The Parent as a Coach
- The mother of a child with learning disabilities and ADHD
When you take in your hand "The Parent as a Coach" and start reading it, you'll be tested with a variety of feelings, from fear, sadness, and anger until excitement, relief, and hope. You can document your experiences as you move along the journey and write down your thoughts and ideas. You'll use them to sketch out the map that leads you to the place where your child feels confident and happy and you, as parents, can experience parenthood with a sense of giving, hope, and spontaneity.
If it's still difficult for you to see the big picture of your life as parents of a child with learning disabilities, let your child show you the small picture which he sees, from which he goes out to the world, because this is the point of departure where you will begin your journey together.
Mali Danino, CEO of Nitzan and Lecturer in the Learning Disabilities Program at Haifa University. In the past, she established the Learning Disabilities Branch at the Israeli Ministry of Education, was a high school principal and school counselor.
The book can be purchased through Rimonim Publishing at a reduced price by calling: 03-613-1794 or 052-230-5000.
It can also be purchased at your local book store.
With kind generosity, Rimonim Publishing, has permitted us to present the public the chapter "Speaking with Your Children About Learning Disabilities:"
"Speaking with Your Child about Learning Disabilities"
The teacher called me to come to the school. She told me, "It's such a shame that he doesn't participate in the Shavuot ceremony".
"I didn't know that he didn't want to participate", I answered her.
I went home and couldn't stop thinking, what's happening to him? Why doesn't he want to take part? When I asked Yaron what's the story with the Shavuot ceremony, he answered me that it's just a stupid ceremony and who needs it anyway. I replied, "Sweetheart, there are thirty kids in your class, some are no more intelligent than you and they are participating in the ceremony, so you can do it too."
He didn't agree, so I told him that I have an offer that will make it worth his while. I told him that if he'll participate in the ceremony then he'll also get a prize from me for taking part. The alternative is not to participate in the ceremony and not to get a prize from me.
A short discussion began regarding the size of the prize and when we came to terms he broke out in tears and said, "In all of my life, I'll never know how to do the dance they're doing at the ceremony". I reminded him that there are also songs at the ceremony and not just dancing.
On the day of the ceremony he sang with everyone else and at the time of the dancing came and stood by me and said to me, "I don't understand why I'm not participating, I know the dance just as well as them."
I told him that now he knows that before each ceremony there are rehearsals and they practice the dance and in the future he too can participate. He said to me, "Mom, you don't understand anything, just by dancing at the rehearsals I wouldn't know; I know it from watching them at the rehearsals."
[The mother notes] "Since he has difficulty planning his movements, he would have gotten confused and this would have ruined his social status and therefore he acted wisely when he didn't want to participate. But from the moment that we identified the method that can, in fact, help him (i.e. watching the dancing), I asked the teacher to let him watch the preparations for the ceremonies and whenever he would say that he's ready, only then he would join the others.
It was important not to give up on his participation in the ceremony since he would think that this ceremony isn't for him and that the ceremony is something frightening. And even more than this, I learned that the way to find a solution is to see the things through Yaron's eyes and that the key for success is talking with your child about the disability."
If you see that your children are speaking about school in a different way all of a sudden, don't try to hide from what they're saying. Since you know them better than anyone else, be sensitive to the hints they're giving you. Frustration can express itself in sentences like: "I hate school", "Nobody likes me", "I don't know how to draw", and "Other kids laugh at how I talk".
An older child is likely to say things like: "This school is retarded, why do I have to go there anyway?" or, "Do you see Mom, I'm retarded...the teacher moved me to the group of dumb kids in math."
Many children are not able to express their emotions in words; however, they show you in other ways that something's not okay with them. They tear up the homework that they did or other school assignments, they refuse to tell how their day was, or they have exaggerated responses with fits of anger. They say that they don't have homework or they forget to turn in their work. They don't want to go to school and they complain about pains and sicknesses in order to stay at home, and they say that they don't have any friends and that nobody loves them.
How are you supposed to react to these behaviors? If your child's behavior continues for a couple of weeks, ask yourself if there is another explanation for his behavior, like a new baby at home, a family illness, or entry into a new school. It's important to check what the teacher says about the child's behavior and performance at school.
