Success for Children with Learning Disabilities: Emotional Coping and Proactivity
December 9, 2013
Taking Time to Reflect on Your Parenting
December 13, 2013
When helping your child with learning disabilities develop the 6 success factors of self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance, goal setting, social support systems and emotional coping strategies (all discussed in previous posts), it can be useful to revisit these factors as they apply to parenting a child who is struggling.
To begin with, how would you rate your own self-awareness with regard to your feelings about your son’s learning disabilities? Are you able to accept his challenges and speak openly about them? If not, what might be getting in your way? Figuring this out is an important first step before you can begin to help him develop his self-awareness.
Likewise, in learning to set goals, we want to help our children establish realistic, developmentally appropriate goals. We also need to be careful to limit the number of goals established at any one time. Just as you would steer your daughter away from unrealistic goals, so to you must allow yourself to focus on a few, attainable goals. Helping children learn new skills can be a long process. When we permit ourselves to break the goals down, even further than might seem necessary, we increase the likelihood of success. And, it is important to remember that we, as adults, need to experience competence in nurturing the development of the six success factors so that we can support our children’s growth.
For further ideas and activities, The Frostig Center has published, The 6 Success Factors for Children with Learning Disabilities: Ready-to-Use Activities to Help Kids with Learning Disabilities Succeed in School and in Life. While written for classroom teachers, many of the activities can be adapted for use at home.
