Parents of Kids who have Learning Disability

“When you have your kids, you will understand what it means to be a parent”.

A common phrase you get to hear when you as a kid used to oppose your parent’s views or do not understand their point of view.

Parenthood is a wonderful phase, where you not only give birth to a life, but it’s also a rebirth for parents.  

If it is difficult to be a parent, it is even more difficult to be a parent of a child with special needs. As a parent we all try to give our 100% while raising our kids.  When we all agree that parenthood is not a smooth sailing, we sure agree that being parents to kids with learning disability requires acceptance, more patience, more courage and unconditional love. When we talk about kids with learning needs, parents have to give 200%.

Kids with Learning difficulties and Education system

We all remember the important milestones in our kid’s life, first word, first step, first day of the school of our child and we wait with waited breaths for the FIRST RESULT. The education system in India has made us MRAKS crazy. Marks matter the most and so does the teachers remarks. What is lost in all this is the child who is probably struggling to read, remember or even recognize. Identifying kids with Learning disability is the first step towards their better future, making learning easier for them.

It is very painful for parents to accept the fact that “something is wrong”; be it problems in vocalizing, playing with sounds, and learning to speak.  Parents feel that some kids are late talkers, some stutter, stammer or lisper and hence ignore the early symptoms of learning disabilities.

Second mistake that is often committed is at schools, the teachers who are not properly trained to identify the symptoms simply feel that the inability of the child to catch up with the things taught in classroom is due to his/her hyperactive nature, lack of concentration or poor memory or parents laid back attitude.

What to expect when your child is diagnosed with a Learning Disability?

Anger, Fear, Frustration, Guilt, Helplessness, Depression and Denial and other wide range of negative emotions is what parents go through when their child is having a learning disability.

Parents often feel guilty because they feel their child’s learning disabilities are somehow their fault. But, that is not true. Parents may tend to feel that if they had been stricter, demanded more, forced more practice, it would have changed the situation. That would not have changed the situation.

So first thing that a parent needs to do is ACCEPT, accepting the reality will make it easier for the parents as well as the kid to go ahead with the remedial coaching and treatment. Recognizing the fact will help in controlling your negative emotions and at the same time will pave way for further course of action i.e. treatment.

Second is to UNDERSTAND the nature of the disability- get it tested and confirmed from a psychologist. This will help you in knowing the exact problems faced by the kid and helping the kid in his/her efforts to learn and study. Further it will ease out your helplessness. It is rightly said that once you know the who is your enemy, half the battle is won. The feeling of “Something is wrong” will go and as you know now what is wrong; that “Something” will be crystal clear in front of you.

Further it is important to inform the school and teachers about the condition of the child so that appropriate steps can be taken to teach the child. The teacher’s role is also extremely important for a learning disabled child as it is the teacher who can instill confidence and develop interest in learning process.

Third is to SUPPORT and ENCOURAGE the child in the learning process. The child who is labeled as “dumb”, “inattentive”, “hyper”, “different” has developed a low self esteem. Every other look towards him/her makes the child feel insecure and it is here that the encouragement and support from parents plays a pivotal role. The child will look up to you for knowing if he/she is doing well. And therefore the parents’ verbal and non verbal language should be motivating.

Finally the parents need to have POSITIVE ATTITUDE and NEVER GIVE UP during the process. Teaching children with learning disability requires patience as the child will learn at his/her own pace. The parent’s frustration will demotivate the child and will create a depressing environment at home.

The parents need to make sure that the child’s study area is made interesting with help of colorful charts, interactive audio visual aids and above all parent’s presence during study time. Developing individualized plan for them, caring for them, being there for them is what parents need to do.

Your kids will change their disability into their ability ,with you by their side.