APD Makes Classroom Learning Hard: Having Auditory Processing Disorder and Taking Classes after Homeschooling

As many of you know, Hailey (7th grade) wants to take community college classes as a high-schooler, which is in two years.  So we found a local homeschool center that offers classes to homeschoolers and she signed up for tennis, 3-D art, theater improv, and creative writing.  This way she will have some exposure to taking classes before taking college level classes. (And she really is loving just having the experience of going to school and taking classes and eating lunch with her friends.)

This experience is really showing her and us just how much her auditory processing disorder affects her in a classroom environment.  None of us really could have guessed how difficult some aspects of a classroom learning experience would be.

As Hailey has some great coping skills and really relies a lot on the visual information she is inputting, she is doing very well in the tennis and 3-D art classes.  She says that although she doesn't necessarily understand what the teachers are saying, she can see what they are demonstrating and so knows what to do.  She has always done well at both art and anything physical.

The problems for Hailey are in the creative writing class and the theater improv class.  The areas of difficulty so far are in understanding what is being taught orally, clearly knowing the directions told, and reproducing the spoken or written work under the pressure of time.

The creative writing class is taught by the teacher reading a poem and talking about the use of literary devices such as metaphor, simile, personification, etc.  She tells the students what a quatrain is and reads an example.  So everything is being told to them and at most, they have a sheet in front of them.  The problem is that the sheet is just of the poem being read and so it helps, but it doesn't teach Hailey what a metaphor is for example; she would have to understand what the teacher is saying to get it.  The homework is also told to the students at the end of class.

The theater improv class has the students working in groups and doing improvisational type skits; although not completely improv as they do get to do some planning and preparing before they do their skit.   This is very fun and Hailey is enjoying it, but again she is not processing everything and so tells me that she just lets the others take the lead and she has very few lines.  She says that she can understand the themes and emotions by the body language and so uses that as her guideline as well as in the groups, the other students do make sure she knows what is going on so that she can perform her part.

In creative writing, she has to write in class as well as at home. The writing at home is something she actually looks forward to doing and does well.  She has all the time she needs and she can get help as needed.  In class, she feels pressured to write in the limited time frame given and this worry makes it so that she cannot remember how to spell even simple words and she says she even has trouble just making it look neat on the paper. This was shocking to me as she has good handwriting and has always taken great strides to make her handwriting neat and legible.  She is also a good speller (which is not that common in people with APD it seems) and so I think her and I were both shocked that she would have these problems.

In theater improv class, the teacher has them practice things like accents and tongue twisters and speaking backwards and really fun things like that which makes a lot of sense for a theater class. However, Hailey's APD makes it even more difficult for her to process these and forget having her try to do them; she can say a tongue twister for example if she practices it a lot and even then she has to say it slowly, but on the spot and fast is simply impossible.

So we are taking advice from all our schooled friends with APD (those on the Facebook APD support groups) and asking for accommodations that may help Hailey in her classes.  My hope is that we can do all the experimenting at these homeschool center classes and then be prepared and ready for community college in a few years.

So far we are going to record the creative writing class so that Hailey can bring it home and we can go over it together.  I can then teach her whatever was taught in class.  She is also going to type her in-class writing and e-mail it to her teacher so that she feels less constrained by time, because typing is faster than handwriting and she doesn't have to worry about making it neat.

In theater improv class, the teacher is now aware of the APD issues and will hopefully make sure Hailey works in a group that helps her be her best as well as she won't keep asking her to do tongue twisters; maybe she can focus on more gestures and body language in acting skills.

I'll certainly keep you all updated on what we discover works and what doesn't.  I do feel very grateful that Hailey has her background of being homeschooled and knowing that she is very smart and capable of learning and accomplishing whatever she wants to do.  I fear that if she hadn't had this successful background to discover herself and feel assured of herself, these experiences of not understanding in class would be too hard on her.

My heart goes out to all the children with APD who go to school everyday to sit in a class where they do not understand what is being taught.  My hope is that more and more teachers are using a multi-sensory approach to teaching and not relying on auditory input only.  Our children with APD are smart and capable and just need to be taught in a way that works for them.

My APD Homeschooler's First Day of Classes Went Well

So Hailey (almost 13) had her first day of classes at the new homeschooling site we signed up for. She is taking tennis, theater, and 3-D art.  To her advantage, she already knows many of the students in her classes as they are friends we have known through homeschooling for years.

She wanted to have the experience of taking classes to see how she could handle it and for the social aspect.  I am curious to see if she needs any accommodations for the classes and if she notices any difficulties that we will need to be aware of for her future college career - which she insists will start in two years when she can take college classes as a high school student.

Concerned she might be overwhelmed with it being a new experience, I requested that she start with only the three classes and to make them "fun" classes.  Well, she is already talking me into letting her take a fourth class - creative writing.  So we are checking to see if there is still a way she can add on one more.  Hailey is definitely a reach-for-the-stars kind of person and sees no limits to doing what she wants in life. (This is definitely an asset in her life.)

So as you have guessed by now, she loved the classes!  She also adored the experience of eating a rushed lunch with all the other kids and even the idea of having a packed lunch!   Seriously, she was excited about the packed lunch; I guess if you aren't a kid who has spent so many years going to school, the novelty of it is pretty exciting.