If you can speak with your child about his specific learning disabilities in a way that projects thorough and caring knowledge, there's a greater chance that this will strengthen his self image. He will develop more effective coping methods, and he will learn to evaluate his skills and talents in school and also outside of school. In the end, self awareness, self advocacy, self respect, and hard work will be the key for his success.
Finding the right words to define your child's learning disability for him will probably be quite a difficult task. A general statement like, "Your brain is unique and it works in a different way", can help the child understand that everyone's brain is unique. Choose terms after deep thought and use words with which you feel most comfortable. Encourage other adults who are around your child to use the same description that you're using for his learning disabilities, in order to maintain consistency.
For some of the children, it will probably be worthwhile to soften the word "different" with a more optimistic explanation like, "Differences in the way your brain works are likely to cause you to be more talented in certain fields than other children". Tell him about family members and friends in his position that succeeded in their lives, or about famous people with learning disabilities.
Also little children worry about their functioning at school. At this time, most of the children are beginning to identify their strong and weak areas, whether talking about learning or sports. Children begin to compare between themselves and their peers and begin to develop a sense of self worth. When you speak about your child's learning difficulties, promise him that you and his teachers are here for him and are working together in order to help him succeed at school, that he doesn't need to face this alone.
If you think that this is appropriate, let him participate in your meetings and conferences with his teachers. If he's directly involved in finding an appropriate solution for himself, then there's a greater chance that he'll be more committed to trying and improving.
Children in 4th and 5th grades are experts at claiming, "Yeah, but..." that can raise questions about success."Yeah, but I got an F in copying from the board, so I'll never succeed." When you hear him talking like this, try to help him to focus on the small picture. "I see that copying is really hard for you, come let us think together how to help you succeed in copying next week. Talk about the things that he can do in a different way. These are the ways in which you can help him. Remember, it's vital that you give him all of the help that you're promising him.
In the upper elementary school grades, children are already supposed to be well aware of their strong and difficult areas. If your child recognizes himself as "weak" or "slow", help him understand the difference between a specific learning disability and low intelligence. Children with learning disabilities have average or above average intelligence; therefore, they are smart enough to learn.
Tell your child that in certain subjects he needs certain methods in order to succeed. Be honest with him regarding his difficulties; however, supply him with factual information about his intelligence and his strong areas. Help him understand that his learning disabilities are part of his personality, part of who he is (e.g. "True, you have difficulties in reading, but you're an amazing soccer player, you're a great big brother, and you're a champion in computer games. Problems with reading are part of who you are). This will help him keep motivated and develop stability and flexibility in the long term.
Adolescence is likely to be an especially difficult period for you and your child with learning disabilities. This is an age where conversation with your adolescent child on the topic of learning disabilities can be especially difficult, however, also especially important. The child is busy with attempting to form for himself an individual identity. He invests large amounts of time in revealing his independence in the face of authority, with devoted backing of his friends and testing your opinions and values. In addition to this, the academic requirements in school increase by large measure.
All of these factors are likely to make communication between the both of you difficult regarding his learning difficulties. Open, direct, and consistent communication with your adolescent child will help him build qualities of self consciousness and self advocacy that will serve him in the future.
Taken from the site "Sefarim l'Lo Yerakot", Recommendations, Criticisms, and Reviews of Books based on the Impressions of their Readers.
From the emotional words of Ayalah on the book "The Parent as a Coach" by Mali Danino.
The book for me was like a mirror of internal contemplation. It's not a book I read all at one time. I read a page, a paragraph, and when there was something connected with me or my child in a specific way, I put the book on the side and deepened in encompassing thought about how I acted, what I could have done differently, which decisions I made that I'd like to take with me, and most importantly, what do I leave behind from the way that I acted in the past that has affected my future actions.
I took this book to read because I was caught by the title "The Parent as a Coach". That was enough for me to be interested and to read.
We're all coaches to a certain extent for our children. A child comes to the world and learns everything possible, firstly from his parents.
The second title, "The Journey of a Parent of a Child with Learning Disabilities and/or ADHD" didn't lessen my desire or jerk me away from my initial feeling that this book will benefit me in some way, even though I'm not dealing with raising a child who is defined like this, rather, I raise a perfectly normal child (which is always the initial description), a child with a physical handicap and cerebral palsy.
