Momma on the East Coast: The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year?!

Momma on the East Coast: The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year?!: The holidays can prove stressful, not only for adults, but children too.      So here are some tips to help everyone enjoy this specia...

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year?!

The holidays can prove stressful, not only for adults, but children too.    So here are some tips to help everyone enjoy this special time of year…

Have “Stay at Home” Days.  It is a regular occurrence in our house for our son to announce it is a “Stay at Home Day” on a Saturday after a busy week.  I have learned to listen to his need for down time, which benefits us parents too.  There are loads of holiday events going on, but you don’t need to attend all of them!   Choose the events that are most meaningful to your family.  You also don’t need to be the last ones to leave a holiday gathering.  

Take Breaks.   There is a lot of hustle and bustle about this time of year.   Want to prevent a meltdown?  Take a break…a quick snack in a quiet corner somewhere (even in the car) can go a long way in managing sensory overload.   You can also take advantage of drop-off programs offered by your local community center, churches, and play centers.    Or trade off childcare with friends. 

Be Flexible.   Get rid of the “have tos”.   At the end of the day, does it really matter if you have a Santa photo with your child smiling?    I gave up on this years ago.   I would rather not stand in a line up with a bunch of overly excited kids and stressed out parents just to get the coveted Santa photo with my son becoming more and more sensory overloaded with each agonizing minute waiting for his turn.   This year we were lucky to go to breakfast with Santa at a local community center.  There were not a lot of people and our son did get a photo with Santa…however he made mommy stay in the picture with him.  It just makes it more special!    

And Last But Not Least…

Remember the Reason for the Season.   Whatever that means for you and your family.  For us, it means not just doing the required holiday visits, but being in the moment and appreciating the love around us.

Just breathe…and a glass of wine or an extra cookie never hurt anyone!   Happy holidays everyone!

To Tell or Not to Tell

Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.   

                                                                                                 -  Jo Brand

Many parents struggle with the decision to disclose their child’s diagnosis.   In my experience, exposing a person’s diagnosis can lead to a lowering of expectations, behaviorally, academically and in sports.   This is not only true for children, but adults too.  While children can face difficulty with achieving academic success, adults in the workplace can struggle with obtaining career advancement. 

As we embark on a new school year, many parents are likely concerned about how their child’s learning differences will impact on academic achievement and their school experience.  I have heard from several parents that they feel it is the school’s responsibility to identify whether their child has learning challenges, and if she or he does, to address these challenges.  In a perfect world, our schools would be able to do this.  What it would likely mean is smaller class sizes, additional teaching resources, and better training for teachers on how to identify and address learning differences. 

I think it is very important to understand that children with learning differences have the capacity to learn, they simply learn differently from their peers.  A learning difference does not correlate with a child’s intelligence.  Many parents, me included, worry that by disclosing their child’s learning differences, he will be labelled as less intelligent than is peers.  Our son has already become aware of his learning differences, and has voiced that he is not smart.  As you can imagine, I found this heartbreaking to hear coming from the mouth of our creative and curious little boy.  It also concerned me that his enjoyment in learning would be negatively impacted. 

We decided to disclose our son’s challenges to our school, prior to his starting school, because we wanted to work with our school to ensure adaptations were provided to enable our son to succeed in the classroom.  For me, it was also important that his teacher was aware of what to look for if he was becoming frustrated or disengaged in the classroom, and for us to be engaged in discussions about solutions.   

I will not lie, it hasn’t been easy obtaining resources for our son.  We take each school year one month at a time.  We remain in close contact with our school, and have also sought resources outside of our school.  There have been many frustrations and some success on the way.

Whether a parent chooses to disclose their child’s diagnosis is a very personal decision.  There are many factors that come into play, including how impactful a child’s diagnosis is on their learning experience, support of family and friends, and the parents own feelings about their child’s diagnosis.  

There is no right answer here.  We do what we think is right for our children.  Hopefully, with better education around learning differences and related diagnoses, our school system will grow to be better equipped at managing the learning needs of all children.  In the meantime, we keep pressing onward.  