I'll definitely keep everyone who follows this blog updated on her progress.  So look for the amazing adventures of my perseverant, optimistic APD teenager to come.  (I'll take time to go back and write past experiences and helpful advice as I can too - especially about the younger years when her future seemed more questionable.)


* UPDATE * :  Hailey woke up this morning and decided to do her homework for her theater class. She had to read two articles on public speaking and pick a poem to memorize that she will perform in seven weeks.  My sweet, go-get-em girl not only read the articles, but wanted to write them down in entirety; so I told her about this wonderful thing called taking notes and she paraphrased the main ideas and wrote them down instead.  Then she picked her poem and started to memorize the first stanza.  I couldn't be prouder.

Perseverance, My Daughter with APD, and Her Latest Goal

"Perseverance: steady persistance in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perseverance

I love this definition of perseverance from FreeDictionary.com and it totally describes the go-getter, never-let-anything-get-in-the-way nature of my sweet Hailey.  I don't know if it is her auditory processing disorder which has made life so much more difficult for her or just her nature as she is, but Hailey has always persevered.

Recently Hailey (who is 12 1/2 years old at the moment) has decided that rather than being an artist for a living or opening a bakery or any of the other thoughts she has had about a future career, she will be an occupational therapist.  She wants to help children who have disabilities or special needs and she is particularly interested in working with sensory processing disorder.

If you knew Hailey, you would know that she doesn't just decide something, but she makes a commitment to her decisions!  She insisted that we immediately find out all we could about occupational therapists and exactly what she has to do to become one.  So we found out that one of our local community colleges has an associates program in occupational therapy and the college accepts students as young as 14 years old (although perhaps not in the associates program per se). Yup! You guessed it; Hailey wants to go when she is 14.

So she made the decision, found out the path is to go to the community college (and later to a university for her masters degree), and has decided her current plan of action.  She wants to take a few classes at a local homeschool co-op in order to get comfortable being in a class; put a large emphasis on improving her writing skills; learn higher level math (we're going to try pre-algebra); and learn sign language. These are all her goals that she came up with! She told me that she wants to be sure the community college will accept her at age 14 as someone capable of taking their classes.

She really does put a lot of pressure on herself and so I try to be supportive and yet help her to realize that she doesn't have to accomplish everything right away and she doesn't have to go to college at 14 years old. (My plan is for one class at a time at the community college, but she insists she will handle two at a time.) Yes, she is determined!  As she put it to me, "I want to DO something with my life and I'm tired of waiting!" (Hmm.... this makes me wonder about our society's lack of opportunities for teens to do more.)

Anyway, I have no idea if she will go to the community college at 14; we'll have to wait and see. What I do know is that she has perseverance and she will accomplish all she sets out to accomplish in life, or change her mind along the way and set her sights on new goals as she sees fit and then accomplish those.

So what do you think?  Has APD made you or your child more perseverant?

How I Freed Myself from Perfectionism (This is my philosophy with my own children - to be freely themselves without comparison.)

"I let go of perfectionism in college and it was the best thing I ever did for myself."

I wrote the above sentence today in response to an article I read, and I realized just how powerful this statement is. You see, I grew up being a straight A, top of the class, "gifted" student who was expected to always be the best, do the best, etc.  When the other kids were learning math in class, the teacher would give me a math textbook and say "Go to town and do whatever you want."  So, I would teach myself math for as long as I wanted and then when I was bored of that, she'd hand me a stack of my peers' work to grade.  When the other kids were reading one novel, I was often given another chosen by her (never chosen by me) to read on my own in order to keep me busy.  I didn't even have my after school time to myself as my father felt sports was an important aspect of every person and so I had to do gymnastics four times a week for four plus hours each day.  Not only that, but when I got to high school, I had to do volunteer work and I had to join clubs like the National Honors Society and French Club, because that was expected of "the brightest of the bright".

And so this went on until I went away to college and I didn't even questions where I would go; why I would go to what was considered the most elite, most difficult to get into, where the "brightest of the bright" in my state go to.  I applied early, got into early admissions, signed up for the classes that went along with the plan I had been going on established by someone else: each year take another English class, another math class, another history class, another science class, another foreign language class, and one elective.  I NEVER EVEN QUESTIONED WHAT I WANTED TO DO!

My first year of college, I was blessed in many ways.  I took a math class that was a weed-out course for the engineering program.  For this reason, it was intended to be very difficult so that only the most talented in math would continue on to the engineering program.  I was getting about a C average and that was something I had never done before.  I went to my professor's office to speak to him about it, and he told me not to worry, that I was doing extremely well for that course and that if I was getting a C then I would probably end up getting a B by the end, which was better than the majority of the students.  Hmmm.... this made no sense to me; why would it be done this way?

So I continued on for a few weeks more in this math class when I started speaking to my college peers and realized that not everyone was even taking a math class.  I realized that in college, people have a lot more flexibility to take classes that interest them and I was asked what I was interested in. Seriously, nobody had ever asked that before of me!  I was always expected to take the hardest classes in every subject and to get straight As; what was this what I am interested in thing?  I had no idea that was the purpose of education.  Who forgot to tell me that!

