Parenting Misc

The Intangibles

by | Jun 5, 2015 | ,

Last night I received a very special recognition from the Children’s Regional Hospital at Cooper University Medical Center where our program, the Cooper Learning Center is within the Department of Pediatrics.

One thing that was particularly special was that some of the people in attendance were former parents and kids (now grown up) who were there to offer their acknowledgements for what our program and my involvement meant to them. I then thought about the current state of affairs in the field of education.

These days in education and psychology it’s all about the measurable goals, the quantifiable objectives.  The work that you do as a teacher or as a therapist needs to be “evidenced based.”  Your outcomes need to hit a certain percentile of growth to document and justify your work.

I get all of that.  It’s probably good to ground your practice in approaches that are supported by research.  It’s also good  (I think) to measure outcomes.

I can tell you this, though.  The kids in the room last night and the parents who came to offer their own tribute were not there because they hit “outcome measures.”  They were there for something unmeasurable, something intangible.

With all that we know about education and psychology, with all of the research and studies that have done, we can’t get past the intangibles.

It’s still the intangible that impacts kids most.

Think back.  Who is a teacher or mentor that inspired you?  Did they inspire you because you hit your “student growth objectives?”

I doubt it very much.

It’s the intangibles that matter, that make all of the difference in a kid’s life.  I hope in this world of quantifying and measuring we don’t lose sight of that fact.

 

 

5,000 Tweets & Counting: A Milestone Is Reached!

by | Sep 5, 2014 |

This week I glanced at my Twitter page and found that I was at 4,999 total tweets!

Over the 5,000 tweets there are themes that emerged that are fairly consistent.  These themes were summed up in my book, School Struggles, but I thought they would be nice here as a reminder as I hit this special milestone of 5,000 tweets.

Smooth Road/Rough Road

As many of my tweets have pointed out, I believe there are essentially two categories of children. In the first category are the kids who seem to be navigating the academic and social challenges of school. Their ride down the road is relatively smooth. For these kids, they are engaged in a positive feedback loop that starts in the early grades and continues on throughout their school years and into college.  It’s a pretty good ride.

Then there is everyone else.

Of this other population, some kids are classified with learning disabilities, some have 504 plans, some are seen as not needing any services or accommodations, yet are still struggling. These kids have a tough time of it because they may have trouble with some facet of school or another. For the kids on the rough road, it is our job to try and fill in a few of the holes, recognizing that we can’t fully make the road smooth.  Their ride is tough, but we can  help them along.

Positive Trajectory Over Time

I’ve been at this work long enough to be able to take a “bird’s eye” view and see that so many of the kids who are on the rough road ultimately turn out fine and are doing nicely in whatever direction they chose to go. I have learned this because many kids have contacted me years later to let me know that they had done well.  I also will run into parents  who remind me of what a hard time it was back in the day during the tough times, but that things have improved greatly.

Staying Calm/Being Patient & Finding the Middle Road

Another common theme in the tweets is emphasizing the need to be calm, patient and clear with children. As parents, we steer the ship. The captains have to make tough decisions along the way and set the course. They need to find the best course. If rigid control is exercised, the deckhands will get angry and look to mutiny and overthrow the control. On the other hand, if things are too loose the ship will flounder and the deckhands will do nothing.

Finding a middle position with kids, being firm and clear, but not too authoritative or rigid always seems to work best. Stay calm and patient in the middle of the storms.

This, Too, Shall Pass

An expression I heard many years ago spoken to parents who were concerned that their children were not measuring up or meeting expectations, summed it up. It went something like this: “Be patient. God isn’t done with them yet.”

I remember thinking that such an expression was exactly on the money and helped the parents to calm down, see the big picture and not be so focused on the immediate problems. The expression allowed parents to gain some perspective.

So does the expression, “This, too, shall pass.”

With virtually all child issues, remind yourself of this and things will look a lot brighter in the morning.

On to the next 5000th tweets.  See you at the 10,000 mark!

 

(Adapted from “School Struggles,”   Richard Selznick, Ph.D. (2012, Sentient Publications)

 

Dyslexia in the New Year: Trying to Stay Away from the “New School Year Blues”

by | Aug 8, 2014 |

It’s that time again.  Another summer slips away.  They just don’t make them like they used to.

Soon you will be bombarded soon by all of “top tips for having your child to have a great school year.”  They will be in all of the magazines and the evening news.

