Here are my top tips in helping your children with learning and thinking differences obtain success and harmonize your family. It’s an accumulation of wisdom I gained over the years, which has been a long and arduous road. I share these tips and hope it will help you along your journey. Here goes…
Prioritize self-care. If you’re not well, it’s hard to do right by your child.
Practice self-compassion. Be nice to yourself. Resist the guilt trap or taking blame for your child’s issues. Know that you’re doing the best you can and pat yourself on the back.
Love your child and support them. Try to understand their differences and help them understand it too. Support their strengths and weaknesses.
Seek out information and learn. The more knowledge you have, the more empowered you will be to help your child. Continue to learn, as new research and resources come out all the time.
Take action. Don’t wait and see and hope the problem will go away. Get your child the help they need. Rely on expertise of qualified professionals, but also trust your intuition. Make sure it’s right for your family.
Be Persistent. Resources may be limited in your area, so that’s where persistence pays off. Keep following up – you may get lucky.
Advocate for your child at school and teach them to advocate for themselves, especially as he/she gets older.
Develop a good working partnership with teachers, tutors, and other providers. Kindness matters!
In a two parent household, have a united front and work together. When parents disagree, it creates additional stress for the child. The goal is to teach your child how to cope with stress and manage their emotions, which is hard to do in a stressful environment.
Enforce consistency with rules. This can be difficult to do, but especially important for the kiddos that need structure.
Don’t forget bedtimes and adequate sleep! It can make a huge difference for us parents and our kiddos.
Give chores and plenty of them. Helps them build life skills, like responsibility and teamwork. I like to use additional chores as a consequence too.
Know that you are not alone. Find support and connect with other parents who are on similar paths. It’s comforting to hear from other parents who are experiencing the same frustrations as you.
Remember the long term goal…what we want our child to become someday and work on skills to help them prepare for life.
Lastly, don’t forget to have some fun. Sometimes when you’re managing the day-to-day (or not very spontaneous like me), you need a reminder. 🙂
I hope that you find some of these tips helpful. Please consider sharing your tips with me. Thanks in advance!