231 results for: "social emotional learning"
5 social-emotional learning games to play with your child
Many schools have started teaching kids how to do things like cope with feelings, set goals, and get along with others. It’s called social-emotional learning. You can help your child work on these skills at home, too.Here are a handful of activities that can help your child manage emotions and work on social skills — and have some fun with you along the way. These games are very low-tech. And all are designed to fit easily into daily routines.1. Starfish and tornadoesThe goal: To help kids notice how much energy they’re feeling inside. When they know they have too much energy, they can either use their own calming skills or ask for help from a trusted adult.How to play: Make a picture of a thermometer. Draw a starfish at the bottom and a tornado at the top. Ask if your child feels calm and peaceful like a starfish or revved up like a tornado. When your child is feeling over-energized, brainstorm together about ways to feel more like a starfish. For example, bouncing a ball can help release some of that energy.Try playing this game at different times of day, and help your child describe the energy levels. For example, if you play this game before dinner, you can say, “You have so much energy, I bet you could run up and down the stairs five times before I finish cooking!”Keep in mind: Self-awareness can help kids build a skill called self-regulation. This skill is about managing your internal energy. It helps kids manage their emotions and their body movements during tough situations. It also helps them pay attention and learn. 2. Turtle timeThe goal: To help kids practice observing what’s going on around them. Picking up on social cues helps kids get their needs met and understand the perspective of others.How to play: When you and your child get to the playground and other places, look around like a turtle in a slow, exaggerated fashion. Take turns sharing details about what you see: “All the swings are taken.” “There’s a short line for the slide.”Help your child connect these observations with choosing how to behave. For example, when the swings are crowded, your child may decide to go on the slide first.Keep in mind: You don’t have to pretend to be turtles. You could pull out your pretend binoculars or a special pair of glasses to help you see better. You could also play “I spy with my little eye.” You and your child can take turns spotting social interactions and describing them until the other player finds what you’re looking at.3. “Who am I right now?”The goal: To build self-awareness and help identify your child’s strengths. These skills can also help with decision-making and understanding the perspective of others.How to play: Get some index cards. Use them to draw pictures of your child doing something positive, like being a good helper or being a good teacher. Brainstorm about other cards your child could make.To help your child come up with ideas, comment whenever you notice your child’s positive behaviors: “You just offered to teach your sister a nursery rhyme. Let’s talk for a second about what kind of person you’re being right now.”Keep in mind: Many families try to teach social-emotional skills by commenting on negative behavior. But don’t forget to catch your child doing something good. Praising good behavior often leads to more of it.Also, you can buy these kinds of cards or find templates online. But kids might like making the cards themselves.4. Let’s make a dealThe goal: To help kids learn to compromise. Practicing how to see things from another person’s perspective can help your child consider other people’s needs.How to play: When you and your child can’t agree, use the tune of “This Old Man” to sing these lines: “You want this. I want that. How can we both get what we want?” Then brainstorm solutions and choose the best idea for right now. For example, if your child is demanding to bake cookies at 8 a.m., the best solution might be to wait two hours so you can bake when the baby is napping.Keep in mind: Your child may have trouble letting go of an idea. Together you can pick the best of the runner-up ideas and put them in a special container. The next time you have a conflict, read through all of these ideas to help find the best solution for right now.5. Taking turns taking chargeThe goal: To help develop self-awareness, make decisions, and see other people’s perspective.How to play: Start a tradition where one night a week, you and your child (or the whole family) take turns planning a fun night. You could stick to a theme, like choosing which food to eat, movie to watch, or game to play. Or leave things wide open, and let the person in charge pick.Keep in mind: It might help to make a chart of positive behaviors. It could have categories like “Waiting my turn” and “Staying calm when doing something I don’t like.” After the activity, get everyone to rate themselves. Then talk about what’s been working well and what they want to improve on.Ready to learn more about social-emotional development? Find out which social-emotional skills to expect at different ages. Learn common myths about social-emotional learning. You can also watch this video for more ideas.
In ItWhy summer camp has lasting benefits for neurodivergent kids
Summer camp is a tradition for many kids. But does summer camp work for kids who learn differently? Summer camp has become a tradition for many kids. But does summer camp work for kids who learn differently? How do you find the right camp that can support your child’s needs? Will your child make friends?In this episode, hosts Amanda Morin and Gretchen Vierstra get answers from the ultimate expert: a camp director. Audrey Monke has been running a summer camp for 37 years. She’s also the author of Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults. Hear Audrey’s advice on summer camp — from how to choose one to what to tell camps about your child. Learn how camps help kids develop social skills, build relationships, and gain independence. Plus, Audrey shares tips on how to bring the magic of summer camp into your home.Related resources What is social emotional-learning?Sleepaway camp checklist: How to get your child readyAnd check out Audrey’s book: Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving AdultsEpisode transcriptAmanda: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It." On this podcast, we offer perspective, stories, and advice for and from people who have challenges with reading, math, focus, and other types of learning differences. We talk to parents, caregivers, teachers, experts, and sometimes even kids. I'm Amanda Morin. I'm the director of thought leadership for Understood, and I'm a parent to kids who learn differently.Gretchen: And I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood. And today we're talking about summer camp.Amanda: Sending kids to summer camp and especially overnight camp can be kind of daunting, especially for parents of kids who are neurodivergent. So how do you find the right camp?Gretchen: And what if the camp can't meet the needs of your child?Amanda: And is it really worth it to send them off when it could be so much easier, probably cheaper, and certainly less nerve-racking to keep them at home or with a caregiver nearby?Gretchen: With us today to get into all of this is Audrey Monke.Amanda: Audrey is the host of the Sunshine Parenting Podcast and the author of "Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults."Gretchen: In her book, she shares the many insights she's gained — as a researcher and as a camp director for 37 years — on how we at home can help our kids develop social skills and become happy, healthy, independent, and responsible.Amanda: Audrey, welcome to "In It."Audrey: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.Gretchen: We are so happy to have you here.Amanda: So my big question for you before we get into the nitty-gritty of this is what's great about summer camp and what does it have to offer that we can't give kids through other kinds of experiences?Audrey: The unique contribution and this is, you know, there hasn't been well, there's been some research on summer camps, but recently there's been a lot more out of the University of Utah. They did a longitudinal study retrospectively asking people "What is it that your camp experiences contributed to your development?" And the number one thing that came out from everything was relationship skills. Relational skills and the actual relationships and friendships that are formed. And I think a lot of people could say, oh, well, kids form relationships everywhere — on their sports teams and at school.But the unique thing about camp is that for traditional camps, so ones that aren't focused on a specific like soccer camp or something like that, our main focus is on the community, the friendships, the social-emotional skills. So we are not at all concerned with how a kid is doing in math or how they're doing dribbling a soccer ball. Our focus and what our counselors and what we are trained and working on all the time is the relationship stuff, the connection, and the fun. So it's a unique thing in that way in that our goal, we sit down and we talk about what we're doing. Our goals for our campers at my camp are to have fun, make friends, and grow.Amanda: I think you just explained something that I didn't understand about my own childhood, to be honest. I went to summer camp every summer from the time I was 8, and I went to overnight camp. And all year long I looked forward to going to summer camp. It was like I missed it throughout the year. And it didn't even occur to me till now that that's where I felt most comfortable. Do you think the same bonds are built through overnight and day camps?Audrey: I definitely think they can be. It just depends on the program and what the focus is. So I would just say find out what the goals and philosophy are of the program. There are some phenomenal day camp programs that are very focused on building community and the friendships, skills, and all the social-emotional stuff. I have a special affinity for the overnight experience because of the immersion piece of it and the independent piece of it. I think it's pretty magical thing for young kids to have this time away from parents to really discover themselves. You talked about feeling like you loved your camp and you felt at home there. We hear that a lot from campers. We hear that they feel like they can be their best self at camp. And I think part of that is as we're so well-meaning as parents, we love our kids, and we want to be there with them for everything they do because it's so fun to watch them learn new things and all this.But a lot of the growth that our kids will experience in life happens away from us. You know that look that even little kids, well, you know, they're about to do something new and they turn around to look to see what they're — what the expression is. Is this safe? Should I try this? And even when we're not trying, our expression sometime is like, oh my gosh, that looks scary. I don't know if I want to do that. So there's just this part. And it's not just camp, it's also allowing our kids with other mentors and adults and clubs letting them grow their wings sometimes without us. So that's another just aspect of this, it's a lot of people don't even consider sending their kids to overnight camp. It's just way too scary, daunting. You know, they just aren't comfortable with it, because that's letting other people be in charge of your children. And it is, it's a huge trust leap. But what parents see after their child comes home is this growth and this confidence and maturity that is because they weren't there with them.Gretchen: So that's such a good point. And I think what you're saying is definitely going to help some families take that leap of faith and send their kids to overnight camp. But I'm wondering about the families in our community, the families with kids who learn differently. They're probably a little worried about sending their kids off to camp because the camp just might not get them, or the camp might not be able to support them. So I'm wondering what you can say to help us feel more comfortable sending our kids off to camp?Audrey: I mean, I'm not going to say "Feel comfortable sending your kid anywhere." Because I don't. I don't. I think that if it's there, if you've done the research, so I would get references from other families with maybe kids with similar things going on, just to see how the camp was. I would really, really say, talk to the camp, talk to the camp directors, talk to whoever's in charge of placing kids, all of that. I think sometimes parents think, well, I don't really want to tell the school or the camp that my child has this issue or this thing going on because I don't want them to be labeled or treated differently or anything like that. What we see from our perspective is it's a big gift to us to get the information ahead of time because then we know, oh, OK, well, we have this counselor who's really experienced — has worked with these other kids. This could be a really successful group for this camper. We also can get insight from parents about what tools work if a child needs a break. What do you do at home that has been most successful? Is it you have a calm corner or do they like to go for a walk? Or what is it that you've — the tools that you've worked with your child to come up with? You know, if we're only going to have your child with us for a couple weeks, knowing ahead of time and not having to figure that out for the first week. And I will say that over my years, I've had the mix of both.We've had people who send us all this information and it'll be all about their child and what they're working with them. And we always tell counselors, hey, the parents who fill out that really detailed information? That kid's going to arrive and he's going to — he or she is going to be awesome because this parent has been working with the child they have, you know, they're using a lot of tools. It's the kids that have you have no information for that often end up being for us the most to have the most challenging behaviors because no one told us anything ahead of time. And then they get to camp. And of course, we've worked with a lot of kids and we'll say, you know, seems like there's something going on with this child. And so then we're calling the parent and saying does this ever happen at school? And then the parent's like, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you.Amanda: It's interesting, and that was actually one of the questions I was going to ask you is about whether or not you recommend parents letting the camp know in advance. And I actually was going to ask you the difference between letting a camp know about what your child's needs are versus what their diagnosis is. Do you think there's a difference there?Audrey: Absolutely. And actually, what we tell our parents to do is on the form that's for the counselor, it's needs. So, yeah, my child needs to be reminded to drink water. Or sometimes when they get tired, this is what you'll see. They need a nap or whatever that might be. So we encourage parents to not put diagnoses or medications on the counselor information. But then for the nurses and the health staff, of course, if they're taking some kind of medication or need something like that, no alarms are going to go off if someone did put on the counselor form. But we do exactly what you suggested, Amanda, which is what we want to know is what does your child need from their counselor, from the experience, what are tips that will help us be successful and help your child be successful at our camp. But then do make sure that whoever needs the medical piece has that as well.Gretchen: So that approach — the two separate forms — it seems like a really good indicator that a camp has thought about these things and really thought thoroughly about them. So what are some other signs that a camp could be a supportive place for your kid, or maybe not such a good place for your kid?Audrey: I would actually recommend, I would call and say, this is what's going on with my child. Tell me about if you've had other children with these similar situations. How has it worked in the past? One of the questions that's really important is the ratio of counselors to campers. And that's something that we know to ask parents as well. Like our camp is, I guess you would call it a mainstream camp. It's for all kids. We do have kids coming to us with lots of different things going on, but it's not like we have specialists for kids, right? So one of the things we ask is how does your child do in a group of 10 kids with one adult? If that is the situation that you've seen your child be successful with in the past — following directions, staying with the group, able to modulate, whatever.Or, I mean, we have had cases where a child needs more attention and supervision, so then it's talking to the camp. Is there a way of getting an extra helper? Is that something that you can work with the camp? I mean, we've done all kinds of things to try to, you know, just make that experience successful. But I would ask that ratio, the staff training, and the camp's experience with working with neurodivergent kids. What do you do differently, or how do you make sure that this child is successful? I would say from my experience, a lot of my social skills, materials and activities really come from the work of people who work with kids who are on the autism spectrum, because they do such a good job of really clarifying what the steps are in like meeting a new person. So we use this stuff with all of our campers, so we really make it very accessible for like, we have kids as young as 6. So it's like it's for everybody.So I would just check with them about practices that they do. We all know that more demo time versus making kids sit and listen to instructions is better for all kids. Right? So like, if you're learning how to canoe, it's so much better to show them, get a paddle in their hand, have them practice, so that you're not just having them sit and talk about canoeing. So I would just say, what are your what are your practices that help for kids who maybe have attention, you know, issues? Or, you know, how do you how do you accommodate for that? And I think a lot of camps have learned that that's kind of how you're successful with all kids, right?Amanda: I love that you say that. I'm grinning. Gretchen's grinning. Because we are all about the "what helps kids who learn differently helps all kids" — it just makes so much sense. You know, you described your camp as a mainstream camp, but what I'm hearing is you're just an inclusive camp. And I think that's beautiful.Gretchen: So earlier you talked about the goals of summer camp, or at least the traditional type of summer camp we're talking about. How they're different from school, because the focus is on building relationship skills, about forming friendships and having fun, which of course I love and kids love. So can you talk a little bit about how that focus might be especially powerful for kids who learn differently?Audrey: Well, there's a couple things that come to mind. One is, I just want to say, just given this time we're in right now. I would say that we're seeing deficits in almost all kids socially. So I think neurodivergent kids are more like other kids because I think there's more struggle going on with kids. At least what we saw last summer. And I think a lot of teachers are seeing this less maturity socially, just things like that. What really for us, it's all about is practices that we do. We do a lot of things that require kids to share and listen. So that's just a small example. So you're in your group and the kids learn, and sometimes the first couple of days, it's hard for them right to listen or to share or either one.But they get a lot of practice at this, and it's really simple things. It might be that the counselor has them share their highlight of the day and their low of the day, a really common thing that a lot of families do. It might be that they have a question that they all answer. But whatever it is, everyone's practicing the skill of sharing with the small group and listening then. And we'll talk about things like, you know, when Sammy is sharing, be sure you're giving him your full attention, like looking at him, and listening, and your mouth is closed. You can say uh-huh, or you can say —. So we really are very clear about something like that. I think that common language and again, just normalizing all of this is really important. I think that's something that I think adults, we didn't, I don't remember anyone ever talking to me about these things, what I was when I was young.Amanda: And I love that. And I'm wondering, too. So there are going to be kids who have things that are normal for them at home, things that are typical for them at home, that they may worry about when they go to camp. So kids who have trouble sleeping, or kids who have sensory issues, or kids who, you know, have fears that are a little more prevalent than with other kids. What questions can parents ask to reassure themselves that those are needs that are going to be taken into account when their child gets there?Audrey: I would, as a parent, just ask. I would say, what do counselors do if a child is having trouble sleeping?Amanda: Yeah, that seems simple.Audrey: But you know, I mean, honestly, what you know, how do you respond with a child who has night terrors? What's the process for that, or sleepwalking? Because I know that I've been asked, you know, we've had this where there's different things. So again, those are things that I think you just specifically ask what would the process be? And that's another important thing to say. You know, sometimes my child has trouble sleeping. I will say at camp — it's funny, we have this conversation a lot. We had a conversation recently, actually around headphones for sleeping because we are totally unplugged camp. And so we have had a few kids who have to wean themselves off their headphones. And so, you know, we're working with the family and saying this is something important to practice before camp because you don't want them getting to camp and that being the first night without their headphones, if that's their thing that they're using. But also some things that we recognize is that a lot of kids have trouble the first couple of days at camp sleeping. It's very common. You know, you can ask the camp and ask them what their what their processes.I definitely, for a residential camp, I think it's important to have more than one adult who's with the kids at night, because kids do wake up and need things and you need that. It's kind of like having two parents like you have. If one person has to get up and stay up with a homesick camper for a couple of hours in the middle of the night you want then, the next night, the other counselor to be on duty for the wake-up. So I would just ask about that. I will say kids get really tired into camp and have less trouble sleeping. So if your child goes to camp for two weeks and they have trouble sleeping at home, they might have a couple of nights of adjustment and then they may have the best sleep of their entire lives because they will be hiking around and super active and their bodies will be really busy. They'll be unplugged, which we know is also helpful for sleep, so they won't have the screens and that kind of light. At outdoor camps like ours, we don't have electricity. We live in tents and have campfire. So we're also very much like the whole camp is asleep. By 10 p.m., it feels like the middle of the night at my camp, like quiet hour starts at 9 and the oldest kids stay up till 10. But it is quiet because you know it gets dark. You know, it's like this nice rhythm of the day, and then the sun comes up and you wake up. And so. So, yeah.Gretchen: Where is this, by the way?Amanda: Can we get to go?Audrey: I know, we always have people ask that.Amanda: So, you know, it's interesting that I hear in your answer, too, is like don't overthink. Right? And as a parent, that was interesting to me because I realize I typically think my kids are a little unusual. And what you're saying is that's not unusual. Camps get these questions all the time. And that's a relief to me. Audrey, one thing I love about your book, "Happy Camper," is that it gives families advice on taking the lessons about social growth at summer camp and using them at home. And you know, we know not all families can send their kids to summer camp. And even if we can, it's just for a few weeks out of the year. So I am wondering if you could give us a few of your favorite summer camp tips to use at home.Audrey: Good idea. Well, I will just say, OK, I guess one that I really especially love, it's kind of close to my heart is, we really focus at camp on focusing on kids strengths and things that are going well and being positive. So we do something at camp called wows, which is kids and staff can put a little note about something that someone did that was kind or helpful. And we have this big wow board and it gets filled up every day with notes about different people. And then they all get taken down before our assembly, and a few of them are read aloud and then all of them are distributed to people's mail. And it's really, really sweet, some of the notes that happen.And I know that's not realistic at home, but I will say that it's very powerful as a parent to just take a minute to think about something you really appreciate about your child. And especially when our children can be challenging and there's a lot of things that we're working with them on, sometimes we get kind of stuck in like all the things that they're not doing right. And we forget that, you know, they have this great sense of humor, or their energy just like makes the house more joyful, or whatever it is. So just writing a sticky note to your child and leaving it on the mirror, bathroom mirror, or their pillow, that can be really powerful and really meaningful, even if your child never says anything about it. So that's something that I often tell parents. It's a really positive connection thing.The other thing and it's super simple, but like part of our counselors' job description is doing a one-on-one check-in with each child. And this is not like a sit-down thing. It's just we're walking to activity I'm going to say hi, you know, I'm going to check in with this camper and say, so you know, what's going well today? And who are you feeling like you're getting closer with as a friend? And what are you most looking forward to, and how can I help you have more fun? So it's the eyeball-to-eyeball or side-by-side checking in where you're giving them your full attention. And I say this to parents, because I think a lot of times as parents, we spend a lot of time with our kids, but often we're distracted, even if it's just in our brain. We're thinking about, oh gosh, I'm so behind on this email or I forgot to pay the taxes or whatever it is.So I always just encourage parents to think like those camp counselors. And if you have three kids, think about every day, if it's even just two minutes that you just kind of clear your brain, you set your phone aside, and you're just with that child. And just whether it's talking to them or letting them tell you a story, whatever, it's that one-on-one focused attention and it works with spouses I think, too. Like being a little more attentive.Gretchen: Sticky notes, too?Audrey: Yeah, seriously, yeah. No, I do think, I just, it's kind of sad when you think about like how what we all need is human connection. And yet our lifestyles and the distraction actually are making us more lonely and disconnected from each other. So any practices that we can do that are just connecting. So, yeah, so I'd say those kinds of practices are some of my favorites.Gretchen: Nice. So, Audrey, I feel like we've asked you a lot of questions. Is there anything that we didn't get to that we should talk about?Audrey: I guess the only, I mean, something that you were saying, and I think just for parents, I often have to remind parents that our kids — we need to be comfortable with our kids' discomfort. Because any experience, including summer camp, will hopefully be mostly really positive. But even at whatever camp, there are going to be moments of discomfort, of unhappiness, of whatever it might be. But we all need to remember that those are how our children grow. So I think that's something that I've had to come to terms with my own kids.You know, it's really hard as a parent watching your child go through something or have to struggle through. But when they come out the other end, they have such a sense of confidence. So I think that's part of it and I think especially parents with — and I would just say like we have, you know, we have neurodivergent kids, but you also have kids with severe allergies, and you have kids with medical, diabetes, or different things. And all of those things, if you just put them all together as a parent, you tend to worry more, right? So you're more worried about them going into a new situation. But all parents are worried, too. So like, even if they don't have that. So I think that part of it is this mindset of and being realistic with your child, too. So not saying "this is going to be so fun every single day."Gretchen: Right? That's important.Audrey: Yeah. Realistic. And just saying, you know what? This is going to be really a fun adventure. But just so, you know, like I went to camp when I was little and I really missed home, and it took a while to adjust the first couple of days. And you know, at this camp, there are some people you can talk to if you if you need something. That's another piece that I just wanted to make sure you get to, is find out from the camp, so who does — who is my child's person? They go to their counselor if they need some additional support. Who is that person? I think that's a really important thing that camps need to communicate really clearly to the kids, to the parents, like just how it works. Who's the support network?Usually, the people with the kids are near-peers, so they might be college students. And that's a really magical thing to have someone who's just like, you know, cool and 20, who's in charge. And kids will grow and learn a lot because they're looking up to this person. And if they're going to try sailing, I'll try it. But they're also 20, so they're not going to necessarily know how to help a child who's flipping their lid five times in a day. They need to get support from someone else. So, I think that's the other piece, too. I think as a parent, you can feel comfortable once you feel comfortable with the structure and the support that your child is going to have. So, I would just familiarize yourself with that. And a lot of times it's very clearly written out on the website or it's in orientation that they cover.But I would try to really kind of let go a little bit in terms of the constant worry and be thinking, I've picked this program because I've vetted it. And if I get a sad letter from my child, I'll call them and I'll ask them about it. But I'm going to try to refrain from freaking out, because they told me I might get this letter.Amanda: Thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of this information. It was a joy to have you.Gretchen: It really was.Audrey: Well, thanks so much for having me. It was great talking to both of you.Gretchen: Audrey's book is called "Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults."Amanda: You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network.Gretchen: This show is for you, so we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from our listeners.Amanda: If you want to learn more about the topics we cover today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode.Gretchen: Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at Understood.org/mission.Amanda: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Andrew Lee is our editorial lead, and Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Ericco wrote our theme music. For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director. And Seth Melnick is our executive producer.Gretchen: Thanks for listening and for always being in it with us.
What is social-emotional learning?
Do you ever have trouble setting goals or making decisions? What about coping with emotions? Or getting along with — and feeling empathy for — others? These are all important social and emotional skills. And some schools are explicitly teaching them to kids.Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing and using social and emotional skills. (You also may hear SEL referred to as socio-emotional learning or social-emotional literacy.)People with strong social-emotional skills are better equipped to manage daily challenges, build positive relationships, and make informed decisions. SEL helps students and adults thrive in school and in life. And the skills can be taught and learned from preschool all the way through adulthood.That’s important because people aren’t born knowing how to manage emotions, solve problems, and get along with others. These kinds of skills have to be developed, and schools can help students learn them. It’s also important to know that some students may need targeted supports to fully benefit from SEL.See an expert explain what SEL is and what it can look like in school.
In ItAdulting and executive function skills: How to help your child thrive after high school
Sending kids off to the adult world can feel both scary and exciting. How can families best support their kids who learn and think differently? Sending kids off to the adult world can feel both scary and exciting. How can families best support their kids who learn and think differently? In this episode, hosts Gretchen Vierstra and Rachel Bozek talk with Dr. Karen Wilson, a clinical neuropsychologist who works with a lot of college students. She shares some of the common challenges kids face in the real world — many related to trouble with executive function. Get her expert advice on how families can help their kids manage the demands of adulting. Then, the hosts hear from a parent who’s “in it” when it comes to helping kids become adults. Tune in to get tips from Danielle Janson, a mom of twins with ADHD who are in their first year of college. Related resources Life after high school: Tips to get your child readyExecutive function challenges and learning: 6 ways to help your child after high schoolEveryday challenges for people who struggle with executive functionEpisode transcriptGretchen: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It," a podcast about the ins and outs...Rachel: …the ups and downs...Gretchen: …of supporting kids who learn and think differently. I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.Rachel: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer, and editor raising two kids with ADHD. A few episodes back, we heard from high school counselor Jennifer Correnti about how to prepare our kids to take the big leap from secondary school to whatever comes next.Gretchen: Today, we're gathering insights on how things look from the other side of that big leap. Mostly, we'll be focusing on the transition to college, but we'll be talking about other paths, too.Rachel: Later, we'll hear from Danielle Janson, a mom in Virginia whose twins, Jake and Sara, are just finishing up their first year of college. Both of them have learning and thinking differences that made this transition a little daunting.Gretchen: But first, we're talking to Dr. Karen Wilson. Karen is a clinical neuropsychologist in Los Angeles.Rachel: She's also a professor at UCLA and supervises assessment of children and adults with learning, thinking, and social emotional difficulties. And in that capacity, she works with a lot of college students.Gretchen: We were so delighted to have her share her expertise with us. Dr. Wilson, thank you so much for being with us on "In It."Dr. Karen Wilson: Thank you so much for having me.Rachel: Welcome. So, what are some of the most common struggles that you hear about from students at the beginning of their college career?Dr. Karen Wilson: Yeah, I think the kinds of challenges that I am hearing from young people, but oftentimes it's coming from their parents, the difficulties are frequently related to problems with executive functioning.I can think of one client of mine who called her parents very upset because she was falling behind in all of her coursework, and she was really fearful of failing her first semester in college. And the parent in turn reached out to me, and as it turns out, when we kind of looked at what was happening, this young woman was having trouble managing the multiple demands of college life. And what that parent realized was that she had actually been functioning as her daughter's frontal lobe all her life.So, if you think about during this transition to college, this young person who has had her mother wake her up in the morning, help her, you know, navigate to school, has kind of checked in with her daughter. Do you have everything in your backpack? Did you turn in that assignment? All of that feedback and that encouragement was now removed when her daughter was in college and the mother didn't even realize that she had been providing all of this support and scaffolding. Now she has to do her own laundry. She has to manage her own finances, manage her social life, get to places on her own.And so, navigating all of those added things was really creating a problem for this young woman. She had kind of developed the skills to address her learning and thinking differences, but didn't have to kind of manage more in real life, if that makes sense.Gretchen: Oh yeah, that does make sense.Rachel: It does make sense.Gretchen: Makes me think, well, I don't have one high schooler, but I think about this, and I think about, am I doing too much of the executive function stuff for them? And I feel like it might be this, just that kids are just so overwhelmed at school with so many things that sometimes I personally feel like, well, I better do that because they've got all these other things on their plate. How in the world are they possibly going to take care of their basic needs? I better do that for them.Dr. Karen Wilson: I see exactly what you're saying, and I think a lot of these families who have young people who've had these learning and thinking differences for some time, they have been there all along to ensure that their child is getting the support that they need to thrive and reach their full potential.But there is a time when you have to kind of back off. I mean, you don't back off completely all at once in ninth grade, but you do so a little bit at a time. And what that does is it gives young people the opportunity to see that there are some things they can handle on their own.Rachel: That's good to know.Gretchen: Yeah.Dr. Karen Wilson: One of the skills that's really important for students to learn early on are those self-advocacy skills. You know, I've worked with another student who, you know, evaluated when he was in second grade, in fourth grade. And then in high school, I remember getting a call to my office and it was from the student —all along the mother had been making the appointments — and it was from the student who said, "Hi, do you remember me? You evaluated me when I was in sixth grade. I'm now going to be going to this university and I need to get updated testing. I need it by this date. And this is the person you need to send it to."And those are the calls that I love to get. This student was ready for the transition and the parents had said, you know, "You're an adult now. You need to call Dr. Wilson and make your appointment." And I think that taking some of those responsibilities and also having the self-advocacy skills to be able to say, "This is my profile, this is what I need in order to show up as my best self" is really powerful.Gretchen: And can I just say that the skill of making a phone call, I feel like that's so underrated, right?Dr. Karen Wilson: I absolutely agree with you because some students don't know what to say or "What do I say when I get on the phone?" That is another, you know, skill that students have to learn. I mean, you have to call the Learning Disabilities Office and say, you know, "I have a test on Monday. I need accommodations. What paperwork do I need to bring to my professor?" Because that office is not going to send the paperwork automatically to your professor. That student has to ask for what it is that they need.Gretchen: Yeah. And they're not going to send a text message.Dr. Karen Wilson: They will not.Gretchen: They've got to make an old-fashioned phone call and know how to do that.Dr. Karen Wilson: Absolutely.Rachel: So, if a student is struggling academically, who should they turn to first? Is this, should it start out as a conversation that they have with their professor before they kind of take it to another space on campus? Or should they go to support services immediately?Dr. Karen Wilson: It depends on the class, and it also depends on why they're struggling. You know, are they starting only because they don't understand the material or are they struggling because they've got too many classes and they're just overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work that they need to do?You know, if it's the content that they're not quite grasping, definitely start with the professor, go to the office hours, and get some clarity on what it is that they you don't understand. But if it's, you know, "This is too much. I've got five classes, I can't keep on top of all of the expectations, it feels overwhelming," then by all means, go to the student services office and talk about maybe reducing your course load.Gretchen: Yeah. And you know, that again, brings up another life skill that I keep thinking about. Talking one on one with a professor, like I remember as a student myself the first time going to office hours thinking, "What is this? " And I was scared. So, I mean, are there ways to prep students to be able to do that?Dr. Karen Wilson: I think you have to know what you want to ask and what it is you're struggling with. And if you write it down, that is often helpful. What is it you don't understand? Bring your notebook. Bring your textbook. If you're having trouble, you know, taking notes, bring your notes and show what you've been doing just so you're prepared for that conversation.Gretchen: Yeah, I guess preparation is key.Dr. Karen Wilson: Yes.Gretchen: And I feel like maybe having your kid practice that a little bit at the high school level, right? Like, get a little practice, going to your teacher and having those lists and talking about some things that you need to cover.Dr. Karen Wilson: Practice is so key. I'm so glad you said that because high school is a great place for students to get that practice in developing those skills. And for them to keep in mind that there's oftentimes, and there will be, a generational gap between the student and the professor.So, what has to work for communication with your peers is not going to work with a professor. They've spent so much time, this generation, communicating using technology, and they haven't had the opportunity to interact in real life with another person, advocate for their needs, you know, express what it is that they know, what they're struggling with. And that is a skill that they will have to practice before they make that transition because your professors are not going to be responding to a DM.Rachel: So, how does medication fit into this picture? You know, of all of what we're talking about, are there special challenges for students in terms of staying on top of their meds now that they're out on their own? Tell us a little bit about that.Dr. Karen Wilson: It can be a challenge. And again, it depends on the young person and how much support they've been receiving at home, right? If you have a parent who's put your medication beside your breakfast every morning, that's going to be a very different and more challenging situation to manage all of that on your own versus the student who's already been managing and been responsible for taking their own medication through high school. And if you have been reminded by a parent, now's the time to set up reminders for yourself, whether that be an app or on your phone, some strategy that will help you remember now.The other thing is when you need a refill, when you run out of medication, when you're getting close to the end of your prescription, you've got two pills left in the bottle. Can that be a cue for you to request your own medication refill? And so, you know, a parent who might be listening can practice that with their child and say, you know, "For the next two months, you're going to manage your own medication." Obviously, they're going to oversee it and make sure things are getting done. But you'll be able to see where there are gaps. And, you know, if you see the empty bottle that's been sitting there for two days and your child hasn't said, you know, "I need a refill," then you know where the support is going to be needed moving forward.Gretchen: What are some things that parents, or maybe the young adults going, should maybe be more concerned about than they actually are at the time?Dr. Karen Wilson: Yes. You know, emerging adulthood, regardless of whether you have learning and thinking differences, is a vulnerable time from a social and emotional point.Gretchen: Oh, yeah.Dr. Karen Wilson: And what I mean by that is that if students are going to develop anxiety or depression, this is a critical time when oftentimes that does begin to manifest for the first time. And so, making sure that a student has the social and emotional support as they're making this transition is really important.And so, even before they go off, you know, that young person can be excited about making the transition, having that conversation, saying, you know, "I know you're really excited, but sometimes, you know, students who are making this transition can feel lonely, can get depressed, can get really anxious. If you start to feel those things, I want you to reach out to me so that we can make sure you get the support that you need."Gretchen: Well, let's talk a little bit about something different. We've been talking a lot about the challenges for kids who go to college. But what about those who take a different path, whether it's they go to work or they take a gap year or the military or something else? What are you hearing from those kids or parents about things they might be struggling with?Dr. Karen Wilson: I think they're struggling with a lot of the same things, but just in different ways. They may not have the college demands of managing classes, but if they've decided to get a job right out of high school, they also need to be at work on time. They have to finish their responsibilities, they have to notify individuals if they're not going to be there.They also are also facing the same vulnerable time where there are higher rates of depression, higher rates of anxiety. And they're, we already know that there's kind of this loneliness epidemic for all young people. And so, if you've got friends who you were really close to when you were in high school and now, they're off attending college, you know, across the country, then that can increase the loneliness that an individual might be experiencing. And loneliness, we know, puts you at greater risk for depression. And so that can also be something to keep an eye on.Gretchen: And I imagine if kids are struggling with executive function things like getting to work on time, right? Or getting a task done on time at work. That's a little different than if you turn in a paper late and you get a bad grade. The repercussions could be like you don't have a job anymore or like, it affects other people in the workplace. And so that, I imagine that might be tough to handle.Dr. Karen Wilson: Absolutely. And then obviously, that has an impact on self-concept, how you feel about yourself. "Can I do this? Can I get another job? Can I get any job if I can't handle this one?" And so, there can be a lot of self-talk that happens as a result of those challenges.But it's also an opportunity to, again, develop and practice those skills in a work environment, right? And may not be your career job right out of high school, but you can figure out what you're strong at, what your weaknesses are, and what kind of job you do not want in your future.Rachel: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. First, jobs are sometimes really good for that. So, we've talked a lot about some of the things that can trip kids up when they're embarking on this new phase of life. What can you tell us about the kids who have really blossomed? Can you think of an example and tell us what they're getting right?Dr. Karen Wilson: I have a lot of examples, and I would say that in general, the students who have those great outcomes and thrive in a college environment or thrive in their first job outside of high school are those that understand their learning and thinking differences, can self-advocate for what it is that they need, and who have the social and emotional support as they make that transition.So, they have a good group of friends that they can check in with. They know that they have the support of an adult in their life, whether that's a parent, a mentor for students who are transitioning to college, you know, many of them who've gone on to graduate and again, thrive in life are those that can in that first year continue to have a tutor or continue to work with an executive functioning coach or an educational therapist as they made that transition to kind of help them navigate that transition period.And then the other thing is really those students have really thrived, as are those students who've really been able to kind of see what it is that they need and to have put in place in their living environment to support them and help them succeed.One of those is making sure that you're getting enough sleep because, you know, college we talked about all of the distractions and consistent sleep is essential and even more important for students with thinking and learning differences so that they can. Thus, their attention system, their executive functioning system. We know that students who don't get enough sleep are at greater risk for emotional struggles and social difficulties. So, those students who have said, you know, "I need this amount of sleep, I know what you're doing, but I have a class at 8 a.m. I need to get some sleep."So, those students who again, can self-advocate with their roommates about what it is that they need to do exceedingly well. And then also those students who are, who get involved in extracurricular activities, you know, not overscheduled, but get involved with clubs and feel a sense of belonging with their university do extremely well. All of those things in place are setting you up for success.Rachel: Yeah, and I think a lot of that can totally apply, you know, in other settings as well. So, if you are taking a gap year or get a job right out of school, but you want to maybe like volunteer at an animal shelter or get involved with a food co-op or there's like all these different ways to find that sense of belonging. So, I think those are great ideas and hopefully recipes for success. Well, is there anything we didn't cover that you want to mention, Karen?Dr. Karen Wilson: You know, one thing I guess I would say, I mean, we've covered so much and I think one of the things I would say is that, you know, students who have a learning and thinking differences are incredibly resilient. And we can give them the opportunity to see that they have all of the innate skills that they need in order to achieve what it is that they want to achieve. Many will continue to need additional parental and societal support, but once they have that and we can pull back a little, they can really soar.Gretchen: Well, thank you for being on the show with us today.Rachel: Thank you so much. It was so great to speak with you.Dr. Karen Wilson: Oh good. I hope it was helpful.Rachel: Very helpful.Gretchen: Very helpful. Dr. Wilson shared so much good advice.Rachel: She did. I have to be honest, though, I know it's still a few years off, but I have such a hard time imagining my kids managing all the things in college, which is why I was so grateful when a good friend of mine, Danielle Janson, agreed to talk to us about what it's been like for her.Gretchen: This year, Danielle sent not one but two kids off to college.Rachel: Yep, they're twins. Their names are Jake and Sarah. And here's how Danielle describes them in a nutshell.Danielle: They are about to complete their freshman year of college. They go to two separate colleges, both very different kids. My daughter has always been a theater kid singing, dancing, all that. And my son is a total sports kid. Both have diagnoses of ADHD along with anxiety, and my daughter also deals with some depression.Gretchen: We asked Danielle if she remembers what she was the most worried about before they left for school.Danielle: Dealing with professors and so many different personalities and new people. That was a fear. Definitely with my daughter's depression and anxiety, sending her away to college. Like does she have a support system up there and how are we going to have all those things in place for her?Rachel: Those were some of her big-picture concerns. And then there were the worries about how Jake and Sara would handle day-to-day life.Danielle: You know, you always fear medications. Are they going to take them? Are they going to take them on time? Are they going to remember to go get the refills? Also waking up in the morning.Gretchen: Some of these challenges were things they could work on before school started. And they did. Both kids took on the responsibility of managing their meds for a few months before they left.Rachel: And they both reached out to their universities to determine what accommodations they would be entitled to once they got there.Gretchen: Once the school year started, there were a few bumps in the road. Both kids had to figure out how to manage anxiety when faced with new experiences like socializing in a big crowd or making presentations in front of a large class. But they knew to ask for help and they got through it.Rachel: As for academics, they both proved capable of advocating for themselves when they needed to. Though for Jake, at first, it took some parental nudging.Danielle: For example, he had a class. He was taking music and it was a tough class and he just really "Jake just goes talk to the professor." So, he did, and the professor sat down with him is like, "Let me see how you're studying, and let me see how you're taking notes." And the professor pointed out like, "Hey, Jake, all this information is on the slide. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Add notes that are what I'm lecturing about that's not on the slide."Gretchen: Sarah also showed herself to be an excellent self-advocate.Danielle: For example, she had a professor this semester who's kind of old school and first day of class, he said, "Hey, no computers, no iPads, no phones, nothing. I want to see none of it." So, Sara just simply met with him after class and said, "Hey, I have accommodations, I need to use an iPad to take notes." And he was like, "Great, thank you so much for telling me you have permission to use it."Rachel: Danielle's got a lot of pro tips after her kids first year of college. Jake learned a little late, unfortunately, that at his school, kids with learning and thinking differences are entitled to early registration so they can get into classes that best meet their accommodations. Apparently, this privilege is common at other schools, too.Gretchen: Also common, a free note-taking service for students who have a hard time listening and taking notes at the same time. The note-takers are fellow students, they never know who they're taking notes for, and they get paid to do the work. So, it's a win-win.Rachel: You know, Gretchen, with all these preparation strategies, sometimes it's hard to remember the big picture, like why we're sending our kids off to fend for themselves in college or wherever they choose to go. I asked Danielle about that, and I think she offers some really good perspective. What are you hoping they get out of this experience?Danielle: Well, I think we're just hoping that they learn how to be comfortable in their own skin and to just go to the beat of their own drum and know that they can do things in their own time and at their own pace. You know, to develop like a sense of self-worth and a professional life and, you know, just see all the things that they have within them to offer to this world, you know? And mine and my husband's hope for them is just as we've always said, like "We just want productive members of society. That's all we ask for."Gretchen: Yeah, that seems like a pretty healthy outlook. Well, Danielle, you've given us such good advice for families getting ready to send their kids off to college. Thank you so much for all of it.Rachel: Thank you so much. This was really great.Danielle: Thank you for having me.Gretchen: Danielle gave us so much great information. One other tip she gave was about ADHD medication, which we know can be a hot commodity on campus where some kids may be using it recreationally.Rachel: Yeah, I thought this was a really good tip. So, what she told us was that she and her husband actually sent both kids to school with a safe to keep their medications locked up and just keep them safe.Gretchen: That is such a great tip. And in fact, that makes me think that our listeners probably have some great tips. So, if you're someone who's recently pushed your kid out of the nest, whether to college or job or whatnot, we'd love to hear from you. If you've got some great tips to share, please feel free to email us at init@understood.org.Gretchen: You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network.Rachel: This show is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from you.Gretchen: If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode.Rachel: Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at Understood.org/mission.Gretchen: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Eric co-wrote our theme music.Rachel: For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director, Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.Gretchen: And thanks for always being "in it" with us.