Even with the tips, that pit in your stomach will start to form with all of the concerns you have about 504 Plans, IEP’s, Common Core, and whatever else is lurking out there in school land.

So here are the tips you probably won’t see, specifically for children with a reading disability (dyslexia):

 

1)      Offer Front End help.  Dyslexia often involves a problem with “low frequency” words.  That means words that are not common are really tough for the child to independently read.  When your child brings home those dreadful worksheets, look them over with her.  Scan for the tough words.  They are the big ones that are more than one syllable.   Go over them quickly with your child so he isn’t laboring through it.  For example, if the sheet has the word “penguin” in a word problem, like “there were three penguins in the zoo” there is no gain in having your child read it as “pwagney” or however he reads it. Help him out on the front end.

2)      Too Much Pain, Very Little Gain.  No one likes to work at a level of frustration or at a point of overwhelming difficulty.  The fact of the matter is, too often the child with dyslexia is given work that is simply too difficult and over her head.  Look at the reading material.  If it is too difficult, then read it out loud to your child.  There is no gain in reading at one’s frustration level.

You might say, “If I read it out loud, how will she ever develop her skills?”  The answer is simple – no one learns to swim with the water over his head.  You have to be in comfortable waters.

 

3)      Don’t Beat Reading to Death.  There is a lot of tension in the house around the child not reading enough.  One secret.  Don’t beat it to death.  Set up a 20 minute period to do independent reading as a part of the nightly routine and stick with it.  Don’t nag, but make simple contingencies…”you give me a no attitude 20 minutes then you have earned your electronic time after homework.”  Simple.  Easy. It’s one way or the other.  Make it earned.  “You give and you get” messages rule.

 

4)      Find the Easy Level:  Picking up on the last point, if you set up an independent reading period (and you should), make sure that the reading conducted is at the child’s independent level that is the reading should not be tough sledding. The material should be in the child’s zone of competence.

 

5)      Keep the Heat Index Down:  The heat index rises in households across America at homework time.  Resolve to stay calm.  Deep breathe.  Get some fresh air.  Walk around the house.  Pour yourself a glass of wine.  Whatever. Turn down the heat.

Well there you have it.  The five pointers you won’t be seeing in the parenting magazines (but I am sticking by them).

#Socializing in the 21st Century

by | Jul 11, 2014 | ,

Eli’s parents are concerned. They think that their twelve-year-old child lacks social skills, as they rarely see kids coming to the house or calling on the telephone. Eli, himself, seems not to be concerned. He thinks he has lots of friends and plays with them all the time.

Eli’s version of playing with his friends all the time and his parents’ version are quite different. To his parents playing meant going outside with a group of kids and engaging in some type of physical activity. They expect Eli to play for hours on end, based on memories of their own childhood.

Not so for Eli. When he gets home from school he can’t wait to play with his friends. As soon as he gets in the door he grabs a snack and heads to a darkened basement. There’s no one else there. Eli logs onto his Xbox Live account and starts his afternoon play. Some of the kids he plays with are kids he knows at school, some are total strangers he will meet online that day and they will never play with again. Eli will play for hours on end.

For Eli, it is the greatest thing having a ready-made social life. You don’t have to go anywhere, you’re in the comfort of your home, and there are snacks everywhere. When it’s cold the heat is on, in the summer the air-conditioning is working just fine.

On the occasion that Eli does go outside to play when some kids in the neighborhood make a half-hearted attempt at playing a street game, Eli typically gets bored in about 15 minutes. A weak link in the outdoor chain, Eli retreats back to the house to the dismay of the few “old school” kids trying to muster up a stickball game or street hockey. “It’s just so hot outside and I sweat so much,” Eli thinks to himself. “Besides, I am much more popular with my Xbox friends. I mean I just missed the pass and everyone kind of laughed. Who needs that?”

I don’t know where it’s all going, but for those of us who played outside on sunny days and inside on wet ones, we can’t help but be disturbed by Eli’s social life.

When social life is a darkened room in the basement with no one there, we can’t help but wonder what this will mean for Eli when he actually does have to interact with people.

Most adults older than 40 are completely perplexed and don’t know what to say or do.

Don’t ask me…

I’d better find out what my Twitter friends think and I’ll get back to you.

I will check under #parenting!!!!

