Why I love to talk to parents.

As licensed clinical social worker I have the privilege of interviewing hundreds of parents year about their parenting experience in America. I have noticed how quick and powerful Parent Guilt is in it’s impact on parents lives & children's lives. In my work as a family and child therapist who is particularly interested in how problems move through peoples lives I am uniquely placed to notice how the pathologizing of dyslexia has led to entire generations of children and parents believing that there is something wrong with the child.

There is nothing wrong with a dyslexic child. They are the way that God made them. And to quote Einstein “God does not play dice with universe.”  Your child who is dyslexic it is not broken.  He has traded out some of his ability to learn language or his ability to do some other language base skill in order to gain a superpower. It is your job to find that superpower and to support it's development.

Dyslexic students suffer from a series ideas that exist in modern schooling. They are the canaries in the coal mine of school. Most public schooling in the United States is based on the idea that people learn on an incremental edge and a set average rate. Schools are based around the idea that it is better to teach to the average of the class. Many dyslexic students are “slow” in the first few years of learning to read or write but then exploded later in life into these categories of knowledge

I was once one so myself. I was a student who could not read who could not write in a classroom filled with literate people. It is taken decades for me to recover from that experience. The school and its effort to teach me reading and writing taught me fear, isolation, loneliness and bitterness. Even now 43 years later my heart is heavy to think of the child I was.

I would love the chance to help your family avoid the costly mistakes that my family went through when I was a child.  I coach families nationwide in how to come to terms with the realities of having child with a learning disability.

http://www.ashevilletherapy.net

The mind is not a dumping ground (Part B)

If your child is exposed to pornography or other forms of digital violence the mind of your child will reflect that digital violence with physical and emotional chaos. Set your boundary of what is acceptable violence wisely and early in life. Yes the average child's mind is capable of incredible amounts of flexibility, but the dyslexic child is already has a lot on there plate why add more?

Remove access to violent video games, television programs or DVD’s. Place Internet accessible computers in common space for easy adult supervision. I am always shocked at how unaware adults and women in particular are of how close pornography is to there child’s easy exploration and curiosity. Internet controls are a must for any computer supervise. Computers with Internet access must be i public spaces and must be check regularly for inappropriate use.

Give yourself permission to not talk about adult emotional subjects with your child. This is incredible important not only in the avoidance of intellectual ideas that involve guilt or other depressing self sabotaging ideas, but also in the avoidance of using your child as dumping ground for your emotional storms. I am surprised by this because in my family it was not considered appropriate, but I horrified to discover as an adult that my family was the exception not the rule. Many children are placed it eh terribly uncomfortable position of being forced to comfort or play parent for there parents at a young age. If you find your self compaiing to your child about any aspect of your life - I woudl suggest this stop - just stop. Yea share your life iwth them - but leave out the emotional worries and troubles of being an adult. Especially if they are dyslexic or other wise Learning Disabled.

Say I love you to your child or teenager even if they look horrified. Say i love you a lot. because they should hear it every day of there life from somebody - why not you?

If your child is especially stressed out by there take them to your local city park and throw a ball, Frisbee or whatever other excuse you can come up with for them to be outside away from the literate world. Three weeks backpacking for teenagers is a great prescription for self-confidence. A weekend in the country with no TV, radio, video games or internet is a great way for the whole family to be de stress. Warning: A weekend in the country in an ideal place is not a replacement for a real relationship and can be an opportunity to realize how far from being in the moment your family has moved.

The mind is not a dumping ground (Part A)

Your mind reflects your environment and if you or your child is dyslexic you need to give the dyslexic mind every edge that it can get. Control or limit the amount of television, cable or movies that contain violent or horror content. Your trying to give the dyslexic mind a calm and tranquil world to be in. Dyslexic people live in an unstable world were left is right and time is unstable. If possible limit the expectation of adrenaline states.

I am addicted to sci-fi and spy movies. My parents were obsessed with murder mysteries. They taught me to love the adrenalin state that is created in the body when watching a video program. I am sure that many people reading this never considered the alternative, don’t have a television, DVD player or computer in the home until your youngest child is at least ten or eleven. This will set the pattern for the rest of there life.