5 myths about social-emotional learning
There’s a growing awareness of the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) at home and in school. In fact, SEL is already being implemented in many classrooms.Numerous studies show that SEL builds the foundation for thriving in life — inside and outside the classroom. Kids with strong social-emotional skills: Get along better with others Have an increased ability to manage stress Are more likely to graduate from high school Have key social skills that employers are looking forAre less likely to be involved in the criminal system But there are still misconceptions about SEL. Here are five of the most common myths — with the facts to debunk them. Myth #1: Social-emotional learning only teaches kids about feelings.Fact: Emotional intelligence (the ability to be smart about feelings) is only one of the many parts of SEL.In fact, SEL helps kids develop a wide range of skills, from coping with feelings to decision-making. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leader in the field of SEL, identifies five core competencies that make up SEL:Self-awareness: Know your own emotions, strengths, and challenges and how they impact your actions. Have a growth mindset about your skills. Self-management: Self-regulate and use executive functioning skills, like planning and organization, impulse control, and setting goals.Social awareness: Understand other perspectives, show empathy, respect diversity, and understand social norms.Relationship skills: Build and maintain relationships, communicate clearly, cooperate, and resolve conflict.Responsible decision-making: Make positive choices about how to behave and interact with others. Think about how your actions affect yourself and others.Watch this video from Edutopia to learn how social-emotional learning helps kids become engaged learners.Myth #2: Social-emotional skills aren’t as important as “hard skills.”Fact: Social-emotional skills are often referred to as “soft skills,” but they’re just as important as “hard skills.” Soft skills (sometimes called people skills) allow us to get along and work well with other people, communicate effectively, be empathetic, and solve problems. These skills can be difficult to measure, but they’re essential. Hard skills are the skills required for completing a task. For instance, knowing multiplication facts or being able to read are hard skills. These skills are easily measured and demonstrated.According to research, developing strong social-emotional skills increases academic achievement. For example, being able to manage emotions while learning something new can help students work through challenges.Watch this video to learn more about why SEL skills are “essential skills.”Myth #3: Kids learn social-emotional skills automatically.Fact: People aren’t born knowing how to manage emotions, get along with others, and solve problems. These skills are learned over time. Sometimes kids can pick up social-emotional skills by seeing them in action. But most often, they need explicit instruction to understand and practice these skills. For instance, kids who struggle with executive functioning skills might have trouble paying attention, regulating emotions, or staying quiet in class. Teachers can demonstrate strategies that help students develop these skills. Parents can do the same thing at home.Myth #4: There’s only one way to teach SEL.Fact: There’s no one right way to teach SEL. Every child has different needs. Families have different backgrounds and cultures. Teachers, who work with a diverse group of students, can use what they know about their students to design SEL lessons in which all students can fully access and apply these skills. Teachers may combine culturally responsive teaching with SEL to help students understand one another and to show each student that they’re valued. For instance, nonverbal cues like eye contact can have different meanings in different cultures. In the dominant culture of the United States, eye contact often shows confidence. But in other cultures, it can show disrespect. Knowing their students’ cultural norms helps teachers design SEL lessons.Sometimes, differences in cultural norms and expectations can lead to hard but important conversations. Older kids may want to talk about how race, gender, class, or other forms of identity affect how different people are expected to act. Myth #5: SEL is only for kids with behavioral issues.Fact: SEL is for all kids — and adults, too. We all continue to develop these skills throughout our lives.Social-emotional skills aren’t only about how people outwardly express themselves. They’re also about how people react inwardly. At school, one student might show frustration over a math assignment by shouting or crumpling up the paper. That student needs help with self-regulation. Another might quietly work through a challenging math problem but feel like a failure inside. The quiet student needs help with social-emotional skills, too. SEL helps parents and teachers understand that all behavior is communicating something. Then you can talk with kids about what’s behind their behavior and figure out what will help.Every child needs to know how to recognize challenges, ask for help, and think about how they feel. It’s important to teach those skills so kids can thrive in school, at home, and in the community. For educatorsBecome better informed about social-emotional learning, its benefits, and ways to integrate it into your classroom. Use evidence-based strategies to support SEL throughout the day. For instance, use pre-correcting and prompting to tell and remind students of expectations. Use respectful redirection to help students with communication skills like tone of voice and body language. Knowing more about your students helps, too. Learn about the science behind connecting with students and building strong relationships with them. Remember to also partner with students’ families. SEL happens in all areas of a student’s life.
In ItEvaluations for special education: Introducing our new podcast
How do schools evaluate kids for special education? Season 1 of our new Understood Explains podcast answers these questions and more. How do schools evaluate kids for special education? What’s the process like? How do families get started? Season 1 of our new podcast, Understood Explains, answers these questions and more. In this bonus episode, Amanda Morin and Gretchen Vierstra talk with Dr. Andy Kahn, a psychologist who spent nearly 20 years evaluating kids for schools. Andy shares why he’s excited to host Season 1 of Understood Explains, which breaks down the special education evaluation process for families. Tune it to learn more about the podcast, evaluations, and misconceptions families often have about special education.Related resources Listen: Understood Explains podcast Learning about evaluations FAQs about school evaluations Episode transcriptAmanda: Hi. I'm Amanda Morin. Gretchen: And I'm Gretchen Vierstra. Amanda: And we are the hosts of "In It," from the Understood Podcast Network. Gretchen: Officially, we're between seasons right now, but you're hearing from us because we want to share a sneak preview of a new Understood podcast we're very excited about. Amanda: It's called "Understood Explains." It's hosted by Dr. Andy Kahn, and we have Andy sitting right here next to me to tell us all about it. Andy, welcome to "In It." Andy: Thanks. Gretchen: Yay Andy! Amanda: So, Andy, before we get into the podcast, maybe you can just briefly tell us a little bit about yourself. Andy: Sure. So, I'm a licensed psychologist and I've been in practice for over 20 years. I spent the better part of that 20 years working within the school systems. So, doing evaluations, consultation, and supporting families within our communities. So, came to Understood to become a subject matter expert in learning and psychology. Gretchen: So, then can you tell us a little bit about this new podcast you're hosting? Andy: So, there's a lot to say about this podcast. The purpose of the podcast is really two major points. We're breaking down the special education evaluation process primarily for parents to give them information about, you know, what does it look like? How does that referral process work? How do we make those decisions? Should we do an evaluation? Should we not? Helping parents learn about their rights. And the second, really most important part is, helping them communicate with their kids about that process. That's where we fold in Amanda, who joins us and talks about all of those things. What can you say to your kids? How do you make them a part of the process? Amanda: Andy, I also know that you've really wanted to do something like this for a long time. Tell me why. Andy: Yeah. So, you know, having done evaluations for years, I've done thousands of evaluations. And it was no easy decision to walk away from schools to do this kind of work. But in a word, I was really focused on impact. The idea that the process that I did with my families over the years was something that was highly cooperative and collaborative. So much of it was about giving them information so that they could be involved and they could be calm in the process and feel relaxed enough to know, What are we doing this for? How are we going to make this really work for my child? So, for me, so much of this is about taking what I felt that I was really proud of doing for so many years in my evaluations and putting together a podcast that could help parents, you know, learn things about the process to really maximize the impact and to absolutely reduce the anxiety. So, we have psychologists, school psychologists, special ed teachers, administrators, who come in and give us input about the process and then we bounce out with you, Amanda. You know, the parent perspective, plus how to talk to your kids. Gretchen: Yeah. Can you give us a sneak peek into some of the topics of the different episodes? Andy: We've got 10 episodes, and the episodes start with things like understanding, making the decision about do I want to do an evaluation process? And understanding that an evaluation process can start from a parent requesting it or from the school saying, "Hey, we're seeing something. We'd like to request this process." We talk about parents' rights and you know, what is it that you are allowed to do? What is it that you have a right to receive? And what are the schools supposed to do in this process with you so that you can protect your rights? You know, no one's going to assume that a school is looking to do anything but the best for their kids. But sometimes things go wrong and parents, if they have that knowledge, can really keep the process honest and on track. Amanda: So speaking of knowledge, we keep using the word evaluation. Can you tell us what that means? Because I just realized we haven't even covered that yet. Andy: Yeah, yeah. And I think evaluation is one of the words that we use. We use evaluation or assessment. People might say testing and you know, all these words that become really highly charged. And evaluation is really where we're looking at what the child's skills are in certain areas, which could be anywhere from academic skills, social-emotional skills, overall behavioral functioning, and for other professionals, things like speech and language evaluations or occupational therapy or even physical therapy. So, there's a lot of bits and pieces that go into understanding how a child can be successful and the things that could be factors in their daily functioning. Gretchen: Certainly not just one little test a child takes and it's done. It's a process, right? Andy: Absolutely. And it's a process that has a lot of moving parts and lots of people. So, I think that, you know, for a parent who might not be in the room because their kid's doing the assessment, the more they can know, the more comfortable they can feel and the more input they can have. So, it's yeah, that we have to unpack that and that's a great question. Amanda: Can you talk a little bit about what sorts of misconceptions parents and caregivers might bring to this process before they understand it? Andy: Yeah, sure. You know, everyone who enters this process, and from the parent perspective, something I learned that really came home from doing so many assessments, was that parents were once students. So, their experience of having been students — or maybe if they had challenges with learning and thinking differences — things have changed a lot over the years. The experience for people of my age going through school could have been very different from what their kids are going through right now. Amanda: It's such a good point, right? Because I think a lot of parents, especially in a certain age bracket, they think special education means you're in a separate room, you're in a separate place of the building, that you don't get to be with the other kids at the same age, that it's a different kind of instruction. And that's not the case anymore. Andy: And it once was, you know, as a kid going to New York City schools when I was young, you know, it was if a kid got identified for services, you really might not have seen them again, except maybe after school or on the way to school. So, for parents who might or might not have had, you know, a positive experience in their own education, it really becomes a loaded process. And you have to take that into account. You know the primary thing that I think that always echoed with me is how are the parents responding to this process? What does it lead them to feel emotionally? And then in turn, you know, having a child is like having your heart on the outside of your chest. Amanda: Oh, yes. Andy: So, you know, if your child is now being asked to go through a process, maybe you've went through or things that you have, you know, beliefs that are based on when you went to school that can be really, really unsettling. And to give parents the right information so they can know that they're in charge of making decisions is incredibly powerful. Gretchen: What do parents most often struggle with around this process? What tends to be the bumpiest parts along the way?Andy: For parents of much younger children — the one thing I'll say that I noticed my entire career — little kids don't mind leaving a classroom. They don't mind getting the extra support.Amanda: They love it. As a kindergarten teacher, I can tell you that they loved being the one walking out with the person, they loved it.Andy: You know, for so many parents, it's often the idea about "I don't want my kid to be labeled. I don't want my kid to look different. I don't want my kid to be picked on because we find that they have something that they need that's different than other kids." And I think that people perceive the process and the outcomes as being public, that somehow because you're doing it, everybody knows. Amanda: It's that permanent record thing that people think about, right? There's a permanent and I will just be the first one to admit that as a parent, I know that fear. And I was a teacher, I was an educator, I was in special education. And when I first did this with my first child, I went through evaluation, I had this like, "Nope, nope, don't want to do that. Don't want that label, don't." But, you know, people like you Andy make it easier for us to understand like it's not a permanent record situation. Andy: And I think some of us would say that, you know, we're building in the idea of expectation that's realistic and putting people in the position to ask questions that builds comfort. And I think that in and of itself, if you're comfortable enough to say, "I don't understand this" or "This scares me," or "Heck no, I don't want my kid to get that," then it gives us the opportunity to make... the process can be therapeutic, right? It can be, If we're going through this process together and we're learning about your child together, can you come to a conclusion about "Wow, you know, my kid wasn't just refusing work because they're naughty or because they're a pain or because of some momentary frustration we all experience as parents." But it's more about "Well, I didn't know my kid wasn't able to process that information or struggles with reading or can't focus without support." So, I think that a well-done evaluation is a therapeutic process, and I think that we can't underestimate the impact of that. Amanda: I'm going to turn the tables and ask Gretchen a question if you don't mind. Did you participate in these processes as a teacher? Gretchen: Yes. Amanda: What was it like for you on that side? Gretchen: Yeah. Sometimes families were really invested and interested in getting the evaluation done. And so, they were super involved from the beginning and talking to me about it and gathering the information. But then there were other families who were scared. This was the first time that anyone was bringing up that perhaps their child struggled with something. And for some families hearing that, it was hard to take, right? Because lots of families envision their child as, quote unquote, perfect, right? And then you're told, well, wait a minute, we actually want to find ways to better support your child. And for some of these families, it was like, "What? What do you mean? They're not excelling at every single thing without any kind of support? Because that's what I expected." Andy: Right. Absolutely. Gretchen: You know? And so, it could be tough sometimes to just be part of that process with them because it was scary. Amanda: So, Andy, for teachers like Gretchen or me, because I did this as a teacher too, and I'm going to admit that when I first started, I didn't understand what my role as a teacher was. What is their role in this process, and do you have advice or practices to share with them? Andy: You know, I think the first thing that I would share with teachers across the board is, any time you're going to involve yourself in the process, take a moment to imagine it's your child who's being evaluated first. That empathic approach says, okay, this is sensitive. This is something where you're describing something that could feel critical, like you're giving some sort of negative description of someone's child and really sharing from the very, very beginning that we are focused on making your child's success our goal. And I think really saying "We are working together. This is not a tug of war. We're not on opposite sides of the rope. You and I are both pulling the rope in the same direction. But if you're not sure or you're uncomfortable with part of this, let's talk that through." And teachers can often say, you know, kids who have had this kind of testing, who have found that they have differences, they really can benefit. There's a lot of stuff we can do in reassuring them about what it's going to lead to. Yeah. So, there's, you know, there's a little bit of benefit in just understanding, "You know what? Your kid is going to manage this fine if we support them the right way. It's much harder to break your kids than you think," you know. Gretchen: Right. Yeah. Andy: Yeah. And I think that one of the keys in terms of being successful as a teacher, as a psychologist, as a parent, is always being focused first on what you like about the child. And I'll be completely forthright, I've worked with some extremely challenging kids, and I can say that with very high certainty, I really, really learned to love all of these kids because they all have something about them that's cool and interesting. And for us to be successful, focusing on those things is important. And let me tell you about what we can do that might be helpful to your child or something. And let me tell you about something we may need to do to help your child. So for teachers, we've got a lot to offer them. And just to reset, right? It's just a little reset for your brain, because this is benevolent people looking to help kids. Gretchen: For the teachers listening, I do want to say that it's okay to not know, right? And I remember starting off and being handed a form like, "Okay, we're going to be evaluating this kid. I need to fill out this test, check out these things." And like what? What is this? If you haven't been trained and you're not familiar with what you're supposed to do, then talk to someone and find out because you don't want to go at it alone and you want to do a great job for the family. So, finding an ally who can help you is great. Andy: And think about it, just let's zoom out here for a second. You know, think about what that looks like for kids with learning and thinking differences. They don't know something, so they get anxious and they don't want to step out and make a mistake. But what we're saying across the board here is "If you don't know, that's okay." Amanda: That was part of the fun of being able to come on and have those conversations with Andy, is we unpacked some of that. We looked at how as a parent, do you look at what you need to learn, and then how do you pass that on to your child? Andy: And the best part about that is when you have multiple perspectives talking about something like that. Amanda, you come up with things that I wasn't thinking of in that moment. So, when we bring in the experts at the beginning of each session, then we have Amanda and I chatting, I think for me, the greatest surprise about it was I kept learning things about perspectives that I wasn't taking. You know, as much as I've done this my whole career, I kept stumbling across bits and pieces like, "Okay, that's cool. I never thought about it that way," You know? And I think that's really what's powerful about this, is getting people who know a lot of stuff to talk together because none of us by ourselves knew enough to tell you everything. Gretchen: So last but not least, Andy, how can people get your podcast? Andy: Our podcast it's on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Amanda: Part of the Understood Podcast Network. Gretchen: Yay, it's everywhere, people!Gretchen: Andy, thank you so much for joining us on "In It" to talk about your podcast "Understood Explains." We're so excited for people to listen to it. Andy: Thanks so much for having me. Amanda: Thanks for listening to "In It," part of the Understood Podcast Network. And remember, there's lots more where this came from. You can find all our past episodes by subscribing to "In It" wherever you get your podcasts or on our website, go to Understood.org/podcast/in-it. Gretchen: We'll be back very soon with Season 4 of the show. A reminder, it's not too late to let us know what topics you'd like us to cover. Is there something you've been struggling with or wanting to celebrate that you think would be of interest to other folks who are in it? Send us an email at init, that's one word, i-n-i-t @understood.org with your suggestions. Amanda: In It is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music. For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick is our executive producer.Gretchen: Thanks for listening, everyone. And thanks for always being in it with us.
How SEL helps you as a teacher
As you well know, there are many benefits to social-emotional learning (SEL). Setting goals, asking for help, showing empathy. These are all examples of social-emotional skills that help students thrive. When students have limited social-emotional skills, they’re more likely to struggle when they face a new challenge or conflict. A lack of social-emotional skills can even cause kids to drop out.Teaching SEL is not a solution for all of the challenges our students face. But there’s a lot we can do as educators to make a significant positive impact. It starts with our own social-emotional skills.Why your social-emotional skills matter To teach SEL, we need to be aware of and continue to develop our own social-emotional skills as educators. Only then can we model and teach those skills to our students.As a starting point, both educators and students need to feel valued and safe. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) developed a framework that defines five core competencies of SEL. These are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills. Learn more about the five core competencies, why they’re important to our practice as teachers, and how you can model them in the classroom.What is self-awareness?Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand how your emotions, thoughts, and values impact your behavior. Self-awareness skills include:Identifying and expressing your emotionsRecognizing your strengths and challengesHaving an accurate self-perception and self-confidencePracticing a growth mindset Why self-awareness is important to your teachingHave you ever been upset about a student’s behavior, but paused to ask yourself, “Why am I feeling so angry?” You might have run through a quick series of responses in your mind before deciding what to say or do. That is self-awareness. This response may have been instinctual. Or maybe someone taught you self-awareness skills: how to self-reflect, accurately perceive your feelings, and express those feelings to others.It can be hard to maintain that level of self-awareness in a busy classroom. We’re all human. We won’t always be our best selves at every moment of the day. Embracing that reality helps us authentically engage with students, check our biases, question our own motivations, and pause to take stock of our decisions. Ways to practice self-awareness in the classroomAcknowledge your own emotions and how they may play into your reactions. Name the skills you’re using (or “think aloud”) for your students as you model them. (It’s important for students to recognize that you’re still learning and practicing these skills, too.)View students as partners in developing social-emotional skills.Understand that it may take a little longer for some students to learn social-emotional skills as they develop self-confidence. What is self-management?After you’re aware of your emotions, then you can work on managing them. Self-management is the ability to regulate your emotions, thoughts, and behavior in varying situations. Self-management skills include:Controlling impulsesManaging stress effectively Showing motivationSetting and meeting goalsUsing executive functioning skills (like planning and organization)Why self-management is important to your teachingAs educators, we’re constantly using self-management skills to meet the demands of a high-stress job and manage life outside of school. So it’s not surprising that we all struggle from time to time. Using these same skills can be hard for students too, especially when you think about the barriers they face in and out of the classroom. Some students might have trouble managing the stress of “not getting it” when the curriculum isn’t flexible for their learning and thinking differences. The same curriculum may also not be historically and culturally diverse enough for them to see themselves represented in it. You might see students who appear to lack motivation or interest. It’s important to acknowledge that you see these challenges. Using culturally responsive teaching and drawing on diverse content can also improve students’ sense of safety and belonging. The barriers that students face can affect not only their readiness to learn, but also your own self-management. It’s normal to feel challenged or stressed when you try to grow your classroom practice. It feels new and requires attention when time is short. Consider it an opportunity to build your self-management skills.Ways to practice self-management in the classroomUnderstand that some students who learn and think differently have experienced failure repeatedly because school systems haven’t been able to meet their needs.Understand that some students’ experiences are at odds with school systems and institutions that are historically inequitable.Know that when students’ lived experiences are in conflict with school values, they may disengage from class. Model your own self-management, and explain the “why” behind what you’re doing.Use goal-setting in the classroom and teach students how to set life goals. What is social awareness?Social awareness is the ability to understand other points of view, show empathy, respect diversity, and understand social norms. In many ways, social awareness is what helps relationships to thrive. It includes:Taking different perspectivesAppreciating diversityRespecting and responding empathetically to othersUnderstanding social and ethical behavioral normsRecognizing available supports and resources (family, school, and community)Why social awareness is important for your teachingTo maintain and build healthy relationships with students, we need to be aware of and respect other perspectives, values, cultures, and differences. Equity and empathy are both at the heart of this work. One of the best ways to use social awareness with your students is to get to know them and their families. It helps you decide how to approach lessons, present content, react to student behavior, and more. It also allows you to create opportunities for students to bring their whole selves into your classroom. That is one of the best ways to show your respect for differing perspectives and life experiences.It’s not always easy to see another perspective. It’s especially hard when you’re trying to address a student’s behavior or a disagreement with a colleague in a difficult moment. But you can still acknowledge differences and be compassionately curious about the other person. Ways to practice social awareness in the classroomBuild a classroom community that values the collective good and concern for other people.Create space and norms for you and your students to talk about how hearing a new perspective changed your point of view. Ask for your students’ feelings and perspectives on the classroom environment.What is responsible decision-making?Responsible decision-making is the ability to think about how what you do impacts yourself and others. You make choices about how to behave and interact, based on ethical and social standards and safety. Responsible decision-making includes: Identifying and analyzing problems and situationsSolving problems as they ariseEvaluating and reflecting on the consequences of your actionsTaking ethical responsibility for your decisions and their outcomesWhy responsible decision-making is important for your teachingAs educators, we juggle decisions every day about workload, time management, and self-care. We all have different values, priorities, and experiences that impact our decision-making. Because of the different factors that influence our decisions, it can be helpful to draw on colleagues’ knowledge and experiences to make choices, like how to best support students who learn and think differently.Decision-making is a big part of how we interact with students, too. We make choices each day about instruction and classroom management. We also make choices about how to help our students become decision-makers.Consider a classroom that uses Universal Design for Learning (UDL). With UDL, teachers design lessons so students have choices about their learning. This gives students the chance to make decisions about how to manage their time, how to show what they’ve learned, and how to navigate social relationships when working with their peers. Remember that schools have their own set of values that influence decision-making. Many schools value higher education and may focus on sending graduates to college. Think about the decision-making process this requires of students. Imagine how difficult that process may be for students who would be the first in their families to go to college. Your role in supporting students may be to acknowledge that their process may be very different from your own. Help them identify people with similar experiences who can serve as models. Ways to practice responsible decision-making in the classroomRecognize that students need your help to learn to become responsible decision-makers in developmentally appropriate ways.Share with students your own process as you make decisions and explain the “why” behind them.Seek out and provide access to diverse role models who have similar experiences as the students in your class. What are relationship skills?Relationship skills are the ability to build and maintain healthy and fulfilling relationships with others. Humans are wired for relationships, connection, and community. But these skills need to be developed. Relationship skills include:Communicating effectivelyCooperating with and listening to othersResisting peer pressureAsking for and providing help when it’s neededNegotiating and resolving conflict Why responsible relationship skills are important for your teachingRelationship skills help us connect with others. Listening skills, conflict resolution, and communication are important tools we use to navigate relationships. Like the other social-emotional competencies, building relationships skills is hard work. You need to use the skills of self-awareness and self-management, and to engage with others in a meaningful way. Relationships also require a certain level of trust, vulnerability, and practice. Without practice, we often default to the emotions we are more comfortable expressing.In the classroom, it can be a challenge for both teachers and students to build trusting relationships. But when it comes to modeling social-emotional skills, there’s an added layer: You need to partner with students on building their emotional vocabulary so they can become agents of their emotions. Students might struggle with expressing themselves, so they need your support. Being able to give and receive help is an important way to build and maintain relationships. It means not just seeking help in a time of need, but also being able to offer help to others. Many of us are better at offering help than we are at asking for it when we need it.Ways to practice relationship skills in the classroom Search for the “why” behind a student’s behavior before responding.Identify when an action wasn’t appropriate. Provide an appropriate alternative action or response. Acknowledge that these skills can be difficult to practice.Find ways to practice problem-solving without actual conflicts, like role-playing.Build in ways for students to reflect on their own thinking, patterns, and relationships.Be an active listener and show students you are listening and responding to their feedback.Plan classroom activities that focus on building trust and a sense of belonging.As educators, we may not be able to control some aspects of our jobs. We may not be able to directly help with the many challenges our students face outside of school. But we can use our own social-emotional skills to make our classes a safe place where students know we value them, their families, and the experiences they bring to school.