 

(adapted: “School Struggles,” Richard Selznick, Ph.D. (2012, Sentient Publication) 

The Parenting Dance That We Do

by | Apr 11, 2014 |

The Parenting Dance That We Do

Parents often need help in learning how to communicate with their child. Children with learning disabilities or ADHD can be very frustrating and difficult to manage. Negative and irritable patterns of communication often play out in a habitual manner.

In order to gain a sense of control, parents tend to adopt punishing postures with children who are struggling with school or do not appear to be motivated. From my experience, this punitive approach is a mistake often leading to greater degrees of anger and increased shutting down on the part of the child.

There are other ways to go.

I am not suggesting that limits be removed altogether or that you go soft on the child, but it is the tone of punishment that needs to be addressed. Punishment is reactive and often administered in anger. Too often, the child is struggling with skills that are not well developed and, thus, he is not able to meet the task demands.

Punishment is like blaming someone with a bad foot for not running the race more enthusiastically.

While parents may feel a sense of momentary victory after punishing the child,  this feeling is almost always short-lived, as the desired goal of having the child assume greater degrees of responsibility is rarely achieved following the punishment.

Parents rely on punishment, I believe, because it is an  attempt to gain control. Effectively, they believe it is the only tool that they have in their parental toolbox. They think because they’re not hitting the child, at least they have improved on an older generation that subscribed to such an approach.

Another typical problem that occurs between parents and that is part of the parent dance is the finger-pointing that takes place in the household between parents. As a result of the ongoing frustration and difficulty, parents are frequently polarized in their communication patterns between each other and the child.

Marital communication can be challenging enough without the variable addressing the difficult child. In the dance between the parents and the child of concern, usually one parent feels that he has the right approach and if the other parent would only listen-up and do it his way, all problems would be solved.

Typically the stricter parent believes his way will lead to solving all of the child’s problems. This parent accuses the other parent of feeding into the child’s demands, indulging rather than helping. As there may be a grain of truth in this, the softer (more indulgent) parent usually reacts by countering the stricter parent’s punishing style. The accommodating parent sees the stricter parent as too harsh, irritable and reactive and attempts to buffer the child from the stricter parent.

It's an exhausting dance.

 

Take-Away Point

Punishments are generally ineffective. There are natural consequences to most choices that are built-in without the added reactive punishment. Try and avoid long harangues, idle threat and excessive use of timeouts. Strive for a middle ground position between parenting styles.

 Adapted from: The Shut-Down Learner:  Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child, (Sentient Publications) Richard Selznick, Ph.D.

A Compound Interest Mentality With #Childhood

by | Mar 7, 2014 |

Change does not come easily for any of us. Think about how deeply ingrained our personalities, habits and proclivities are. Fundamentally, we are who we are.

Parents spent a lot of time trying to change children and I sometimes find that their efforts may be a bit too ambitious.

Rather than go for large change, a “compound-interest mentality” may help as an alternative.

With compound interest, our finances grow in small increments. Interest is paid on top of interest paid – an improve product is improved in little steps. With compund interest our money grows over time.

Using this approach with children can be enormously helpful.

Let’s say your child has great trouble putting papers away, keeping track of assignments, knowing where to find materials, clearing out book bags, etc. In short, your child has moderate to severe problems with basic organization skills, otherwise known as “executive functioning.”

Trying to get your child to improve in this area can be overwhelming (for the parent and the child), and often leads to frustration.

Having a compound interest mentality is a slower process, but the hope is that smaller, incremental change can occur over time.

To think in compounding terms, come up with a handful of skills that you think would represent real improvement in your child. Write down this list of specific skills.

Focus on one skill for a period of time until you think that skill has been internalized and mastered. A “skill of the month” approach can help move this along.  For example, April can be “Put-Your-Homework-in-the-Right- Binder-Month.” Practice this skill and acknowledge  it when it is done right.  (Postive reinforcement helps, but don’t lay on too much syrup, as kids see though that and then don’t respond.)

Once the skill of the month has been internalized, this would represent a form of “interest” that has been paid, so to speak. The next skill that is practiced will be on top of an already improved product.

The key to the compound interest approach is having patience and recognizing small, incremental progress.

Takeaway Point

Change does not come easily. The more we embrace this truth, the more patient we will be with children. Targeting and isolating specific skills and practicing them to the point of mastery helps to lead to small, incremental improvements over time.

Adapted from “School Struggles,” Richard Selznick, Ph.D. (Sentient Publications, 2012)

Avoiding the New School Year Blues

by | Sep 4, 2013 |

Its that time again. That little knot in your stomach is forming with the start of the new school year and you are reading various articles on the top tips for your kid having a great year.