Violence in Our Schools

“Education is the vaccine for violence”

Edward James Olmos

                                                                                                                                                                           I was listening to the news on my way to the office recently and was quite appalled by what I was hearing.  They were discussing the increasing number of violent incidents in our schools.  A few people who called in, one of those callers being a teacher, correlated the increasing number of children with needs in the classroom to the increasing reports of violence.  Nice simplification of a complex issue. 

When you really delve into the statistics (see: http://chatnewstoday.ca/article/513648/ns-releases-data-violence-faced-teachers-1800-incidents-last-year) the majority of the incidents took place at the elementary school level.   Which on the surface might suggest that our children are becoming more violent, but let’s employ some common sense here. 

Children do not know how to behave until we teach them, and, like any new skill, they need opportunity to practice it before they master it.  We tend to tell children what not to do (keep your hands to yourself, don’t be rude, etc.) but don’t often tell them what to do instead if they are experiencing frustration and feel the need to act out in response.  In a previous blog post I referred to the Zones Of Regulation.  This is a great program to aid children with recognizing their feelings and offering tools on how to response appropriately.  

Our family has benefited from having a child with needs.  This may sound strange, but the reason why I say this is because we have become better able to recognize emotional responses, not only in our son, but in other people as well.  I also understand that all people, adults and children included, need to have a sense of control.  Control over their environments and their person.  We can empower children, not by telling them what to do, but by helping them voice what they need in the moment (for example s time away from the classroom). 

We all have bad days, and that is okay.  However, there are also consequences to our actions.  I agree with consequences, but also that we need to treat incidents of aggression as learning moments.  Not only asking the child what s/he could have done differently, but also asking ourselves what we could have done to prevent the incident.   

Finally, I would like to point out that there have always been children with needs in our classrooms, regardless of whether there is inclusion or not.  Many children are not adequately assessed, or assessed at all.  And, all children make errors in judgement.  They are human after all!

I welcome your comments and input as always. 

                                           

Empathy and the “Bully”

In my last blog post I talked about emotional self-regulation. What is it and how can we help facilitate good emotional self-regulation in our children.  Being able to regulate one’s own emotional responses is an essential component to empathy.  When teaching children empathy, one of the first steps is helping children identify feelings, both in themselves and others.  Why is it important to teach our children empathy?  Empathy helps children see the world through someone else’s eyes.  Empathetic children become compassionate adults.  Which is wonderful…until your child feels bullied. 

Our son came home after school complaining (again) about a child who was being a “bully”.  Frustrated by hearing yet another tale of our son being physically accosted, the momma bear in me felt like marching down to the school and scolding the child in question.  However, once a calmer head prevailed I decided to address the situation in a different way. 

I told my son that what the child did was wrong, however I asked our son why he thought the child was acting in that way.  Our son looked at me inquisitively.  We talked about how not everyone thinks before doing.  That the child was likely not thinking about how his actions could be hurtful to others.

There are many reasons why a child might act in a hurtful way toward others, but that doesn’t mean he should get a pass on his behaviour.  And let’s face it, everyone can act like a jerk sometimes!  We can’t change everyone else’s behaviour, but we can manage our own responses.  This is an important lesson for our children to learn. 

I remember when our son was young bringing him to an indoor play centre.   Our son ran to me upset by another child who was pushing him.   I told him that he did not have to play with the child, that we do not spend time with others who are not being nice.  Our son promptly told the child that he does not play with people who are not nice.  This was empowering to our son and also stopped the other child in his tracks.  We are always teaching our children to be nice, but forget to tell them when others are not nice they do not have to stand for it. 

At home where our son is most comfortable we have him practice what he would say if faced with unwelcome behaviour.  Rather than run away and tell an adult right away, we want our son to feel confident asserting himself and using his words effectively.  We also chat about what “bullying” means, because I think this term has become overused.  But, that is a discussion for another time.  I welcome your comments and opinions, as always.