So I dropped the math class and the next semester I took an introduction to poetry writing class.  My instructor was a generous left-over beatnik from days gone by and he encouraged me to write from my heart and from my passion.  He told me some of the best kept secrets I needed to hear:  if you want to do something great, you have to allow yourself to make mistakes; if you want to learn something new, you have to allow yourself to be a beginner; life is meant to be lived with passion and happiness - do what you want and don't worry about where you compare to others, because it is YOUR LIFE.

So I continued to take poetry writing classes with this wonderful old beatnik and I learned about myself.  I learned what I liked, what I didn't like, who I wanted to be, to try new things if they interested me without care of whether or not I would be "the best".  Yes, my parents wondered what the heck I would ever do with all these poetry classes and wondered why I wasn't pursuing something that would "meet my potential" such as being a lawyer or doctor or corporate executive. I just learned to smile and say it was my life and I would do what spoke to my heart and my soul.

So that is how I learned to let go of the very limiting world of perfectionism.  I learned to be happy just to be happy, not related to being "the best" at anything.  I learned to be myself. And one of the most fantastic after effects is that I can not only be happy being me, but I can also be happy for others being them.   I don't need to be "the best" which meant comparing myself to others or comparing myself to some standard set by someone else. It truly is a wonderful world when you are free to be yourself.

And that is why I encourage my children to be themselves; to not compare themselves to others because we are all wonderfully our own unique selves with our own passions, interests, talents, and areas that we just don't seem to be very good at; and to honor everyone else for being themselves without jealousy or the need to compete.  Life is not a competition to excel at; Life is YOUR LIFE. Find what brings you enjoyment and be yourself for all that you wonderfully are.

Thank you for letting me ramble here with a little about myself in order to showcase a belief I have in raising my children.  I hope it brings some comfort and hope to others.

Homeschooling a Child with Special Needs/Learning Disabilities Avoids A Lot of the Anxiety

I want to start by saying that I know many people cannot homeschool for various reasons (in some countries it is actually illegal) and others choose not to homeschool because they feel that school is best for their child.  I feel very fortunate that homeschooling was an option for us.

Here are some of the benefits of homeschooling my child with auditory processing disorder:

• She is not forced to sit for 7+ hours each day at school trying to process auditory input.
• She is not feeling judged or compared constantly by teachers giving grades or her peers making comments.  
• She is not having to try to socialize with groups of her peers who do not understand her. (Yes she does run into social problems because of her APD, but it is not on a daily basis.)  
• She has time to pursue her interests like art and baking or even watch a movie 3 times or more until she finally feels she has processed all of it and gained any wisdom from it she could. 
• She learns at her own pace and her own style. (She is visual and auditory input must be kept limited.)
• She reads what interests her and takes as much time as she needs to read it. (Just the other day, she read some poems by Langston Hughes and wrote a poem as a response to her readings, all of her own choosing.)
• She writes because she enjoys it and takes as much time as she needs to write.
• She does math problems because she actually likes solving them.  Yes, she likes math because she takes her time and does what interests her at that moment. (She is currently above "grade level" in math.)
• She has me, her mom, available to her for help and guidance and support as needed.  
• We can hand-pick friendships to pursue that are more conducive to success as well as I can be here to help her process what is happening as I too know her friends as well as their parents. (Hopefully these skills will transfer to her abilities to stop and question her reactions, to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to stand up for herself when it is needed.)
• She can take breaks and just relax, be alone, go jump on the trampoline, eat something, etc. as she feels the need for them. (This I believe helps her learn to be aware of herself and her needs and how to deal with them.)
• She can start taking community college courses at 15 years old (which she wants to do) and take them one at a time to start, then build from there.  Colleges seem to be more accommodating to special needs and learning disabilities than the public school system, so that is a big plus.

So I imagine this list can go on and on, but the real point is that she does not suffer from a lot of the anxiety and depression that I see so many others on our Facebook support groups going through. Sure, she does have anxiety from time to time, but it isn't a constant.  She also went through a period of depression when she was bullied by some homeschoolers at a co-op we belonged to and promptly quit. It took us a few years to rebuild her self-esteem after that bullying episode, but now she is happy with herself again and I believe/hope she is now stronger and more able to fend off any such attacks in the future should they occur.

So although homeschooling isn't an option for everyone, it is certainly worth considering if you have a child with special needs/learning disabilities.

Empathy, Bullying, and Recalling Emotions

“I just feel what she must have felt.  It’s too sad.  I understand why she killed herself.  I felt that sad before too, when I was bullied……But I just knew I wanted to live; she didn’t!”

Wow, I was struck dumb by my sweet twelve year old girl, tears streaming down her face, her body tense with anxiety, as she said that to me.

We were watching a movie called “The Hours” about three women in different time periods.  The first woman was Virginia Woolf, the author of many books including Mrs. Dalloway.  The movie parts about her were based on her true story as known from the detailed diaries she kept.  Virginia Woolf had a history of depression and possibly was bipolar; she ended her own life by putting stones in her pockets and walking into a river, to drown herself.

We were barely into the movie when my sweet girl had this horrible episode of extreme empathy.   At her request, we turned off the movie and talked for a just a little bit before finding something fun and uplifting to watch instead.