Heres my number one tip – resolve to stay calm.

School problems result in a great deal of tension, anxiety, and all around teeth gnashing (from the parents). Most of it is unproductive. As an alternative to the yelling and all of the reactive stress with your child, practice a different style of talking that puts responsibility where it belongs – on your child. This style involves speaking in matter-of-fact tones. Effectively, this approach would be more objective and less reactive.

Take a child I saw recently, moody Meghan, age fifteen. Last year, Meghan’s parents spent a lot of time trying to find a tutor for her, much to her dismay. Meghan wasn’t happy about the tutoring, primarily because it interfered with her all-important Facebook time. Each week, right on cue when it was time to get ready for tutoring, Meghan gave her parents an extremely hard time about going. In response, her parents engaged in yelling and screaming matches, trying to get the recalcitrant Meghan to comply. It was not a pretty picture. This scene occurred twice a week over the course of the year. If only she knew the Huntington Learning Center offers an amazing option for people whom are willing to tutor.

When the beleaguered parents talked to me about it, I suggested to them that they adopt an either-or posture with Meghan. Rather than go through all the hoops to get Meghan to comply, they were coached to say something like the following:

Meghan we know school has been hard. Weve tried to get you help. However, you resisted tutoring and gave us grief about going. We then started yelling and screaming at you. It made the household miserable. This is going to stop. Were not going to yell about it anymore. Its going to be one way or the other. Either you approach San Diego Tutors with a reasonable attitude, or you are on your own with your school work. You decide. Either way is okay.

So, this year, resolve to stop the yelling, and calmly put responsibility where it belongs.

Takeaway Point

Much of what goes on in households with children can be treated in more black and white tones. One key is not to be overly invested in the outcome. In the situation above, the parents need to be okay with Meghans decision either way. This approach can be very difficult for parents for a variety of reasons, but can be very helpful.

Adapted from School Struggles, Richard Selznick, Ph.D. (Sentient Publications, 2012)

Listen Up Moms: Trust Your Judgment

by | Jan 17, 2013 |

Over the last thirty years, research in education and psychology that is focused on reading disabilities produces one consistent truth—early identification and intervention trumps waiting and acting later.  The title of Dr. Joseph Torgesen’s seminal article on this topic, “Catch Them Before They Fall,” says it all.

Who are the best people to identify problems early? Pediatricians? Psychologists? Neurologists? Teachers?

Nope. The moms.  (OK sometimes dads, but it’s usually the moms.)

In my view, 99 percent of the time when the mom thinks that something is wrong with her child, there is something wrong. It is the rare mom who is mistaken about this.

Yet often when the moms raise the issue of their late-preschool, kindergarten, or first-grade child, they tend to get messages like these:

  “You’re worrying too much.”

  “There are many late bloomers.”

  “You know how boys are.”

  “We really can’t tell what’s going on until third grade.”

Not being professionals in the field, the moms accept these messages and stifle their worries.

But rather than suffering through the agony of waiting until third or fourth grade, so many kids could be identified by early screening and given services, as suggested by Dr. Torgesen. Screenings do not take a lot of time, money, or effort; some fifteen minutes per child can identify those at risk for learning/reading problems at the ages of four, five, and six years. Sadly, these screenings are not occurring in many schools, despite all of the research and clinical knowledge that exists.

A mom recently said to me, “Look. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I know my kid is struggling. He’s in third grade and I keep getting put off. For what purpose?”

There is no purpose. Why let the fire smolder and build to the point where it is overwhelming? At the first signs of smoke, it’s time to act. It’s not time to panic but to take an effective action, like identifying the child’s stage of reading development and deciding which area you are going to target.

You don’t need to be a psychologist or a reading specialist to know when a child is struggling. On a nightly basis, moms see the effort that goes into getting through a reading assignment or a difficult worksheet. This is something moms get intuitively.

 

One solution: listen to the moms and take early action. Waiting and seeing what will happen is not an option.

Takeaway Point

Moms, trust your gut, especially with early reading development. If you are concerned, take action if possible. Seek outside help in the form of testing and remedial tutoring if you do not feel that the school is stepping up to the plate. Don’t listen to messages such as, “He will grow out of it.” Rarely does that happen.