Understood Explains Season 1What to expect during a special education evaluation
What happens during the evaluation? And what role do families play? Learn how to help shape the evaluation plan and help your child get ready. What happens during an evaluation for special education? Who plans the assessment activities? And what role do families play? This episode of Understood Explains covers all of this and more.Host Dr. Andy Kahn is a psychologist who has spent nearly 20 years evaluating kids for public and private schools. His first guest on this episode is Brittney Newcomer. She is a nationally certified school psychologist. Andy and Brittney will explain:What to expect during an evaluationWho plans the assessment activities How you can help shape the evaluation plan for your childAndy’s second guest is parenting expert Amanda Morin. They’ll share tips on how you can help your child get ready for the evaluation. (Hint: The answer does not involve any studying.) Related resourcesPreparing for an evaluationThe school evaluation process: What to expectWho’s on the evaluation team at your child’s schoolShould your child study for a special education evaluation?Download: Sample letters for things like accepting or rejecting an evaluation planVideo: Inside a dyslexia evaluationEpisode transcriptJaime: I am Jaime. I am living in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Philadelphia. My son is Jonah; he has ADHD. He has a visual impairment, and he has just a general learning disability in basically every subject. So, the whole process of getting Jonah evaluated and acquiring all the necessary materials that the school needed was a complete mess. Every time I thought I was done, and we were good to go, they called me up and said, "Oh, we need another document" or "Oh, we need another record." It just felt like it was never-ending.Andy: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "Understood Explains." You're listening to Season 1, where we explain evaluations for special education. Over 10 episodes, we cover the ins and outs of the process that school districts use to evaluate children for special education services. My name is Andy Kahn, and I'm a licensed psychologist and an in-house expert and understood.org. I've spent nearly 20 years evaluating kids for both public and private schools. I'll be your host. Today's episode is about what to expect during the evaluation itself. We're going to explain how you can help the school get ready to evaluate your child and how you can help your child get ready. No, I promise this won't involve any studying. First, let's hear more of Jaime's story.Jaime: So, the only way at all in which I was involved in his evaluation and planning process is they sent home basically like a questionnaire that the parent has to fill out in terms of behaviors that happen in the home with our child — I guess that was tight tied more towards the ADHD diagnosis, you know, asking all sorts of questions about impulsivity and social interactions with other people. I actually did remind them several times, "By the way, Jonah is different than most children in that he does have a visual impairment, and please test him to see if he qualifies for vision therapy because I know that you can get vision therapy at public schools." And also, I had said to them, you know, "At his previous school, he had speech therapy." I did remind them of that and pushed hard that I wanted to make sure that he got tested for all of those things and got those supports if they found that they were necessary.Andy: It's very common for families to wonder about or worry about what happens during an evaluation. There shouldn't be any surprises for you or for your child. As a member of the evaluation team, you have a right to know about and help shape the evaluation plan for your child. My first guest is going to help me unpack all of this. Brittney Newcomer is a nationally certified school psychologist based out of Houston, Texas. Like me, she’s been in schools quite a long time. She's also a mom of two and an Understood expert, who has a master's degree in special education. Brittney, welcome.Brittney: Thank you, Andy.Andy: So, let's start with the big picture. Different kids need different evaluation plans, right? So, for example, some kids need to be evaluated for speech therapy, and some kids don't. But many evaluations tend to have one thing in common. And that's an educational evaluation, or sometimes you hear it called psycho-educational evaluation. This is where psychologists like you and me, Britt, we do some cognitive testing in areas like reasoning, memory and processing speed. We also look at like academic skills, reading, writing, math, and we look at social, emotional, and behavioral functioning. So, with these key areas in mind, academic, social-emotional, behavioral, how do you go about personalizing an evaluation plan for your kids?Brittney: Yeah. So, when I approach planning and evaluation, you start with the referral reason. So why are we requesting this evaluation? And once we have that really clear picture of what the referral reason is, that's where I start to plan my evaluation. So, I gather as much data as I can first, you know, school records, information from the teacher, I typically talk to the parent. But then I sit down, and I plan the evaluation, which is essentially looking at some broad measures first, so to really give us a big picture of how the student is performing. So, when I say broad measures, I'm talking about things like behavioral scales that look at a broad spectrum of behavior.Andy: So, like questionnaire kind of scales?Brittney: Yeah, exactly.Andy: All right, so let me try to sort of break some of this down. So, when we talk about like referral reasons, what are some of the questions that you're trying to answer?Brittney: So, the first referral question that I usually ask is, in what ways is the student struggling? And then I also ask, on the flip side, in what ways is the student being successful? Where are they not struggling? I also look at factors that could be contributing to the student struggling. So, this could include things that are going on at home, this could include global pandemic, so just really looking at those factors that could be influencing the student's performance at that time.Andy: So, I think you know when we use the word like comprehensive, you know, the idea that we're looking at a lot of bits and pieces of what this child's whole life is about. And for some families, that's a little bit anxiety-provoking, right? If they're having challenges, let's say in school, but you come in with a big broad question like this, how do you navigate that with your families when you're looking at the big picture? And they might be thinking, "Oh, I thought you were looking at my kid's reading" or some other specific challenge.Brittney: I try to approach evaluations and working with families and how I sometimes explain it to them, is that you know, if we're using an analogy, like a jigsaw puzzle, so when we know what that problem is, at the end of the evaluation, we really want kind of a comprehensive, full picture of what's going on in the child. And the only way for us to get there is to have different pieces to put together to be able to see that full picture of what's going on with the child. So again, emphasizing we're not just talking about areas of need, and disability, we're also talking about strengths as well. And so, I do emphasize that with families right off the bat. But in order for us to get that comprehensive picture, we have to have their side as well, and what could be impacting the child. Because that's, in my opinion, one of the most important pieces is the input from the family.Andy: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. When you talk about your evaluation team, do you also have other members like teachers in the team? Or who else is at the table outside of those, you know, multidisciplinary, other evaluators, perhaps?Brittney: Yeah, ideally, teachers would be at the table. Speaking in reality, and teacher schedules, it's often difficult to get them at that initial meeting. But their input is always provided; teachers can provide their input via writing, or we can call them into a meeting via Zoom and allow them to share their input with the classroom teachers are seeing on a day-to-day basis. It's a huge piece of that puzzle that we need to just consider during that initial referral meeting.Andy: Absolutely. And depending upon your state, there may be requirements for the people who are around the table. So, for example, in the state of Maine, we are required to have a regular education teacher, a special education teacher, and an administrator around the table. Brittney, what are some of the timelines that you guys are honoring in Texas? You know, in Maine, we have a 45-day timeline from the day the referral is signed to having a completed evaluation. And I think the federal law, maybe 60 days, what do you folks use for your timelines in Texas?Brittney: We have 45 days to complete the evaluation and have the report written, we then have an additional 30 calendar days, so not 30, school days, 30 calendar days to have that first meeting, IEP meeting, to review the results and determine eligibility.Andy: So, for folks who are concerned about this for your individual states, you know, take a look at our page for this podcast and you'll see we've got some state-specific information there for you folks. As we can see, there's a little bit of variation across states. And it can be a little bit confusing, but you can certainly get some of that information from your own school staff. So, let's move on to some of the, you know, we had some, some brief conversation about the kinds of tests that you've been using. And maybe we can talk about how the process might look somewhat differently for different kids. You know, they don't all take the same tests. And because we're looking for different things, maybe we can talk a little bit about some of those specific kinds of tests.Brittney: As a school psychologist, I have given many different types of cognitive intellectual tests. So basically, you know, one-on-one evaluations that look at how students learn. And I have, I know the differences and the different types of tests, like I do know that some are more hands-on, I know some that are heavily weighted in verbal input. And so, for a younger student, I really do, most of the time, like a very hands-on interactive type of testing, then sitting down one on one looking at an easel is very difficult for them. So, an easel would be just like, you know, cardstock with a card that a student would respond to, but there are certain tests that are very hands-on, and I know that's much better for my younger students. So, I'd say that's my first difference that may occur is what testing could look like for a younger student than what it would look like for an older student.Andy: Sure. And I think when you talked about intellectual or cognitive, you know, for some people, we're looking at things like getting IQ scores, and I think it's very important to keep in mind as a parent, that these scores are really just designed to look at how your child is solving problems engaging in some of these very specific learning tasks. And as Brittney was saying, some of them might lean to more hands-on activities at times, some might be more language-like question and answer that are verbal tests. And again, for most of our, especially for our young kids, we're trying to establish something that we call a baseline. A baseline is getting like that first score. Okay, where is this child starting right now on the scale? And we look at it over time, because so much of our testing is a moment in time, it's a snapshot. Brittney, talk to me a little bit about the educational part. We've sort of talked a little bit about the IQ testing, or the cognitive testing, fairly similar words. But what else tweaks that sort of educational piece? Because you've described a lot of big-picture stuff. What about some of those specific pieces?Brittney: Yes, so we also look at how the student is performing academically and with their achievement. So, when we look specifically at achievement, there are standardized tests that you can give that gives a snapshot of how the student is performing in reading, writing, and math. It's not the only piece though when you're looking at how a student's performing academically, and that's something I stress to parents. We're also looking at grades, we're looking at the student's response to the interventions that have been put in place by the school. So, for example, if a student is struggling in reading, and they've had a very specific reading intervention put in place, how have they responded to that intervention? Observations is actually a big part of this as well — seeing the student in the class where they are struggling, is a big piece of this.Andy: So, we've been talking about the cognitive and educational parts of the psycho-educational testing, how do you approach the behavioral or social-emotional parts of psycho-educational testing?Brittney: Specifically, when I approach the psychological component, this involves a lot less of one-on-one testing of the student, it involves a lot of observation, so seeing the student in different parts of their day. So how are they in the cafeteria? How are they in their classroom during a reading lesson? How are they during a more, or a time when it's less structured like music class? So really seeing a comprehensive view of their day in different settings. Observations are a huge piece of a psychological evaluation. It also includes interviews, so talking with the parent, talking with the student, and then also talking with the teachers.Andy: So, what do you think families can do to help plan and get the right testing for their child?Brittney: So, when we obtain consent, so consent saying we can move forward with testing, we typically talk about the major categories and some proposed testing measures that we'll use. This is where I really, really advocate to families to ask questions, find out exactly what type of what we mean, when we say cognitive testing. I really try to encourage families to ask questions throughout the process. So, making kind of checkpoints with the family. Okay, here's where we're at, here's what I'm thinking about in terms of next steps, what do you think? And just get, making sure, that their input is a part of that process.Andy: Britt, let's talk a little bit about ADHD. Now, many families want to know if a school evaluation can diagnose their child with ADHD. But typically, school psychologists can't make a clinical diagnosis. So, you need a specific type of licensing like the one I have to make a diagnosis.Brittney: When the referral question is around attention, impulsivity, when I am thinking that ADHD needs to be considered, I do have the ability to give scales rating scales, observations specific to ADHD. However, when I write in my report, I write about the characteristics that I'm seeing of ADHD versus the child has ADHD. In Texas, ADHD falls under Other health impairment and an Other health impairment has to be endorsed by a clinical doctor. If the child has an outside diagnosis already, it's a fairly simple process to where we send this form to the doctor, the doctor signs that yes, the student has ADHD, and that becomes part of their eligibility in special education. Now, when the child does not have an outside diagnosis already, that's where it becomes a little bit more complicated. So, I will describe what I'm seeing, I will describe the characteristics that I'm seeing, and then it is up to the family at that point if they do want to pursue the actual diagnosis of ADHD. So, they would then take the step to talk to a doctor about getting that official diagnosis.Andy: Yeah. So, Brittney, you mentioned that schools need to get parents' consent; parents need to agree to the evaluation plan before the school can move forward. So, let's talk for a minute about parental rights. This season of "Understood Explains" has a whole episode about evaluation rights. But for now, I want us to touch on parents' rights during the planning part of the evaluation process. You know, when we think about English language learners, or homeschooled or private school students, are there any things you can share about their rights? Or how this part of the process might be different for them?Brittney: Yes. So going back to that informed consent. For our English language learners, their families have the legal right to have that information presented in their native language. So super important and pretty obvious that we would want, you know, them to be informed in the language that they understand. But it is something that not all families know is a legal right. So, the other piece for our English language learners, is that there has to be a specialist that knows about English language acquisition. So, second language acquisition as part of the evaluation team. So, this was actually recent, I believe it was November 2021, federal guidance that they asked for a member of the evaluation team to have expertise in second language acquisition because we shouldn't be making a determination about why a student is behind academically if we aren't considering where they are acquiring English as their second language.Andy: Yeah, that's absolutely huge. The idea that being able to evaluate somebody's reading or writing skills, for example, when they're not a primary English speaker is an unfair set of criteria. The reality is that not all standardized tests are fair for people who don't speak English as a primary language or people who are from a different culture, other than the dominant culture that created that evaluation tool. And we'll talk about the idea of culture-fair evaluations in other episodes, but this is what we're referring to here. You should not be at a disadvantage because you are not a predominant English speaker, or you're in the process of learning English as your second or third language for that matter. So huge. Thank you for that, Brittney. One other population group that I've dealt with in terms of the evaluation process was homeschooled and private school students within my public schools. Those students maintain the same legal right to free evaluations. And yet we within the public schools typically provided that assessment. What's that process been like for you? Have you had to do those within your school systems?Brittney: So yes, it is the same process where the public school is responsible for providing that evaluation. We provide the evaluation for the family and the school, but the school isn't necessarily legally obligated to provide all the services that we recommend, based on what the student’s needs are. So that is a nuanced thing that I've experienced with private school evaluations.Andy: Brittney, thanks so much for being here today. I can't thank you enough for all your expertise in time.Brittney: Thank you so much for having me.Jaime: So in order to prepare Jonah for the evaluation process, and the fact that there might be people sitting in and observing him, I basically just said to him, "Listen, you're starting a new school, you know, they're looking to see if you need vision therapy, they're looking to see if you need speech therapy, there's probably going to be some people coming in to either do some testing or just kind of watch you as you're learning. And I just want you to just be yourself and do what you normally do and let them do what they have to do, and they will find the best possible plan for you to make sure you get the best education possible." So, I just kind of laid it all out for him just so he knew what was happening, but he was a champ through the whole process and didn't even basically mention it at all, because he's so resilient.Andy: We've been talking about how a team of adults does a lot of planning before the evaluation. What can adults do to help kids be ready for the evaluation or assessment process? My next guest is Amanda Morin. She co-hosts Understood's "In It" podcast about the joys and frustrations of parenting kids who learn and think differently. So, in talking about what to expect during this process, how do you help your child know what to expect? What kind of things do you suggest that we do to help them through that process?Amanda: I think it's really important to really dial down anxiety for kids because they feel like they have to perform. I mean, regardless of how old a child is, they always feel like they're on display, and they have to perform. And especially when to get into middle school kids always feel like that anyway, right? But, when they're singled out in a way, they feel like they, they have to do a certain thing. And so, I think it's important to be able to say to your child, "There's really no expectation of you here; the expectation is that you're here, and you're going to participate." And it's really great to be able to say, "You know what? You don't have to study, these are not the kinds of things you have to study for; we're not expecting you to know all the capitals of all the states, there's no expectation that you have to know certain things."Andy: Yeah, I'd say that, you know, when I talk to kids about the testing process, I'll always say to them, these activities are designed for kids through this entire age range. So, if I have an eight-year-old in the room, I'll say — so when we get to things that maybe a 10,12,14-year-old is supposed to know — "We're pretty sure that they're going to be hard for you, you might not even know what to do. So, keep in mind that as we go, sometimes things are going to get harder, sometimes things are going to be frustrating. And when you find that's happening, we know that it's working, and none of those things last forever. I will tell you, you're only going to be frustrated for so long until we move on to something else. We're going to do that for maybe three or four minutes, and then we'll move on."Amanda: I think that's really good information for parents to have too, to be able to say to your child, there's going to be times where you're frustrated, there gonna be times when the person you're talking to can't tell you whether it's right or wrong, no matter how many times you ask them, they're not going to be able to tell you. And that's because that's their job. And I think sometimes, it's really important for parents to make sure that they are proactively saying to kids, "This is not about how smart you are, this is about what you're really good at, and what you have some trouble with. And we want to really know that so you can feel better about yourself, right?" And that's part of this. It's not just about what can we do to support kids in classrooms? It's also about what can we do to make sure kids feel better about themselves? And so, I think proactively addressing that is really important, too.Andy: Yeah. You know, I think one of the pieces on the anxiety front — I want to dial back here for a sec — routinely, I will ask a parent, how does your child need preparation to know in advance that I might come in, grab them on such and such a day? Or is your child the kind of kid who would prefer to go with the flow and not have to anticipate this? Because some kids might ruminate about it and think and think and think, and not be able to focus on anything else. So, I think that's always an important thing for me when I talk to parents in advance of bringing their child in.Amanda: So, really good point, I think the other component of that, too, is if you have a child who's going to think about that over and over again and be like, wondering about it, and then your schedule changes. So, you know, working in schools, schedules change periodically, and things change up. And if you're not able to go into the classroom and talk to that kid that day, that's a child who might worry, what happened? Why did that not happen today? So, I think that's a really good point, is to make sure that you understand whether or not your child's the kid who needs that advanced warning. When it comes to anxiety, too, it's also important to separate your own anxiety from your child's anxiety, right? It's really easy as a parent to say, "I'm anxious, so my kid is anxious." But that's not always the case. And so, tuning in to whether or not your kid is actually pretty laid back and is not going to worry about this, you can just say, by the way, remember, we may have talked about evaluation, you may have already told them this is coming you may not have, so this may be the first conversation you're having. But to be able to say to them, "Oh, just wanted to give you a heads up," instead of like, "This is a thing that's happening today and I'm very anxious about it and I'm going to impart that anxiety to you."Andy: So, I think Amanda, you've really covered a lot of this. Is there anything specific though, that you think maybe we haven't covered about things you would avoid saying to your kids about what to expect in this process?Amanda: I would avoid saying to your child, "This really matters. This is really important." Right? That's a lot of pressure. That's a lot of pressure on a kid. And I think that kids who have been in school for a while, are used to taking tests or doing homework assignments. And knowing within a couple of days how well they did on that. And so, I think it's really important to let your kid know, your child know, that we're not going to know right away, right? The evaluator may have or the person you sat down with into those activities with may have an idea of what this means, but we're not going to have that information right away. Don't worry about it. You know, don't worry about it, you did the best you could do, and we'll see what comes out of it.Andy: So, we've talked about what happens during an evaluation, how you're part of the team that plans it, and how you can help your child get ready. If there's one thing you take away from this discussion, is that you can play a very active role in helping your child and the school, get ready for the evaluation. Don't be afraid to ask questions about what will or won't be part of your child's evaluation, and why. As always, remember that as a parent, you're the first and best expert on your child. In our next episode, we'll dive into what the evaluation results may look like and explain key terms to help you understand what the results mean for your child. We hope you'll join us.You've been listening to Season 1 of "Understood Explains" from the Understood Podcast Network. If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we've mentioned in the episode. And now, just a reminder of who we're doing all this for; I'm going to turn it over to Lee to read our credits. Take it away, Lee.Lee: "Understood Explains" is produced by Julie Rawe and Cody Nelson, who also did the sound design for this show. Briana Berry is our production director. Andrew Lee is our editorial lead. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director. Seth Melnick is our executive producer. A very special thanks to Amanda Morin and all the other parents and experts who helped us make this show.Andy: Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at understood.org/mission.
SEL printables to share with your students’ families
How can you help your students develop a growth mindset? How can they build resilience and keep trying even when something is hard? Many families are working through these same challenges with their kids at home. And tackling them in partnership with families leads to better outcomes for your students. Share these social-emotional learning activities with your students’ families. You can send them home to families or do an online workshop on how to help kids develop a growth mindset and resilience.Keep in mind that many families may not have access to a printer. In that case, you can suggest copying these worksheets onto blank pieces of paper.15 growth mindset questions These growth mindset questions can help students focus on learning from mistakes, developing new strategies, and persevering even when something’s hard. Share them as examples of conversation starters families can use.Get the PDF in Spanish.Share the Understood article for families in English or in Spanish. It explains how to use this and the other growth mindset downloads.Growth mindset action planStudents who learn and think differently sometimes hyperfocus on mistakes or avoid talking about them. This growth mindset action plan can help them find new ways of approaching challenges. It also reminds kids that mistakes are a normal part of the learning process.Get the action plan PDF in Spanish.Why I can do thisThis worksheet helps students get from “I can’t” to “I can because _______.” Families can use it to help kids think through the reasons they feel like they can’t do something — and why it’s still important to try.Get the “Why I Can Do This” PDF in Spanish.Try saying something elseAs an educator, you know the importance of positive self-talk. Sharing this activity with families can help grade-schoolers find something else to say instead of “This is too hard” or “I give up.” This printable gives examples of phrases that show either a negative, fixed mindset or a positive, growth mindset. Families can help grade-schoolers sort the phrases and choose which ones they want to start using in the future. A variation of this worksheet for older students encourages them to come up with their own phrases that they could say instead of “I can’t.” Download it here:Whether you’re using the printable for younger kids or the printable for older kids, it may be emotional for families. So you may want to be more explicit in how to model the positive statements. Consider organizing an online forum where families can discuss what statements resonate with them and how to turn negative statements into positive ones.Spanish PDF for grade-schoolersSpanish PDF for older studentsStrengths chainRecognizing strengths is just as important as working on challenges, especially for kids who learn and think differently. This fun activity includes examples kids can use in academic and non-academic areas. Share it with families as a way to help kids identify and focus on their strengths. To save paper, you can suggest making the strips out of cereal boxes or toilet paper tubes.Get the strengths chain PDF in Spanish.Share the Understood article for families in English or in Spanish. It explains how to create a strengths chain.Accomplishment boxThis printable guides families to create and decorate an accomplishment box to celebrate wins big and small. It includes examples of wins in four key areas: school, home, social skills, and extracurricular activities. Share it with families as a way to increase kids’ motivation at home.Get the accomplishment box PDF in Spanish.Share the Understood article for families in English or in Spanish. It explains how to create an accomplishment box.Get tips on how to teach SEL during distance learning.
ADHD Aha!Executive function and ADHD shame in women (Katy’s story)
Women & ADHD podcast host Katy Weber felt like she was in suspended animation during the pandemic. Then she learned about executive function. Katy Weber’s ADHD symptoms took center stage pandemic. stuck “waiting mode” experiencing “time blindness.” learned executive function dug signs ADHD women. pandemic, stereotypes surround ADHD never felt relatable Katy. diagnosed, started talking women ADHD found community. Now, sees ADHD shows children, she’s getting support need — earlier got it. Katy ADHD advocate coach host Women & ADHD podcast. Katy Laura podcast, it’s Katy’s turn hot seat!Related resourcesLaura Women & ADHD: Laura Key: Anxiety, perfectionism, ADHD “aha” momentsADHD girls: Overlooked?How explain relationship ADHD executive function challenges7 tips talking child’s teacher ADHDEpisode transcriptKaty: really struggling complaining therapist felt like suspended animation time. ideas didn't ability felt like literally sitting couch phone hand, knowing next time going interrupted. like first time ever even heard term executive functioning.Laura: Understood Podcast Network, "ADHD Aha!," podcast people share moment finally clicked someone know ADHD. name Laura Key. I'm editorial director Understood. someone who's ADHD "aha" moment, I'll host.Laura: I'm today Katy Weber. Katy ADHD advocating coach, founder Women & ADHD, LLC, host "Women & ADHD" podcast. Oh, gosh, start, Katy? start? Well, we've before. Katy got chat show — fabulous, recommend everybody check — I'm excited Katy today answer questions story "aha" moment. So, welcome, Katy.Katy: Yeah, thanks me. I'm excited get chance sit chat again.Laura: like start guest asking: diagnosed ADHD happening life point?Katy: Yes. So, like call pandemic diagnosis. officially diagnosed November 2020, think kind self-diagnosis journey really started fairly soon lockdown really struggling complaining therapist felt like suspended animation time. kids home, husband home couldn't get anything done like waiting next catastrophe happen around remote learning Wi-Fi Zoom like things. next thing know, kids needed eat again. felt like suddenly this, like many mothers time, like full-time butler chef housekeeper, yet time, know, heightened anxiety, felt like doomscrolling time couldn't go anywhere. difficult time many us.When describing therapist, really kind zeroed inability anything right kind waiting mode felt like unstructured time ability really feel like accomplishing anything. therapist, diagnosed ADHD years ago middle schooler diagnosed, she'd gently kind suggesting look years, dismissive like, "I don't know you're talking about." stereotypes hyperactive little boy, like, kind offended. like, "Do really feel like immature, petulant child?" think was...Laura: I'm sorry.Katy: ...right? Like, totally offended. like, "What talk... ADHD?" didn't relate level really didn't take time think connection making conversations. lockdown, like, "Dude, like, really look looks like, especially manifests women." that's remember like taken online ADHD test, generic one adults, things kind related to. lot DSM questions like, "Do feel like you're run motor?" like, "I don't know even means, guess? Don't all? Like, even that?" so, scored kind moderately didn't really think much it.And took one specifically women ADDitude Magazine, one written Sari Solden, like wasn't talking fidget spinners need move, right? Like talking core shame around clutter and, know, questions like, "Do hate people show unannounced?" know, really sort got lot social emotional elements ADHD never occurred me. that's hit realization — many us — like, "Oh, OK, I, right, see is." that's, kind like, yeah, spring summer 2020.Laura: ADHD symptoms think struggling pandemic? Walk typical day like maybe point symptoms experienced throughout day, time.Katy: Oh, yeah. mean, think mean, we... it's often called like waiting mode. feel like hear called even think it's element time blindness feel like can't start something know there's appointment looming, doctor's appointment 1 p.m., can't anything leading that. didn't realize focus issue anxiety issue. sort something never thought much about. think going time early pandemic lockdown internalized hyperactivity like, "Oh goodness, time, myself, right?" people like baking bread. And, know, see projects, people like home projects time everybody things. impulse, right? Like ideas. like, "This great time invest business start new one."And like, know, ideas didn't ability felt like literally sitting couch phone hand, knowing next time going interrupted. like first time ever even heard term executive functioning. Like, never heard term diagnosed realizing executive functioning plays sort decision-making kind knowing next step is. So, felt like divide thoughts ideas percolating mind, also feeling like ending day, accomplished virtually nothing.Laura: feel slightly relieved I'm person struggles "Oh, something's happen like hour. So, can't focus anything else moment." happened yesterday. daughter going playdate waiting friend show up. so, hour friend showed up, started get super anxious, things wanted do. kind like creepily waiting doorway needed to. struggling much, waiting event start could start next event. I've never heard anyone else explain like that. So, thank you.Katy: Well, remember also, too, another wonderful thing ADHD is, time blindness, like moment realization sitting down, pick kids school — pick three — around 2 o'clock, kind started waiting mode sitting around parsing phone like, "I don't want start anything I'm going leave hour." literally 5 minutes leave, coat one shoe saw dog food kitchen floor something, started sweeping mopping kitchen floor 5 minutes leave decided done right then. So, ended late pick kids.And even though literally done nothing hour, 5 minutes like, thought head, something could easily 5 minutes. think that's another thing lot us struggle with, like, long task take us? so, moments I'll sit around hour nothing, we'll late, thought would take 5 minutes completely reorganize kitchen cabinets.Laura: feel like better understanding personally run motor phrase means?Katy: mean, yes no. guess still don't. mean, use example still don't really understand means. think lot sometimes comes idea many us, we're diagnosed adulthood, don't realize everybody thinks way operates way. Right. so, term, feel like you're run motor? like, who? Everybody feels way. Like, felt like was, like, akin asking breathe oxygen. Like, it's like, yeah, right? heart beats.And so, think,
This back-to-school season, Understood is supporting family-educator relationships
September 2020Whether students return to school in person or continue with distance learning, this year it’s vital for families and educators to work together to support children who learn and think differently. As students who learn and think differently enter a school year unlike any before, Understood’s back-to-school resources center around the power of parent-teacher relationships. Our goal is to help strengthen communication and collaboration between families and educators by providing information about: Safety considerations for students who learn and think differentlySpecial education during the pandemic Social-emotional learning for students with and without disabilities How to address the impact of the COVID slideAccessibility approaches for in-person and distance learningCreating a safe space for open conversations about racial injusticeMany children will be entering the virtual and physical classrooms of teachers they’ve never met before. By sharing information about how students fared this past spring, families and educators can start the school year strong. A lot of kids have experienced trauma or food insecurity, or they’ve had loved ones pass away. Open communication can help educators understand each student’s unique needs and situations. Juliana Urtubey, an Understood Teacher Fellow and fourth- and fifth-grade special education teacher in Las Vegas, is also prioritizing parent-teacher collaboration to ensure that the school can make thoughtful considerations on the child’s behalf. “The only way educators and schools can do that is through close and genuine partnership with families,” says Juliana. “No matter what the need is, let us know. No matter what the challenge is, let us know.”Understood, teachers, and families are working toward the same goal: exceptional care and education for all students.
In ItUnpacking the teen mental health crisis: How we got here and what to do about it
The teen mental health crisis. How is it showing up in kids with learning and thinking differences? And what can we do about it? We’ve been hearing a lot about a mental health crisis that’s affecting kids — especially teens — really hard. What’s behind this crisis? How is it playing out for kids with learning and thinking differences? And what can we do about it?To help answer these questions, hosts Rachel Bozek and Gretchen Vierstra turn to Dr. Matthew Cruger. He’s the clinical director and a senior neuropsychologist at the Child Mind Institute. Learn how the crisis is showing up in his practice, especially with kids who learn and think differently. Hear Matt’s thoughts on when the crisis started — and why. Plus, get Matt’s advice on how families can help support their kids’ mental health. Related resources Treatment for mental health issues How to talk with your child about social and emotional issuesListen to this episode of The Opportunity Gap for more tips on supporting kids’ mental health Episode transcriptGretchen: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It," a podcast about the ins and outs...Rachel: ...the ups and downs...Gretchen: ...of supporting kids who learn and think differently. I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.Rachel: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer and editor raising two kids with ADHD. Today, we're talking about our children's mental health.Gretchen: We've been hearing a lot in recent months about a mental health crisis that's hitting kids, especially teens, really hard. It was there before the pandemic, but we know the isolation and anxiety brought on by COVID-19 didn't help.Rachel: And honestly, even if we weren't hearing about this crisis in the news, I think it would still be on our radar. Because speaking for myself, at least, I see evidence of it all around me.Gretchen: I do, too. I mean, I see it in my own home. And I've been hearing from lots of parents in the community that kids just seem to be saying a lot of "What's the point? Why should I do it?" And they're just lacking some of that motivation that I think kids used to have.Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. So I guess the question I have is: What's behind this crisis? How is it playing out in particular for kids with learning and thinking differences? And what can we do about it?Gretchen: So to answer those questions, we're speaking today with Dr. Matthew Cruger.Rachel: Dr. Cruger is the clinical director and a senior neuropsychologist in the Learning and Development Center at the Child Mind Institute.Gretchen: In that role, he does clinical work, neuropsych exams, cognitive assessments, and other evaluations for gifted children, as well as kids with learning difficulties, autism spectrum disorders, and ADHD.Rachel: We are delighted to have him here with us on the podcast. Matt, welcome to "In It."Dr. Cruger: Thank you.Rachel: We've been hearing for some time now about a mental health crisis for teens and even pre-teens. And we want to get into how this is showing up for our kids who have learning and thinking differences in particular. But first, we thought it might be useful to look at the problem more broadly. Even before the pandemic, we were seeing a marked increase in depression, anxiety, and suicide among teens. Is that right?Dr. Cruger: Yeah, I think that prior to the pandemic, we certainly recognized there's a couple of things that I think are factors. One is that we don't have enough clinicians to provide treatment for all the patients that need treatment. So families adjust to many of the struggles that their kids have, hoping that they'll get better, when some clinical intervention could be helpful in turning things around.Gretchen: What about what we've heard about the impact of technology and social media? Has that had a negative impact on kids?Dr. Cruger: I think so. Certainly, I think kids are spending a lot more time on technological devices. The impact of that is that they're not necessarily out interacting with other kids. Certainly, we want parents to monitor the kind of content that they're accessing as well, because there can be communications in that context that are problematic for kids and present a way of living in the world that's not as helpful. So the amount of engagement and the access to certain types of content on the on the internet I think is problematic and exacerbates things.Rachel: Yeah, I definitely saw this with both of my kids that when the pandemic hit, the device usage just like went through the roof for so many reasons that we all know and understand. But can you talk a little bit about how that contributed to this crisis?Dr. Cruger: Yes, I think that it was obvious because most of us were home and everything switched to remote platforms. Kids had to be on the computers every day for much of their schooling. And obviously many families couldn't also stop the work that they were doing. And so I think by necessity, some of the technology became — it served as a babysitter, right? For some of the time when kids had downtime. And it is less of an interactive experience, I think, even under the best circumstances.So I think with those increased time screen usage going up, we have pretty good evidence that that can have negative effects on their mental health experience. And I think it's persisted. So even with the return to school, the situation has sort of led kids to have a decrease in their experience, right?Gretchen: I think about engagement with the kids during this time period, right? Whether that was school or family. But like, really school, like I saw at home, at least for me, like engagement go down.Dr. Cruger: Yes, I do feel like — and I'm reflecting on my own kids in particular, who were in third grade and kindergarten at the time. So there are special, unique challenges at those developmental time frames. Right? Kindergartners need to learn to read. That is such a great process to do in person with a teacher who is helping you sound out words, who has books and content right there for you.And third grade when you're really starting to like apply yourself for deeper thinking. That's something where a mentor, a sort of coach, someone who's there as your champion to support you like a teacher could and give you direct feedback. That kind of engagement is really essential to the learning process that we are all used to. So there's no doubt that that was much harder to do. So I think that that clearly had an effect.Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, in my house I had a fifth grader going into sixth grade. So in middle school. That's such a social time for kids. And to be isolated from your peers during all of that, it was really hard.Dr. Cruger: Yeah. I think that during that time frame, the group of kids I was most worried about were kids that were in middle school heading to high school or in the early phases of high school. It's a time of really serious reflection on the material that you're working with in school. And really it's where a lot of those social advancements happen. Really learning where you stand in relationship to others and more complex social encounters and interactions were so important to develop in that time frame. And a lot of those kids I do think suffered. They were sad.Gretchen: So what does all of this look like and sound like in your practice? What have you been hearing from the kids who come into your office these days?Dr. Cruger: Yeah, I think maybe the first piece of things is like a low-level sort of sadness or anxiety about some experience that's sort of persisted. I do feel like kids benefit from the sense that they are going through some of these experiences for a purpose. And I think it's been very hard for us to know how to explain to them why things are organized the way they are. What's the higher purpose, what are they striving to achieve?So that reflects a little bit of the engagement piece, like to be fully engaged in the content of material. But also to feel like school happens in a certain way and we're headed for a certain destination. That seems to me to have been lost.Gretchen: Yeah, like I would say, like in my house, I've heard a lot of "What's the point?"Dr. Cruger: I think that's true. I think there's an apathetic sort of response. It's sort of like it doesn't really matter so much what I do. And I've heard it for a long time, you know, where in focusing on academic work with kids, you know, kids might have for a long time have said to me, like learning math doesn't really matter because I won't use it in my future.But it's maybe like a broader response to the time, like, I guess a feeling of like, I don't really know what the point is or what the goal is of what I'm being asked to do. That's a little bit of a helplessness towards the task and activity.Gretchen: Rachel, I want to step back for a second here and just pick up on something that Matt just said. He's talking about how kids responded to the time. What's that time? All the time Is the pandemic, right? When things really shifted. And I think it's worth unpacking a little bit about what that time was and what it did.Rachel: Yeah, right. Definitely. It's easy to forget from a little distance how just upside down our world was when the pandemic first hit. All of a sudden, a lot of kids discovered that their parents, their teachers, and maybe other people that they always would look to for answers really didn't have much to offer or know what to do.Gretchen: Yeah, I mean, it must have been — I know it was hard for kids to see rules changing all the time, adults complying, not complying. To see, you know, your parents who used to like get up and go out the door to work are now sitting at home in their pajamas on the screen all day. And what's happening there?Rachel: And and the rules about screen time kind of went out the window and, you know, some other rules, too, just because we were all just trying to get through the day. That's a lot.Gretchen: Yup. So it seems like all of a sudden kids are like: All these structures that you have in place are arbitrary and made up. And I'm not going to go along with this anymore.Rachel: Yeah, we got called out. So let's get back to our conversation with Matt.Rachel: We know that you work with a lot of children who have learning and thinking differences. Can you talk about how all of the stressors that we're talking about here may be affecting them in different ways?Dr. Cruger: Yeah. I mean, I think that if you — I guess I reflect on the learning differences that I see. The kids who are struggling with academics, in particular, the inputting of new ideas, new processes for solving problem. They need real guidance on how to manage that material. And that can sometimes come from family involvement, but often comes from direct instruction. They really need teachers who are able to guide them in that process of learning.Kids are struggling to find a source of motivation that they can direct their efforts to. And sometimes they feel like it's hard to know: Will their efforts pay off? And that can sometimes lead to sort of decreased motivation.Rachel: You know, we've been talking a lot about the impact of the pandemic on mental health. But I know there are a lot of other sources of anxiety and depression for kids these days. Things like school shootings and climate change. Do you hear about those kinds of things from the kids that you see?Dr. Cruger: Well, I think you bring up, Rachel, like a set of things that are on my mind. There's a bunch of global issues that kids confront. So it's very common for me to hear kids talk about sort of what we think of as like climate anxiety. You know, that worry that the world is on a crash course towards not being able to exist in the way that we know it. And that is a like a low-level worry and source of preoccupation for kids, even though they're highly motivated many times to do something about that.I think violence and safety is another thing that kids spend their time thinking about. And I certainly also think a lot of teenagers are focused on their own identity development. That's a developmental goal for that age range. And there's so much information about choosing your identity. What are acceptable identities? What are identities that others will not accept? That makes that process, I think, even more complicated for them. So those preoccupations, I think, sort of derail them from knowing how to invest time in the things that they need to do.Gretchen: Right they're figuring out all those questions around sexuality and gender identity. Not to mention, for older kids, they're thinking about what they want to do with their life. Is that something kids come to you for guidance on?Dr. Cruger: Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of teenagers think there might be only like four or five jobs that a person can have in life, or that college is the only choice.Rachel: Yeah, totally. Although they all seem to have gotten the memo that professional video game player is a thing.Dr. Cruger: There is no doubt.Gretchen: Or YouTuber.Dr. Cruger: Yes. YouTuber Influencer Professional Video Player. Yeah. Yes. I think I did say to my son at one point, not that many people get paid to play video games.Gretchen: Right.Dr. Cruger: He did not believe me. So.Gretchen: You know, not to bring us back to doom and gloom, but for one more moment, I do want to ask about something else has been in the news. Is this whole idea of loneliness — that we have a loneliness problem in the U.S. Are you seeing that come up in your work with kids?Dr. Cruger: I do think that it's worth sort of questioning what are the ways that kids have contact with others outside of school? When do they get to play with each other? I sound like, you know, I have a lot of gray hairs in my beard, which I do. But like, I remember being outside on the street playing football. And we just don't see kids out and engage with each other in unstructured play activities quite as much.And, you know, I do also think like going to your friend's house to play video games when I was younger was sort of boring. You could only play Atari 2600 for so long. But now they're much more engaging and activating processes that the kids immerse themselves in. And so I think it leads to some challenges in how to have contact.Rachel: So how can we best help our young people, you know, as parents, as caregivers, as teachers, whoever's listening. What makes a difference for them? You know, in all of these things, loneliness and the other things we've been talking about.Dr. Cruger: Yeah. I mean, I think most parents decided that they were going to have kids sort of set their kids up for the best future and the best life. So I think just reminding ourselves again of the importance of the parental involvement with kids, I think is the first piece of things. Right?It's been hard to, I think, over this past period of time, to keep our values front and center in our mind because we've had to adjust to what's required in the moment. And so to return again to the idea of, like, what are the most important things for me and my family? I do think there's value in families sort of trying to think of is there a motto that they could have for their family that sort of captures that moment, like "We Crugers stick together" or something like that? It sort of captures the family spirit, but also like a positive element of we're all in this together and we have values that we're trying to achieve.I do think spending more time together is a clearly like an antidote. As annoying as it was for my kids to learn to play pinochle, that was the thing that we focused on learning. Because it gave us time to get away from the screens, to sit down together, to challenge each other. And I think those kind of activities where you're really engaged with each other and having a good time are very important.There's no doubt family meals are also something that we should invest in. It's not always possible and it's not always easy when you're catching things on the fly. But that time where you're sitting down together as a family I think is really worthwhile.I won't say family meetings because everybody calls family meetings and the only people that show up are the parents. But I mean, but that idea that there's time to work together to align your interests. And then I think helping support your kids to find, you know, the one or two or three good friends, and making traditions and routines that they can sort of establish with their peers that are reliable. Like if they, you know, the friends all come over on Friday for pizza or something like that, that might be something that's like low investment but really worthwhile.Rachel: Yeah. I feel like our family meetings always, there's an expectation that there's some, like, amazing surprise. It's like, hey, we're going to have a meeting and it's like, oh, we're going to Disneyworld. Like, No, we actually need to talk about something that's going on in school.Dr. Cruger: That's right.Rachel: They backfired.Dr. Cruger: Taking out the garbage. Yeah.Gretchen: Right. The chore list.Dr. Cruger: Yeah, exactly.Gretchen: So if you think your own child may be anxious or depressed, but they aren't talking with you about it, what can you do as a parent? How do you figure out if they're at risk in some way or if they're just going through a fairly typical high and low of life as a teenager, for example?Dr. Cruger: Yeah, I mean, I think parents need to trust their instincts. I do think that when we have concerns about our children, it's not often just because we're worrying needlessly. It means that we're noticing something that our intuition is sort of telling us we better check in with them about.I think that a safe space for talking for kids is one that sort of models what we know good friendships are about. Right? It's sort of a model of a place where you can share information without someone making designs on how you should improve. Right?Some of the things that might make it easier if you're, you know, the teenagers turning away from you, if there's two parents involved, maybe it's time for the other parent to try to take over. And getting away from the house, going out to eat for breakfast, carefully bringing up a topic that you have concerns about. I think all of those things. You know, a nice soft start works well for all of us. Don't start with a heavy hand when we're raising a concern with someone that we love. And I do think that kids who are going through some struggles do desire solace for those struggles. So if they know that you're available for that, that's helpful.Anxiety is maybe a tricky one because anxious people try to get out of the situations that provoke anxiety. So even talking about the thing that makes you anxious, you really sort of are mobilized to seek to avoid it. The problem is, is that if you avoid it, it just sort of gets worse. And so I think that's one thing that parents should sort of keep in mind, that when your child is feeling anxious, it might make them sort of naturally more reticent to share with you the details of that.And, you know, some mind reading is very problematic. Like, if you say, I know you're thinking something negatively about it, the person you say that to is bound to get irritated with you. But if you say, I've been noticing that you look sort of sad and I want to help with that, you know, can you tell me more about what's going on for you? That kind of mind reading might convey interest and sincere desire to understand. That kind of mind reading is affectionate and maybe positive and might yield a good result.Gretchen: You know, getting back to making a safe space to talk to kids about what's going on. I've really been trying to do that. And I know I've mentioned before that I do a lot of this in the car, which doesn't work for everybody. But the other thing I've been trying hard to do, which is very difficult for me, is not be the advice giver, is to kind of just sit and listen and let them vent. And then when I don't give advice, every once in a while, my daughter will give me this look like, Well, where's your advice? I'm looking for it now. And then I give it.Rachel: Right. But you have to wait for that cue for sure.Gretchen: Yeah.Rachel: Yeah, I think that's great. And I try to do that, too. I definitely have some work to do there because I often jump in with like, well, it sounds like.... And I just offer my read on what happened, which isn't necessarily why the conversations happening.Gretchen: Yeah.Rachel: I do like that approach. and I think they do get to that point where they still want to know what we think.Dr. Cruger: Yeah.Rachel: So what do you wish people better understood about this crisis and how we get out of it?Dr. Cruger: I think my biggest wish would be really thinking about how they can, you know, parents can develop or teachers can develop like a deeper, more personalized understanding of the people that they're interacting with. So time is always tight, but a way to really show sincere interest and engagement, I think is important. Otherwise, it's sort of like almost like commuting culture. We're just sort of passing each other by, sort of missing those moments and opportunities to make deeper contact. So that's why I think what I would wish for it, you know, time and opportunity to take a moment to find out what's going on, I think that would be a real boon for people.Gretchen: That sounds like a good plan.Rachel: Thank you so much for this. It was such a great conversation.Gretchen: Yeah. Thank you so much.Dr. Cruger: Well, thank you. I appreciate being able to talk to you both. I enjoyed the conversation and I appreciate what you're doing.Gretchen: You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network.Rachel: This show is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from you.Gretchen: If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode.Rachel: Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at Understood.org/mission.Gretchen: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music.Rachel: For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director, Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.Gretchen: And thanks for always being in it with us.
