your child get better at reading, and math, and other effects of dyslexia-related conditions.Things your child learns to do in school to help with reading, etc. need to be reinforced at home.
Even in the best of schools, the emotional component of dyslexia can be minimized or ignored. Ongoing communication between you and teachers about the emotional state of your son or daughter is critical. Feelings of isolation and shame need to be dealt with whenever they occur.
If you have a less than stellar school or school district, you may have to push to get the help your child needs. By law, public schools are required to develop an individualized plan called an IEP to help with your child’s dyslexia. That help can be expensive for schools and,in bad school situations, administrators can become more interested in graduation statistics than in providing help.
If you get resistance from the school, you may have to assume more of a role at home to help your child with dyslexia at the same time you are challenging a bad school to provide needed help.
Thinking Dyslexia Goes Away
A big mistake parents mistake is that a child will outgrow dyslexia. They think that as a child learns to read, they are becoming less and less dyslexic.
Dyslexic never goes away. People do not become less dyslexic when they reach adulthood. What happens, with loving, effective help, is that a child, and later an adult, identifies methods and techniques to work around the effects of dyslexia. The underlying condition does not disappear but the symptoms are overcome.
As a person gets older, more difficult challenges appear for someone with dyslexia. Reading materials move to a higher level and become more complicated. And dealing with past negative dyslexia-related emotions is very important to healthy, mature relationships. Dyslexic work-arounds may need to be strengthened or even replaced to deal the complexities of living in the modern world.
Overcoming dyslexia is a life-long undertaking. Thinking it goes away robs the dyslexic of the focus and help needed to overcome the challenges it presents to your daughter or son.
Not working to surface your child’s dyslexia-related gifts
So much emphasis is placed on reading problems and other negative aspects of dyslexia that something very important is missed. A high proportion of dyslexics have special talents that come with dyslexia. Yes, the dyslexic brain is wired differently, leading to challenges. But that different wiring can lead to some special gifts.
Dyslexics can be highly creative. Lots of entrepreneurs, some might even say a majority, have dyslexia or some other learning disorder. Dyslexics have been know to solve some very complicated problems because they look at situations in a different way. Einstein was severely dyslexic and look at the impact he had on the world. As time goes on, maybe more companies will discover that having dyslexics as part of their team can help them with major challenges to their business.
At the same time you are watching your child for negative effects, you should be searching for the things they are most interested in and the things they are very go at. Both interest and talent should be encouraged whenever you can. Developing dyslexic gifts in your child can go a long way toward counter-acting self-esteem issues. And it’s a lot of fun!
Guilt
It is not your fault that your child has dyslexia. Letting guilt dominate your thoughts gets in the way of providing the support your child needs.
Turn away feelings of guilt by observing your child and working with school professionals to determine the specific help your daughter or son needs. If your child feels you are in this thing together, it can help reduce both their fears and your feelings of guilt.
One “Bonus” Mistake
Thinking you are the only parent who has a child with dyslexia. One in five children having dyslexia means there are literally millions of dyslexic kids. Surely there are many parents in your area or neighborhood who have a child with dyslexia. Seek them out on social media or at a parents group at your school.
You will never know when a discussion with another parent of a dyslexic child will lead to the discovery of a method or technique that will help your child. And, discussing dyslexia with other parents can help you deal with your own emotions about dyslexia.
Dan Kaluzny is author of Loving Your Dyslexic, A Heart-to-Heart Discussion of How to Help Children and Adults with Dyslexia