(adapted from “School Struggles,” (2012) Sentient Publications by Richard Selznick Ph.D.)

Parent New Year’s Resolutions 2013

by | Jan 3, 2013 |

The more miles I have logged in working with children and their parents, the less definitive I find myself.  There are few absolutes when dealing with kids and the complexity of variables affecting them.  Variables such as the child’s temperament/personality, the parent’s style, the family’s way of dealing with each other, among a myriad of other factors come into play.

With that said, in no particular order, here are a few parental resolutions for the coming year:

  1.  Try and find alternatives to yelling.  Yelling doesn’t work even though it seems to be the favored tool of modern parenting.
  1. Along with point #1,  when addressing challenging situations with children, try and practice speaking in more matter-of-fact (objective) tones – “Gee, I’m sorry that you chose not to do your homework.  I will explain that to the teacher in this note that I am writing.  You deal with it.” (Presuming the homework was appropriate to the child’s level of ability.)
  1. Create electronic free time zones in the house.  Establish a reading hour where everyone holds an actual book in their hands.  Have cell phones turned in and put in a basket off to the side.  This includes the adults.
  1. Resolve not to go on the school’s grading website (whatever yours is called) daily.  In fact, resolve to only go on it once a week at the most.  This may extremely hard for many parents (moms) to do, as many will go on the school’s website multiple times per day.  You have to go cold turkey.
  1. Avoid Gumby parenting.  No other explanation is needed about this.
  1. Practice being 10% involved with homework and school work.  More than that you may be in too deep.
  1. Watch overusing Time Out.  Overuse of Time Out leads to it becoming ineffective.  Plus, getting put in one’s room may be a great place to escape – from parents!
  1. Resolve not to over-email the teacher.  Limit your emails to perhaps once every other week.  Try and keep the emails simple – not much more than a paragraph at a time.
  1. Keep reminding yourself that with most child issues, “This too shall pass.” 
  1. Keep telling yourself that they (the children) are works in progress on their own timetable.

 

 

 

Parent Badgering Factor Running Too High?

by | Dec 4, 2012 |

Its December.

Were into the second quarter of the school year. The dance is in full swing.

All across America each evening this dance is being played out in millions of homes. Its the Dont You Have Homework To Do?.No I Did It in School dance.

With this dance the Parent Badgering Factor usually starts around 4:00 in the afternoon and proceeds ahead until someone (almost always the parent, usually the mom) falls asleep from exhaustion.

Upon waking up, a form of the dance kicks back in with the Hurry Up.Get Out of Bed or You Will Be Late Panic, dance, which is then later in the day followed up with the resumption of the Homework dance.

Throughout all of this the anxiety is ringing off of the hook.

Mind you, by and large this anxiety is not being felt by the child. (The child is too busy playing Xbox 360 Live or on Facebook or Instagram looking into the latest friends drama to be bothered by such an emotion as anxiety. )

The amount of anxiety and pressure experienced by the parent (usually the mom) could solve the energy crisis if we could learn to harness it. Instead, a lot of parents are turning to remedies like those found at naturesaidcbd.com, which help to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety so that they can get on with their parenting duties without worry. It’s a good job these products exist really or where would we be?

Purpose of Homework

How many of you who are fueled by all of this anxiety actually remember specific homework assignments? I know I dont. So whats the purpose of any of it?

Theres probably an unspoken, hidden agenda to homework. The hidden agenda is that homework is a tool to teach basic responsibility. You know, the usual stuffmeet deadlines, plan, follow throughthose sorts of things.

By and large your job with the kids that are not the best at self-managing is to help orient the child, to get him or her on track. Your job is not to fuel the train once it is on the track.

I like to encourage parents to use a 10% involvement ratio. Your 10% involvement is largely there to provide calm, reasonable structure so that he or she is oriented to task and knows what to do and how to get started.

If the work is too hard, its inappropriate, pure and simple and the teacher needs to know.

Takeaway Point

Dont fuel the train. If you fuel anxiety, it will get worse and worse, like a train gets faster and faster. It would definitely be worth you visiting a site similar to https://topdispensary.ca/ if you feel like you can’t calm your anxiety and need to use supplements like CBD and cannabis. You really don’t want it to emulate a runaway train! If you ultimately feel like cannabis is the way to go, you may want to see how you can best consume this and see what will work for you. There are more accessories here for those who would like to look at pipes and dab rigs, etc.

Categories

Latest Posts

Archive