In ItHoliday survival guide
The holidays can be a stressful time for families with kids who learn differently. How can families do more than just make it through the holidays?The holidays can be the most wonderful time of the year. But they can also be the most stressful for families with kids who learn differently. So how can families do more than just make it through the holidays? In this episode, hosts Amanda Morin and Gretchen Vierstra bring holiday questions from the Understood community to Dr. Ellen Braaten, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Understood expert. Listen in to hear Ellen’s practical tips for dealing with holiday challenges — as well as advice for how to bring joy to the holidays. Plus, Amanda shares her family’s simple gift-giving strategy.Related resourcesHow to make the holidays more fun for your childWant Need Wear Read: The holiday gift strategy that works for my kidsDownload: Holiday behavior worksheet for your childHoliday tips when your child has food sensitivities Episode transcriptAmanda: Hi, I'm Amanda Morin. I'm the director of thought leadership for Understood.org and a parent to kids who learn differently.Gretchen: I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood. And this is "In It."Amanda: "In It" is a podcast from the Understood Podcast Network. We talk to parents, caregivers, teachers, experts, and sometimes even kids, so we can offer perspective and stories, and sometimes even advice, from people who have challenges with reading and other types of learning differences.Gretchen: Today, we're talking about the holidays. Amanda: For some, this is the most joyous time of the year. But for families with kids like mine who learn a little bit differently, it can be a total minefield. Gretchen: Yep. Whether it's that incessant jingle of bells, the loss of the routine, the demands of being or hosting guests, or something else, this time of year is a lot.Amanda: A lot. And so, with us to figure out smart strategies for navigating all of this is Dr. Ellen Braaten. Gretchen: Ellen is the director of the Learning and Emotional Assessment Program at Mass General Hospital and an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. Amanda: She's written lots of books, including most recently a book for parents called "Finding the Right Mental Health Care for Your Child." And she's also an Understood expert. Gretchen: We're delighted to be talking with her today. Ellen, welcome to "In it." Ellen: Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Amanda: We're really happy you're here, and, full disclosure, I told Gretchen that I want to do an episode on navigating the holidays because I maybe find myself getting a little bit anxious at this time of year.Historically, things have not always gone smoothly, but the holidays in our house — as you know, and our listeners know, I have two kids who are autistic, one who has ADHD, and there have been a couple of meltdowns here and there over the years. And I don't think I'm alone in worrying about the holidays, as a parent to neurodiverse kids. Please tell me I'm not alone. Am I alone? Ellen: Oh, heavens no, you're not alone. I also have a son with ADHD who's now a young adult, and I remember holidays not always being exactly what I wanted them to be. Gretchen: All right. We're going to dig into the specifics in a minute, but before we do that, could you just briefly lay out what are some of the most common sources of friction or difficulty that families might have at this time of year?Ellen: It can go so many different ways, which is why it's so hard to plan for this. If you've got a child who has trouble with language processing and they can't express what it is they need, and everyone else is pretty stressed and they're doing other things and can't attend to their children the way they typically do, that might be an issue.Some kids have trouble inhibiting their behaviors. And at a time when everybody seems sort of disinhibited, they can be picking up on the wrong kind of cues in the environment that say, "Oh, this is a free-for-all time," when really it's not. For other kids, it's probably, um, even things like working memory, remembering what it is they're supposed to be doing at any one time, because their parents are thinking, "Well, you remember from last year we did this," but they don't really remember that's what they did last year. And then other kids have just trouble processing things quickly, and the holidays move very quickly in some ways, and in other ways they're really interminably long. So kids have difficulty on both sides of those, you know. It's like everything seems to be a whirlwind, but then it's also "sit there and behave right now" for a long period of time because we have relatives here or we're in some sort of holiday celebration. So it can be the worst of the best for lots of us. Amanda: I like that. The worst of the best. It's interesting because when you're talking about inhibiting, right? That ability to hold it together. Sometimes we think about that as like, I want my gift now. I want my gift now. I want to be opening gifts. I remember in our house, it used to be, "I want you to open the gift I got you right now,” right?Ellen: Right. And that's the best part of the holiday. Amanda: Yeah. Gretchen: You mentioned that it's, you know, it can feel so long, but that it's also so quick. For me, I feel like sometimes kids don't have time to adjust, right? By the time they've adjusted to what's going on and settled in, it's over.Ellen: Yeah, and a lot of kids with ADHD have trouble with just sort of that perception of time. Like, I'm already drinking out of cups from the coffee shop that have Christmas trees on them. It's, it's quite a long ways before Christmas, and yet Christmas itself lasts a good, you know, few hours. So for kids, this can just seem really out of whack in some ways. It can be hard for them to just sort of organize that time frame, which can make you feel sort of out of sorts when you're, like, "This seemed to last forever to get here. And now it's over in a blink of an eye." Amanda: And sometimes not soon enough for some people, actually, so — Gretchen: Yes.Amanda: So, Ellen, we've gathered a ton of questions from the Understood community that we'd like to get your take on. And we want to start with this one: Community Member 1: Hello. My name is Kamden Hainsworth. My question is, how can I support my daughter who has ADHD and social anxiety? With the gift-giving holidays coming up, how can I help her feel satisfied with the gifts that she is given when her little sweet ADHD brain is always looking for more dopamine or, you know, more excitement with new gifts, that feeling of constantly feeling unsatisfied with what she has been given? We practice a lot of thanks and gratitude, but I think this goes beyond that. And I'd love to hear your insight. Thank you so much.Ellen: I think that one of the things you have to do is just accept her for who she is when you know that it's not, like, I know this isn't who my child is; this has nothing to do with gratitude.So just sort of let it go. I mean, that's one way to handle this, is to just say whatever I get her is probably not going to satisfy her in the moment because it's not enough of a hit, and kind of let it go. And one of the things you don't want to do, and I know this person asks for what should I do, and the thing is that there's not a whole lot you can do to make someone feel grateful in the moment, especially when you know that's not, you know, what she's feeling inside. One of the things you don't want to do is sort of set the stage for "I'm an ungrateful person," because we hear that a lot as adults from people who were fed that kind of line, that "No matter what we gave you, it wasn't enough."Give your child some idea of the empathy that you put into this gift. Help them learn to sort of empathically connect with you. And in some ways, let it go. Amanda: So one of the things our family started doing years ago is this idea of doing four gifts only: something they want, something they need, something they can wear, and something that they read. And it has been an amazing game-changer for our family. Ellen: I love that idea. And the thing is that the want is something driven by them. And the read doesn't mean, did you always do books or can you do, can you do audiobooks, or...? Amanda: Oh, audiobooks for sure. Ellen: And, also, who doesn't love socks, in terms of the need? Amanda: I'm laughing because that's what everybody always gives me is fuzzy socks. Fuzzy socks are the best. Ellen: Yeah, no, I love that idea. What is great about it is it prepares kids for that, you know, that surprise that can make them so anxious, like, "What's in that box? And how am I supposed to look?" You know, even the drama of opening a package for kids who don't like attention on them, how they're supposed to be, like, excited or, you know, some are just, like, "Don't look at me." So knowing that it's going to be one of these four things is so calming for lots of kids. Gretchen: OK. Here's another question we got from a parent in our community: Community Member 2: With so much stimulation during the holidays, from family members to presents to lack of routine, what are some tips to help my son with ADHD regulate his mood?Ellen: So one of the things that I think is important for parents to know is, where in this ADHD umbrella does your child particularly struggle? For most parents, they have some indication because they've had some kind of evaluation done in school. Or they hear the same sort of things from their teachers and other people who care and love their child.So it could be things like controlling emotion, but it could also be things like trouble going from one activity to the next. It could be something like just having trouble sort of stopping and thinking before they act. Know what of those things — and there are many that we could look at within the executive function umbrella — know specifically what those areas are for your child, because we try to look for "What are the things that we should do?" You know, like, give them advance warning, give them time to process information. All of those might be good, but if you have a child who just has difficulty being able to understand language, for example, and they have trouble picking up on social cues, the way you're going to respond is a little bit different. So I would say, look really carefully at "Where are my child's triggers? Where are their areas of vulnerability, and where can I intervene? What has worked in the past for them?" And don't think of the holidays as being something completely different that you need to come up with a whole different set of solutions. What you need to do is really use the solutions that have worked the best and know where you might find that.So, regulating emotions, if you know your child has trouble regulating emotions because there's a lot of sensory information, bring down the sensory information. If you know they have trouble regulating emotion because they don't like surprises or because they have trouble expressing what it is inside or labeling their emotions, you're going to respond in different ways.So think about that. And I'm positive that there are other ways that have probably worked in the past and apply those things again. Amanda: That's really good, too, right, to remember that it's not like you're going into this without having any strategies already. Something has already worked. Ellen: Exactly. And I would say most of us are kind of disregulated at the holidays. So don't be afraid to say and to model good self-regulation for your child and just say, "You know, I feel like I can just scream right now because it took me 20 minutes to find a parking spot at the mall," or whatever it is, to let them know that it's kind of normal to feel overwhelmed. For them, it might be particularly difficult. Let them know that it's OK to talk about it. And give them opportunities, too, to be able to do that. Amanda: That's so interesting because one of the questions we had is around boundaries in particular. So I think that this is a really good move into that question. The question was, Do you have suggestions about how to communicate with children about the boundaries I set up with my extended family? So for example, if I say my family is going to leave if you keep telling me that my ADHD'er needs to sit still for the two-hour holiday dinner, and we do need to follow through on that, how do I prepare my kids for that possibility? Ellen: Oh boy, that's a great question. First of all, you want to protect your child from this. They shouldn't have to be a witness to this because, no matter how well you do it, they'll probably feel some sense of shame around this, that — you don't want them to at all feel like they are the cause that the holiday didn't go as planned.I would front-load this by saying "Here's the way it's going to go. My child might have trouble," whatever it is. "If you don't like that, if that doesn't make you feel comfortable, let's plan to do something different for the holiday." You know, I can give you an example of my own child who was a very picky eater, who, at the holidays, when everybody else was having a salad before dinner, he had a plate of goldfish as his appetizer.And so, you know, I would have to say to my mother, like, "Mom, he doesn't like salad, but I want him to feel included that he's also going to have an appetizer just like everyone else, so he had a plate of goldfish." It's still sort of a, something we laugh about in our family. But I would say, "If you can't be quiet about that, Mom, don't come to dinner, because that makes him feel bad."Get them to see it from their point of view. Parents and relatives who can't do that, they might need some help with that, but front-load it and say, "Here's what to expect. Here's what I am expecting of my child. I'm not expecting them to sit for a half an hour. I'm not expecting them to eat lettuce this particular day. This is what we're doing. Can you handle this, Mom?" as opposed to "Can my child handle you?" Amanda: I love that reframe. Like, "Can you handle this?" So I'm going to just follow up a little bit. What if it's not at your house? What if you're at somebody else's house? Ellen: Oh, if you're at someone's house and let's say the criticisms do occur, you've got to really be very conscious as to whether or not you want to jump into that situation where you are making the situation worse by trying to protect your child. So, for example, you know, if somebody's saying, "Doesn't he ever sit down?" you can say, "Well, you know, I love his sense of energy and he's really excited about the holiday."So kind of think yourself before you go, "What are the sorts of things these people have said before?" I shouldn't call them "these people," but "the relatives who complain" have said before, and how can I look at that as a positive, and then also talk to them about, you're probably struggling with this too. So let them know, you know, "We're coming to your house for dinner. I just want to let you know, like, I'm working really hard as a parent to make sure that my child does the best he can at being able to control his impulses. Any way that you could help me, I would really appreciate it." It sort of reframes the whole thing from, "I'm afraid to bring my child in," but here, you know, in self-disclosure, I'm concerned about this too. We both love this kid; what do we do? And if you're in a situation where you're not both loving this kid, that's the sort of thing where you might want to think is this really where I want to spend these precious days? Amanda: OK. Ellen, you're coming with me on every holiday trip from now on because you are my — I'm putting you in my pocket.Gretchen: Ellen, you brought up a lot of good points, and we got a lot of questions about relatives. So here's another one that kind of breaks our heart. What can I do about kids overhearing relatives, comparing all of them? You know, it's the typical, well, so-and-so's the smart one, and this one is the sporty one, or it could be just calling out some of the challenges your child has. What do you do about that?Ellen: That's one of those situations where I would just tell them that that kind of conversation isn't allowed. Seriously. There's no way to sort of get them to see from your point of view. Sometimes they're not even aware of it. Sometimes they, you know, if it's a grandparent, they've got seven kids, they're trying to figure out how they all compare with one another. So sometimes this isn't a negative, but other times it's really just how people talk about kids. And to just say, "Listen, you know, I know there's differences with all of them, but today's not the day for us to be talking about this." Or, "It makes me feel uncomfortable to hear this," like, really check in with yourself as to what bothers you about that. And then convey that to them. Gretchen: What would you say to your kids, though, if they've heard that. Ellen: Oh yeah, I would just, one of the things I always do in cases like that is to ask the kids, first of all, what did they hear and what do they think about it? And as a parent, I wouldn't necessarily go into this thinking that my child feels the same way I do. But I think the best place to start is to ask them what they know and how do they feel. "What did you think about when Grandma was comparing so-and-so with so-and-so? What did you think?" They might say, "Oh, that's just Grandma." Or they might say, "I feel really bad." And as a parent, you can tell, even if the words don't match their expressions, how they really feel about this. You don't want to make a bigger deal of it than it is, but you want to ask them, is that something that bothers you? And if they say no, say, "Oh, it bothers me. Should it bother me? What do you think about that?" So that it opens up more of a discussion, you know, how do we feel about the things that people say? Sometimes they say it in a mean way and other times they're just saying things, and how do we sort through that?That can be a really good activity for lots of kids to have: When should we be offended and when shouldn't we? And to sort of say, "What do you think I should say to Grandma about that? Because I don't like it, even if you're OK with it." Or vice versa. Amanda: That makes so much sense. I love making it an activity. That's a really smart way of handling it. We also have some questions about kids who are sensitive to things like touch, taste, sound, and so forth, which I can completely relate to because not only are my kids like that, I am too. One of the questions that came up, though, is do you have suggestions on how I can help my child speak up and set their own boundaries? So, for example, my son is really sensitive to sensory input. He doesn't like being hugged. What can I teach him to say to all the relatives who expect hugs and kisses? Ellen: That's a very good question, because coming into somebody's house and saying "Don't hug me!" is not the right answer. Plan ahead and ask him, "How should we handle this? What should we tell people before time?" And I think now, especially post-COVID, these sorts of discussions are OK to have, more so than they were before. So what does he want to do? Does he want to shake hands? Does he just want to high-five? And then, you know, depending on your child's age, it might be him talking or it might be you talking, just saying, "You know what, this is just a really stressful time of year. We haven't seen you guys in a long time. Hugging is not his thing, our thing," whatever it is. "We're going to all high-five this year." Or, you know, "When he comes in, like, don't make him feel like how he wants to greet you is not correct." Do you think your family could handle that? Amanda: I think so. I also think that there's something interesting in there around just consent and boundaries in particular, right? That there's a way to tie that into those other conversations and say, "And also you have the right to tell somebody you don't want them to hug you because it's your space, right? It's your body. And you make that decision." Ellen: Yeah. It is a good way to get into some of those conversations. Like, what do I like? "What can I tolerate" is more than just "Can I tolerate, you know, the crinkling of the paper in the background, but also what can I tolerate in terms of who I want to touch me?" And all of these things can be really good conversation starters. Gretchen: Yeah. You know, Ellen, you reminded me, all the sensory things. One thing as an adult, I started doing when people come to my house, is I ask them not to wear heavy perfumes or colognes because I get migraines from those smells. And it took a lot for me to start doing that as an adult to realize, like, after every time these people come over, I have a really bad headache and I feel really sick. I have to start saying ahead of time, "You know, when you come to my house, let's not have any smells." And it felt odd at first, but being headache-free after those events has made a world of a difference.Amanda: Yeah. A good way to model it for your daughters that way, too, right? You're setting them up to be able to say those things too. Gretchen: I want to change gears a little bit and talk about some positive stuff, right? We've talked a lot about, like, what we want to avoid. How as families can we help create holiday experiences that we do want, that everyone will enjoy together? Do you have any tips on how families can build that for themselves, how they can make that happen? Ellen: So, one of the best things you can do is to instill a sense of gratefulness in kids. Gratefulness has so many positive outcomes, including feeling better about ourselves. We talked before about how it can make us more appreciate what we have by giving to others and doing that in a way that is right for your family. So people oftentimes go to the tried-and-true ones, working at the local shelter, but there are lots of ways to show gratefulness and talking to your child, like, who would you want to help? They might come up with things that you would never have thought of, from going to the pet shelter or cleaning up the neighborhood. Who knows what it could be? Or going and just spending a little bit more time with Grandma or the neighbor who doesn't have anybody there. It can really give kids a sense of empowerment as well as be associated with all sorts of things. Like the more of a sense of gratitude that we have, the better our own mental health. The other thing that kids really love are traditions. Anything that you have done that has worked in the past, that they can look forward to and then take ownership of, is really important. That's also instilling in them that sense of, "Oh, I have some sense of self-efficacy over this holiday." That can be as simple as going to a movie together or having a certain meal or making cookies. And then also talking about, you know, what are their hopes for the holiday too? We don't tend to make goals for the holidays. You know, the holidays come and go. We just muddle our way through the best we can, but to talk like, right now, like, "All right, so who are the people that you want to see? What do you want to do? Let's figure out how to help somebody else. It's a really tough time of the year because it's dark and lots of people can kind of feel down and lonely. What can we do?" And this way, setting goals and sort of measuring what it is that you have wanted to attain and seeing how well you come up to those measurements can be a really good experience for kids. Amanda: I was just thinking through, like, you have to change tradition sometimes, too, right? That's something that it took me a long time as a parent to realize, like, some of the traditions that we used to have don't work anymore. And so you have to come up with new ones. But the coolest thing is the ones that we really like are the ones that the kids have come up with themselves. Those are the ones that we carry on year after year. We celebrate Hanukkah and each kid — kid, two of them are adults, young adults now, but — have their own menorah. Right? And so they have decided when we're going to light the candles, and those are the kinds of things that they do, the color scheme of the candle, they figure it all out and then bring us into it. And it's been fun.Gretchen: Well, Ellen, we've gotten through all of the questions we had from the community, but we are wondering if there's anything we haven't touched on yet that you think is important for us to bear in mind as we head into the holiday season. Ellen: You know, one of the things I was thinking about just in terms of my own kids, and hopefully they're not going to listen to this, and if they do, they don't feel too like I'm putting them on the spot. But one of the things when my son, who has ADHD and some learning differences, he came back the first year of college and we were making dinner one night and I said to him, "Oh, I feel so bad because you go back to school in another few days and we didn't do anything."And he said to me, "Mom, we're doing something now. Like, this is doing something." And we've got to get our heads around the fact that just being together is doing something, like, giving someone your undivided attention is doing something. And so many of us are thinking, like, "Well, we didn't see this person, or we didn't do that," but really we've got to figure out how do we let go of all the things that we think we should be doing, whatever that meant. Probably going to, I don't know, different museums or something at that time, that I thought we should have been doing. But, yeah, like making dinner is being together, and those are the things that kids really love. Gretchen: Amanda, that's your new mantra. PJ's that say "This is doing something."Amanda: "This is doing something." I know, right? I also think, like, a theme that comes up on almost every episode of "In It" is that theme of letting go. Right? The theme of let it go. I'm not going to sing it. I just started thinking I was going to sing there for a minute, but letting go — like, you don't have to. It's such a great place to leave people going into the holidays.Ellen, thank you so much for joining us and for all of your amazingly excellent advice. Gretchen: Yes, thank you so much, Ellen. Ellen: Thanks for having me.Amanda: You've been listening to "In It," part of the Understood Podcast Network. Gretchen: You can listen and subscribe to "In It" wherever you get your podcasts.Amanda: And if you like what you heard today, please tell somebody about it.Gretchen: Share it with the parents you know. Amanda: Share it with somebody else who might have family who doesn't quite get it. Gretchen: Or just send it to, well, whoever you think needs to hear it. Amanda: "In It" is for you. So we want to make sure that you're getting what you need.Gretchen: Go to u.org/init to find resources from every episode.Amanda: That's the letter U, as in understood.org/init. And please share your thoughts. Email us at init@understood.org. We'd love to hear from you.Gretchen: As a nonprofit and social impact organization, Understood relies on the help of listeners like you to create podcasts like this one to reach and support more people in more places. We have an ambitious mission to shape the world for difference, and we welcome you to join us in achieving our goals. Learn more at understood.org/mission.Amanda: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music. Laura Key is our editorial director at Understood. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick and Briana Berry are our production directors. Thanks for listening, everyone. And thanks for always being in it with us.
How to make a professional goal for teaching
As an educator, you know you can improve your practice by reflecting on your teaching and setting a professional goal. But it’s not always easy to do.Start by reflecting on the last month or quarter. Ask yourself: What has been working well for you and your students who learn and think differently? What challenges have you faced? Think about how you’d like to grow as an educator. What do you want to learn more about? What would you like to change? What student outcomes do you want to improve? With those reflections in mind, follow these four steps for setting a professional teaching goal. 1. Pick a focus area.There’s only so much you can work on at once. Consider your situation and be realistic about what you can take on. Then pick one area you’d like to focus on first. Here are some ideas to get you started: Social-emotional learning (SEL)Many students and teachers are experiencing high levels of stress. When you incorporate SEL into your teaching, both you and your students can find ways to cope with your feelings and navigate challenges. To learn more about SEL in the classroom, check out these articles: Social-emotional learning: What you need to know5 myths about social-emotional learningHow SEL helps you as a teacherCollaborating with colleaguesColleagues are important partners for sharing ideas, discussing accommodations for students, and building community. Think about how you can start or strengthen your collaboration with colleagues. Take a look at these resources: 6 models of co-teaching5 tips for teacher collaboration when students struggleTeacher to teacher: How I help students see support staff as teachers 2. Set a professional teaching goal.Once you’ve picked your focus area, set a manageable teaching goal. Try using a SMART goal. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and Time-bound. If you’re focusing on SEL, for example, a SMART teaching goal may be to include at least one community-building activity each week for the rest of the quarter.To help you keep on track, tell your colleagues about your goals. They may have tips, words of encouragement, or questions to help you think further about your goal. You might also inspire them to set their own teaching goals. 3. Get feedback from your students. Model a growth mindset by sharing your goal with your students. Depending on your goal, consider including your students in the process. Gather their feedback about your focus area through class conversations, one-on-one chats, videos, or surveys. For example, you can meet with small groups of students to talk about ideas for building class community. Let them know you value their input. 4. Implement and reflect.Give yourself at least a month to implement your goal. Set aside time afterward to reflect on your progress. Use a notebook to jot down observations or add your ideas to a running online document. Try recording audio notes or short video reflections if those options work better for you. Ask yourself how your work has impacted your students. What challenges have you worked through? What successes have you found? Is it time to move on to a new teaching goal?At first, it might feel like you don’t have the extra time for this reflection. But once you start doing it — and see the benefits — goal-setting can become a natural part of your teaching practice.
