Blog
Trusting Your Mom Intuition
As part of the assessment process I always conduct an interview to get an overview of the issues of concern. When a child is struggling, typically there will be suggestions of disorders that have been raised by different professionals along with opinions offered from...
Taking An Effective Action – Overcoming Your Inner Gumby
Last week we revisited the notion that many parents embody “Gumby Parenting” (my term) as a way of interacting with their child and managing challenging behavior (I am a Gumby Parent). Gumby Parenting leads to an array of child manipulations. We talked about...
“I am a Gumby…Don’t be a Gumby”
On a weekly basis since 2009 I’ve tried to crank out a new blog post. While I may have missed a week or two here and there, I think there are nearly 350 of posts on www.shutdownlearner.com, drawing inspiration from kids and families to help generate ideas. Over the...
Delusions of the Modern American Child (Boy)
A number of years ago, I was complaining to my dad about something to do with work. Never one to mince words, my dad said something that always stayed with me – “That’s why they call it ‘work,’ Richard. They don’t call it ‘play.’” Modern children (typically boys...
Our Neurological Explanations of Everything
It seems we seek neurological explanations for almost all the struggling that children encounter. That is, we seem to be comforted that there is a neurological dysfunction at the core of a child’s struggling. Given that the brain is the central engine driving all...
The Pyramid of Fantasy
So often, in the work that I do with parents regarding their kids, there comes that squeamish point, where the parent asks the inevitable dreaded question… “So, what do we do about it?” Why it’s dreaded is there is almost never, and I mean never (at least from my...
Poor Judgment & Reading Comprehension: What’s the Connection?
When Kids struggle with comprehension it is interesting that often there is an overlap in “real life,” that is in the way the child interacts in his personal world. In this era of quickly labeling and pathologizing behavior automatically as “ADHD,” this overlap is...
Writing Deficits on the Rough Road
Open-Ended writing is usually not difficult for children on the “smooth road,” the ones without the myriad of variables leading to school struggling. For the “Smooth-Roaders” their sentences are complete and varied in style. There is flow to their written stories...
Talkin’ IQ Blues
I’m sure you know the old school expression, that something “sticks in your craw.” Probably not a day goes by where something is not sticking in my craw. The only good that comes of it is I usually get inspired by the stuck craw to generate something to write about...
“But, She’s So Sweet – She’s So Smart”
This week my “Annoy-O-Meter,” which is usually running pretty high (like at a level of 70 out of 100), was up in the high 90s. What pushed it into the upper end of the dial was a run of girls that I either evaluated or met with their parents to discuss their girl’s...
More Questions of An Assessment: Part II
Last week we talked about some of the essential questions to ask of an assessment: Questions of An Assessment: Part I. We emphasized asking fundamental questions first such as: Does my child have a problem? (yes or no) If there is a problem(s), where does it lie? How...