But wait – I can hear the outcry – but my children will be excluded when all the other children talk about this movie or that youtube! Maybe – most likely they will just watch it at their friend’s house. At your house you will supply them with board games, paints, paper, pencils, crayons and a thousand other doorways into the imagination. Your house will be source of joy and imagination. Also of course boredom and complaints – but boredom is the sign of a free mind. Take it for what it is a compliment.

For more on the effect of TV on human culture check out
Four Arguments for the Elimination of television by Jerry Mander
As described in Wikipedia (Short)
As published in Mother Earth News (Long)

The body and the mind are attached.

Returning to my main topic of dyslexia let’s focus on one of the seven ideas I wish Americas would adopt in working with there dyslexic children.

I don’t really understand why the human race seems so attached to the idea that the brain is not attached to any fixed place and time. I think it may be our fear of mortality - that by recognizing that we are in fact in body with a digestive track that we are in fact mortal. Maybe it is our desire to think that as a race we are different then the animals that coexist on this planet. If a monkey ate what I considered a healthy diet as a child –donuts and Pepsi – the monkey would get very sick. Perhaps we are also searching for the magic elixir of life that will fix all problems, when in fact we just need to eat more greens and fruit – well all to more greens like say – 70% of our diet. Dyslexia is in the brain you can;t cure it - but you can improve the over all functioning of the brain.

If you are serious about supporting your child’s ability to think in a line then you need to look a their diet.

1) Remove all cane sugar and white flour from their diet. Sugar and white flour are two of the greatest evils that have every been created by mankind. I would love to tell you all about how I avoid them, but the truth is very different sugar is in everything and white flour is devilishly useful. Be strong when it comes to your children and your self. Change takes years of work so start today.

Sugar and white flour have been processed so that they are missing key micro nutrients that your child probably desperately needs. In addition the body strips it’s self of other vitamins to digest and process the sugar and white flour. Add to this that soil in many places is short on zinc, copper and magnesium and you get flour and sugar hat is short on digestible zinc, copper and magnesium. So you get people who are short on zinc, copper and magnesium.

This seems so obvious to me as to be ludicrous to even mention – but most people today don’t even take zinc supplements let alone test there body for heavy metal poisoning - Lead Mercury or the Tri Benzine's.

2) Replace these things with whole unprocessed foods in a balance format. What your child eats is what they become. Green and Fruit should be 70% of the diet. Even cooked greens are not good enough. It may seem impossible to get a child to eat fresh greens – however the secret seems to be Goddess Dressing available nation wide in most super markets. Any salad covered in goddess dressing is readily consumed by my youngest daughter for the last eight years. Yes you can still give your child omega 3 suplements - but really with out the basic building blocks what is the point of aiming high?

3) Have your child rotate foods so that the body has time to recover from allergic reactions to food.. (Food rotation is easier the at first it appears – rice on Monday couscous on Tuesday, Whole four bread on Wednesday and Thursday is Corn Bread with no wheat flour….) Most healthy children only need to rotate processed foods and not vegetables or fruits.

Considering that back ten thousand years ago our ancestors lived off a wide variety of foods. They almost never lived only on one substance – as for example wheat. Many children are allergic to wheat, sugar milk or even – food coloring. Just to get started. Try this blog post on Food rotation

4) If you are serious about supporting the stress levels the normal dyslexic child encounters in a school environment consider adding to their life a super food or green food supplement. I consume Super food a product by Dr. Shultz – a herbalist in California.
https://www.herbdoc.com/store/Scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=12&h=1
This is in unpaid endorsement – so if the good Dr would care to send me a few bottles I would be thrilled – ahh no? O'well I endorse anyway.

5) Last note – here are a few other things that have heard work well with dyslexic or ADD children.. a colon cleanse, regular visits to a chiropractor, Chinese herbalist and an acupuncturist.

I am interested in any positive experiences you have as a reader - leave me a comment and tell me what you think of my little tirade about the body and dyslexia…