In ItBullying, learning differences, and how to help
Kids who learn and think differently are more likely to be bullied than their peers. What can families do about bullying? Bullying is a tough topic for anyone to talk about. But for kids who learn and think differently, it can be even tougher. They’re more likely to be bullied than their peers. And it’s common for kids who are bullied to react by bullying others. So what can families do about bullying? In this episode, hosts Gretchen Vierstra and Rachel Bozek get advice from Ellen Braaten, child psychologist and Understood expert. Listen in to learn how to tell the difference between teasing and bullying. Find out what to do if your child is being bullied. Get Ellen’s tips for helping kids talk about bullying — and stand up for themselves — even when they’d rather not stand out.Related resources Bullying and learning differences 5 reasons kids with ADHD get bullied The difference between teasing and bullying StopBullying.govPlus, check out Wunder to connect with other parents and get expert support.Episode transcriptGretchen: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It," a podcast about the ins and outs…Rachel: …the ups and downs.Gretchen: …of supporting kids who learn and think differently. I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.Rachel: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer and editor raising two kids with ADHD. Today, we're talking about bullying, which is not an easy topic.Gretchen: No, it isn't. It's quite painful for kids and for the people who care for them.Rachel: Yeah. And Gretchen, as you know, we put out a call to all of our various networks looking for a family, willing to share their story of how they dealt with a situation involving bullying. And while some people responded to us privately, none of them wanted to speak about it in a public way. And I totally get that.Gretchen: Yeah, I totally get that, too. I mean, there's a lot of shame and stigma associated with being bullied, and so it's hard to want to share that with the world, right? And then for families who have kids who were bullied or were the bully, they can sometimes feel just terrible that they missed this or that they should have been there, or they should have known about this from the start, and they didn't. And it can feel really terrible for families.Rachel: Fortunately, we have someone here today who's helped a lot of families navigate this tricky terrain.Gretchen: Yup. Ellen Braaten is the executive director of the Learning and Emotional Assessment Program at Mass General Hospital, and she's a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School.Rachel: She's written lots of books and has a new one on the way called "Bright Kids Who Couldn't Care Less: How to Rekindle Your Child's Motivation." She's also an Understood expert.Gretchen: We've had her on the podcast before and we are so happy to have her here again. Ellen, welcome back to "In It."Ellen: I'm so happy to be here.Gretchen: We're happy to have you. And as you know, today we are talking about bullying. And so, to start, I'd love it if you could define for us what bullying is and what makes it different from, say, teasing, which of course, is not great but is handled somewhat differently.Ellen: Great question to start with. I think the two things we have to think about when we're thinking about bullying is power and amount or that it's something that's not a one-time thing. It's chronic. So, what do I mean when I'm thinking when I'm saying power? It means that there's something within the relationship where there's either real power, like, for example, a child might be the captain of the basketball team and so is in a powerful position where they could, you know, do something to somebody else on the team, that means more than just the teammates. And I should say, too, that, you know, when there's a power differential in the relationship, it can be something that's even just perceived. It can be, "Oh, I think that kid is cool" or it's an older child or even just a physically bigger child. Any of those things can be perceived by another child as being powerful. And it also has to be something that happens, like I said, more than just once. Now, teasing is a little bit different because teasing is actually a way of communicating. And sometimes it's not so bad. Sometimes it's really a way of us being social. It's a social exchange. So, for example, a child might have a little bit of a crush on a schoolmate, and somebody might tease them. "Oh, you like Brandon?" That's teasing. That's, it's communicating something. It might not be perceived as funny for the person, but it is done in a way where they're trying to make a social connection. So, not all teasing is bad, but all bullying is pretty much bad.Gretchen: OK, so, then when it becomes a little more persistent.Ellen: Exactly. Exactly. And it can be confusing for parents, too, because, you know, if they hear about a bad incident on the bus, they might think, "Oh, my gosh, my child is being bullied," and if it only happened once, it's just a bad incident that needs to be taken care of. But bullying is much more insidious. It's over and over again. So, it really, it can be something that really wears down on a child's self-esteem if they're the victim of bullying.Rachel: Can you talk us through why this topic may be of particular concern for families with kids who learn and think differently? Are those kids more likely to be bullied or to engage in bullying behavior?Ellen: Yes. So, the short answer to your question is, yes, they are. Now, we don't have a ton of research on this, so I don't want to go over and above what we know. But there does seem to be a relationship between bullying and having learning and thinking differences. One reason that might occur is because a lot of kids with learning and thinking differences have some differences in how they develop social skills. Like, for example, if you're a child with processing speed, slower processing speed, you're more at risk for having social difficulties, not because necessarily you have problems understanding, but because you have problems understanding in a time frame. So, that's one example.Or kids with ADHD who might be impulsive and so might get into trouble and then might sort of be a target for other kids. And then also, if you're not feeling as competent academically, so let's say you're a second grader and you're not reading, you know, at grade level and your teacher calls on you to read something and you can't read it competently. You know, it's sort of like a mark that other kids might — especially other kids who aren't competent themselves — might perceive as being something that they could pick on a child for.Gretchen: Yeah. So, at the risk of asking what may seem like an obvious question, why is bullying such a big deal? And are there long-term consequences?Ellen: Yeah, well, it is a big deal, and it's because there are long-term consequences. So, what happens when we're bullied is a child starts to try and figure out "Why is this happening to me? " And kids don't usually figure out, "Well, that other child has problems of his own" or "Those children are acting inappropriately." But what a child typically almost always thinks is "There's something wrong with me." And those sorts of feelings lead to heightened anxiety, it leads to difficulties concentrating at school because they're always afraid of something happening. But there are long-term consequences, too. And anyone who's been bullied in school and chronically bullied still feels that as they move into adulthood; it can really plague someone for quite a long time because they don't understand.And part of it is there really isn't an easy way to understand this. It is one of those things that is not clearly, you know, there are lots of reasons why people become bullies. And it's never because a person deserves to be bullied. But that's almost never how somebody perceives it, kids especially think "What did I do wrong? There's something wrong with me and I feel unprotected." And then to go out in the world feeling like you're not good enough and unprotected is a very scary thing.Gretchen: Mm hmm.Rachel: So, I get why kids with learning and thinking differences may be disproportionately targeted from some of the things we're talking about and also some of the things that I've seen with my kids in school. But can you talk a little bit about why kids with learning differences may also be more easily drawn into engaging in bullying behavior, which you mentioned, but can you tell us a little more about that part?Ellen: Yeah, so there are a couple of reasons for that. Sometimes when, you know, the development of social skills are where they should be in terms of age-appropriate social skills, you tend to go with what everybody else does. You want to fit in desperately. You're in a situation where other people are bullying and you then just join in because it's hard for you to know the difference. Sometimes kids with ADHD just impulsively join into bullying because they don't have that ability to sort of stop and think and they wind up doing something that they really regret later. But they did it because it was in the moment everybody else was doing it.Another reason is like we were talking before, when you're feeling not great about yourself and you see someone else who's struggling, it can give you just that little bit of feeling like, "Oh, you know, I don't feel great about myself, but I feel better than this person." And so, that's another reason why they're vulnerable to experiencing that. And then also, there's just a simple fact that when we experience something, we learn how it's done, and so we learn to do it. And most of the time, kids, you know, find themselves in a situation where they've been a bully, not really knowing how they got into that situation. And it takes a while to then figure out, you know, how to solve the problem for them and to make sure it doesn't happen again.Gretchen: Ellen, we know that when kids are being bullied, they might not even tell us. And that could be because they feel shame or embarrassment, or they might even fear that telling someone who will then tell someone else will make it worse for them. So, are there signs we can be on the lookout for, so we don't miss something like this?Ellen: So, there are some obvious signs, of course, things, and one of the things that parents never really necessarily think about are things that have gone missing. So, a child has a pair of headphones, a backpack, something cool that they got for Christmas that's not there anymore. Any kind of unexplained bruises, cuts, anything like that, of course, is something to pay attention to. Having few friends, friends they had before and don't have now, a child who doesn't want to go to school. And that could be hard sometimes for parents, because if you've got a child with learning and thinking differences, sometimes they don't love school anyway.Gretchen: Right.Ellen: But if that seems like it's gotten worse, for example. Kids who make up reasons to not go to school or make up reasons to not go to basketball practice or be in a certain carpool. And then the obvious signs of like, you know, not sleeping, not eating right, anxiety, but like I started with, one of the big tells is kids who, you know, lost their lunchbox, lost something that was precious to them. So, the other issue, too, that you have to be aware of is cyberbullying. And in that case, you want to be checking whether or not your child is obsessively checking the phone, obsessively on social media or not checking it at all. So, any big change in behavior around any of those things is important to note.Rachel: Right. OK. So, say you pick up on some of those clues and so you check in with your child and they let you know that they are actually caught up in some kind of bullying situation. Now, what? Can you walk parents through the steps they should take?Ellen: Yeah. So, the first thing they want to do is to get information. So, they want to listen to their child, ask a lot of questions if their child's not forthcoming, ask questions of the teacher, other parents. If it's really the situation where you really feel like this is bullying — not just teasing, but it's something that's really significant — you want to write it down, make sure you've got the story as best as you can, organized in your own head. You're not as a parent responsible to be a detective, but you want to make sure you know you've helped your child make the story coherent or you've made it that way. Because when you're the victim of bullying or experience any sort of trauma, the one thing about your story is, is that disconnected, overwhelmed with feelings, it's hard for you to describe it. So, it can be really important then for a parent to organize that.Want to also make sure that you review the school's anti-bullying policy, so you know what the school is going to do as well. And then if you feel like this really is or even if you're just worried or suspect it is, bring the report to the school, then you want to make sure you're monitoring the school's response. You sort of take it up the chain of command. And if you're really in a situation and I've been in many situations like this as a psychologist, either on one side or the other, you can get legal help. You can, you know, if it's happening where you feel like your child is not protected, you can get legal help. I never feel like that's the best place to start. And some parents do, you know, like whether it's getting an IEP for reading or getting protection from bullying, to bring in the lawyer on the first appointment isn't usually the best way to start a collaborative situation.Now, having said that, if you really think your child is in danger, definitely that is priority number one. But, you know, along the way, you can also, you know, if the bullying is happening in the class, definitely meet with the teacher, you know, ask the principal to join in if you feel like they're supportive.Gretchen: And so, here's the opposite of a bringing in your lawyer to the school, right? Is it ever a good idea to tell your child to ignore the bullying?Ellen: Well, I wouldn't say ignore the bullying, but I would say you could teach your child to have some strategies to deal with the bullying. You know, as a parent, let's say you were in a school situation where you really feel like, you know, the other kids, you know their parents, you know your child. Like sometimes you might have a child who's a little bit overly sensitive to teasing, and this happens a lot where, you know, a child is really being teased in, actually, a typical way but is perceiving it as bullying. In that case, it's not that I would say necessarily ignore it, but how can we help you figure out a way to manage your feelings about this?You know, there are lots of ways to deal with being bullied. And one of those ways is to figure out, like, how do we not react to inappropriate behavior? Because that's basically what it is, somebody acting inappropriately to you. So, what one of those ways is to, you know, not overreact, walk away. Teach your child sort of a kind of a brief, non-confrontational, verbal response to the bully and practice that at home, too. Like, "What would you say if somebody did this?" One thing that stops a lot of behaviors is indifference. So, if you can sort of teach your child to be a bit indifferent to what somebody says, yeah, whatever, that's like the best thing to do. It's also one of the hardest things to do. But things like that, like, you know, how would it feel to just say, "Yeah, whatever" and walk away?You want to also make sure your child's got a lot of, you know, knowledge about themselves, about their strengths, any sort of, you know, areas of difference and be able to own some of that and not, you know, we're more vulnerable when we feel vulnerable about our weaknesses. And so, if you can make sure your child is like, "Yeah, you know, reading is a little bit tougher for me than it is for other kids. So what?"Gretchen: Mm hmm.Ellen: That can be helpful, too. That's where bullying can sort of pinpoint one little part of someone's personality. Just, you know, the fact that they're not good in hockey or they're not a good reader. A lot of times that's where bullying starts. And so, you want to make sure that that doesn't define who your child is and you help them shift their focus onto the things that they're really good at doing. Yeah.Rachel: So, here's a question. What if your kid has an IEP and they're being bullied at school? Does that change the situation or are there specific requirements that the school has because of the IEP?Ellen: Yeah, definitely. If social skills is an area of growth and a goal for your child on the IEP, which oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes if your child is being bullied, there's the opportunity to either add that to the IEP or to make sure that the IEP goals are being followed. So, what kind of goals would that be? Well, it would be things like social skills training, interpersonal skill building, doing things in this could be as part of a goal, increasing self-advocacy so that a child knows "When do I say stop? When do I walk away? When do I seek the assistance of an adult that's near me?" The goal in an IEP shouldn't be to make a child less teasable. It should be to make a child more self-aware and to develop coping skills. Also, for some kids, knowing the difference between sort of like tattling and because tattling when it's inappropriate can also make you more of a target for bullying.Gretchen: Right.Ellen: As well as identifying the difference, again, between sort of playful teasing and hurtful teasing and bullying. And then sometimes in IEPs, you can have just very simple goals, like having some sort of a signal system to use when a child needs an adult intervention or a friend intervention or having somebody who is really available, somebody on the school staff who can help the child make reports or who the child can check in with once or twice a week. So, all of those can be part of an IEP and are, you know, ways to prevent bullying and make a child more proactive.Gretchen: You know, those are good tips to think about for families and schools about ways that the IEP can really support, right? The kid in the situation.Ellen: And you know, I should mention too that there's the other side of this too, like a child who is a bully might have an IEP as well. Some of their goals might be sort of on the other side of it. "When is my behavior being inappropriate? What happens when I act this way?" So, there can be both sides. But definitely being bullied, being a bully, can all be part of a child's IEP and areas of social-emotional growth.Gretchen: So, probably most everyone listening to this right now has seen posters at their kid's school about, you know, don't be the bully or about just bullying awareness, what to do in this situation. And we've got Anti-Bullying Month, which is right now in October. So, have we gotten any better at preventing and disrupting bullying in our schools?Ellen: I don't know if that's really the case. I feel like people are much more aware of bullying. So, that, of course, is going to help. We do know that cyberbullying has gotten worse because it didn't exist before. So, the stakes are much higher than they were. So, even though I'm talking like I feel like an old person talking about how when "Back in my day..."Gretchen: Right?Ellen: But in this day, the stakes are much higher. They last forever. But the possibility of educating your child is also higher, too, because the bad part about social media is that it's out there. The good part is that we can control it. We can mute. We can turn it off. We do not have to engage in this. And, you know, even if you've been the target of something on social media, if you just ignore it, it's just, it will go away. Or the adults, if it's really bad, will take care of it. You know, it's also easier to prove that it's happening as well. So, it's tough, though. It's really tough being a kid these days with this managing how all but all this means.Gretchen: Yeah, I think one of the big differences with just the tech stuff with kids is just that it makes it, I feel like it escalates things, like things move more quickly than they did. I'll say back in the day when I was a kid and like the girls might have been like passing notes, and the notes took a long time to write and then you had to pass it along and then like, you know what I mean? So, like, the escalation didn't happen as quickly as it does now because everything is just a matter of seconds on a phone.Ellen: Absolutely. And you know, back to why kids with learning and thinking differences are more vulnerable is, that's one reason, is that oftentimes kids with learning and thinking differences take a longer time to process something. That's a really good thing in a lot of ways. But when you're, when things are happening really fast and it takes you a little bit longer to read something or interpret something or understand the meaning of it, you are more vulnerable then to being confused by something or a victim of something. So, yeah, I think this time now in terms of how bullying can occur does make the kids that, you know, my favorite kids that we're talking about are much more vulnerable to situations that, you know, are difficult for them to interpret and cope with.Rachel: So, are there resources that you can recommend to families or others who are dealing with a bullying situation, who aren't sure how to handle it really kind of from either side? Where can they go for some additional tips or suggestions?Ellen: Well, Understood has a lot of content on this and I think it's a great resource for parents. There's also the new Wunder app, which is fairly new. And I am on the Wunder app; I have a group called Focus and Social Skills, so I would love to hear from you and answer questions and get ideas about what kinds of topics you might want me to talk about. But sometimes the best place to get advice is from other parents who've gone through the same thing. So, that's kind of the beauty of the Wunder app is you'll be conversing with other parents who have gone through similar situations. And then, the other thing that I would recommend is if you're really worried about this, that something is becoming chronic, you're concerned about your child's mental health more than just like always really down about this situation, but I'm really worried that he's depressed or anxious, seek counseling. It can be very helpful in situations like this.And oftentimes I'm so surprised how just a few sessions of therapy can turn this whole thing around. So don't feel like, "Oh, I'm consulting with a psychiatrist or psychologist. It's going to take forever." Now, you know, sometimes it is indicative of a bigger problem, but oftentimes it's not. It's a situation that can really be an avenue for change and understanding.Gretchen: Well, Ellen, I think we've covered a lot today, and I want to thank you for joining us on "In It" to talk about such an important topic.Ellen: I was so happy to be here and it is an important topic and I just enjoyed this so much.Rachel: Thank you so much. It was great talking with you.Gretchen: So, as Ellen told us, you can find her in the Wunder app, which I want to tell you about it, because it's kind of great. It's a new app that Understood created for parents raising kids who learn and think differently. And it's a community app. So, the idea is that you get in there and you talk with other parents about what you're going through, and you can even join topic-based groups. And so, as Ellen said, she hosts a group about focus and social skills. But there are lots of other groups you can join, like there's ones about ADHD, dyslexia, so we totally recommend that you check it out. So, Rachel, what did you think of this conversation with Ellen?Rachel: I found it so helpful. You know, I know this is a raw and painful topic for a lot of people, myself included. And I really appreciated her kind of, providing that framework for us to understand that it's never a kid's fault when they're the target of bullying and even when they are the one engaging in the bullying behavior in this situation. And, you know, we know that there could be something going on in kids' lives that kind of lead to either of these things happening. And it is just so helpful to have some resources and ideas of where to turn to learn more about this because we know that sometimes this kind of stuff comes up when we least expect it.Gretchen: Yeah, listening to Ellen and some of the things that she shared also just reminded me that this is sort of an issue that lots of families deal with. And so, you know, we're not alone in this and we shouldn't feel alone. So, I'm so glad that Ellen came on to talk with us about it.Rachel: I am, too.Gretchen: You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network.Rachel: This show is for you. So, we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from you.Gretchen: If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode.Rachel: Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at Understood.org/mission.Gretchen: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music.Rachel: For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director and Seth Melnick is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.Gretchen: And thanks for always being in it with us.
5 factors of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is being aware of emotions and being able to express and use them in productive ways. It’s key to your child thriving in school and in life. Here are five factors that make up emotional intelligence.Self-awareness What it is: Your child can answer the question, “How do I feel about this?” Example: Another child makes fun of your child in science class. Self-awareness helps your child recognize feeling sad and hurt. Managing emotions What it is: Your child can stop and think, “Given how I feel, how should I react?” Example: Your child decides what to do — confront, ignore, or get mad at the friend. Your child can think of possible outcomes of each. Self-motivation What it is: Your child can accomplish a goal despite the feelings it generates: “Regardless of how I feel, I need to….” Example: Even while nervous about a confrontation, your child decides to talk directly to the friend about feeling hurt. Recognizing other people’s emotions (empathy) What it is: Your child can say, “I know how you’re feeling.” Example: Your child talks to the friend, who apologizes. Your child recognizes that the friend feels bad. They talk calmly about what happened. Handling relationships What it is: Your child can make decisions about relationships. Your child might think, “The best thing for me to do now is….” Example: After talking to the friend, your child can decide whether to continue being friends going forward.Do you want to help your child gain emotional intelligence? Check out six tips to help your child build emotional intelligence. Understand the connection between emotional intelligence and self-awareness. And learn about social-emotional learning.
The Opportunity GapHow “The Talk” changes with disability and learning differences
How does talking with kids about race and injustice change when learning differences and disability are part of the picture? Black parents and families of color know about “The Talk”: the conversation they must have with their kids about the dangers posed by racism and injustice in society. But how does this conversation change when learning differences and disability are part of the picture? This week, The Opportunity Gap tackles how to talk with your child about learning and thinking differences and why this is a critical conversation to have for kids of all ages. Hosts Julian Saavedra and Marissa Wallace discuss how to avoid shame around differences and disability, and what words you can use. Listen for tips and advice on how to prepare for the conversation.Related resourcesHow to talk to your child about learning and thinking differencesVideo: LeDerick Horne on being Black and learning differentlyADHD parenting tips from a Black clinical psychologistEpisode transcriptJulian: Welcome to "The Opportunity Gap," a podcast for families of kids of color who learn and think differently. We explore issues of privilege, race, and identity. And our goal is to help you advocate for your child. I'm Julian Saavedra.Marissa: And I'm Marissa Wallace. Julian and I worked together for years as teachers in a public charter school in Philadelphia, where we saw opportunity gaps firsthand.Julian: And we're both parents of kids of color. So this is personal to us.Welcome back to the podcast. What's going on, Marissa?Marissa: Hey, Julian.Julian: We've been on a great run of having some amazing guests, but I think today will be nice to just have a conversation with the two of us about something that is pretty important and, you know, the work that we've focused on is so many different topics, like so many different themes, so many different ideas and perspectives. But we haven't really dug deep into how to actually talk to the kids. How do we talk to the kids about learning and thinking differences?Marissa: Good point.Julian: Because it's fascinating, because it's such an impactful thing to start this conversation really early. You know, not necessarily just for the kids themselves, but also for everybody that they interact with, whether it's their classmates, whether it's their brothers or sisters, whether it's the friends that they're around, making sure that we're starting this conversation as early as possible so that our students and our children are really feeling like they're supported. Because the more that we talk about learning and thinking differences, the stigma starts to go away.Marissa: An important conversation for everyone, right? When we think of inclusivity and that goal that we have, how impactful can it be it to, like you said, start the conversations young, whether you have a child who has learning and thinking differences or not, it's beneficial for all families to have these conversations, because the more that we are investing in our young ones, our future, the more they can carry that with them to destigmatize the idea and to instead embrace it.Julian: To me, it's important for us to just start having more dialogue around the conversation. What do you have to mentally do to prepare yourself to even have a talk about something as profound as learning and thinking differences and, you know, how do you start having that conversation with everybody else?Marissa: Yeah. For me, I always pull back or get concerned when I walk into a conversation with a student's family. And that family has like, you know, pretty clearly expressed that they have not had conversations with their children, right? And I deal mostly with middle school kids and high school kids. It's like a red flag, right? Because then I'm like, oh, my goodness, there's so many missed opportunities that this child hasn't been able to experience who they are, why they are the way they are, and how it's OK.Julian: So let's say I have a daughter, and my child is starting to show that there might be signs of learning and thinking differences. I've started to have conversations with parents that I interact with. I've started to talk to different teachers. I've started to formally investigate whether or not evaluations need to start happening. And I'm going down this road, you know, my child might start having testings happening. What do I do to sit down and prepare myself to talk about this with my child?Marissa: Yeah, that's a loaded question. How do you prepare yourself for the conversation? And I think that oftentimes the easy way is to not, right? So I think that happens often. I was like, "Oh, I'm just, I'm not going to address this, or rely on the school to do it." And I think that that is a misstep in a lot of families when that happens.And I know you mentioned because I think the first part in preparation is preparing yourself. Gather your information, talk to people that you trust to just, you know, ask the questions at the school level too, like, what is this evaluation going to include? What types of testing will happen? What's the outcome? You know, what are my rights as a parent, as a guardian? Once you get those questions answered, that's like, step one of the preparation. And then step two of the preparation is then taking all of that and knowing that you're not, especially a 6-year-old — you're not going to say everything that you know to your 6-year-old. So then it's the next piece is like going through, and what is the key parts that are important for you to discuss with your child so that they're not scared too? 'Cause that's the other piece of it. You know, kids are smarter than we give them credit for a lot of times.Julian: That's the truth. That is the truth.Marissa: If you don't acknowledge those things or give, shed some light and describe what they are, then it's only going to create a fear, and it's only going to create an uncertainty in them, and that's not OK. Julian: And it makes me think about, that's a lot of mental preparation for the parent to accept the fact that there might be a long road ahead. That's something that is not going to happen overnight. You know, you obviously — it's really important to learn about what formal steps are going to happen at the school and to understand what kinds of support might be put in place, but overall, that's your child. And this is the baby that you've brought up now potentially struggling in school.And so I also think about the preparation that goes into being empathetic to the child and empathetic for yourself, right? Like really not taking a blame or guilt mentality into this. Like, you know, you didn't do anything wrong as a parent. And that's one thing to say, you know, to hear some people on a podcast talk about it, but it really is the truth. Like that's something that parents have to accept, that this is not something that I've done wrong. This is not something that I've caused. This is not something that is going to mean my child is not going to thrive in school. This is more about me figuring out how to best support my child. And, you know, so opening up the conversation with that mentality I think is also incredibly important.Marissa: Yeah. That's a really valid point and a really important one because I think it also, in that preparation piece, then encourages our families to take a moment to process that as, like you said, as the person who's like getting that and understanding that this is going to have an impact on your child. It's going to change what you thought their educational experience was going to be like. So sit with it, allow yourself to feel, allow yourself to process, so that you can come to terms with it before all that emotion comes out when you have that conversation, I think is, is a really important part too.Julian: Yeah. I remember, um, there's been a number of children in my own kids' classes that have learning and thinking differences. One of the children had some pretty intensive needs and he had a one-on-one or a one-to-one aide. And I remember talking to the dad about, what is that like, how do you manage that? How did you approach the conversation with your son? And he said that he just asked his son lots of questions, like, how do you feel about school or how are things going? What's going well, what are you struggling with? And, you know, he said the son, when he got a chance to just open up about what was going on, Dad really listened. It seems like a lot of stuff came out: "You know, Dad, it's hard sometimes for me to stay focused or it's hard to sit in my seat, um, and so having some help would really be good for me."And it just made me think about, as parents, sometimes we do a lot of talking and we might not do a lot of listening. And it's really important, no matter what age the child is, to make sure that we ask the right questions so that some of that information starts coming out. And so I'm thinking also like just preparing yourself to have lots of questions, open, and allow that space to be safe for your child is really, really important too.Marissa: It's such an oversight sometimes, like you said it perfectly, like I had to laugh when you're like, "Sometimes as parents, we do all the talking." We do, you know? And I'm like, ah man, like it made me like self-reflect in the moment, even with my son, like, oh, like, how often am I talking at him? And I think that's thing to add into this is like, this is a wonderful way to have that conversation. How do you start the conversation by asking your kids questions? What do they know already? What have they noticed? How are they experiencing, like trying to figure out what is their day-to-day in the classroom like? What emotions, what thoughts do they have? What actions do they, you know, can they describe throughout their school day that helps them to learn or makes it challenging for them to learn? I love that. I love that idea of asking questions.Julian: But at the same time, let's keep it real. How many times have we asked our kids, "How was school? What'd you do at school today?" "I don't know." And that doesn't matter what age the child is, you know, there's a lot of things that are left out. So understand that's also going to happen.Marissa: You're there for eight hours, right? You did nothing? What did you learn? Nothing.Julian: I paid all these taxes? And this tuition?Marissa: "You're telling me nothing?" So that's right. So I think, you know, again, it was like, as a pair, we prepare, we process, and then we go in with some guiding questions and some things we want to talk about because, yeah, we need, we need those as prompts to expand the conversation.Julian: Again, I go back to the example of my son and just thinking about my own classroom over the years, how there have been so many different students who have had special education services, right? And in some cases, kids know, and the other kids know, and in some cases, the kids don't know. But thinking about both ends, it's just something that we have to make sure that we're being crystal clear about how we're creating a space for either your children and/or in, a classroom setting, everybody feeling like they can be themselves.And that it's not just a thing we say. It's really modeling how do we interact with each other? It's modeling for children what we hope they will do as they grow older into adults and how they're going to treat others with difference. We have an opportunity when kids are really young to shape how they interact with others that do learn differently.Right. And you know, the stigma that we always talk about, we have the power to take that away and make sure that they don't even think twice about. "Oh, you, you have somebody that is with you every day in class — that's cool," or, "Oh, you need to have a little bit of a different seating arrangement in class? Wow. Tell me more about that. That's interesting." Making sure that our kids are understanding that there's nothing wrong with it. Everybody has different ways that they do it and, you know, making sure that the children understand that it's just difference. And there's a strength and a beauty in diversity, and in diversity of thoughts and a diversity of doing things is, is something that, you know, as parents, we have such a role to play in developing that with the kids.So it changes as kids get older, you know, the stakes get a lot higher, right? Where with younger kids, Mom and Dad have a lot more influence than when they're older and when the social interactions start happening independently. That's really where it could get kind of sticky. Right? Think about how many times kids would be made to feel a certain type of way because they were different.And when you're going through puberty, the last thing that a kid wants to be is different from anybody else. What is it like when they're not under the direct influence of their parents all the time? And they start interacting with each other and, you know, the interactions of high school kids and middle school kids, the stakes get a lot higher, and they don't necessarily want to be completely different from everybody else, right? So how, how do we help kids of that age navigate dealing with being around people who do think differently and you know, what do they do? How do you deal with the kids who do have learning differences at that age? And how do you deal with the kids who do not, but still supporting them socially.Marissa: And I do often wonder about what role do parents play, and at that point of middle school or high school, how do we engage families, too, in those conversations, because it has to come, like you said, like it has to start at a certain age and it has to continue. It can't just stop. Like, "Oh, I did my part when they were in kindergarten and first grade, they're good."You know, like it's not that simple and it evolves and it looks different and it changes. And I think that, yes, our goal is that we try to plant that seed as young as possible. So they become these young adults or these teenagers that go into it with open minds and with a very inclusive mindset, but that's not always the case.And so I'm hopeful and optimistic that we have a lot of listeners, a lot of families that have older children, high school kids, even, you know, it doesn't matter. The conversation shouldn't stop, yes, is what I'm getting at. So how do we encourage, and what does that look like? And then I think it's important, too, to like bring in addition to the learning and thinking differences, but how is this intersectionality between learning and thinking differences, race, class, gender, how does all of that impact? 'Cause that's going to change some of that dialogue as well. So like, does that look like in the homes, how can we support and encourage our families and our, and everyone, to embrace those conversations also, because we know there's so much intersectionality there?Julian: It's a lot, and I don't necessarily have an easy answer to that. You know, I think it is coming back to making sure that you're just having real talk with your kids, right? Like at the end of the day, it's making sure that conversations are happening in the home some way, some form, and it's being real with them, as in you're using language that resonates with you. You're asking questions and modeling how to ask some of these deep questions that don't necessarily have easy answers, and opening up a place for the dialogue to happen.And for younger kids, that's going to be different than for preteens or teenagers, but hopefully, you know, you're working to establish a relationship with your children where you can talk about things that are deeper than surface-level stuff, right? Like in the idea of race and class and gender and how those identities really impact the child. It's a whole other layer. I think about my own children and how both of our children are biracial, and — multiracial — being really crystal clear about what that means for them. And, you know, my daughter is already asking questions about like, "How come these dolls don't have the same skin color I do?" "Why are all these authors boys? Where's the girls at?" "How come we don't have girl presidents?" And she's 6 and she's asking these questions, and I love the fact that she's open enough to start asking us. But then she's questioning these bigger societal things, and if a baby like that can see it, then you know it's real, right?You know, thinking about that, add the layer of learning and thinking differences, and it really becomes like a double-edged struggle and a challenge. Like how do you marry the two, like how do you have these conversations about both and not necessarily make your child feel like it's hopeless, but also being crystal clear about, especially for our kids of color, there's going to be some challenges ahead?It's going to be difficult. And you having these learning and thinking differences are really going to make things a little bit more difficult.Marissa: We're not going to answer all these questions or have like pretty little bows tied on to any of the conversation today, because it is, as you mentioned, those so many societal parts that are intertwined.And I think it's fair to be honest and transparent with our children as much as we can, right? Like, I think that's a piece of it that I think is always like a fine line that, as parents and caretakers, we don't know sometimes what's oversharing or what's not enough. I do think though, when it comes to learning and thinking differences and race and class and gender and all the different pieces, it's important to develop a sense of identity with your children so that they can embrace who they are and be proud of who they are. I think that's where we start overall. Right? Like, no matter what.Julian: Proud, be proud of who you are. Be proud of everything you're coming to the table with.Marissa: "Oh, it's hard for you to sit down for eight hours a day. That's OK. That's part of who you are. You have a lot of energy, right?" You know, there's things that are become so quickly seen as negative, right? That we just have to think about ways to have a different spin on it. And then to also figure out let's look at those strengths and elevate. But then the things that you are struggling with or are finding some challenges with, there are ways to work through that, no matter what. So I think it's a balancing act for sure.Julian: Yeah. I was thinking about switching to my current role. And, you know, I work with a lot of students that are Black and brown kids from neighborhoods that are underserved, right? Like, they don't have all of the services that they need, and poverty and institutional racism really play a big role in their day-to-day experience.They know that. They understand it, and they live it every day. But some of the deeper conversations that are starting to happen with them, especially with my students that have ADHD or some of our students who have or require emotional support. Some of my students who have undergone traumatic events, and are coupled with, or the way they learn or think is different.Like it's adding those layers on to them and helping them understand that despite the fact that you might get a whole bunch of support in school, when you step out of school, none of that is going to be made apparent, you know, and especially for my young men. Yes, you might have a lot of people that know who you are and know that you need X, Y, and Z in school, and you get that.But when you walk out of this building, things are going to be different. The world might not understand or know for everybody that interacts with you, that you do have learning and thinking differences. So how are you going to prepare yourself to be out in the world where I hate to say it, but you're just another young Black man that for many people becomes a threat.And it doesn't matter that you have all these other things going on, and it doesn't matter that, you know, the law states that you're supposed to have this sort of support and you're getting it in this comfortable space inside of the building of a school and inside of your home. But society might not see you that way.And that to me is where, especially for our children that are coming from marginalized communities, that are coming from oppressed groups, those conversations need to be happening at home too. And they are in many ways, but adding the nuance of your learning and thinking differences are part of who you are, but everybody's not going to recognize that. And everybody's not going to know that, and they're not going to treat you any differently. And you have to be ready.Marissa: And that's like a downfall, I think, about us as humans in general is that we are obviously very quick to judge on visual perception where we can see. So the color of someone's skin, it's like a snap judgment, and then we have all these thoughts of what that person's expected to be able to do or not do.And so I think there's, again, a lot of advocacy that we have to encourage within our children, in all of those areas, to be authentically themselves and to love who they are and to also know how they operate. And how they are seen in society, but also how they can participate in society and then encouraging and exploring and learning. Everyone should be doing that, no matter how old you are, right? These conversations should continue. And I'm even thinking, you know, I've been fortunate and blessed to work in higher education for the last few years, and just knowing what schools are capable of providing. So encouraging our young people, that — don't be afraid to live out whatever your best life looks like.Julian: You know, as parents, thinking about the transition from being an advocate to being a support is a hard thing. And I'm not looking forward to it when it's my time. You know, my babies are still young, so I have some time, but at some point, you know, we start to fade into the background a little bit. And I think that for all of our parents out there, thinking about how can you help your child embrace who they are and embrace their strengths is really one of the most blessed gifts you can give a child going out into the world. Like really, truly helping them have self-worth, and building up their esteem for themselves, and having that clear understanding of their identity as they enter into the world on their own, is something that is crucial.Marissa: Yeah. That encouragement is everything, right? And that doesn't stop. Like that doesn't, it doesn't matter as an adult. Like, you know, none of us want to show up for our jobs and our days of work, our long, grueling days of work, and not hear that we've done something well. There's pieces of just natural human nature that encourage us to keep doing those things and to see ourselves in a certain way.And I think that for our children, let them explore, too. Like be open to what their — 'cause I think that's a piece of it, too, is, you know, we have to kind of challenge and push ourselves to be embracing of their interests, and they might hate it. They might even — Lincoln's really into art. He's now in like his eighth week of art class, and he's kind of over it. But he did it and I said, I'm like, "Hey, like you got two more weeks and then guess what, if you don't ever want to take an art class again, that's fine. But you tried it out. You explored it. You got to see if it was something that you want to do." So I think it's important, too, to just allow kids to, and just try things out. 'Cause I think that's where we see them find their strengths. And then also not narrow it down to strengths only being academic-based or only being artistic-based. Like there are so many, there's the strength of being able to be a good conversationalist, right?Julian: And there is executive functioning involved with that. So there's a lot of skills and nuanced skills that go into that. Like you said, finding the strengths of the child by asking lots of questions. And that we help them understand that even though they might be getting tons of support and they might be receiving a lot of people that are in their corner in school and at home, that the world might not be doing that outside of those walls and that they have to be ready and prepared to experience that. And at the end of the day, you're the ones that are going to offer the most support for them. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. If you have any questions about how you can have more of these conversations with your children or with people who are out there, please check out Understood.org.There's so many resources there for you as a parent of children of color. And as a teacher and educator, I've used so much of it. I know I work with them, but I also have used so much of the information on the site to help guide my own conversations with my own kids and conversations with my own classrooms. So please take a moment and check it out.And if you would like to share more of your story and how you've had conversations with children in your own lives, please reach out.Julian: This has been "The Opportunity Gap," a part of the Understood Podcast Network. You can listen and subscribe to "The Opportunity Gap" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.Marissa: If you found what you heard today valuable, please share the podcast. "The Opportunity Gap" is for you. We want to hear your voice.Go to u.org/opportunity gap to find resources from every episode. That's the letter U as in Understood, dot O R G, slash opportunity gap.Julian: Do you have something you'd like to say about the issues we discussed on this podcast? Email us at opportunitygap@understood.org. We'd love to share and react to your thoughts about "The Opportunity Gap."Marissa: As a nonprofit and social impact organization, Understood relies on the help of listeners like you to create podcasts like this one to reach and support more people in more places.We have an ambitious mission to shape the world for difference. And we welcome you to join us in achieving our goals. Learn more at understood.org/mission. "The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Andrew Lee, Cinthia Pimentel, and Justin D. Wright, who also wrote our theme song. Laura Key is our editorial director at Understood. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director. Seth Melnick and Briana Berry are our production directors.Julian: Thanks again for listening.
