Tips for Parents

Tip: 1. Parents, if something hurts, you go to a doctor. If your child is hurting educationally you need to seek help, find out what is wrong, and what can be done to make it better. Don't rely on assumptions or a relative's advice. Start the process to seekinformation from experiencedexperts.

Tip: 2. You need a COMPLETE picture of your child in order to help your child and develop a correct plan. Don’t stop looking because you received one label, such as ADD.

Tip: 3. The earlier the intervention the better. You don’t want to wait until holding student back is suggested or the child feels bad about him or herself.

Tip: 4.Many learning disabilities are for life, not just during school.

Tip: 5.Only in K-12 is your child required to be fluent in every aspect of education. Post-schooling years can lead to unexpected successes. You and your child will need to be patient during the difficult school years. They need to prepare for careers that are good matches to the learning disability.

Tip: 6. Remember, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and if it doesn’t help, STOP DOING IT.

Tip: 7. Some perfectly good methods will not work with teenagers – THEY WILL REFUSE TO USE THEM and will call them babyish.

Tip: 8. Every child is different. Every IEP or set of services will be slightly different. If they aren’t, that indicates a problem with the IEP process.

Tip: 9. There are many costly “solutions” available. Get neutral references and search chat rooms for comments before you buy. You need to match the solution to the child.

Tip: 10. Know your child well enough so that you can separate out normal teen behavior from problem behavior when they reach that age.

Tip: 11. Watch for characteristics common in many learning disabilities that cause other problems: very low spelling scores (problems learning foreign language and writing); poor study skills (impact all subjects); strength matched with great weakness (read well orally but can’t understand what read); embarrassment (“forget” homework, cheat to get test thrown out, start a fight when their turn to read out loud, etc.)