The journey is the same journey. Whether you're raising a completely normal child or a child with special needs of any kind: the coping with needs, situations, in daily life and in the different stages of growth, and especially in the transitions from infancy to childhood and to adulthood which cause us to confront things which aren't closed or solved by us, such that the journey is mutual.
I took the book to read; when from the outset I decided that I'm exchanging, consciously, every paragraph that I happen upon the phrase "attention-deficit", with my own personal phrase, parent of a child with special needs, and in my case, my child, a child with CP.
I can say that this book came to me just at the right time, at the right time for me and for my child, in our mutual journey, at this point in time, of separation from childhood and the transition to the stage of adulthood.
A stage in which it's possible to summarize a period, and to get ready for the next period in a little more organized way in order to get through it with less difficulties on both sides.
I wanted to test the tool box which the compiler offers and to see if there's something there that could fit us. There was a lot there. Since the beginning of the reading, I read one page, and I understood that there's a lot here for me.
I could check, with a look backwards, the way that I acted, in most cases, what was incorrect, and how now I can simply use new tools.
Our first meeting with the handicap was a complete shock. There was a resistance to understand in essence what was happening and towards what we're heading. My lack of desire to receive help and to try to do things in my own way sometimes brought success and sometimes failures. The author dedicates a complete chapter to the first meeting and the parents' coping: beginning with the stage of getting the news, the denial, the self blaming, the difficulties and the frustrations, and the family's coping with and around a special child.
In our specific case, the child has very high learning abilities, and also with children with ADHD. The gap is with the desire to do things and the motor ability that prevents a little. I considered even to turn to Nitzan to test the child, in order to see and to receive exact information about his abilities. I wanted help coping in class with teachers that demand a lot and aren't willing to give in to a child because of his high level, but they don't understand that there's a gap between his abilities to express himself orally and his actual performance. This is what caused us as parents to do things for our child so that he wouldn't experience the difficulties. This just brought about different difficulties. We are the ones who are doing for the child, and he continues to be stuck in the same situation where he receives external help, which isn't exactly the help that he needs.
We are the personal coaches for our children, all the way, beginning from the toddler stage until the latest stages in life.
The information in the book gives parents the tools to go with...and not to go against.
To go with the child and not against.
To go with the system and not against.
To go with the problem/disability and not against.
The purpose is to learn, to develop, and to do the best within the limitations of the present framework and sometimes even more. Not to raise up one's hands in despair, but to know that those very parents who acted 40 years ago and laid the foundations for treating the problems of children with ADHD and succeeded in bringing the topic to the front of the stage and today to treat the problem without the child having to experience a lack of ability to learn.
The beginning of the journey in the book is a request to deal with our feelings. This is the basis of a successful journey with specific children and in general. Our feelings, the parents, have a great influence on the children who absorb everything. And at some stage the children are likely also to "take advantage" of these feelings for their personal needs.
The book is highly recommended since it certainly encompasses all of the fields of coping with the problem of ADHD especially since the author comes from within the field.
The book for me was like a mirror of internal contemplation. It's not a book I read all at one time. I read a page, a paragraph, and when there was something connected with me or my child in a specific way, I put the book on the side and deepened in encompassing thought about how I acted, what I could have done differently, which decisions I made that I'd like to take with me, and most importantly, what do I leave behind from the way that I acted in the past that has affected my future actions.
The book is certainly a small individual journey, inwards with a stop for refreshening, with a stop on the side of the way to collect new tools, with paths that can change their ways, to stop each time in a different path in order to absorb, to analyze, learn, and to internalize.
With short and long stops.
The book focuses only on how to help the child and to advance him against the system. There isn't any information on the medical problem etc., which is certainly the right thing and doesn't overload information.
Highly recommended as I said not only for parents of children with ADHD, but also for parents who are interested to receive tools how to act against the system in a correct and building way.
An important detail that I want to note now as I looked over the book, there isn't overloading on the pages, written in a very clear manner with a lot of space, in other words, on every page there isn't overcrowding of words which makes it easier and maybe there is a certain intention which passes over somehow through the pages, as it's written, and it's recommended to relate to all of this topic of "The Parent as a Coach": to leave a lot of space for the child, space for his own personal development without the parents or the system overloading their presence on his life.