Positive behavior strategies: A guide for teachers
Positive behavior strategies are evidence-based, proactive approaches to changing challenging student behavior. Some examples of positive behavior strategies are pre-correcting and prompting and nonverbal signals. There’s a lot to think about when it comes to teaching. You plan and deliver lessons to cover the curriculum. You adjust your lesson plans to meet your students’ needs. On top of it all, you manage student behavior. You’re not alone if you feel like managing behavior sometimes gets in the way of teaching. That’s where positive behavior strategies come in. These strategies are also known as positive behavior supports, or PBS.Why use positive behavior strategies?Positive behavior strategies encourage you to see behavior as a form of communication. Every behavior sends a message about what a student needs. Some messages are easy to read. Some need more deciphering. (In those cases, a behavior specialist, a school psychologist, or other colleagues can help.)Once you understand the message behind the behavior, you can better support students. As Jerome Schultz, PhD, puts it, “If you can read the need, you can meet the need.” Instead of reacting to challenging behaviors, you can proactively reduce them. Using positive behavior strategies can help you:Build a trusting relationship between teachers, students, and families. Instead of seeing behavior as a problem, you’ll show empathy by looking at students with compassionate curiosity. With this view, you can shift your focus from “fixing” students to understanding them. You can also develop a more collaborative relationship with students by working together to understand when and under what circumstances a behavior occurs.Teach and reinforce new skills. Once you understand why a student behaves a certain way, you can respond more effectively. You can teach new behaviors that serve the same purpose. Many social-emotional learning programs incorporate specific strategies for teaching behaviors, like how to follow directions or ignore peer distractions. Prompt you to consider multiple reasons for behavioral difficulties. Students might not have the language or communication skills to express what they need. Or the behavior could be a way to avoid a difficult situation or task. Some students behave in negative ways to get attention or to get what they want. In other cases, they may be reacting to an environment that isn’t supporting their learning. Or there could be a cultural difference. This may prompt you to take a culturally responsive approach to analyzing the behavior and your response to it.As a classroom teacher, you may not have all the time, tools, or training to look at student behavior in depth. You can work with other school staff to do a functional behavior assessment (FBA). The specialist who does the FBA can work with teachers to create an appropriate behavior intervention plan. What do positive behavior strategies look like?Explore examples of positive behavior strategies: When-thenPre-correcting and promptingRespectful redirectionNonverbal signalsBrain breaksTo see a positive behavior strategy in action, watch this classroom video from Edutopia. How do I put positive behavior strategies into practice?Handling challenging behavior can be frustrating. Use this chart to reflect on where you are in your practice and where you might focus your next efforts.How can families support this at home? Behavior expectations might be different at home than they are at school. It’s important for families to know what’s expected in your classroom. Talk with families about the behavioral expectations in the classroom and the language you use to talk about behavior.This will help families understand new phrases they hear or behavior changes they see. Also, families may want to use the same expectations at home. Share with them these parent-child behavior contracts to get started. Additional resources and research“Positive behavioral support: Strategies for teachers,” from Intervention in School and Clinic“Modifying the Classroom Environment” and “Culturally Responsive Practices and Implicit Biases With Discipline,” from Preventing Suspensions and Expulsions in Early Childhood Settings
In ItTo disclose…or not?
Who do you tell about your child’s learning and thinking differences? When? Does the explanation depend on the situation? And how are you preparing your child to own those ongoing disclosure decisions?Who do you tell about your child’s learning and thinking differences? When? Does the explanation depend on the situation? And how are you preparing your child to own those ongoing disclosure decisions?This episode, hosts Lexi Walters Wright and Amanda Morin tackle these questions. They talk with families whose experiences range from triumphant to cautionary — and in-between. You’ll hear from a mom whose daughter’s very public dyslexia disclosure turned her into an author. And from a parent whose son’s refusal to disclose cost him a scholarship.Advertising pro Wilson Standish shares why he’s still cautious about disclosing. And expert Manju Banerjee, PhD, gives tips to help parents with the sometimes-scary task of passing the torch to their young adult kids.Related resourcesTips for talking with family members about your child’s challengesPros and cons of disclosing learning and thinking differences at collegeFind community on the Wunder appEpisode transcriptAmanda Morin: Hi. I'm Amanda Morin, writer with Understood.org and a parent to kids with learning and thinking differences. Lexi Walters Wright: And I'm Lexi Walters Wright, community manager for Understood.org. And we are "In It." "In It" is a podcast from Understood for Parents. On our show we offer support and some practical advice for families whose kids are struggling with writing, social skills, motor issues and other learning and thinking differences. Amanda: And today we're talking about disclosure: who we tell, when we tell, and how we tell when it comes to our kids' learning and thinking differences. Lexi: So Amanda, will you kick us off: What is disclosure? What do we mean when we say the word "disclosure"? Amanda: Disclosure is a really fancy way of saying "talking about it." So when we're talking about our kids having learning and thinking differences, it's who do you tell that to? Disclosure is deciding to tell family. It's deciding to tell teachers. It's deciding under what circumstances it's a parent's job to talk about it, under what circumstances you throw that to your child to make that decision. So disclosure is a really big idea, right? It's something we talk about a lot when it comes to having kids with learning and thinking differences, because there are some circumstances where parents don't necessarily want to talk about it. And then there are other circumstances where it's really important to talk about it. Lexi: And so when does disclosure come up? Can you give us some examples of when you need to make the decision as a parent as to when or not to disclose? Amanda: Often it comes up in school first, because when a child's having trouble in school or struggling or needs a little support, it's time to start talking about it with teachers so they can help you figure out what support your child needs. And sometimes it's about coaches in the community, it may come up as well. And then I think as our kids get older, they need to start thinking about if they're going to disclose or talk about this with their friends. For example, a kid who struggles with reading may want to say something before they go out to a restaurant, because reading that menu may be a little tough for them too, right? Lexi: Well, you know, we recently got a voice memo from a mom that I think so beautifully gets at how daunting this process of disclosing can be, especially when it's new. Emily: Hi. My name is Emily. I am very new to all of this. I got my son's testing back recently, and they give you this big stack of papers that's all his information. And I was absolutely paralyzed. I felt like I did not know what to do. I didn't know who to talk to, who to go to, what my next steps were. And the background on this is that I am also an educator, of almost 20 years. And I have taught kids with various learning and thinking differences and I always thought, "Well, if, you know, one of my kids ends up with an IEP or issues in the classroom, I'll be one of those great parents that, you know, takes a deep breath and knows exactly what to do. And the fact was that I didn't, because it was my child. And I was scared and nervous and alone. And I just completely shut down. And I had the reaction that I didn't want to have, which was, "This is nobody's business but ours. This is our family. This is my child. Nobody needs to know about this, and — not nobody, like teachers need to know about this, right?” But not, like, general people. And that really shocked me and surprised me that that's sort of how I felt. Amanda: So we asked all of you how disclosure has worked in your family. And one dad told us he falls solidly into the Don't Tell camp.Dad: There are times when I will tell people, obviously, like teachers or people who interact with him heavily. But it's not something that I will say to someone up front. A lot of it has to do with the social stigmas that reside around the various things like ADHD, autism and learning disabilities that people have and how they interact with the people who have them. So I want my child to be treated as any other child is. And as a result, I don't tell people up front about it. So that they don't attach those labels to him. They may choose to avoid or shun him because, you know, “I don't want to have to deal with a child that has that condition.”Lexi: So clearly, decisions around disclosure are deeply personal for both parents and for kids. Amanda: Right. And on one end of this, you've got parents like the one we just heard from. Lexi: And on the other end... Ayelet: OK, so my name's Ayelet. I have three kids. My middle one, Leia, is dyslexic. She's currently 13, and she's in eighth grade. She loves anything expressive — everything from art to dancing, speaking — anything that allows her to express herself somehow is what she enjoys. Amanda: When we spoke to Leia's mom, she was at home in Staten Island. And she and Leia were both just getting over the flu. Lexi: Leia's dyslexia wasn't diagnosed right away, though Ayelet and her husband knew something was up during the first few years of school. Ayelet: So she was able to tell me everything about school: "Oh, in science we did this, then in this class we did that and this was so cool." And she would very happily discuss whatever she was learning. So we knew she was learning, but she was failing everything. So it never occurred to me that she couldn't read. But it dawned on me one day when I came home and I saw she was attempting to do homework. I guess she was kind of -- my husband was home, and he was trying to help her with it. But what I had walked into was like a screaming match: "I just can't do it. I don't know what to do." And she's hysterical and he's, like, not yelling at her but, like, you know, that frustrated parent, like, "Just copy what I wrote down." And I'm standing there and it was like, like, a moment where all time stood still. You know, I felt like I stood there for 20 minutes and it was literally three seconds. And I said, "Oh my God, my kid can't read." Lexi: And in that moment what, like, what did that mean to you? Ayelet: I think I had a lot of thoughts at the same time. I distinctly remember saying, "How could she make it to fourth grade and nobody picked it up?" And I'm a teacher. It just, I felt so upset, angry, you know, how could I not know? Things like that. Lexi: Ayelet and her husband took Leia to get an evaluation. Ayelet: And every item that identifies dyslexia, she hit it. She hit every single one. Amanda: But this isn't a story about dyslexia. Lexi: Right. That was last episode. Amanda: This one's about how kids and their families figure out when it makes sense to share a diagnosis and when to keep it private — whether it's dyslexia or a different diagnosis. For Leia and her parents, the process of figuring that out started pretty much the minute they walked out of the doctor's office after getting the diagnosis. Ayelet: We live on Staten Island and we had taken her to Manhattan for the evaluation, for the neuropsych. Just where it was, we ended up taking an express bus. It was just easier than driving and finding parking. So we had like an hour bus ride home. So we were on the bus, and she was like, oh, you know, "I get it, but I'm really embarrassed." She's like, "Do I have to tell people?" So I told her it was up to her. I said, you know, "There's positives to being open about it, and then there's maybe negatives, too. But you have to do what feels right for you, and you may want to keep it quiet for now and then later tell people." So she got very, very quiet and didn't say anything for a few minutes. She was just kind of looking out the window. And she said, "OK, I need to think about it." And I said, "OK." Lexi: Fast-forward a few weeks. Leia hadn't said much more about the diagnosis. She was just kind of doing her own thing. Ayelet: So she had been journaling for a while I guess. She had asked me for a folder. I got her folder. She filled it with paper and she would walk around the house, like, hugging it. And she would keep it in her room, and I just didn't question it. Because, you know, kids: stickers, papers, folders, you know. But after maybe three weeks, two weeks? I don't even remember. She's like, "Guess what?" I said, "What?" She goes, "I wrote a book." I said, "You did not." She goes, "No, I wrote a book. I really did." And I said, "OK, can I see?" She's like, "No. But can you type it for me if I read it to you." And I said, "Sure." So we sat at the computer. I typed, she read. And I'm sitting there, and I'm like, "OK, wow."Amanda: In those pages Leia and her mom typed up, she had written about her experience with dyslexia, and how what she understood and how she performed in school never seemed to match up for her. Leia also wrote about what she was learning about dyslexia. And she wrote about how she could stick up for herself when her teachers didn't seem to get it. Lexi: So Ayelet printed out the pages, and then Leia pasted them into a blank notebook and added illustrations. Amanda: And those illustrations are so cool. They're cartoons about her thought process. They're cartoons about what it was like to be in school — really neat. Leia thought other kids, kids like her, might like to read the book, and she asked her parents if they could publish it. Ayelet: So we decided to just go ahead and do it and see what happens. Amanda: And that's how Dyslexic Renegade was born. Leia: I'm Leia, 9 and in the fourth grade. I wrote this book when I found out I was dyslexic, because I thought there was something wrong with me — and there isn't. I don't want other kids to think like I did. "Dys" means "difficulty" in Greek, and "lexis" means "words" in Greek. So all it really means is that one person has a hard time with anything that has to do with words. But it doesn't mean we aren't smart. Lexi: Leia's self-published book has had hundreds of downloads. She now hosts a Facebook page for kids with dyslexia that has over 10,000 followers. Ayelet: People started like emailing, messaging, calling, like on Facebook. People everywhere were like, "Oh my God, this is amazing, like, this is just like my kid!" And, you know, and we were like, "Oh wow. All right." Lexi: Hey, it's Lexi, and from time to time we're going to try something new on "In It." Starting now. The response to our show so far has been amazing. We're so grateful to you, our listeners, for the reviews you've left and the friends and the teachers you've told about our show. We love hearing that "In It" feels to so many of you like you're hearing your own family's experience described. So we want to share some of the incredible messages you've recently left us about our first episode: "Why We Cry in IEP Meetings." Caller 1: I get very emotional easily — very easily. And I can feel it coming on, and I'm always thinking, "No, don't do it, don't do it." I just can't help myself. I think a lot of the crying comes from a place of — see, I'm going to get emotional just talking about it. But anyway, I think I just get to thinking about my son and all the kind of "what ifs" and "what could have been." So sometimes that does make me a little sad. Caller 2: So at the beginning, I didn't cry at IEP meetings. But now at the end, I've been through so many that sometimes I can't help myself. Caller 3: Being an educator, I know, I know what to ask. I know what to look for. Even still, you know, I think about all the families who just go along with whatever is said in those meetings and don't ever feel like they need to question or really advocate for their kids because they really don't understand, you know, all of the lingo and all of the language and, you know, it can be intimidating even for me being an educator for, you know, over 15 years. So anyhow, it gets emotional. It sucks to feel that your kid's not being fully supported. Lexi: And one more thing: Since this episode aired, we've created a new Understood video with Dena Blizzard, the mom in Episode 1 of "In It." Dena talks more about her daughter's learning differences and the path to understanding that anxiety was at the center of many of her struggles. Check out that video at U.org/dena. That's the letter U, dot o-r-g, slash d-e-n-a. And now back to the show. Lexi: So as we've seen in Leia's case, learning how to share this thing about herself with other people happened really quickly. But Amanda, I guess I'm curious: Is that typical? Amanda: I don't know that it is typical. It's really amazing to me that Leia not only wanted to talk publicly, but she wanted to talk very publicly about it all of a sudden. Sarah: Hello. This is Sarah from Omaha. One time where we did not disclose information about my child's disability was with my middle son who was going off to college. We chose not to disclose his diagnosis as twice exceptional with ADHD and slow processing. He was able to get by in high school because of how smart he was. But once he got to college he really struggled. After failing English 101 twice, his self-esteem plummeted and we finally got him on medication and started with the disability services at his college. However, his last term as his freshman year came around, and he had an instructor who wouldn't work with his disability services that were put in place, and he ended up losing his scholarship. Had we disclosed his disability to begin with, I think that his freshman year of college would have been a completely different experience for him. Lexi: Wait. So Amanda, you send your kid off, maybe to college or to live independently or whatever, and you're still not out of the woods with disclosure stuff? Amanda: Nope. That's especially because that's the point when you're really passing the torch, if you haven't already. Because out in the world when your child's an adult, legally an adult, it's going to be up to them to figure out how and when to talk about these issues. And the question is, how do you do that? Manju Banerjee: Prepared scripts don't work very well. Lexi: Manju Banerjee is the vice president of educational research and innovation at Landmark College, a school specifically for students who learn differently. And she says going out into the world on your own brings a whole host of new challenges around disclosure. Manju: You are trying to present your best persona, if you will, to be attractive to others. And you're starting to think about life mate. You know, it's the adult stage of one's life. So at that stage, do I have to disclose? "Well, you know, I have learning differences," or "I process information slowly," or "I can take you to a date but I need more time to calculate the tip." It can be really embarrassing. Amanda: In some cases, Manju says, our kids may decide not to disclose. And we have to let them make that choice. Manju: I think one of the things we need to do and get talking about disclosure, we, as adults and educators, really need to put ourselves in the shoes of the young adult or the child and understand where that reluctance is coming from. And you can't force self-advocacy. You really need to create a safe environment where self-advocacy can be practiced organically and have successful moments. Amanda: So let me ask you a question as a parent. I can create the safe environment in my home, right? And I can create it around them. What do I do to make sure that they are ready to be in a world that may not feel as safe to them? Manju: I think as parents the hardest thing for us is to let go — is to let go that end of the rope, because we've created that safe environment at home. We know when to jump in and help out. But I think it's important for us to have that confidence, that I've built a solid foundation. And there will be occasions where my son or daughter will do things that are absolutely illogical, that make no sense, and that's doomed for failure, and just have to stand back and let that process happen, because that's how we learn. Wilson Standish: Let me just ping the group and see if I can push it back a little bit. So hold on, give me one second. Lexi: Wilson Standish has very much launched into his adulthood. He works in the advertising arm of Gimlet Media and if like me you're a podcast junkie, Gimlet probably is familiar. He spoke to us from his office between meetings. Amanda: Wilson has dyslexia, but it's not something he shares with people right off the bat, especially at work. First, he says, he needs to build a relationship. Wilson: Definitely. Yeah, yeah. Because I don't want my first impression to be "dyslexic" for some reason.Lexi: Right. So it's not like you put it at the top of your resume as “special skills.”Wilson: No, no, not at all. Lexi: That said, once he's had a chance to build up some trust, he's OK if his dyslexia comes up organically. Wilson: It usually comes before I have to do a brainstorm with a group and write on a white board. And that's when I say it, and it's only after I feel like I've earned the trust of people, so they're like, "Oh it doesn't matter, we can trust him. He's smart, he does great work." And those are the moments where I feel comfortable doing it. Lexi: And what do you say? Wilson: You know, I kind of just say, like, "Hey, I'm really dyslexic," and I just move on. And I don't really, like, dive into it, because my hope is at that point that the work that I've done and I've produced — it doesn't even matter to them, the fact that I'm dyslexic. And it only comes up at times when I'm writing emails, and I'll totally miss something that, you know, can sound really bad. Like one time, I was writing, we, you know, I used to run the Innovation Group and I was writing about a hackathon that we're trying to have with the company. So I wrote this email to like 30 people and the subject said "Hackathong." And everybody, you know, had a lot of fun with that. And it's those moments where, you know, it's embarrassing, but you — just by getting ahead of it and owning it, I've found, you know, that it's OK. And then knowing that I have to just work a little harder to make sure that I outshine those moments. Lexi: Oh Amanda, hackathong! Amanda: I know. We all make those mistakes, right? Autocorrect is our enemy at that, and we laugh. But if like Wilson you're someone with a learning difference, those moments can feel so much bigger. Lexi: Do you feel like you've been more forthcoming in your professional experiences than your personal life? Wilson: Yeah, I think so, just because, you know, in my personal life I don't really have to write in front of people or read aloud. And those are the moments that are kind of the most intimidating. It only really comes up now when I'm, you know, driving or giving directions and I mix up my left and my right. Amanda: I do that too. Wilson: Yeah. No, I don't really, you know, I don't really think about it as much. And I just, I guess, like, well I know it's present and I know I have to work through it continuously. It's something that hasn't necessarily, like, been a defining thing that I think about all the time. Lexi: Ayelet, can you tell us, what advice do you have for parents and for kids who are just starting to find their way when it comes to sharing their learning and thinking differences? Ayelet: Huh. I don't know. I think it's so different for everybody. For us it works to talk about it a lot, and often, and just put it out there because it is what it is. You know, when you talk about it, you are also teaching other people who may not be aware and people may show you their ignorant side. You have to not take it to heart. Amanda: Ayelet's right. Choosing when and who you disclose to is different for everyone. Lexi: Which reminds me: Remember Emily, that great mom who we heard from at the beginning of this episode? She was the one who was drowning under the pile of papers from her son's diagnosis. She was not sure if she wanted to tell anyone about it. So, she actually had more to say on this. Emily: So I've been taking baby steps, and I've had some really great friends help me, let me practice with them and saying, “Oh this is really helpful for him when he gets anxious, or this is a little thing that we do to help him in certain moments.” And it's felt empowering and made me feel less alone, and has helped him feel like he knows himself better. Because at the end of the day, this is really about him gaining the skills and confidence to move through the world, and I need to be there for him. Thank you so much. That’s it. Bye.Amanda: You know, as another mom who's done that, that's a big deal. Like she's not 100 percent comfortable she's ready to talk about it yet, but she's doing it for him. That's a big step. Lexi: So Amanda, I just love that Emily mentions practicing with a friend, which just seems like such a solid way of making this more comfortable for families. But I imagine that there are so many instances in which families have to make the call on the fly. And in some of those cases, do you maybe not disclose, period? Amanda: Yeah. I mean there are times — we heard from the dad in the beginning of the show who says he doesn't talk about this, and that's totally fine. There are all of these variations, right Lexi? I mean, Emily practices with a friend, but we don't know who else she's told beyond that yet. And that's totally fine. Lexi: And are there circumstances in which you still will keep this information private for your family? Amanda: I'm not telling you that. Amanda: You've been listening to "In It," a podcast from Understood for Parents. Our website is Understood.org, where you can find all sorts of free resources for people raising kids with learning and thinking differences. Lexi: We would love to hear how your family has tackled the disclosure minefield. Go to you U.org/podcast to share your thoughts and also to find free resources. That's the letter U as in Understood, dot o-r-g slash podcast. Amanda: And if you like what you heard today, please tell somebody about it. It's a way to start talking about disclosure. Share it with a friend or just a parent at your bus stop. You can also go to Apple podcasts and rate us, which is a great way to let other people know about "In It."Lexi: You can subscribe to "In It" on Apple podcasts, follow us on Spotify, or keep up with us however you listen to podcasts. Between episodes you can find Understood on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube, or visit our website: U, that's a letter U, dot org.Amanda: And come back next episode where we'll be talking about why math struggles can be so much more than anxiety about messing up your times tables.Lexi: "In It" is a production of Understood for Parents. Our show is produced by Blake Eskin of Noun and Verb Rodeo, Julie Subrin, and Julia Botero. Mike Errico wrote our theme music, and Laura Kusnyer is our director of editorial content.Amanda: Thanks for listing, everyone. And thanks to those of you who sent in voicemails and voice memos. And thanks to all of you for being in it with us.
Social and emotional trouble in school: 7 things to ask your child’s teachers
Is your child having trouble with social-emotional skills? Have you or your child’s teacher noticed changes in your child’s emotions or behavior around school or schoolwork? No matter who raised the concerns, it’s important to talk about the specifics with your child’s teacher. Here are some questions to get the conversation started. 1. Have you noticed my child withdrawing in certain situations?Withdrawal can be a sign of anxiety, uncertainty, discomfort, and even anger. Knowing when your child tends to withdraw during school can help both you and the teacher know how to provide support. If your child withdraws during social situations at school, the teacher can find ways to help your child join in and be more included. If your child is trying to get involved but is struggling, role-playing some social situations might help. And if your child is withdrawing during virtual learning, the teacher can find ways to reduce the stress of video learning. 2. Do you see my child get upset over schoolwork?The work could be too difficult. Or your child might not understand what to do or struggle to follow class discussions. This frustration could cause your child to act out toward the teacher, other classmates, or even you. Consider asking the teacher to make some changes to your child’s assignments. If your child has an IEP or a 504 plan, talk to the teacher about whether the plan needs some changes. 3. Are you seeing my child have trouble with other kids?Your child’s difficulties may come from a personality clash with one or two other kids. If this is the case, ask if the teacher can take steps to reduce how much they interact. In school, for example, they can change seating arrangements in class and at lunch. This type of change shouldn’t cause too much disruption. During virtual learning, the teacher can be strategic in assigning groups to work together. If your child is struggling to make friends, talk with the teacher about how the school supports social-emotional learning for all students. 4. My child is upset about some issues at home. Do you see any signs of that?It’s not unusual for situations outside of school to carry over into school. That’s especially true if some schooling is happening at home. If you’re comfortable, this is a good opportunity to share with the teacher what’s going on at home. A death in the family, tension between parents, issues with a sibling, and changes in a caregiver’s employment are important situations to mention. Kids have a hard time separating school from the rest of their lives. 5. When does my child seem to have the most trouble?Are problems showing up during class time, in the lunchroom, or on the playground? The answer can help you figure out if your child is reacting to specific tasks or people, or having general difficulties all day. If certain school subjects are causing frustration, start by addressing those skills. If unstructured times, like lunch and recess, are more challenging, focus on social skills. 6. Did you know that my child is particularly sensitive about ... ?You know better than anyone what your child is most sensitive to. This is a good time to share that with the teacher. It could be that the teacher or other students are setting off your child without knowing it. 7. Are other kids in the class having similar challenges?You don’t need to know which of your child’s classmates are also struggling — and the teacher can’t tell you anyway. But it is important to know if what you’re seeing is typical for your child’s age or if it’s a problem for all the students. If so, there are things the teacher can do for the whole class that could also help your child. For example, some teachers use a point system for kids to earn free time. Ask about behavior expectations for the class and how the teacher enforces them.Explore more conversation starters to use with teachers.
In ItSneak peek: ADHD Aha!
Signs of ADHD can pop up for kids — and adults — in unexpected, emotional, and even funny ways. But sometimes there’s a single moment when it clicks.Signs of ADHD can pop up for kids — and adults — in unexpected, emotional, and even funny ways. But sometimes there’s a single moment when a person realizes that they or someone they know has ADHD. In this bonus episode, host Amanda Morin talks with Laura Key, host of ADHD Aha!, a new podcast from the Understood Podcast Network. Listen in to get a sneak peek at Laura's emotional story. Hear when it finally clicked for Laura that her ADHD was real — and why she thinks it’s important for others to share their aha moment stories. Subscribe to ADHD Aha! to hear these stories, including Laura’s full story. Related resourcesADHD Aha! podcast (subscribe now!) What is ADHD? ADHD in girls Episode transcriptAmanda: Hi. I'm Amanda Morin. I'm the director of thought leadership for Understood.org and a parent to kids who learn differently. Gretchen: I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood. And this is "In It." Amanda: It is a podcast from the Understood Podcast Network. On this show, we talk to parents, caregivers, teachers, experts, and sometimes even kids. We offer perspectives, stories, and advice for, from, and by people who have challenges with reading, math, focus, and other types of learning differences.Gretchen: And today we're doing something a little bit different. Amanda: "In It" has been around for a few seasons now. And if you're new to the show, well, go back and listen to the previous episodes, because there's so much good stuff there. Now, though, "In It" is a part of a whole Understood Podcast Network. And we thought it could be fun to do a bonus episode where I share the mic with our colleague Laura Key, who also hosts one of our podcasts.Gretchen: Yup. It's called "ADHD Aha." She'll be talking to all kinds of people about their "aha" moments — that single moment when it finally clicked that they, or someone they know, has ADHD. So what did you talk to Laura about, Amanda? Amanda: So here's the thing. Laura and I have worked together at Understood for a really long time. But it was years into that until she shared with me that she has ADHD. And it was something she didn't learn about herself until she was an adult. So I wanted to know more about that, about her "aha" moment or moments, and what she did with that new knowledge. Gretchen: Let's listen. Laura: So why don't you go ahead and take it away, Amanda? I'm ready. And I'm not going to lie — I'm a little bit nervous. Because this is not a story that I have shared very often in my adult life. Amanda: Well, I mean, if you think about it, it's amazing. We've worked together for almost, what, a decade now. And I only found out about two years ago, literally when we started working on "In It" together, that you have ADHD.And it was really surprising to me that you were so private about it for such a long time. I mean, I noticed that you were a tremendously organized person. And I just thought that was your personality. But it sounds like you were working hard at that. Why did you not tell us sooner? Laura: Yes, you're right that I was working very hard at that. It was very new to me when we started working together. I got diagnosed when I was 30, and this was coming off of an anxiety diagnosis. So after having gotten diagnosed with anxiety, the other kinds of things that I was struggling with started to become clearer. I remember I had finally gotten my anxiety under control, and I remember my psychiatrist starting to notice new things in my behavior, things that were a little bit sharper, a little bit crisper, I think, to both of us.And he started asking me all these questions. And I didn't know where he was going with it. And eventually he looked at me and he said, "You know, Laura, I think that you have ADHD." And I thought, no, that can't be true. And he said, "You know what, let's do an evaluation, nonetheless." So I got the evaluation. It turns out I had ADHD. I got a second opinion from another psychiatrist who also told me I had ADHD.Amanda: Wait, I want to know about that. What I really wanted to know is why you got a second opinion. What was it about the first diagnosis of ADHD that made you think, no, I want to hear this again or get a second opinion about it?Laura: I just felt like if I tried harder that it would go away. And I work at Understood. I worked at Understood at that time and, you know, looking back, I can't believe that I was carrying some of the same stigma about myself and the same myths that other people with ADHD have, despite having worked there. That just goes to show how strong those myths and that stigma can be and how deep they run. I was still stuck on the, you know, it's just little boys with hyperactivity who have ADHD. ADHD and women weren't a huge part of the conversation at that time. And that was just a few years ago. Amanda: ADHD in women looks really different. Can you tell me a little bit about what you thought ADHD looked like before you were diagnosed with it?Laura: Yeah. I thought ADHD looked like something you could look at, right? Something noticeable, something very visible — hyperactivity, running around. Roughhousing, fidgeting, being overly restless. And it does look that way to some people, men and women, boys and girls. But that's not how it was surfacing for me.Amanda: So say more about that. What did it look like for you? Laura: For me, it was surfacing through constant distraction. So a tiny little noise across the room would send me spiraling. I would not be able to regain my focus. I couldn't keep my focus if something distracted me, and I couldn't get it back. I was having so much trouble getting organized and following through on tasks. And it's funny that you mentioned, Amanda, that working together, you thought that I was the most organized person. And I'm not surprised that you thought that because I worked my butt off to make it seem that way. I used to do this thing where I would give myself fake deadlines in order to get something done on time. So if I had a presentation that was due on a Friday, I would tell myself that it was due on Wednesday. And I would actually make myself believe that was true, to the point that Wednesday would come around and I'd say, why isn't anyone asking for this yet? Amanda: You know, I work with Laura, so I seek what this looks like. Laura is the queen of calendaring things. I mean, to the point of working backwards from dates and knowing what happens at each stage and each step. It never would have occurred to me, Laura, that was hard for you. And, you know, I feel bad now. I feel bad now looking back at that and thinking how easy that seemed, right? I can't imagine what that was like for you. I can't imagine you carrying that and having everybody else think that you were so on top of it and feeling on the inside like you weren't. Laura: I think I'm someone who will always be hard on myself, but not nearly to the degree that I used to be. And as a teenager, throughout my twenties, in my early thirties. Now, as I approached 40, I feel so much more empathy toward myself. I feel OK with asking for help or saying something like "Hey, I didn't actually catch everything you just said. Would you mind putting that in an email for me so I can go back to it later?" Amanda: Well, and I can vouch for that. We schedule meetings with each other, and you've gotten so much better over the years about saying to me, "After 3 p.m., I just, I can't focus on this. I can't have this conversation." And I really respect that about you. I don't know that I've ever said that to you, but I really respect the fact that you're willing to speak up for yourself and say, "This is not the best time if you want to have a great conversation with me." And I guess I never made the connection that's what you're doing is you're accommodating for what you need. And speaking up for it. That's hard. It's hard to do. Do you find that people are willing to hear you say that?Laura: I mean, absolutely here at Understood that we work in a place where these challenges are understood and embraced and accepted. And that's one of the things that I love about working here and with you, Amanda. Um, wait, can you repeat the question? I forgot what it was. Amanda: Oh my gosh. This is like perfect. Too perfect. Laura: I lost it. I couldn't hold it in my working memory. Amanda: OK, so Laura has just given us a perfect example of ADHD. Um, say 10 years from now, you're in a different workplace. What would you do now, knowing that you have ADHD, that you wouldn't have done in your twenties?Laura: Well, I'll tell you what I hope I would do. I hope that I would disclose my ADHD from the get-go, not as something that I'm ashamed of, but as something that is part of what makes me unique, is also part of what makes me good at what I do, and is also going to cause some struggles here and there that I'm going to accommodate for. I would hope that for anyone, that they would feel comfortable doing that. And especially women, women with ADHD, I think — I'm clearly generalizing here. I'm a sample of one. But I think that we, we work really hard to hide our quote-unquote imperfection and the things that we struggle with. Because we want to, you know, I almost said we want to be in the room where it happens.Amanda: I want to go back to something you said about private, though. Because the last time we had a conversation about this, and that was a couple of years ago, you hadn't talked to many people outside of just the few friends and, and your immediate family. Has that changed? Laura: Yes, it has. I'm actually excited about that. I have had so many encounters with people in a further orbit of friendship, not my closest friends, but friends of friends or people I meet at a restaurant — outdoors or masked now, of course. People who I meet, who it's like, there's something that draws us to each other. They will tell me about an experience that they have with their child, struggling with ADHD, not even knowing what I do for a living. And I say, you know what? I have ADHD. I understand. And they look at me with this look of relief. Like, oh my gosh, she gets it. She's not judging me. That's fantastic. And it feels so good.I want people to hear other people's stories — hear about those tipping points, those "aha" moments that other people had and realize that yeah, that moment was way different than mine, but I get it. I've had that tipping point too. And feel that community reduce some of that internal stigma or that "not being allowed to be different"-ness, or "not being allowed to be imperfect"-ness. Amanda: Well, and from my perspective, that's part of being in it, right?Laura: Right.Amanda: You're talking about the ADHD "aha" moments. And that's what it's like to be in it, is when you're hearing other people talk about their experiences and whether it's exactly the same as yours or not, you can relate to it and you feel like you're not alone.Gretchen: That was a powerful conversation to listen to, Amanda. Amanda: It was meaningful to have. And there's more of our conversation, which you can hear on Laura's podcast, "ADHD Aha," which premiers on September 28th, wherever you get your podcasts. And she'll be having a lot of other great conversations there too. Gretchen: Yeah, she will. In fact, I got to listen to one, and I'm still thinking about it, especially as a mother. She talks to a single mom who was overwhelmed by her daughter's behavior as a child. She didn't really understand what was going on until somebody asked her, "Does your daughter have ADHD?"Amanda: Oh, I can't wait to hear that one. You've been listening to "In It," part of the Understood Podcast Network.Gretchen: You can listen and subscribe to "In It" wherever you get your podcasts. Amanda: And if you like what you heard today, please tell somebody about it.Gretchen: Share it with the parents you know.Amanda: Share it with somebody else who might have a child who learns differently. Gretchen: Or just send a link to your child's teacher. Amanda: "In It" is for you. So we want to make sure that you're getting what you need.Gretchen: Go to u.org/init to share your thoughts and also to find resources from every episode.Amanda: That's the letter U, as in Understood, dot O R G, slash in it.Gretchen: As a nonprofit and social impact organization, Understood relies on the help of listeners like you to create podcasts like this one to reach and support more people in more places. We have an ambitious mission to shape the world for difference. And we welcome you to join us in achieving our goals. Learn more at understood.org/mission.Amanda: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Justin Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music. Laura Key is our editorial director at Understood. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick and Briana Berry are production directors. Thanks for listening, everyone. And thanks for always being in it with us.
In ItExecutive function skills: What are they and how can we help kids build them?