It really hit me then how much the bullying really affected her.  It was over three years ago now, but she can recall the emotions so vividly.  She was sad, she felt lower than low, and she thought about death as an option.  Luckily, she had a strong desire to live!

We spent a lot of time working through those feelings years ago when they happened.  We focused on building her self-esteem up again and she is such a happy girl now.  I guess it shocked me to recall those feelings with her.

Now my sweet girl Hailey says she knows that “Even when life gets sad and you feel like you will never be happy again, you just have to believe that you will.  Because you will get happy again – I did!  Now I’m like this really happy person. Don’t you think Mom?”

“Yes, Hailey!  Yes I think you are a happy person and your ability to empathize with others is a precious gift you will learn to manage in time.  You can use it in your art whether it be drawing, painting, writing, baking, or even the artistry of living your life.”

We Need to Educate ALL Children About Learning Disabilities and Other Differences

Girl 1:  "Jimmy chews erasers at school, ewwweee."

Adult:  "Really?"

Girl 1:  "Yeah, he's the weird kid in the corner."

Girl 2:  "He has a quiet corner away from everyone else.  And he wears big headphones."

Girl 1:  "He also has a special blanket and mat thingy.  He's really weird."

Adult:  "Do the other kids play with him?"

Girl 1: "No......(she becomes lost in thought).....There is this one girl in school who is a real bully."

And then the topic went on to bullying.  This conversation I had with some school age girls I know was enlightening for me.  I realized that my daughter could have been "the weird kid in the corner" had she went to elementary school.  Certainly at ages five to seven, she got stressed easily, needed sensory input, liked to chew on things - even non-edible things, would have needed noise cancelling headphones, and probably would have spaced out a lot.  It broke my heart really.

So, me being me, I let them tell me about the bully at their school and we discussed why people bully and what they can do about it.  Then we segued back to the boy in the corner.  We talked about how he might be feeling stressed and needed the headphones, blanket, and mat to help him feel better. My daughter told them about her headphones and briefly about her Auditory Processing Disorder and Dyslexia.

Hopefully it helped.  I think it did to some extent, however I am sure they are not going to rush over and befriend the "weird boy in the corner" anytime soon.  Maybe though, they will at least have some compassion for him and stick up for him sometime.

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We need to educate all children about learning disabilities and disorders.  There is a real need for books for kids about processing disorders and learning disabilities.  Other children need to understand that kids aren't "weird" to annoy them or be made fun of or take the teacher's attention inordinately.  What a difference it would make for all the children!

Loraine Alderman and Yvonne Capitelli wrote a book for children about a child with Auditory Processing Disorder.  It is the first book about APD written for children and I hope it helps many children understand this disorder/learning disability better. Here is a link to the book if you are interested: I Get It!  I Get It! How John Figures It Out

(I've also added an Amazon widget on the right sidebar with some books about children with learning disabilities or other disabilities/differences.)

No Mean Girls Here! My Daughter's Successful Party

The party began with nine girls sitting around the kitchen table, cutting fondant with cookie cutters, painting with colored frosting, and designing their own personality onto cupcakes as their moms chatted quietly standing around the edges.

This was the first party my daughter had thrown in over three years.  She invited many of her homeschooled friends that live in this area.  Luckily, almost all of them were able to make it to the party.  Some of them knew each other, but none of them except my daughter knew all of them - although a few she didn’t know very well.

The girls were all engaged in their work and seemed content, but would they connect with each other?   Would they enjoy each other’s company? 

As the party continued, the moms sauntered into the living room or out into the backyard.  Some moms stayed in the kitchen to help themselves to cupcake designing while the girls moved on to other projects. (Some moms were quite talented at it too!) Mostly, the moms tried to stay out of the girls’ way so they could mingle and connect in their own ways.

Some girls danced to the Xbox Kinect game in the living room; some chose to sing karaoke in my daughter’s bedroom; and some went to jump on the trampoline in the backyard.  At first I was worried these groups would become static and the girls would not move outside of their social comfort zones, but I need not have worried.  Soon the girls were moving among the groups and getting to know each other more.

It was a success!  My sweet girl, who just a little over a year ago felt she had so very few friends, threw a party and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  Her friends all got along with each other, were kind and engaging, and my daughter felt the joy of being with a group of friendly girls.

(My daughter suggested the title "No Mean Girls Here" because she wanted to reference the difference between this group of friends and the one she had almost three years ago where they ended up being unkind to her.)

Processing Differences and Learning Disabilities Can Run In Families

When you have one child with a processing disorder or learning disability, you might see similar things in another of your children.  For example, our daughter was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder at two years old.  We learned how to give her a sensory diet and to predict her needs based on her sensory difficulties.  So when her twin brother had issues with clothing not feeling right or food not having the right texture, we just accommodated as we would with her.  We knew it was sensory related, but we did not feel the need to rush out and get him diagnosed with anything; his issues seemed so incredibly minor compared to hers and we knew what to do to help.

Growing up, we have also noticed that our son is not very coordinated.  He is the child who somehow manages to run into walls, trip going upstairs, has had stitches three times due to running or falling into something, and needs a lot of physical movement like swinging, pacing, jumping, etc.  We weren’t concerned by these things and just gave him access to lots and lots of physical opportunities.  We even put him in various gym classes, swimming, and martial arts. 

