When I first found out my son was dyslexic, my heart sank. His life as I knew it, had just vanished. All the hopes and dreams I had for him, disappeared. I wondered if he was going to be able to read, would he always need help, how would he make it to college?
My son had been struggling with speech, friendships, hyperactivity, reading and writing for a while. By the time he was 2nd grade, we had already done speech, occupational, vision, behavior, and neurodevelopment therapy. Some of that was helpful, some was not. I thought these therapies would cure him and we’d be done. So in 2nd grade, when we got the dyslexia diagnosis, I was devastated.
I felt guilty, that I didn’t catch it sooner.
I felt at a loss for his future and uncertainty of his outcome. My dreams and hopes for my child seemed to evaporate at the moment of diagnosis. I felt like my child’s future had died.
Perhaps some of you have felt the same.
I thought after all the therapies we’d already done, why wasn’t he cured? What I didn’t know is that with each of my children there would be ongoing fixes. You “fix” one thing, you find another thing in need of repair.
Till this day, I still get a little depressed when I find another challenge, but the pity party doesn’t last long. And I have my husband who helps me put things into perspective.
I move on to the “now what are we going to do about it?” phase much faster. The thing is I didn’t understand about learning differences and so I embarked on this journey to learn all I could to help my child succeed.
Years ago, I picked up the book, “Overcoming Dyslexia,” by Dr. Sally Shaywitz, she’s a dyslexia expert and co-director of Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. It was written in 2003 , but a second edition came out this year – which is wonderful. In her book she says,
“all dyslexics that have become successful by any account share the unfailing love and support of their parent(s), a grandparent, or teacher.”
There weren’t many resources online nine years ago. I did it the old fashion way and made phone call after phone call, and learned from people.
I also did a dyslexia simulation which helped me gain an understanding of what my son went thru. It was great, they even scolded us and made us feel stupid because we couldn’t get the answers right. I remember balling thru that presentation because I could finally understand my son’s frustration and what he went thru daily. It helped build patience. Websites, like understood.org have simulations you can try.
Fast forward to today, it’s a great time to learn about learning and thinking differences and how to help your child. There are many books, online resources and tools to help our children. And now with technology your child can access help from experts located anywhere in the world! That’s just amazeballs!