Messy backpacks. Forgotten lunches. Missing assignments. How can we help our kids get organized this school year? Messy backpacks. Forgotten lunches. Missing assignments. How can we help our kids get organized this school year? What strategies can we use to support kids with ADHD and other learning differences? In this episode, hosts Amanda Morin and Gretchen Vierstra get back-to-school tips from Brendan Mahan, an executive function coach and host of the ADHD Essentials podcast. Brendan explains what executive function skills are — and how we can help kids build them. Learn why we might be asking too much of our kids sometimes, and how to reframe our thinking around these skills. Plus, get Brendan’s tips for helping kids get back into school routines. Related resourcesWhat is executive function? Trouble with executive function at different ages Understanding why kids struggle with organizationEpisode transcriptAmanda: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It." On this podcast, we offer perspective, stories, and advice for and from people who have challenges with reading, math, focus, and other types of learning differences. We talk to parents, caregivers, teachers, experts, and sometimes even kids. I'm Amanda Morin.Gretchen: And I'm Gretchen Vierstra.Amanda: And this episode is for all those folks out there like me saying oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. How is it the start of a new school year already? How is summer over? And I don't know what I'm going to do because my kid doesn't know how to do school anymore.Gretchen: Yes, this transition can be especially stressful for parents of kids with ADHD and other learning differences. Maybe you had your systems down last year, like how to get your backpack organized or where your child does their homework after school. But will your child remember those things? And are those even the systems you need this year?Amanda: That's why we wanted to talk to Brendan Mahan. He's an ADHD and executive function coach. He's also got his own podcast, "ADHD Essentials."Gretchen: All right. Let's dive right in.Amanda: So Brendan, as an executive function coach, I would imagine that this start of the school year is a really busy time for you. What are you hearing from parents as they're facing down the beginning of a new school year?Brendan: It varies. Sometimes it's really specific. Like my kid struggled last year and I'm worried about how they're going to do it this year. Sometimes it's my kid's going into middle school, what do I do? Or my kid's going into high school, what do I do? Or I want my kid to get in a college and it's right around the corner — help. Like that. It's that sort of thing, right? But a lot of what I talk to parents about is like pump the brakes. Like, your kid is going to be OK. The school year hasn't even started that much yet.Amanda: OK. So I want to dig into all of that. But first, could you just explain what we're even referring to when we talk about executive function skills?Brendan: So executive function is the ability to do something, right? It's like the ability to execute. So planning and decision making, being able to correct errors and troubleshoot, being able to navigate it when things change and shift, when expectations are different and being able to handle that adjustment. It's understanding time and our relationship to it. It's sustained attention and task initiation. There's emotional control and self-awareness and self-understanding. It's kind of a broad category. There's a lot hiding underneath it.But it boils down to being able to do the thing. It's those adulting skills that, for one, we don't really expect kids to have yet anyway because it's developmental. But also we want them to have it before they're supposed to have it. And that causes its own sort of challenges.Gretchen: So I wonder, do kids tend to slide in executive function skills over the summer?Brendan: I don't know that they slide. I think the academic context of executive function slide. Sometimes we're still using some of those executive functions during the summer. Sometimes we're using more of some of them. You might have a kid who struggles to keep himself organized at school, right? But he's been playing with Legos all summer long and his Lego organizational skills are on point. And maybe that transfers to the classroom and maybe it doesn't.Summer is often when kids are much more self-directed. They're much more curious and exploratory. There's more space for that. So that stuff is going to grow when it may have slid during the school year, because they didn't get the opportunities that they might get during the summer.Amanda: I'm going to go back to something you said, though, because it piqued my curiosity. We expect kids to have executive function skills before they're developmentally ready for it. Why do we do that? Or how do we stop doing that? Or what should we be doing instead?Brendan: I'll go for all of it. Like, how big of a jerk do you want me to be?Amanda: Realistic. Let's go with realistic.Brendan: The answer to that, and this is me being a jerk, is kids not having executive functioning skills is inconvenient.Gretchen: Right.Brendan: Right? Like it makes our lives harder that they can't follow 10-step directions.Gretchen: Brendan, can you give a kind of a general overview of what skills I should expect of typical kids in like grade school and up? So I'm not asking for things I shouldn't get.Brendan: So breaking it down into, like, elementary school, middle school, and high school. It's at least academically how we break things down. So we should expect elementary school kids to be able to pay attention. But there's high school kids who have trouble with that, right? So like, that's kind of an illustration on executive functioning challenges. But broadly speaking, we're expecting elementary school kids to pay attention, control their behavior and impulses, follow one- to two-step directions, and be able to change their behavior to follow rules as necessary.Amanda: The kindergarten teacher in me is going to pop in here and say, "pay attention" is a really like nebulous one, right? Because when I was teaching kindergarten, it was like, pay attention for 10 minutes was about as much as they could could do, right? So I just want to caveat and say, yes, pay attention. I also think about how old the kid in front of you is, for how long they can pay attention.Brendan: True. And absolutely like 10 minutes for a kindergarten kid, and sort of add a few minutes per grade level kind of thing. But also, what does "pay attention" mean? Right? I'm really glad you called that out. Because for some teachers, "pay attention" means sitting with their back against the back of the chair and their legs against the bottom of the chair and their hands folded on their desk and looking at the teacher and — and like, I did that in school. And I did not know what was going on. Because my imagination is way cooler than anything my teacher had to say.Amanda: It may be time to narrate for our listeners that Brendan is standing up as he records, and I'm sitting a swivel chair and swiveling back and forth. Yet we are still paying attention.Gretchen: We're paying attention. So then what about middle schoolers that I know Amanda and I have.Brendan: And I do, too. Yeah. For the middle school kids, we want them to start to show that they can think in order to plan an action. We want them to be able to plan ahead to solve problems, even. Right? Like this is a problem that I might encounter when I do my social studies project or whatever. We want them to be able to follow and manage a daily routine. So an elementary school kid not knowing where they're going on a given day? We might not worry about that too much. Middle school kids, we start to go, oh, wait a minute, you should know what's happening. I want to caveat this, though, because some middle school schedules are a nightmare.Gretchen: A day, B day, short day.Brendan: Yeah. We also for middle school kids, we want to see them beginning to develop this skill of being able to modify their behavior across changing environments. Do we expect to see this because it's developmentally appropriate? Or do we expect to see this because that's how middle school works and it's necessary that they can? I don't know.Gretchen: It makes me think I'm asking too much.Amanda: Makes me think I'm asking too much, too.Brendan: Yeah. One of the things that I often talk about with my clients, with my coaching groups, is when a kid is struggling, we want to wonder: Is it the fish or is it the water? Right? Like, is this kid struggling because there's something going on with them? Or is it the kid's struggling because there's something going on with the environment that they're in? Probably it's both. And oftentimes we focus on the fish instead of looking at the water. So I tend to champion like, let's address the environment that the kid's in.Amanda: As a parent staring down the school year, what do I do right now to start bolstering those skills?Brendan: So if school hasn't started yet, I might be talking about things we can do during the summer to kind of get ourselves squared away so that the beginning of school goes more smoothly, right? Start going to bed a little bit earlier now, so that when school starts and you have to go to bed a lot earlier, you can make that transition more effectively. Or give your kids like a few more responsibilities for the time being, so that when school starts, you can take those extra responsibilities away and replace them with the school responsibilities that are coming. Which doesn't mean they should be writing essays at home. It just means that they should be doing a little bit more in terms of chores or something, so that they're used to not being as relaxed and on as much screen time as they were in the summer.And if school is already started, then it's like trust the teacher, right? Like let's communicate with the teacher. Let's find out what it is that they're doing in their classroom. Are they seeing challenges or red flags already for your kid, or maybe orange flags? Is there anything we need to be on top of right now? So don't wait until the problem happens, like solve the problem in advance instead of solving it after things have gone haywire. And pivoting really quick, because one thing I didn't do is I didn't talk about high school.Gretchen: Oh, yeah. High schools.Brendan: So emerging skills in high school: We expect them to start to be able to think and behave flexibly. We also want to see them begin to organize and plan projects and social activities. Now, social activities, yes. But like, why do they have to be able to organize and plan projects? Because that's how high school works, right? And that skill has been building since middle school, maybe even since late elementary school. But now we're starting to expect more independence and it should be an easier process.We also want to see them adapt to inconsistent rules. And it happens in lots of ways, right? Like I just left English class and now I'm in math class and I can't shut up because I was talking a lot in English and it was fine because we were doing group projects and now it's a solo thing in math, right? That's hard. But we start to expect that. Yeah, you have like three-minute hallway time and then you got to be ready to go behaving totally different for a new subject.Gretchen: That three-minute time is like, I've got to say, as a teacher, even I had trouble switching, right? You're going from one class to the next and there's no downtime to readjust. That's tough.Brendan: Yeah, but that's time on learning, right? That's like you've got to be learning, learning, learning. Which is silly, because we know we need time for our minds to wander in order to cement that learning and sort of lock it in. And if we don't give kids any time that's downtime to have their minds wander and be a little spacey, they're not going to be able to anchor in that learning as effectively as they might otherwise.Amanda: Well, I will say that as a parent of kids who have ADHD, I have often been the parent who was like, you don't have to go do your homework right away. And I know that that's sort of antithetical to like all what a lot of people say. You know, come home from school, do your homework, get it done, then do your other stuff. But my kids weren't ready to. They needed that time to sort of breathe or let their brains breathe or whatever they needed to do. We can have the homework station all put together, but it doesn't mean we have to put the kid at the homework station the minute they walk in the door.Gretchen: Right.Brendan: Right. And how much of that is coming from your own anxiety?Gretchen: Just get it done, man. Go to that seat and do it, right?Amanda: OK, so what's the conversation sound like if I am trying to get my kid in the game, get their head in the game, and not put my anxiety on them? What's that conversation sound like?Brendan: A lot of that conversation is happening inside of you and doesn't need to be shared with them, right? Like, because you got to work on your own stuff before you can have this conversation. You have to figure out what is it about, in this case, homework, and doing it as soon as I get home, or is having my kid do it as soon as they get home. What is it about that that makes it so important to me? It might be that transitions with your kid are wicked hard and you don't want to have another transition. You don't want to have to battle them to come and do homework at 5:00. So it's easier to avoid that battle because they're kind of still in school academic mode. So you can at least get them into it better.And that might be because you're doing it wrong in terms of what activities you're having them do before they do homework. Screen time is not a plan before homework, unless you know you can trust your kid to pull out of that screen and go into homework. If there's ever a battle around getting out of screen time, then they need to do something else before they do their homework.Gretchen: Yeah. That brings me to a related question, Brendan, which is sometimes kids have it together executive function wise, especially when they love something, right? But when they don't like something, all of a sudden I see the skills go away. And I wonder, OK, are they struggling or is it that they're just choosing to not have those skills in that moment because they don't want that for that thing?Brendan: When we're talking about kids, it is never useful to decide that they're choosing to not do or do anything. Because all that does is vilify the kid and make us, as parents, feel more justified in being meaner to them. Instead, we always want to assume that our kid is doing the best they can. And we always want to assume that they are trying to do well and want to please us. Those are my fundamental assumptions at all times. And have I screwed up? Yes. There was a period of time when my kid was struggling, like a lot of kids right now. Post-COVID, there's a lot of anxiety stuff going on with kids.My kid is one of them, man. And I was wrapped up in my own anxiety as a result of his anxiety, and I wasn't thinking as clearly. And we started battling. And we had one particular rough battle that my wife got caught in and I sat down on a bed. I can still see it. I can see myself sitting on the bed and going, I'm doing it wrong. Like we should not be battling. This is not the relationship I've had with my kid for the last 13 years. What am I doing wrong?And I literally went through in my head the slides of the parent groups that I run. And I hit this one slide that is like everyone is doing the best they can. Your kids want to please you. They want to succeed. And if those things don't feel true, it's because there's a skill set that's missing or there's a resource that they don't have that they need. And I was like, he's doing his best, and his best is not up to my standards. And that's because something else is going on. I knew what that something else was. It was the anxiety stuff that's going on. And I was just like, oh, the skill set that he's missing is the anxiety management skills that he needs.But it wasn't that he couldn't do the stuff that I want him to do. It was that he couldn't manage his anxiety. And the only reason I started banging heads with him was because I was so anxious that I couldn't bring the skills that I usually have to bear to navigate the challenges that he was facing and help him out. So it makes sense. It happened to both of us at the same time, and that's why we were banging heads. And our relationship changed from that day forward.Amanda: I'm going to push, though, a little bit, because I really I'm super curious about the kids who say to us, like, I'm just not feeling it. Like, is there something below that, you think?Brendan: What's below when you're not feeling it? Like there's times when we're not feeling it either, right? And there's something below that, too. Sometimes it's I haven't slept well for a week, and I'm just done. I don't have the mental capacity to do this. Sometimes it's I haven't moved my body in like a month and a half and that's affecting my get-up-and-go. Sometimes it's I'm chock-full of anxiety because someone in my house has a chronic illness or I'm afraid of COVID or or my parents are getting divorced or whatever, right?There's all kinds of reasons why kids might not feel it. And if they say, I'm just not feeling it, there's two really good responses. One is cool, then you don't have to do it. Like figure out when you can. Give me an idea when you might be able to do this, and we'll do it then. The other answer is, I totally hear you that you're not feeling it and I get it. I can tell that you're not feeling it, but unfortunately you still got to do it. How can I help you get this done?Gretchen: I like that language.You brought up not wanting to battle your child and none of us want to battle our child. But in thinking about going back to school, we might be getting feelings from last year of oh my gosh, the backpack was so disorganized. Oh my gosh, why didn't you bring home your homework assignments? So how can we start off the year better, but get some of those basic skills under control?Brendan: So I have some videos on "How to ADHD," Jessica McCabe's YouTube channel, on my Wall of Awful model. That is exactly what we're talking about right now. The idea behind the Wall of Awful is that — I'll do like a two-second thing. Watch the video. It's like 14 minutes of your life. The gist of the Wall of Awful is that, like, we have certain stuff that we do that we fail at or struggle with. And as a result, we get these negative emotions built up around that task. And we have to navigate those negative emotions before we can do the thing.So if we've battled with our kid about school a lot, as school comes back up, we have a Wall of Awful for navigating school as much as they do. So we get in a fight and argue about stuff. Just put your shoes on, or whatever. And sometimes it's that petty, right? Like we're yelling at our kid to put their shoes on, even though they have 10 minutes before they even have to get on the bus. And it's not about the shoes. It's about all of the battles we've had about school for the last seven years or whatever.So to get ahead of that, talk to your kids before school starts about how you have conflict when school starts. And ask them, like, what do you notice about this conflict? What do you need for me to help avoid this conflict? Or this is what I need from you to help avoid this conflict. What do you need from me to help give me what I need, right?Because that's what parenting boils down to. Parenting boils down to what does my kid need from me in order to be better? So whenever I have a conflict with my kid or my kid is struggling, I'm always asking them, like, what do you need from me? And sometimes what they need from me is for me to intentionally give them nothing so that they can figure it out on their own. Sometimes that's what I'm giving, is like independence.But if that doesn't work, I need to be ready, like a safety net with, like, other stuff, right? Like, oh, you also need me to, like, bust out a timer and remind you that those are useful. Or break this task into smaller, more manageable chunks. Or, as I had to do for one of my kids recently, text the dad of one of their friends that he wanted to hang out with, because he just didn't have it in him to text his friend. And we had that conversation. I was like, cool, then I'll text the dad. Not a big deal.Amanda: Sometimes my kid doesn't know. My kid's like I don't know what I need from you. So as parents, having those examples of what you can then say: Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? What else would you add to that list?Brendan: First I would add if the kid says "I don't know," say to them, "You don't need to know. I don't want the answer to this question right now. I can, like, take a few hours, take a day." Because when we put a kid on the spot, anxiety spikes, executive functions shut down. They don't know. But if we give them some thinking time and some grace, then they can come back later and tell us stuff. Or maybe not. Maybe they come back an hour later and they're like, I still have no idea.Then we start giving them examples — examples that are informed by what we already know about our kid. Do you need me to get some timers? Do you want to sit down with me and I can body-double you while you work on this? I got some knitting to do, or I have to pay the bills. Like we can sit at the kitchen table, you can work on your thing, I can work on my thing. Do you want help breaking this down into small, manageable chunks? I know sometimes you struggle with that a little bit. Would it be useful to maybe call up Sally and have Sally come over or do a Zoom with you and you guys can work on this together? Would that be helpful? Like, and something else that you thought of, because I am running out of ideas? Like, what do you think?Amanda: So we're all about executive functioning today, which always includes time management. And Brendan, I know you said you had somewhere to be. So I just want to thank you so much for sharing all of these insights and advice with us today.Gretchen: Yes, thank you so much, Brendan. So much for us to think about.Brendan: Thank you for having me.Gretchen: Brendan has lots more to share with families who are working on building their executive function skills. Go to ADHDEssentials.com. That's where you can also find his "ADHD Essentials" podcast.Amanda: You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network.Gretchen: This show is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from you.Amanda: If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode.Gretchen: Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at Understood.org/mission.Amanda: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music. For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director, Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick is our executive producer.Gretchen: Thanks for listening and for always being in it with us.
New Understood and UnidosUS Study Confirms Lost School Year With 90% of U.S. Teachers and 61% of Parents Predicting Increased Challenges as Children Head Back to School
Teachers and parents unite to “reimagine the classroom” amid learning challenges 65% of parents observed learning challenges with their child over the last year yet nearly half of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino parents say they can’t afford a diagnosisUnderstood hosts Town Hall and launches interactive Take N.O.T.E. digital experience to help parents start conversations around potential learning differences NEW YORK (AUGUST 24, 2021) — Understood, a social impact, nonprofit organization and the only lifelong guide for those who learn and think differently, today unveiled its 2021 Back to School Study, conducted in partnership with UnidosUS, the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. The study focused on understanding the perspectives, anticipated challenges, and preparedness of teachers, parents, and students as we head back to school. Measuring the attitudes of 495 educators and 1,005 parents of children with and without learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia, the study found that as a result of the pandemic, more challenges lie ahead. Over two-thirds (68%) of teachers and more than 60% of parents prefer and expect their children to return to school in person full-time. Despite feeling ready for a return to the classroom, 90% of educators are concerned about longer-term challenges that all students might face from missing traditional education last year. Top concerns include academic development (73%), anxiety (65%), and social (63%) and emotional (62%) advancement. “As we head back to school, teachers and parents alike are concerned about the lasting impact of the pandemic on students including the learning challenges that they are observing,” said Fred Poses, CEO and co-founder of Understood. “Our findings examine how we can reimagine learning across the entire ecosystem.” Reimagining the Classroom The research found that open communications between teachers and parents will be pivotal in bridging at-home and in-classroom learning as we get ready for the new school year. Over 50% of educators have relied on technology over the past year, and have had to reimagine the classroom through innovation and creativity. Steps for Improving Classroom Learning: Educators see a need for even more hands-on activities (61%), smaller classrooms (57%), flexible learning environments (55%), and more one-on-one interaction with students (over 50%).What Schools Can Do to Enhance Learning at Home: Schools can support continued learning at home: 69% of respondents say that schools should offer advice to parents on how to support their children; additional learning devices, such as laptops and/or tablets should be supplied to households with more than one school-age child (66%); along with guidance to access social services (54%) and social-emotional learning support (51%). How Parents Can Improve Learning: The study also highlighted opportunities for parents to play a role in learning this year: 72% of educators suggest that parents have a designated and quiet workspace for their children; parents should partner better with teachers (61%); create a calendar for work and play (60%); spend more time assisting children with assignments (58%); and allow children to learn in nontraditional academic environments (outside classrooms) (51%). “Encouragingly, more than half of both parents and teachers believe increased interaction between teachers, students, and parents will help improve performance,” added Amanda Morin, Understood’s director of thought leadership and expertise. “Students who learn differently will face more challenges than usual this school year. So providing resources, such as Take N.O.T.E., and opportunities to connect parents and teachers to address these challenges is more important than ever.”Parents Grapple With How to Get Academic Support for KidsThe majority of parents (60%) are eager to send their children back to in-person learning but are unsure how to address concerns about learning challenges and developmental needs from the last school year and pandemic learning environments. 50% of all parents are worried about their child facing challenges because of not having the same education last year due to COVID-19.44% of parents say they don’t know how to start the conversations with educators around learning challenges they’ve noticed. More than eight out of 10 parents wish they had a tool to track their child’s behavior prior to their diagnosis, including 81% of Black/African American parents, and 83% of Hispanic/Latino parents.Impact of Back-to-School on Diverse Students and Parents More than 70% of Hispanic/Latino parents and 65% of Black/African American parents noticed their children experienced a learning challenge, and similarly to all parents surveyed, approximately a third said their children are continuing to struggle to adapt to COVID-19 rules and regulations in the classroom.Black/African American (46%) and Hispanic/Latino (44%) parents say they can’t afford a diagnosis for learning challenges they’ve observed. More than half (63%) of Black/African American parents and nearly half of Hispanic/Latino parents (44%) say they cannot find Spanish-language resources; about half say they don’t have the community support (50% of Black/African American and 48% of Hispanic/Latino parents).39% of Black/African American parents are more likely to hire a learning specialist for their child; 42% plan to request a new evaluation for their child.More than half of Hispanic/Latino parents (54%) have anxiety related to talking about the learning challenges of their children and feel that their communities don’t support them; many (51%) have decided to not pursue noticeable challenges because their teachers don’t believe their children. “At UnidosUS, we prioritize family engagement because we know education is critical to our community, and we see the barriers to participation in the school system,” said Margaret McLeod, Ed.D., vice president of education, workforce development, and evaluation at UnidosUS. “This research confirms that Latinx families are deeply invested in their children’s education and concerned about the impact of the pandemic on their learning. Students with learning differences and their families need access to timely, culturally, and linguistically appropriate resources to navigate this challenging environment.” Conducted in July 2021, Understood and UnidosUS’ 2021 Back to School Study leveraged quantitative data from 495 educators and 1,005 parents of children with and without learning and thinking differences across the United States. Study respondents included educators as well as parents of children ages 5-18, with 30% identifying as Hispanic/Latino, 68% as White/Caucasian, 19% as Black/African American, 3% as Asian, and 2% as Native American. Full study results are available upon request.Taking Action With Take N.O.T.E. and Discussion Forum On September 9, 2021, Understood will host a Town Hall forum designed to bring together parents, teachers, and experts as part of a free, virtual forum to answer questions and discuss the social, emotional, and academic challenges that their children may be facing this school year, and how to respond to them.During the “Real Talk: Taking N.O.T.E. of Learning Challenges in the New School Year” event, Understood, with the American Academy of Pediatrics, UnidosUS, CCSSO, Teacher of the Year Juliana Urtubey, and more will also highlight the benefits of Take N.O.T.E., a free, web-based interactive digital tool, developed in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics to help families notice and address learning challenges that they have seen during the pandemic that could be signs of learning and thinking differences.The event will be livestreamed via Understood’s YouTube channel and syndicated across its Facebook channel (in English and Spanish). Interested attendees can RSVP here.About Understood1 in 5 Americans have learning and thinking differences, such as ADHD and dyslexia. They are often misunderstood, undiagnosed, and dismissed, and these differences are viewed as a weakness. This leaves many on a journey that is stacked against them and costs society more than $500 billion. Understood is the only lifelong guide for those who learn and think differently. Today, we help more than 20 million people each year discover their potential, how to take control, find community, and stay on a positive path along each stage of life’s journey. When others join this journey, and people are broadly embraced, everyone thrives. Understood is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization based in New York. For more information, or to become a partner, visit u.org/media and follow us on Twitter @UnderstoodOrg.About UnidosUSUnidosUS, previously known as NCLR (National Council of La Raza), is the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. Through its unique combination of expert research, advocacy, programs, and an Affiliate Network of nearly 300 community-based organizations across the United States and Puerto Rico, UnidosUS simultaneously challenges the social, economic, and political barriers that affect Latinos at the national and local levels. For more than 50 years, UnidosUS has united communities and different groups seeking common ground through collaboration, and that share a desire to make our country stronger. For more information on UnidosUS, visit www.unidosus.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.Media Contacts:Kendall Brodie, Understood267.885.5040kbrodie@understood.org Glo Lindenmuth, The Sway Effect on behalf of Understood908.616.8936Glo.lindenmuth@theswayeffect.com Gabriela Gomez, UnidosUSggomez@unidosus.org
ADHD Aha!ADHD in teens, from friendships to forgetting homework (Miya’s story)
Miya Kofo is a high school student with ADHD and star of our “Be the Reason” campaign. Her dad taught her she can accomplish anything with ADHD. Miya Kofo is a 16-year-old high school student with ADHD — and the star of Understood’s “Be the Reason” campaign to fight stigma around learning and thinking differences. Miya was diagnosed in middle school. Her dad, who also has ADHD, helped her see it was nothing to be ashamed of and that she could accomplish anything.Host Laura Key and Miya talk about how ADHD is still often ignored in girls, and how the pressure to be perfect can make symptoms even worse. Miya also shares her thoughts about TikTok — the positives (getting the word about ADHD out there) and the negatives (“doom scrolling”) for people with ADHD.Related resourcesSee Miya in our "Be the reason" campaign videoADHD in high school: 4 signs you might seeADHD in girls vs. ADHD in boysWhat is a 504 plan?Episode transcriptMiya: When my dad started relating things to me and showing me that there wasn't anything wrong with me — that I was actually really similar to him when he was a kid — it really made me realize there's not anything wrong with me. Like I'm not less than like the other girls at school, like, I'm not stupid. It's just these symptoms of ADHD. And I think having someone there that was that close to me to tell me that there's not anything wrong with me really helps my self-esteem. Laura: From the Understood Podcast Network. This is "ADHD Aha!," a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they or someone they know has ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I'm the editorial director here at Understood, and as someone who's had my own ADHD "aha" moment, I'll be your host. I'm here today with Miya Kofo. Miya is a high school student who lives in Rutherford, New Jersey. She was also the star of Understood's "Be the Reason" campaign, to fight stigma around learning and thinking differences. Welcome, Miya. Miya: Thank you for having me. Laura: When did you get diagnosed with ADHD, Miya? Miya: I would say about sixth grade when my parents kind of started to relate my symptoms to my dad's symptoms when he was younger. And that diagnosis really helped me because from that point on, I got like 504 plans and a lot of extra help in school to just help me do better in my work. Laura: That's great. And how old are you now? Miya: I'm 16. Laura: So, you said that your dad has ADHD, is that right? Miya: Yeah, he does. And growing up, he didn't really have any of those resources and he actually got diagnosed as an adult. So, he really wanted to make sure that his kids really, like, had their resources available to them early on. Laura: Oh, that's wonderful. Good for him. What kind of signs was he noticing in you? Miya: Just stuff like I wouldn't do my work on time — but not like kid things were, like, they just don't want to do their work — like stuff where I actually couldn't do the work. Like, I just couldn't bring myself to put a pen to paper and just get the work done. And that lack of motivation really let him know. Laura: Did you notice too that you were struggling with these things that your dad was noticing, or did he really point them out to you for the first time? Miya: Well, I just thought that they were normal. I kind of knew that my friends didn't struggle with that, but I thought, like, I don't know, maybe I'm like stupid or something, which now I know was like a common misconception that a lot of kids struggling with that pre diagnosis have. But now I know like it really wasn't like stupid or less than or anything, it was just like ADHD and struggling with those symptoms. Laura: Anything in particular that your dad said to you that really made you feel more comfortable with yourself and your diagnosis? Miya: Yeah, so I would say, like once I started having those symptoms of ADHD, he kind of shared his stories with me of when he was little to make me feel like there wasn't anything wrong with me, that I needed to get these resources and help in the future so I can do better, and like that is a possibility. Because like when I was little, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm not going to go to college. I'm not going to ever be able to do my work, like, I'm going to be a failure and like a wreck." But when my dad told me his stories and told me like "I did struggle with these things. But like I did go to college, I did like I have a family and all these things." I was like, "OK, so it's not that bad. Things can get better." And I think like relating to a person that I am close to really made me feel like there was hope for the future. Laura: That sounds like an "aha" moment in and of itself. Walk me through an example of when you wanted to do something, you knew you needed to do something, but you just couldn't bring yourself to do it. Miya: Well, it was always things like every summer my mom would give me like a little workbook to do and she would be like, "I'll give you like 50 bucks if you do this whole workbook." And a lot of kids would be like, "Wow, that's a lot of money and I'll do it. I'll get it done." But for me, even though I wanted that money, and I wanted that reward, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Laura: What kinds of things would you do instead? Miya: I would just like go on my tablet, like play with my friends, like go outside, and she'd be like, "You can use this time to get money and buy stuff and have fun." And I was like, "No, I'm OK." But now, like after my diagnosis, I find that I know my things that I do, and I know how I can avoid a task. So, when I see myself doing that, I'm like, "OK, Miya, we need to get the work done so we can enjoy the reward of it later." Laura: I think you also mentioned that you didn't listen. What was that about? Miya: Yeah, like if my parents or teachers would tell me to do things, I'd just like, wouldn't. I had bad grades when I was little because I really just, like, didn't do my work. And they would tell me, like, "Do your work so you can get good grades. You can like get into better classes and just do better overall." And I just wouldn't make that connection. I would just think of really what I wanted to do in the moment and not really what I need to work towards. Laura: Would you ever do your homework and then forget to turn it in? Miya: Oh, my gosh. All the time. And it makes, like, you sound like you're lying to the teacher because you're like, I totally forgot this essay at home, and they're like "You just didn't do it." And I'm like, "No, I swear." So, now I've come up with a couple of skills to, like, really keep my work together and keep it organized. Laura: That's something that we talk about at Understood.org in our parenting resources is like sometimes a surprise sign of ADHD is, you know, they'll do the homework, but then it just doesn't make it to the teacher, to the class. Miya: Yeah, definitely. Yeah.Laura: Were there other kids in your class that that was happening for or were you alone in this? Miya: Oh, for sure. And I feel like a lot of times with girls who have ADHD, it sometimes is seen less than boys. So, like if a boy has ADHD, they're like, "Oh, OK, he's a boy, like, we can help him." But I feel like girls aren't really given the room to make those mistakes in school and they're seeing like, "Oh, she's a girl. Like, she should just be able to get her work done." I feel like that kind of also made me feel less than in school because looking at my girl peers and my friends, I would be like, "Why am I doing like these boy things, like forgetting my homework and mouthing off and stuff?" You know? Laura: It's interesting that that's still happening today. I was going to ask you about that because as a girl who, a woman now, who grew up with ADHD, we talk a lot about what it was like and how girls would fly under the radar. It sounds like that still happens. Miya: Yeah, definitely. I would say so. And I still see it like in school and stuff and I'm like, I don't know why this isn't fixed yet, but I'm glad I got diagnosed, so I know it's not something wrong with me. Laura: Yes. You're a success story in this realm for sure. Miya: What have been some of your struggles personally being a girl with ADHD? Laura: Thanks for that question. I would, I think I always blamed myself. Miya: Yeah. Laura: That's not necessarily gender specific, but you alluded to the pressure that girls and women put on themselves to be perfect. That was definitely something that I faced. I just figured if I just tried harder than I could make it all go away. And I really burnt myself out. And also, just brushing off things that I think society tells us are just like it's a girl thing, like, oh, you're too emotional or you're too sensitive or you're too... you're annoying, because you're talking so much or whatever. And just internalizing that as a flaw as opposed to acknowledging it as a symptom of something else. Miya: Yeah, that last part really resonates because even like specifically the talking symptom, for girls, girls have this thing where like they mask their symptoms of ADHD a lot of times. And I think that a lot of times like growing up, girls feel like they kind of always have to be the one to, like, apologize. So, I think a lot of girls like growing up with those symptoms of ADHD probably really do feel like there's something wrong with them. But I don't know. I hope that a lot of people, like in the future generations make changes and just like to help those young girls growing up. Laura: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Miya: Yeah. Laura: I think socially it can be tricky as well. And again, I'm making kind of some massive generalizations here, but I think that girls have a lot of pressure to keep their friendships perfect as well. Miya: Definitely. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Laura: I just have this image in my mind, as flawed as it is, of a boy being like, "OK, I'm out here, bye!" and a girl being like, "If I leave too quickly, are they going to think that I don't like them?" Or if I say the wrong thing like and I have to preserve my friendships and I think that girls put a lot of pressure on themselves when it comes to friendship, and they don't get a lot of grace for the things that often are ADHD difficulties. Miya: And I feel like sometimes that overthinking cycle of like the symptoms can sometimes make them worse and then not knowing that these symptoms are because of something can make them worse and also make your self-esteem so much worse. Laura: How is ADHD — I'm going to totally date myself here, I'm going to sound so old, Miya. I'm sorry — how is ADHD perceived in your age group these days? I know you're only one person. You can't speak for a whole generation. But in your class even, how is ADHD perceived among teenagers? Miya: Just talking to my dad, he said that when he was younger, like even boys, they didn't even know what ADHD was. His parents didn't. Like, nobody really was able to make those connections. But now I think that a lot of people do know what ADHD is, but I feel like sometimes even when I tell my friends and stuff that I have ADHD, people are like shocked because when they think of things like ADHD and learning differences, they think of the most extreme. Like someone just like sits at home all day, doesn't do their work, doesn't shower, like stuff like that. And it's like, no, like it's a spectrum. Like, it's so much more common than people think. And I really think if people learn that and that becomes like so much more normalized in society, then I feel like it'll help a lot of kids younger than me, like growing up to not feel like they're less than and something's wrong with them. Laura: Do you share that sentiment openly with your friends? Do you talk with them like that? Miya: Yeah. I mean, like, my friends know I have ADHD and like they know the campaign and like, I'm not really afraid. Like, I don't hide the fact that I have ADHD or learning differences. Laura: Good for you. That's really impressive. Truly. Have you ever experienced or noticed kids with ADHD getting made fun of or the word ADHD being the butt of a joke, even if it wasn't directed at someone? Miya: Yeah, I would say definitely. Growing up if you had ADHD, again, like I said, people just think of the most extreme and sometimes people do represent that extreme in school and I think they would definitely get made fun of. And even sometimes people forget to do things or stop and they just use ADHD as like a bad thing where they're like, "Oh my God, I'm so ADHD," like things like that. And I think that does perpetuate the stereotype and the negative stigmas that come along with it. Laura: I totally agree with you. I was going to bring up that example. "I'm so ADHD," that's just a thing that's said. What other kinds of expressions or things do people say that you wish that they would stop saying?Miya: Just making yourself seem like you have these learning differences or like you can relate to those people as like a joke just because you forgot to do your homework or something. Or like making it seem like worse than it actually is just because you want to be like, funny because it does hurt those people that do struggle with it on a bigger scale. Laura: Yeah, I can see that because when you have ADHD, things are really heightened. And to your point, it's a spectrum, but still, it's like, it's consistent and it can diminish the reality of what it's like to have ADHD. When people say, "Oh yeah, I have it too," or whatever. What about it on TikTok? You got to talk to me about TikTok, Miya. There's a lot of ADHD self-diagnosis and ADHD stuff happening on TikTok. How do you feel about that? Miya: Well, I don't know. I think that in recent years a lot of like self-diagnosis has gone on, especially with my generation. There's a lot of TikTok-ers now who spread ADHD awareness and talk about the symptoms, and I think that it is way more common than people think. So, they could have ADHD. But also, I think that when people self-diagnose, it hurts the cause in a way, because you're just like spreading things and like spreading your symptoms that people with ADHD actually like really struggle with it don't relate to. And they could be like, "Why am I like worse than this person?" but it's because like they don't actually have ADHD, you know? Laura: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Miya: I personally don't use TikTok that much because of this thing I recently learned about called doom scrolling, that like really affects people with ADHD because they get hyper fixed on things. So, I'll just be like scrolling and scrolling and then I look up and it's been like 2 hours. So, I found that personally TikTok isn't really a good app for me, and it can get me stuck in those cycles where I don't end up doing work or anything like that in a day. But I have found that when I do go on the app, there are so many resources for people with ADHD and it's really crazy because I really didn't see anything like that when I was younger on apps like Musically, which I had when I was little. And I think that it's so good. I'm really happy that it's being like really widespread because let's say like a little kid has been like struggling with these symptoms and they think there's something wrong with them. And then they come across a video spreading awareness. I think it can help so many young kids. Laura: Where do you think you would be with your grades if you hadn't gotten diagnosed with ADHD? Miya: I don't think I would be doing good in school. Like, I would probably be failing because, you know, like the 504 plan that helps me so much and I get extra help in tests and stuff and I really think, I don't know, I might even gotten pulled back if I didn't get that diagnosis because that extra time and that help from teachers and learning how to help myself and those resources to really like do good in school and just live as a like normal person really helped me. And I don't think I'd be doing like as good as I am now if I didn't get diagnosed. So, I'm really glad that, at least from my standpoint in the education world, like for teachers and educators and administrators, they've really come to understand it and wanted to like help those people they teach. Laura: That is so good to hear. You know, I've heard horror stories about kids who get accommodations getting made fun of and saying like, "Oh, you're cheating" or something like that, which we know that's not the case. Right? We're leveling the playing field. Laura: What other kinds of symptoms did you struggle with? We've talked about forgetfulness. We've talked about lack of motivation. What about hyperactivity? Any restlessness, fidgetiness, anything like that? Miya: Oh, definitely. Like when I was younger and just talking in class, like talking to anyone, not being able to sit still during parent-teacher conferences. The one like constant thing throughout all my grades was like, she talks too much, she talks to everybody, and when like we're in a test, she won't stop talking. And I think that's definitely a symptom of ADHD. And now I understand that, and like I said, like I have a balance in school. But yeah, that was always something that came up. Laura: Yeah, definitely an ADHD symptom. How did ADHD or how has ADHD affected your social life? Miya: A lot of times for me personally with ADHD, it kind of makes me think, not think less of others, but kind of just think more of myself and not really try to totally understand where other people are coming from. So, like with my friends, we got into so many fights, so it would be like maybe I said something that hurts my friend and I'm like, either I totally don't remember saying it because I was just like saying things and not thinking, or I just, like, really didn't try to think of how it affected them because I was just so in my own world. Laura: Last time we talked, I think you said that people perceived you as selfish. Miya: Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I think, like growing up after my diagnosis, I noticed a lot of things about myself, and I would say that it's not totally selfish when people with ADHD do that, that's not their intent, but it can often come off like that. Laura: And what are your friendships like now? Do you still feel like you're perceived as selfish, or are there any hiccups in your social life right now, or has that shifted as well? Miya: Yeah, well, like no friendship is like perfect, but now I have a lot of friends that I love them for and like me and my best friend personally, I feel like me with my ADHD and just like being forgetful and kind of in my own world, we got into so many fights when I was little, like always bickering and stuff, but now we're like so close and it's really good because I found that, like, I just need to learn to listen to people more and really put myself in their shoes. And I think that all my friendships thus thrived as a result. Laura: How do you do that? I mean, do you have any pointers for me? Honestly, because the ADHD brain makes it so hard to pump the brakes and stop yourself from interrupting people and to take a breath, you know? Would you teach me, Miya? Please.Miya: Well, yeah, I've had to really, really learn to think before I speak, because honestly, I think that was a big problem in my relationships when I was younger, that I would just not think before I would speak and I would just blurt everything out. So, now like at least I try. I take like care in what I say to people and like I really think before I say something like how they could interpret that or like how that could possibly hurt someone. And I think that my friendships have lasted longer as a result. Laura: So, when we were chatting, you mentioned something about noticing, "toxic cycles" and how that was related to becoming more self-aware. Can you talk a little bit about that? Miya: Yeah. So, I think that with my social life, but even with school, I've really had to notice those cycles that I do like. Let's say it's for school, like getting an assignment, not doing it, getting that bad grade and then feeling bad about myself, and then it starts all over again. So even though it took me a while to notice those things, I think it really did help me in all the different aspects of my life. And I personally think that quarantine really helped me with that because school kind of slowed down. So, I was able to like really grasp like what I needed to do to do better in school and even my social life. And probably because I was so young, like sixth grade when I got the diagnosis, I really couldn't fully understand what ADHD meant and what the symptoms were and how I needed to help myself rather than like those accommodations and my parents helping me because I think it's like a two-part thing, like your parents need to help you, you need those outside things, like other resources, but you really also need to notice those cycles in yourself and really need to, like, help yourself also. Laura: Oh, that's beautiful. What advice do you have to other kids like you who have ADHD? Miya: I would say there's not anything wrong with you. Like you're not less than if you have ADHD and you have these differences, and you can harness your ADHD to do great things. Because I find that people with ADHD usually are really creative. So, you can put like your hands into an art form or something or something where you really just got to like dive into it and really focus all your energy in it. But alongside that, you do need to find ways and resources to do your work and get those things done. Laura: Absolutely. Miya, it has been so wonderful to talk with you. It's so refreshing to talk with such a bright, amazing teenager and to learn from you. And I'm really grateful for your time. Miya: Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me here. It's been so nice to have this conversation. Laura: You've been listening to "ADHD Aha!" from the Understood Podcast Network. If you want to share your own "aha" moment, email us at ADHDAha@understood.org. I'd love to hear from you. If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently, discover their potential and thrive. We have no affiliation with pharmaceutical companies. Learn more at Understood.org/mission. "ADHD Aha!" is produced by Jessamine Molli. Say hi, Jessamine! Jessamine: Hi everyone. Laura: Briana Berry is our production director. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. For the Understood Podcast Network, Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, Seth Melnick is our executive producer, and I'm your host, Laura Key. Thanks so much for listening.