He is also the child with fine motor issues.  He hated coloring and drawing and rarely did it.   He had the hardest time learning to hold a pencil and write.  So we played games and did activities to boost his fine motor skills.  However, despite what we did, he never has gotten very good at fine motor skills.  He holds his pencil correctly, he forms his letters correctly, but he finds it so extremely difficult and tiresome and frustrating no matter how much he practices.

Because we homeschool, our son’s motor skills difficulties have not interfered with his learning nor has he been teased by his peers.  We have simply accommodated his needs; he dictates stories to me or he uses a keyboard to write anything more than a couple sentences.  When he draws, he draws stick figures to get his idea across and if he wants them more elaborate, his twin sister, who absolutely loves to draw and does extremely well, offers to draw them for him from his stick drawings.  He has also used some computer programs to do some basic drawings that he finds satisfying. Shoelaces still give him some frustration, but he can tie them – it just takes him longer.

As for gross motor skills, he still does all the physical activities that he wants.  It took him a rather longish time to learn to ride a bike, but he did.  He has walked all over the railings on the back deck and fallen a few times with no major damage, but he has enjoyed it and improved his balance to some extent (the railings are not far off the ground).  He jumps on the trampoline, shoots arrows at targets fairly well, plays laser tag well (his hand/eye coordination does not seem to be affected), swims well, and loves to do things like pull-ups, sit-ups, and the like.  

When I look up his issues online, I realize that he might have Dyspraxia and/or Dysgraphia; in fact, we have realized that for years and have simply done the things he would have done at occupational therapy and made accommodations for him as needed.  Therefore, we decided that we do not need to spend the money to get an official diagnosis of anything at this point in time.  When he goes to college, if he needs some sort of special accommodations, we will have to get him tested and diagnosed at that time.  He is aware that he most likely has Dysgraphia and that is why he has so much difficulty with writing, drawing, tying his shoes, and playing console games like Xbox (it requires quite a bit of fine motor skills); we have spoken to him about this because he felt so horrible about himself for his difficulties and we needed to help him learn to deal with this.

We have learned that these processing difficulties and learning disabilities like Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyspraxia, Auditory Processing Disorder, Visual Processing Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, and others probably have some sort of genetic link; they often run in families to some extent.  When I look back over my own biological family, I know of Dyslexia for sure, speech issues for sure, and others of the older generations who were never officially diagnosed with anything, but probably had a learning disability or processing disorder of some sort.  It is also suggested that premature birth may have some contribution to these issues and the twins were born prematurely. 

Whatever the reason our twins have some processing difficulty/difference, they are amazing kids!  They are incredibly intelligent, wonderfully kind, introspective, creative people.  They have perseverance, courage, and a unique perspective, not to mention our son has a great memory which might not be that great if it were easier for him to just write things down.  These traits, perhaps, are also enhanced by their processing differences.  I like to think so.

Tell Yourself Ten Good Things About Yourself – How to Battle Negative Self-Talk

I’ve written before about self-esteem and the child with special needs, specifically in Nurturing Self-Esteem in the Child with SpecialNeeds, but I was reminded recently during a conversation, about a game I played with my daughter to help her specifically with her self-esteem.

After experiencing some bullying, my daughter became very down on herself and got to the point where she believed the insults hurled at her were accurate portrayals of whom she really was.  She started to believe she was stupid and fat and no one would want to be her friend.    It got so bad, she started telling herself these hideous lies, and I knew I needed to do something to stop her.  She needed an intervention, but what would work best?

So I caught her saying an evil to herself one day and I explained to her that when you tell yourself such things, you start to believe them.  I told her if she continued to go through her life telling herself how stupid or fat she was, she would always be miserable because she was carrying a bully around inside her own head.  I told her she was being the bully to herself!

Well, my sweet little girl who would never hurt anyone intentionally was devastated to hear that she was being a bully.  That was just not how she thought of herself.  So we made up a game to change her from being a bully to herself into being a best friend to herself.

Whenever she thought one bad thought about herself, she had to say ten good things about herself.  We practiced this by randomly asking each other for ten good things; for example, we’d be riding in the car and I would just say, “Quick, tell me ten good things about yourself?” 

At first it was hard for her and she needed a lot of prompting as well as she would make me go first to model examples for her.  Eventually, she began to really like the game and sometimes even get silly with it – “I am a marvelous cupcake baker” with an exaggeration on the word marvelous.

In the end, it did change her negative self-talk.  In fact, I overheard her telling her neighbor friend the other day about how telling yourself ten good things whenever you think one bad thing is important for your brain and will make you happy.

I hope this is of help to others in some way.  What techniques have you used to battle negative self-talk or to raise the self-esteem of your child with special needs?

A Call to Compassion: Stop the Bullying

(This didactic speech was inspired by my friend's child being bullied, and on a support group for children  with auditory processing disorder where she posted about it, parent after parent wrote: "It happened to my child too!" Pair that with what is happening everywhere we look in society, and I had to express my opinion. )

As a society, we need to take that next big step into enlightenment. What I mean by this is we need to stop comparing ourselves to others and garnering our self-worth from how much better we are at something than someone else, how much more attractive we are, how much wiser we think we are, or how much more money we have.  None of that matters!  We are all human beings and our self-worth needs to come from the knowledge that we are actively compassionate people who strive to do our best and recognize the value in ourselves as well as that in others.  It’s time to believe that there is room in this world for all of us to shine and one light does not extinguish another.

