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In many households there are temperamentally rigid and inflexible children who cause a great deal of distress.

With their limited coping skills, such children become quite volatile and reactive to frustration.

Jeff and Rose are the bleary eyed parents of three children, ages 8, 6 and 4. Two of the children, the younger ones, are pretty easy going. Essentially, they go along with the program and are able to handle the curveballs that are thrown at them.

Not young Justin, the oldest child, who almost always goes against the grain.

If the family is going in one direction, he goes the opposite way. If the family wants to go to McDonald’s, he wants Burger King. If the family wants to play a board game, he wants to do something else.

Additionally, when Justin encounters even the slightest frustration or when the parents say “no” to something, he has major meltdowns.

Two recent stories illustrate why his parents are so bleary-eyed.

The other night while Jeff was helping Justin with his homework, he insisted on writing a capital L in the middle of the word, even if a capital letter was not appropriate, such as in the word “fiLm.” Even though Jeff tried to correct him, Justin refused the correction, becoming extremely agitated, screaming and crying when his father insisted that he change the letter in the word.

Another example was related to a change in the afternoon routine. Justin was very used to his routine of being picked up and going straight home after school, where he then enjoyed watching his favorite television show and having a hot chocolate. This was the daily ritual.

However, upon being picked up at school on a recent afternoon, Justin’s mother informed him that they could not go home right away because they had to pick their dog up from the groomer. Justin went ballistic, screaming and crying about missing his television show.

What to do?

Sorry, there are no easy answers, but there are things to keep in mind.

Recognize that it is not all parenting that produces challenging behaviors, and that there are children like Justin who are temperamentally rigid and inflexible.

In the case of Justin, there are two children who are flexible and easy-going who were essentially raised the same way.

As difficult as it might be, try and not add fuel to the fire by reacting emotionally to a situation. Simple reactions given non-emotionally will let things play out.

With Justin, a simple shrug and an “Oh, well” is probably better than yelling back at him or to try and offer rational explanations about the dog at the groomer.

Recognize that no matter what you do, these kids ain’t easy. In future posts, we will try and offer a couple of other strategies.

To reply to this newsletter, email me any time at shutdownlearner1@gmail.com.

Let’s go once again into the “Way Back Machine.”  This time we will go to the mid 1980’s.

What was the red-hot topic in the field of reading and cognitive psychology?  I will give you a hint.  It wasn’t decoding or reading fluency.

The topic of the decade, the one receiving millions of dollars of grant money across the country to major university centers, was not dyslexia.

The central topic was reading comprehension, with a particular emphasis on higher-order thinking, inferential reasoning and that funky term that almost no one seemed to understand –  “metacognition.”

Sadly, like most of these hot topic educational initiatives and movements (anyone out there remember Reading First), over time they are largely forgotten and put into the educational/psychological dustbin, sort of like an education  psychology version of Toy Story.  (“Hey, remember me, I was the toy you  played with all of the time  and now you’ve forgotten me.”)

Interactive Nature of Reading Process

Even though we are squarely in the era of dyslexia (Is everyone “dyslexic” these days?), there are important research findings from that earlier era that are important to remember.

One of the points is the interactive nature of the reading/learning process.

We used to think about reading in more one-directional terms. That is, information was on the page and went up into our head resulting in comprehension.

The cognitive psychologists studying this stuff in the 1980s told us that the one directional view is erroneous. Reading is not a one-directional process. Instead, we have “schema,” (i.e.,  prior knowledge or the stuff in our head) that gets activated while reading, making the process more interactive than previously understood.

The more “stuff” (schema) we have in our head, the better will be our understanding of the material on the page.

Another big takeaway that is now in the dustbin is that in order to improve comprehension we need to interact with different types of questions that stimulate a child to seek information and find justifications in the text.

In other words, just answering questions on a worksheet is not how to teach comprehension.

Inferential thinking is a skill that does not come naturally to many kids, but can be taught with good facilitated instructional practice and questions that guide this type of thought process.

Comprehension is not an easy skill to develop, but if research findings are followed, it can be improved.

Takeaway Point

Some of the toys forgotten in the toy chest may still have some value.

(More to follow next week.)

When a child is school struggling, 99.9% of the time the parents get it.  They know there’s something up.  They are looking for validation.

This is where it gets murky.

When the parents raise the question of dyslexia with the school, typically they are told that the diagnosis of dyslexia is conducted by a medical professional and that they should contact their pediatrician (or a neurologist).

The fact of the matter is that pediatricians don’t test for dyslexia, as such testing involves a number of tests that are simply not given by medical doctors.

In spite of this, the pediatrician may send a letter back to the school offering a diagnosis (largely based on the parent’s report) that the child has something like ADHD or dyslexia with the request of a 504 or an IEP.

The school then feels like their hands are tied, since the normal process of determining eligibility was not followed.

It can all be very frustrating and confusing.

If I had my way (which I don’t), simplifying would be the guiding principle.

When a child is falling below the 25^th percentile on a respectable reading measure, that child needs help whether they are eligible for service or not.

Whether you call it “dyslexia” or “eligible/ineligible for service,” struggling is struggling.

Parents need plain language and guidance.

For example:

School to the Parent:  “You’re right.  Your child is struggling.  We gave a good screening measure and his reading fluency is weak and phonics skills are poor.  We don’t diagnose dyslexia, but we see the struggling.  If you want to pursue an assessment for dyslexia, then this is usually done by a psychologist or a neuropsychologist.  In the meantime, let’s get down to business with good remediation.”

I think parents would appreciate statements like that and feel validated and supported.

If the parent does seek an outside assessment, then this assessment should be factored into the school’s understanding of the child.

It would be nice to hear, “Wow.  We see Dr. Smith agrees with us.  The decoding skills are very weak.  Glad we started targeting them.  Let’s keep close watch on the child’s progress.”

Seriously, does it need to be more complicated than this?

Georgia is a lively, spontaneous and friendly 10-year- old student entering the fifth grade.  Cognitive testing placed her between the average to above average range for most of the domains assessed.

Spelling and writing were a different story for her.

Here are some of Georgia’s spelling errors and samples of sentences she wrote to a prompt:

• cook/cooke
• reach/reche
• circle/courkel
• ruin/rowen
• watch/wauch
• explain/espan
•  I whish for my best fierd to live with Me.
• I whish to get a nother dog.
• I love to do hoars backrinding camp and playing with firendes.

In this era of increased involvement with artificial intelligence and other technologies, the question I ask relative to spelling and writing samples like Georgia’s is, does it matter?   Does it matter that she can’t spell or barely write a sentence.

It is my sense spelling and writing issues do not seem to be ringing too many bells of concern at the school level.

Perhaps it’s generational.

To a young teacher in their 20’s or so, something like spelling and being able to write sentences may be old school, so yesterday, something that can be easily remedied.

Why spend time on something like spelling when autocorrect is right there?  Why bother worrying about complete sentences, when “Grammarly” is your technology assistant, cleaning up your sentence fragments, run-ons and punctuation.

What’s your opinion?  Does it matter?

(****This post is dedicated to the memory of Stanley Sterenberg, a dear friend and devoted reader (and commenter) to this blog since the first one was written over 12 years ago.  May his memory be a blessing.  You will be missed my friend.)

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Copyright, Richard Selznick, Ph.D.  2023, www.shutdownlearner.com.