You see, I have read account after account of children being bullied by other children and unfortunately, sometimes by adults.  Why are they being bullied? They are being bullied because they can’t do something as well as another, they don’t have the same looks as someone else, or they somehow are different.  Some children, following the path that society has laid out to them as the right one, have learned to value themselves by putting down others.  They position themselves as a “leader” in a social setting by excluding others through actively harming them.  This creates the “haves” and the “have nots” that society is so fond of: the smart and the not smart, the pretty and the not pretty, the rich and the not rich, the whites and the not whites, the Christian and the not Christian, the American and the not American, the men and the not men.  Do you see where I am going here?  It’s all about comparison and nothing about compassion!

Of course, it is worse than just those actively bullying.  The others just stand aside and accept it.  Why?  Well of course it is for survival.  In a world where you are either a “have” or a “have not” and the “have nots” are tortured, most people actively align themselves with the “haves” no matter the cost.  The only ones who do not are the ones whom have already taken that next step and realized how ridiculously foolish and harmful the whole game is.  They have their self-worth in being a compassionate human being who values everyone (which does not mean everyone's ideas, beliefs, or actions - just that they are people who have some value in some way), and so they have the strength to not go along with the crowd – to stick up for the one being bullied.

It’s time to start actively pursuing this goal of compassion.  Start pursuing it on an individual basis.  Start actively teaching it to our children.  Start demanding it be reflected in our larger society.  How?  Support compassion where you see it: put your heart, your money, your work into compassion being practiced, whether it be the child sticking up for another at school, the business putting its profits into helping others, the politician refusing to support discriminatory laws, the movie where there are main characters eliciting kindness in others, the fashion magazine that showcases a variety of body images and price levels, the church that accepts everyone, etc.  Refuse to support intolerance!  Refuse to support those people and those entities drawing the line and categorizing into the “haves” and “have nots”.

Or as John Lennon put it so many years ago, "Give peace a chance."

-This article is cross-posted on both this blog and my personal blog as it is relevant to both.

Graphic Novels Have Made My Pre-Teen a Book Lover

I absolutely cannot say enough great things about graphic novels (anime/manga/etc).  My daughter who has auditory processing disorder and mild visual processing disorder which both contribute to her dyslexia, has found them to be an amazing avenue into the world of fiction.

You see, unlike traditional novels, graphic novels have pictures that tell the majority of the story, with the words being there to aid the pictures as needed. Being a visual thinker, pictures are her natural way of processing the world.  Pictures are how her memory best retains information.  So a story told through pictures is ideal for her.  She can process it quickly and easily.  So she gets to enjoy the story rather than struggling through processing all those words that are in traditional novels.

Along the way, she is reading the words that go along with the pictures.  This is building her sight vocabulary, her fluency, and more importantly, her confidence in reading!

I have a daughter who adores reading now!  She consumes her graphic novels from the library and begs to go back for more each and every week.


(UPDATE:  My daughter Hailey told me that if you read just the words, you'll only get part of the story, and if you just look at the pictures, you'll only get part of the story.  She says you have to do both.)

Celebrate Their Accomplishments!

Wow have we come a long way!  Hailey has been ice skating since September and she is still adoring it and doing very well.  I am so glad that we found something that she can excel in, and where her auditory processing disorder does not make a profound impact on her ability to learn it.

Her coach and the director of the ice skating program gave her an award recently for having great sit spins.  She was so proud to receive such an unexpected honor.

She also has just signed up to participate in an ice theater class. This class has a lot of acting, ice dancing, and figure skating. The kids work in small groups and in large casts to present a play on ice so to speak. Hailey is extremely excited about this class and enjoyed her first one immensely.  

The coach for the ice theater program has an accent and speaks in choppy English, but Hailey is okay with this.  She agreed to not let any misunderstanding interfere with her learning and enjoyment, so she will tell the coach, "Can you please show me" when she doesn't understand what was said.  We ran this scenario by the coach and she was more than willing to accomodate.  

Now for the real kicker!  This particular coach is known to be a little tough in some ways. (I really think it might be a cultural thing and she certainly does not mean any harm by it.) She might say something like, "What you can't do that yet?" or "You should be better by now."  I made Hailey aware of this fact and told her that she might say something like that to her one day.  Hailey asserted that she would be okay if that happens, and she realizes that the coach is actually trying to motivate her. Wow!  I am so impressed. This child of mine is maturing into a very understanding, confident young lady.

Just Like a 'Normal' Girl

What does it feel like to be 'normal'?  Having Auditory Processing Disorder, my daughter Hailey has had more than her share of experiences where she has felt not-normal.  She has felt like the outsider in social groups where everyone seems to understand what is being said except her.  She has felt like the 'weirdo' who says the wrong things because she recalls the wrong words when speaking.  She has felt like the 'idiot' when she can't figure something out or reads slowly and the other children laugh.  So feeling 'normal', or rather what she thinks other children who don't have processing disorders or learning disabilities feel, is something she craves.

This last year, Hailey started ice skating lessons.  She was fortunate enough to have a private lesson for her first session because she was the only one to sign up for that level.  Her coach was extremely good at teaching using visual and kinesthetic approaches with clear, concise auditory directions.  What Hailey realized is that she excels at ice skating; it was easy!

The next session, Hailey ended up in a class with a different coach and other students.  It was a disaster!  This coach relied on auditory directions without making eye contact all the time, and the other students talking and buzzing around her made it impossible for Hailey to understand what she was supposed to do.  So, being the typical mother of a child with special needs, I went to the director of the ice skating program and told her Hailey has Auditory Processing Disorder and needs visual and kinesthetic coaching with less auditory distraction.  The director had never heard of APD before, but she knows it is something like a learning disability and she is familiar with that, so she decided it would be okay to make sure Hailey has lessons that aren't really private lessons, but it could be arranged to make sure she is the only one that signs up.  I know this sounds confusing, but not really because there are more classes offered than students at her level, so it was just a matter of being flexible in our schedule.  I also made sure to request the coach she worked with before who was so great, and the director changed her schedule to make sure that coach would teach Hailey's class. Yippee!  Asking often does pay off.

So one more session of private lessons - although it wasn't called that because the program doesn't actually allow for private lessons - and Hailey was progressing remarkably fast.  She passed out of the basic skills program and moved into the freestyle classes.  These are arranged a little differently and she has the same coach she and I both adore, but two more students take classes with her.  Each student gets one-on-one time with the coach while the others practice, so it essentially works much like private lessons.  Hailey also goes to extra lessons with her coach where there are four students total and each student practices separately having their own private instruction time with the coach.

So back to the 'normal' feeling Hailey craves.  In the ice skating world, Hailey feels 'normal'.  She feels like she learns and progresses just like any other girl without needing anything special or different to succeed.  The playing field is leveled in this area and she loves it!

(Now there is still the social aspect in the locker room, but she is easing into that slowly.  The other girls seem very kind and at this point, just assume she is shy.  Eventually, she'll probably tell them she has Auditory Processing Disorder and that she needs to see their faces when they talk and can only really understand when one person talks at a time.  Hopefully that goes well, and truthfully I think it will.  Also, her coach is always there in the locker room and she does understand APD (she said she was familiar with it when I told her), so that should help.

Nurturing Self-Esteem in the Child with Special Needs

I recently solicited some friends on ideas for blog posts/articles.  One friend suggested writing about helping children with special needs build and maintain a good sense of self-esteem.

So off I went to research self-esteem and children with special needs.  I found a treasure trove of wonderful articles and eventually decided to focus my post around Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the article "The Need to Belong: Rediscovering Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" by Norman Kunc.^*

As you can see from the diagram above, Maslow positioned that self-esteem is reliant upon a sense of belonging.  Norman Kunc, in his article mentioned above, explained, "Without a social context in which to validate a person's perceived worth, self-worth is not internalized.  The context can vary from small and concrete, as with babies, to universal and abstract, as with artists."^*

So a baby feels belonging by being loved and cared for by his or her family.  The baby is treated as a valuable member of the family.  A child belongs to a family as well as a group of friends, a team, a class, and others which provide a sense of community to that child. Adults belong to families, friends, neighborhoods, work groups, associations, etc.  It is through a secure sense of belonging that humans feel recognized, respected, and valued as members of that community.  These feelings are internalized as healthy self-esteem.

However, as Norman Kunc points out, our communities must be accepting of diversity and find value beyond the currently narrow definitions of achievement, success, appearance, and other socially driven categories: “Yet in our society, we draw narrow parameters around what is valued and how one makes a contribution….Instead, we [need to] search for and nourish the gifts that are inherent in all people.”^*

So, how does this relate to nurturing and helping to maintain healthy self-esteem in children with special needs? 

Children with special needs often run into difficulty with self-esteem when they begin to realize that they are different from their peers.  Sometimes this comes in the form of bullying whereby the child is told he or she essentially does not belong to the group and is not wanted.  Sometimes this comes from the child him or herself identifying how different he or she is, and the child starts to isolate him or herself from the group out of fear of not belonging.  Both of these scenarios create the feeling of unworthiness and thus hinder self-esteem.

Another thing that happens to children with special needs is when the group to which the child belongs values only certain traits in its members.  This might be academic achievement in school, athletic achievement in a sport, or appearance in a social group.  The child who cannot achieve at the level required for these groups begins to not feel valued as a member of the group. This leads to doubts of self-worth.

These problems of being different and not being able to meet the goals defined as necessary to be a member of the group are how our current society fails in providing a sense of authentic belonging to all people.  To change this dynamic, society needs to encourage diversity and honor all the contributions people can make.

However, this post is not about changing society.  This post is about helping children today, in this society, maintain self-esteem.  So, if a sense of belonging and providing value to community is the building block upon which self-esteem sits, it only makes sense that we need to provide this for our children with special needs. 

So here are a dozen suggestions generated by myself and the ideas I garnered from my internet research:

1. Make sure you have a home life that values all members and all contributions without placing a hierarchy of value;
2. Provide a way for your child to contribute to the family in a way your child feels is valuable;
3. Find an activity or a group that your child can feel a welcome member of:
• A sport your child is good at;
• Chess club, book club, a role-playing game club, or any other activity your child enjoys;
• Drama, an art class, an environmental clean-up crew, etc.;
4. Talk to your child’s teacher or group facilitator about making a point of honoring diversity and multiple talents;
5. Make a point of having people in your child’s life who demonstrate respect for diversity and multiple talents;
6. Provide your child with a group identity to belong to such as artist, writer, good helper, etc.;
•  This can be done without having a specific group of people as in these groups one can be a member simply by doing art, writing, helping, etc.; 
• You as the parent can be the one expressing how valuable the child’s art, writing, helping, etc. is to you as a family member, as a person who likes art, writing, etc., and as a member of the greater society;
7.  Expose your child to the variety of ways in which people contribute to and are needed by the greater society and are valuable: street cleaners, doctors, artists, musicians, comedians, athletes, moms, dads, social workers, custodians, activists, therapists, dog lovers, environmentally conscious people, people who smile when we pass them in the store and they make everyone feel happier because of it, etc.;
8.  Find a way your child can contribute to a cause such as a favorite charity, helping at a soup kitchen, cleaning up the park, etc;
9. Educate your child on why people bully;
10. Help your child find value in identity as a member of his or her cultural, ethnic, or religious community;
11. Show your child other people with differences (disabilities/differing abilities) who are doing well and feeling happy with their lives.  They can be an excellent role model for your child; and
12.  Find a peer group of children with the same or similar differences to your child. It can be empowering to feel a part of this community as well.

This is a dynamic list and I welcome all suggestions to add to it.  Please post any you have in the comments as I would love to read them.  I hope you find some of them helpful. :)

^*Kunc, Norman.^”The Need to Belong: Rediscovering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” Broad Reach Training and Resources <www.normemma.com/articles/armaslow.htm>

Camp Update: Bravely Being Herself Despite Being Shunned by the "Popular Girls"

I posted a couple posts back about our daughter Hailey going to camp with auditory processing disorder.  She was extremely excited to go to camp and looked forward to making new friends and having fun with a group of girls her age.

Well, I had to pick her up early three days into camp.  She called me crying about the miserable time she was having and despite the counselors trying to tell me to just leave her there and she'd "probably" end up having fun "eventually", I drove over and got her.  What can I say, I'm an attachment parent and trust is a highly valued commodity in our home.  (Later Hailey told me how the other girls were telling her that no parents ever come to pick their kids up early.  Hailey told them, "My mom will."  I'm really, really glad that I did.)

So to make a longish story shortish, Brooke, the girl I had left Hailey talking to at camp that first day, had decided to befriend another girl at camp and left Hailey in the dust.  Once she found the other girl, she wouldn't even speak to Hailey anymore.  So Hailey did her best to try to make other friends.  Unfortunately, Hailey said she would be doing well talking with a girl and then the girl would go find someone else.

Typical to preteen girls, there was a "popular group" formed in the cabin and you guessed it, Hailey was left out.  According to Hailey, Brooke was the perceived leader of the group and she made rules about who could be in and who could not.  The first rule was that no girls with cell phones could be in the group. (The cabin of 20 girls had only 3 that brought cell phones.  Hailey had a cell phone.)

Some of the girls made fun at the way Hailey mispoke some words and when Hailey had to go to the bathroom, no one would be her buddy.  They weren't allowed to go alone.  When Hailey asked the counselor, she was told to just ask another girl and so eventually Hailey found a group going and just snuck in with them. (My smart girl was certainly resourceful.)

Apparently, Hailey also told the girls about homeschooling and having two moms and eating a gluten-free diet.    My first thought was how I might as well have put a "kick me" sign on her back, but these are the facts to her life and I am really proud that she isn't afraid to share them.

So with all that was happening socially to Hailey, one would venture to guess that she shriveled up like a victim.  Well, I am happy to say that she did not!  In fact, when it came time to sing karaoke, Hailey volunteered and got up in front of everyone to sing.  (Now that is what I call brave!)  Hailey kept trying to talk to girls and befriend them.  She did her best to enjoy the activities: horseback riding being her favorite.  But, eventually, it did wear on her.

When her counselors neglected to tell her about the bike tour she signed up for and she missed it, Hailey finally decided that she had enough.  She was the only one in her cabin that had paid the extra money and signed up for the tour and so, apparently, the counselors just left it off their radar.  Hailey loves to ride bikes and she was especially looking forward to this part of camp.  It was just too much disappointment.

After coming home and destressing for a bit, Hailey took out a paper plate that had words written all over it.  It was an activity where the girls were told to write something nice about each girl on the plate that was passed around for them.  Hailey had the expected "your pretty" and "I like your hair" type comments, but she also had two that really stuck out to me.  "I like how she isn't scared to be herself." and "youd stand for who you are".  Hailey and I discussed how special and wonderful these comments are.  I think it really made her feel good to realize that she may not have been allowed in the "popular group" and some girls may have made fun of her for her auditory processing and speech problems, but she had something remarkably better: she was brave, she was proud, and she was herself.  Not only that, but at least two other girls took notice and perhaps they will feel safe enough some day to be theirselves - no matter what the "popular girls" say.


-originally written July 22, 2011 in my personal blog