6 strategies for partnering with families of English language learners
Whenever we ask veteran educators of English language learners (ELLs) the secret to their success, the answer is almost always the same: Build relationships with students and their families. Relationships establish trust and improve communication. They help us better understand students’ strengths and needs, which is especially important for ELLs. If you’re new to working with English language learners, you may wonder how to partner with families who come from other countries and speak different languages. Here are six ideas to help you get started. As you read, look for one or two small steps that you might try with families this year.1. Create a welcoming space for families.Imagine what it’s like for immigrant families to enter your school or classroom. Do families see something familiar to them, like signs in their language or objects from their culture? Are books available in their home language? Small gestures can go a long way toward saying, “You are welcome here. We want your child to thrive.”Strategies for creating welcoming spaces: Make your classroom walls family-friendly. Start by hanging a bilingual welcome sign. Put up maps from students’ home countries and photos that reflect the students in your class. To make sure the images are authentic and relatable, check with colleagues who share those same cultures. Or ask your students to help pick the images. Learn a new word or phrase in a family’s home language that may help students and their families feel welcome in your classroom. Share ideas and collaborate with your administrator about schoolwide practices that help families of ELLs and immigrant students feel welcome. Step into their shoes for a moment. Take a look at this school form in Arabic to get a sense of what it’s like to be presented with information in a language you can’t read.2. Get to know your students. Getting to know English language learners will give you essential information about them. If you suspect a student learns and thinks differently, you’ll especially want a complete picture of the student. To navigate the special education process with families, you’ll need their trust. This may be easier to earn if you’ve developed a caring relationship with their child. Strategies for getting to know your students:Look for informal opportunities to spend time together, like during lunch. Learn about students’ strengths, talents, and interests. Ask students to complete a questionnaire about their interests. If they can’t complete it by themselves in English, try to find a classmate or a bilingual staff member to help. Or they can cut out pictures from magazines to make collages about themselves. Start to collect the 10 pieces of information you need to learn about your English language learners. Talk with colleagues who already have relationships with your students, such as bilingual staff, ESL teachers, counselors, or teachers from previous years. Ask them what they know about students’ culture, language, academics, and social-emotional learning. Discuss students’ strengths and needs, particularly around learning and thinking differences. 3. Build relationships with families. Developing a partnership with your students’ families may take some creativity and flexibility on your part, but it’s well worth it. Families of English language learners can bring great skills, talents, and strengths to your school. They’re likely to have deep reserves of strength, resilience, and resourcefulness. But these resources might go unnoticed if no one is looking for them.Families who are new to this country may have many questions about education. They may wonder about topics like class schedules, events, celebrations, and homework. And when it comes to special services, families may not understand what special education is or does. They may want information about referrals, tes ting, identification, support, and their rights and roles. By building a relationship early, you can help families feel more comfortable talking about these topics.Strategies for building relationships with families:Rather than waiting for families to come to you, go to where they are. Find out if there are times families are already coming to the school, like before or after school. Make a point to connect with them at those times for informal chats to share positive updates. Find out about families’ skills and hobbies. Consider that many immigrant families have worked in prestigious careers in their home countries.Avoid asking direct, personal questions, which may make families uncomfortable. Instead, ask open-ended questions. You could ask about a favorite food, community activity, or how their experience with the school is going so far. To improve communication, give families plenty of ways — in-person conversations, emails, notes — to ask questions and share concerns. Some families may choose not to discuss much at all. As you get to know families better, others may share important insights about issues facing their community. Keep your eyes and ears open in the classroom and around the school. Learn from colleagues who already know the families. I have yet to meet a family that is uninterested in the well-being of their child. —Juliana Urtubey, 2019–2020 Understood Mentor Teacher Fellow and 2021 National Teacher of the Year4. Check your assumptions. Immigrant families might not always take part in traditional school activities. But don’t assume they’re uninterested in their child’s education. Immigrant families have often made tremendous sacrifices to give their kids a better future. They may have endured hardship, danger, and family separation. They often continue to face difficult conditions once in this country. At the same time, immigrant families may come from countries with different expectations of the family’s role in education. For example, in many Latin American countries, families see the teacher as an authority figure and sole provider of academics. The concept of a “school-family partnership” may be new to some immigrant families. They may not know about parent-teacher conferences and may avoid them if they think they or their child might be in trouble. This is especially true if they’ve experienced a traumatic event like family separation.Strategies for checking assumptions: Ask families to describe the role they played in their child’s schooling in their home country. This may open a rich discussion about the differences between your cultures. When explaining the “school-family partnership” in the United States, don’t list off strict requirements. Instead, focus on how your school welcomes family input. To better understand family expectations, ask about their dreams for their child’s future. For example, Albuquerque teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza invites her students' families to write her a letter. She asks them to share their hopes for their child, as well as details about their child’s personality, interests, and strengths. The letter starts off the year on a positive note and yields important insights about the family, too.5. Get to know your language resources.Schools are legally obligated to share information in a language that families understand. Keep in mind that if families have lower levels of literacy, written documents (even translated ones) won’t be as useful as personal conversations.If families of English language learners are also navigating the special education process, you’ll need even more support in place. Families need to understand technical details to take part in all conversations and decisions. They also need to understand their rights, the implications of the special education process, and how the school can support their child.Strategies for getting to know language resources: Families need access to easy-to-read, jargon-free documents in their home language. Check with your school or district to find out what documents have already been translated and what service you could use for new documents. Your ESL colleagues may also be a valuable source of information about this topic.See if you have access to a bilingual interpreter, family liaison, or paraprofessional (at the school or district level) to help with communication.Find out if you can access a language hotline for interpreters.If you have concerns about families’ access to information, reach out to your school’s administrators with questions and ideas.These communication strategies are all preferable to relying on students as translators. When a student serves as a translator, you put them in an uncomfortable position. You expose them to confidential information and increase the chances of miscommunication. The student may not have the language to interpret everything. (There is also the possibility that the meaning might “change” along the way, as in the case of a teacher whose student told a parent that “F” was for “Fantástico.”)6. Think outside the box. Families may be working multiple jobs at all hours and may not have opportunities to communicate while they are working. They may also be struggling with childcare, transportation, or meeting basic needs. So if families can’t attend school events, try something different. Immigrant families may also be living with great levels of uncertainty about immigration policies. They may be anxious about entering the school building, providing identification and personal information, or signing documents. Developing sensitivity around these topics can help you think of new ways to partner with families. Here are some ideas that have been successful in other schools. Strategies for thinking outside the box: Ask families when and where they would like to attend events. Create events that families can help plan and that take into account certain work shifts. Consider options such as meetings at a family’s home, a house of worship, or a public place. Try group parent-teacher conferences. At these meetings, parents and caregivers hear the same general information. Then they meet with teachers for short, private conferences. Families can learn from each other’s questions and may feel more comfortable in a group (especially if they come from a culture that has a group-minded orientation, as opposed to a more individual orientation like the United States).Learn more from How to Support Immigrant Students and Families: Strategies for Schools and Early Childhood Programs.Partnering with English language learners and their families is not always easy, but it’s worth the effort. Often, these families are underserved and underestimated as schools learn how to best meet their needs. Your efforts, no matter how big or small, can have a tremendous impact. And before you know it, you’ll see yourself as an advocate for all of your students and their families.
How’d You Get THAT Job?!Why this clinician with ADHD decided to work with foster kids
Robert Benjamin calls himself an “absent-minded professor” because of his ADHD. Hear how he turned his strengths into a career working with kids.Robert Benjamin describes himself as an “absentminded professor” because of his struggles with working memory and organization. Robert always knew he wanted to work with kids. He focused on strengths like emotional IQ to get a job managing therapy services for foster kids and their families. Hear how he handles job challenges that come with ADHD and executive function issues.Listen in. Then:Watch the video story of Lena McKnight, who went from high school dropout to college student and youth advocate.Listen to a podcast episode about a teacher with ADHD dedicated to his students.Check out a video from an Understood team member about thriving with ADHD at work.Episode transcriptEleni: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "How'd You Get THAT job?!," a podcast that explores the unique and often unexpected career paths of people with learning and thinking differences. My name is Eleni Matheou, and I'm a user researcher here at Understood. That means I spend a lot of time thinking about how we find jobs we love that reflect how we learn and who we are. I'll be your host.Bobby Benjamin works at a foster care agency, where he's the director of clinical services. That means he's a licensed social worker, and he supervises a team of clinicians who work with foster kids and their families. He describes himself as an absentminded professor, because he has challenges with memory and organization and that type of thing.So, Bobby, could you give our listeners a sense of what it is you do at your job?Bobby: First, I'm very happy to be on the show. Just very pleased to be here. I work at Cayuga Centers, which is a foster care agency. I work in the Bronx, New York, office. So, I think my job is to see the big picture of how to maintain the well-being — emotional, mental health, well-being — of children and families in foster care.So the people who work under me we call clinicians, who are, like, individual therapists. I supervise them. So I'm not doing any one-on-one therapy, but my job is to make sure that they have guidance, give the therapist support, especially when they're dealing with a hard case and maybe need to process it. I would say my main job is to be a guide to the clinicians and to hold lots of meetings.That is my wheelhouse is to hold meetings among various people and bring people together and talk.Eleni: So, how does ADHD show up for you in a typical workday?Bobby: In terms of a typical day for me, I think one thing I have to be very attentive to is just my level of energy that I could bring to something, and having some very intense exercise in the morning before work really helps to be much more focused.So, that's one thing that makes me feel more present. The other thing is, the morning is really when I do things that I know are going to be difficult for me that are maybe high importance but very low reward. I've had my gigantic thing of coffee, and that helps me feel able to take on maybe those administrative things that I would normally at the end of the day, not having any energy or effort or focus on. So, I have to do that in the beginning of the day. And I'll often have some very high-intensity music in the background. Lately, my interest for that has been, like, trip-hop. So, like, very intense beats that don't have lyrics, which is not my normal taste in music, but that's what works for me, focus-wise. The other thing is, a lot of my day is about meeting with people and talking about problems. And one thing I have had to think about is, I will tend to just schedule meeting after meeting. And so, by the fifth meeting, I am completely useless. But if I don't have any meetings, if I don't meet with anybody and I'm just sitting alone in my office, I won't get anything done, either, because I need some kind of stimulus. And meeting with people and talking is very stimulating for me.Like, I'll have a whole meeting where we plan all the, like, psychiatric appointments for the next week. And just having to run that meeting is very engaging for me. And so, I'm like, OK, how's Jaquan doing on his medication? How many pills does he have left? OK, we can last for two more weeks. So, we’ve got to schedule him no later than next Friday, and then bing bang boom, I'm going through all the kids that have to be seen by their psychiatrist or else they're going to run out of their medications. So, if that helps me focus on gathering information, maybe I could have done this offline, but talking to people really helps organize me.Eleni: So, when we last spoke, you mentioned you had a really meandering path in terms of how you got to where you are today. Could you give me an overview of how you found your way?Bobby: I guess the first thing I think about is, I worked as a camp counselor from when I was, like, 14, until, I think, 21 was when I stopped working at that camp. I liked working with kids who were younger than me. I remember I would often look out for the ones that were being left out and try to comfort them, because I had gone through a similar experience when I was a little kid. So, I think that might've been part of it, this idea that I like working with kids. When I was in high school, one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Donnerbeer, gave me a book called "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," which is by Oliver Sacks. And he's a neurologist who has, like, really interesting cases of basically when the brain goes wrong and the strange experiences that can create for people, and, actually, the surprising resilience that people have in still being able to operate.And I think reading that, I was like, "Oh, I want to do that." So, that got me really interested in psychology. Great thing about college is that you get a very expansive access to lots of different disciplines. And so, I meandered a little bit; I went into a little bit of computer science, a little bit of anthropology, and I liked this holistic view of who people were.So, I lost track of the wanting to be a psychiatrist in particular, and then kind of mid-college, I struggled a lot with writing papers. My way of writing papers was to procrastinate until the day before, and then use the energy of just sheer terror to then turn out a bunch of pages of stuff. And that worked really well for me until my second semester sophomore year.And then it didn't. And then all of a sudden, I think lots of things come crashing down. I get diagnosed over the summer with ADHD. And a lot of things started to make sense for me. And that's how I got into Eye to Eye, doing mentorship with kids who have learning differences and ADHD. So, out of college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. But I did know that I really enjoyed mentoring and working with kids with learning differences.Eleni: You know, it's really common for us to hear that people reach almost a breaking point, which often triggers some sort of diagnosis or just feeling like, "Yeah, I can't really do this anymore. I finally need to do something about this. It's not something I can ignore or minimize or deny any longer." And that kind of prompts them to get help.So, it's actually not unusual for people to get a really late diagnosis, in college. And I think partly the reason for that is there's a lot of innate structure in school. And then getting to college, people lose that structure.Bobby: Right. It's so interesting, because you're completely in control of your time. There's no person watching you, telling you, "Hey, you haven't gotten to your homework in a while" or "Hey, it's dinnertime." It's all internal. And I was not very good about that. Eleni: So, Eye to Eye is actually an Understood partner. And I would love you to tell me from your experience, like, how did that help you learn more about yourself and also what you enjoy doing, which you mentioned was mentorship?Bobby: Well, what Eye to Eye is, you're with a group of a bunch of other people who also have learning differences and ADHD. So, I think one thing Eye to Eye does just right off the bat is it connects you to a community of people who are going through the same things you're going through. Before getting connected with them, I had no idea — I thought I was diagnosed and unmoored and just by myself.So, I think one thing that Eye to Eye does is just create that sense of community. They're really good about that. We had a local elementary school that we went to, and we were meeting with fourth graders who had learning differences and ADHD. And boy, at that age, like, doing well in school is your identity. And so it's so much a part of your identity that it's really hard just emotionally.And so you get paired with maybe one or two kids that you're following through the whole curriculum. And what you see is, like, you're paying attention to their strengths, and then they start to think about their strengths. And they're thinking about ways of coping. And then also you start applying some of these things to yourself.Because, I remember one time I was talking to this 10-year-old girl through, like, how to advocate for yourself. And then I thought to myself like, "Well, I need to advocate for myself. That's something I need to do just for me, not just to teach her about." So, it was also just really helpful. I think sometimes teaching can be a great learning tool as well. Eleni: Definitely. Bobby: Just to see them develop over the academic year where you have this very, like, quiet, reserved child who like, maybe isn't thinking much of herself, to being able to say, like, near the end of the curriculum, "I have ADHD and I'm proud." It's just an amazing thing.Eleni: That's awesome. And you mentioned that through this experience, you were able to learn how to also self-advocate for yourself. What does that mean to you, and, like, how do you ask for what you need?Bobby: Some of it is, I think, just being very up-front about where my challenges are. I might say, "OK, you're telling me something verbally — great, but can you follow it up with an email or something? Because I am going to get distracted and forget." Sometimes I'll put that in the context of "I don't have the greatest working memory," but other times I just put it in the context of "This kind of works better for me if you follow it up with an email." And people usually are pretty accommodating in terms of those kind of asks. Eleni: Do you talk to your work colleagues about your ADHD?Bobby: I tend to focus on the symptoms that impact other people versus talking about a diagnosis. Because sometimes when you say you have ADHD, especially for somebody who is on the more inattentive end of ADHD, like, people get basically the opposite impression. They'll say, "Well, you don't seem hyperactive; you don't seem like you're bouncing all over the walls."Because that's not my experience with ADHD, so I tend to really focus on, OK, what are the things that are really going to impact you? Well, one thing might be, if you tell something to me, am I going to need a reminder? And so, another thing I'll say is, "Well, if you haven't heard back from me by the end of the day, remind me again tomorrow morning, because I might've gotten caught up in something." Eleni: You know, that might also be the case for some of our listeners. They might not know that there are different types of ADHD. Can you describe what is the difference between inattentive and hyperactive ADHD and how that shows up for you? Bobby: Sure. So, hyperactive ADHD is kind of what people normally think about when they think of ADHD. They think about the boy in class who just seems to have a ball of energy. And he's, like, running around the class, touching everything, maybe super impulsive. And then you have the inattentive type, who might be very quiet and instead, maybe an unkind term for them would be, like, a "space cadet." But you might be sitting there thinking about, "Oh, I wonder what we're going to have for lunch today." Not paying attention, maybe, to the grammar lesson that you didn't find very interesting. So, what tends to happen is inattentive ADHD tends to get missed, because it tends not to present as a problem. Because kids tend to be quiet and to be maybe well behaved, but you tend not to notice the ones who get lost in their own attention as much.Eleni: Yeah. So earlier you mentioned the word "space cadet," and you said that that could be an offensive term. Has anyone actually outwardly called you that when you were younger, as a kid, or even as an adult in the workplace? And how has that come up?Bobby: I think people, at least when I was a kid, would notice when I spaced out. My mom put it in a much friendlier way. She called me the absentminded professor. And I think that's a great encapsulation of who I am, is that it acknowledges that I'm very absentminded and sometimes space out, but it also acknowledges that I am intelligent and that I am smart. And that those two things are different. My ability to pay attention and my intelligence are different things.Eleni: And you also mentioned working memory.Bobby: Yes. Eleni: How might having inattentive ADHD impact your working memory? Bobby: So there are two ways. One is I might not have 100 percent of my attention on you and you tell me something, and I haven’t processed it. And so there's no memory to form. The other way though, is that sometimes even if I am paying attention, it's completely clear — it just doesn't store. Or, like, imagining working memory is a bunch of papers on my desk. And so they're all going to be ready to be filed at the end of the day, but then somebody slams this big pile that scatters all the rest. And so I've lost those other bits of memories, because maybe something big that grabbed my attention wipes those away.Eleni: That's a great visualization. Bobby: Yeah. Eleni: And before you started your current job, did you have any idea how challenges with working memory might show up for you at work or, like, maybe something that showed up that you didn't expect? It could have been a challenge. It could have actually been a skill or a strength that you didn't expect, but in the environment that you're in, you realize that actually this could work in your favor.Bobby: The one thing I didn't realize could be a strength is kind of my ability to shift. Because I've noticed that I'm very good at pulling out conflict and pulling out when I think — and this can sometimes be a disruptive thing. This is sometimes perceived, maybe, as being disruptive. But in some meetings I'll notice when maybe not everybody agrees, but we're going along with something. And I tend to be pretty good at calling that out. And I think impulsivity that I have is about really voicing where I hear disagreement, and that leads to some very productive conflict. But other people might sit back. I guess that's more the impulsive end of ADHD, but you might sit back for fear of stirring the waters. And I'm very OK with stirring the waters because I know that conflict can often produce better outcomes, get more consensus, actually, in the long run. So, I tend to be more comfortable with conflict.Eleni: And it sounds like you're able to pull threads together or maybe notice things that are under the surface that other people are overlooking.Bobby: Yes. And I think that stems from the ADHD. I think it's the variable attention, meaning that sometimes I'm looking for things, whereas other people might be focused on the strict content of the meeting. And I might be noticing that somebody is quieter than they usually are. I think in terms of how it affects my work and maybe how people perceive it, is it can be sometimes difficult to prioritize. The thing I often ask of people who supervise me is "What do I really need to focus on today? If I need to get something done today, what does that need to be?" Because my attention shifts so easily, it can be hard to prioritize and stick to maybe something that gives me less of a dopamine hit, but it's actually really important, versus things that I am enjoying doing more, but could probably have been pushed off until later.Eleni: So I want to bring it back a little bit, because we started talking about your meandering path. And you mentioned that originally you were interested in psych, you got to college and you became part of Eye to Eye, realized that you really enjoyed mentorship, that kind of, like, reinforced the previous experience that you had as a camp counselor, where you were also interacting with kids. And that's kind of as far as we got in terms of your journey. So I would love to hear a little bit more about how those things led you to your current role as director of clinical services. And also, I know that you said your path was quite meandering, but you also told us that the ADHD mind often follows inspiration.Bobby: Right. Eleni: So could you talk a little bit about how that applies to you and, like, ultimately how that got you to where you are now?Bobby: When you're talking about the difference between having a goal at the end of something versus exploring your interests, I think about that in terms of the way that people think about sailing, for example. Like, sailing, you might have a map of your destination, and then you just chart a course toward that destination. Whereas other people, other cultures, will kind of navigate by going to the next landmark or by going along with the currents and with the prevailing winds, but you might go from one point to the next, along the way. And so I think of my path as kind of like that. I'll start on, like, maybe one island. I kind of see what might be next there, and I'd sail to that next island. And it pushes me one way or the other. I don’t have any sense of if I'm going to end up being in Australia or Japan, but I kind of might be able to see the next way point. Eleni: I would love for you to sail me back to Australia. Bobby: I've never been to Australia, so I would love to go.Eleni: So, tell me, what were the islands that you stopped at along the way to get you to where you are now?Bobby: I graduated from college, and I think that feeling was maybe feeling lost at sea, not really knowing which way to go. But I thought about what I did know, and what I did know is that I really enjoyed working with kids. I really enjoyed Eye to Eye. So maybe I could work with kids like that, with kids who have learning differences. And where can I do that?So, the first place I went to was a school. And I think a school is almost, like, a collection of islands, because you get to see different islands of teachers. One island might be a history teacher, a math teacher, or a social worker, or a principal, and you get to see all those different roles and you can see maybe that island has a volcano and you want to avoid that one, but this one looks pleasant. It's got some swaying trees, and maybe it's got a nice river going through it. And so you sort of head toward that. So at the time, I'm sort of, I guess, in this archipelago? Is that a collection of islands? And the schools are great for that. The name of the position was instructional assistant, but I got to go into a bunch of different classrooms.I briefly thought about teaching, and I did sort of enjoy some of that. But I was noticing, hey, a lot of these kids have difficult economic circumstances. Like, one of my kids was having trouble in class not just because he had dyslexia, but also because he had spent the night before until 2 helping to watch his 2-year-old sister because his mom had to work late.So when I saw that, I could see that there are these circumstances. There are these people's lives that are really actually impacting their academics. And I wasn't going to be able to help him by tutoring him on a math problem, at least not in that moment. And so I thought, "Well, where do I go to do that? Where do I go to help?"And that led me to social work. So I went to get my master's in social work. I guess I had a prevailing wind, or I guess a crosswind pushing me to a different island where I was working with adults who were homeless. And that got me a picture of poverty. Because working with kids, you're not just working with kids. You're working with their parents, as well.And then I got blown back on course. I worked in an elementary school doing counseling with elementary students and just really enjoyed that work. So then I moved with my spouse down to New York. We're charting a new course in the sea and I think — I remembered that a friend I had met in my grad program was himself a foster child.And so I thought, "I wonder what foster care is like" — that would meet this need of wanting to work with a vulnerable population and wanting to work with kids, that would combine those two. So perhaps naively at the time, I thought, "OK, let me apply to be a therapist." And then that got me connected to Cayuga Centers. And then I guess I took a very traditional path of rising through the ranks.Eleni: Yeah. I would love for you to tell me what is it that you really love about your job? And why you think it is ultimately, like, a good fit for you, whether that's the work itself or the environment?Bobby: Yeah. I love my job in some sense because it's a job that not a lot of people want to do.I find that very valuable — is that not a lot of people want to work with kids who've been through some of the most difficult experiences and sometimes come at you with a lot of anger that is displaced from their circumstances, from what they've had to deal with. And I like at least the potential for it being a reparative experience. Being somebody that could be safe in maybe a world that doesn't feel very safe. And to bring that to kids who have been through some of the worst experiences that a kid can go through, it's really affirming. And I think that's how I can maybe deal with the fact that progress is very slow. Just knowing that I'm making some kind of impact day to day on people who really need me to make an impact.Eleni: I'm so happy you found that for yourself and then also other people have you. Bobby: Thank you. Eleni: Thanks for being here, Bobby.Bobby: Yes. Thanks so much for having me, Eleni.Eleni: This has been "How'd You Get THAT Job?!," a part of the Understood Podcast Network. You can listen and subscribe to "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you heard today, tell someone about it. "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Go to u.org/thatjob to share your thoughts and to find resources from every episode. That's the letter U, as in Understood, dot O R G, slash that job.Do you have a learning difference and a job you're passionate about? Email us at thatjob@understood.org. If you'd like to tell us how you got THAT job, we'd love to hear from you. As a nonprofit and social impact organization, Understood relies on the help of listeners like you to create podcasts like this one, to reach and support more people in more places. We have an ambitious mission to shape the world for difference, and we welcome you to join us in achieving our goals. Learn more at understood.org/mission. "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" is produced by Andrew Lee and Justin D. Wright, who also wrote our theme song. Laura Key is our editorial director at Understood. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director. Seth Melnick and Briana Berry are our production directors. Thanks again for listening.
Teacher to teacher: What distance learning taught me about productive struggle
Recently, I was asked my most valuable takeaway from the transition to distance teaching and learning. There are many. As we begin a new school year that likely includes more distance learning, my most important learning is that we must transform how we prepare all students to be independent learners and critical thinkers. We need to focus all students — and especially those who learn and think differently — not just on what they’re learning, but on how they’re learning it.In the first weeks following the transition to distance learning, several common themes came out of conversations with my colleagues: Students weren’t turning in assignments.Students were submitting incomplete assignments or ones far below standards. Students were having a hard time with planning, scheduling, and navigating multiple communication channels.Students were struggling to manage their emotions. They were coping with feelings of anxiety, depression, fear, helplessness, isolation, and loss. These concerns were — and are — valid. But what also began to surface was teachers saying, “Normally, I’d be there to….” In brick-and-mortar spaces, we can sense when students “don’t get it.” Many of us jump into rescue mode. This is particularly true of our most vulnerable students, including students with disabilities and English language learners.How often in the classroom do we pose questions — and then, when students don’t respond in a few seconds, we continue talking, restating, and explaining? How quickly do we whip out a rubric, self-checklist, or suggested workflow for student projects without explicitly teaching it — and then expect students to use these on their own? When used well, these strategies and tools certainly reflect mindful practices. I am in no way suggesting that teachers should stop this meaningful work. But distance learning has exposed that we won’t always be able to swoop in and save the moment. It has exposed an uncomfortable truth that we often thwart “productive struggle.” What is productive struggle?Productive struggle means allowing students to face new ideas and problems. It means that students try to find a solution and persevere when they don’t find that solution the first time. (Productive struggle is not about reaching a point of frustration.) This struggle is vital to students developing the problem-solving skills required of college- and career-ready citizens. We should hold all students to those high expectations, including those who learn and think differently. With the right support, they too can become thriving, independent learners.We may have the best intentions when we step in to help. But when we step in too soon, we may actually be limiting students’ opportunities to grow as learners.What if, instead of hovering vigilantly over our students, we:Allow for long and uncomfortable silences during video lessons to give students “think time” to process questions, consider responses, and muster the initiative to speak up. (This time is invaluable for students who learn and think differently.)Explicitly teach self-monitoring strategies early in the school year, like how to create a checklist.Integrate skills for independent learning into academics. Social-emotional learning and skills to support executive function can’t be add-ons. They should be part of our everyday work.Plan culturally relevant performance tasks that value students’ racial, cultural, and linguistic identities.Give students plenty of time to develop a deep understanding of the assignment, including time to ask questions and check for understanding of each of the assignment components.Ask students to anticipate potential pitfalls, troubleshoot challenges, and come up with work plans.Create ongoing opportunities for students to work together to build persistence and problem-solving skills.This kind of shift isn’t easy. At a time when our concept of “schools” and “classrooms” has evolved, our teaching must change too. It’s time to focus more heavily on making sure all students develop the independent skills and processes to meet new challenges. It’s time to focus on teaching strategies for learning that students can use throughout their lives.
How’d You Get THAT Job?!How dyslexia and ADHD helped a first-time novelist
His young adult novel is a best-seller on Amazon. Find out how dyslexia and ADHD shaped Ryan Douglass’ unique approach to writing. His young adult novel, The Taking of Jake Livingston, is a best-seller on Amazon. In this episode, find out how dyslexia and ADHD shaped author Ryan Douglass’ unique approach to writing. Ryan also shares how being Black and LGBTQ impacts his learning and thinking differences.Listen in. Then:Visit Ryan’s website to see his other workLearn about more authors with dyslexia, like Henry Winkler and Octavia SpencerEpisode transcriptEleni: Hi, I'm Eleni. And I'm a user researcher. That means I spend my days talking with people with learning and thinking differences. People with challenges like ADHD, dyslexia, and more. I listen to what they have to say and how they feel. And I make sure that their experiences shape what we do at Understood.After speaking with literally hundreds of people and hearing literally thousands of stories, we realized how easy it is to feel alone. But we also realize that when people hear stories of others who learn and think differently, it can change everything. So we started to ask a simple question. Could it be that people find fulfilling jobs and careers not in spite of their difference, but because of them? We're making this podcast, "How'd You Get THAT job?!," because we want people with learning and thinking differences to have inspiring role models in jobs and careers who are amazing at what they do. And we want to help people see how to zone in on their own unique strengths at work.Today, we're talking to Ryan Douglass, the best-selling young adult fiction writer from Atlanta. We talked about his struggles with ADHD and dyslexia early on in his career, and how that experience helped bring his story to life.Ryan Douglass is a Black, queer writer from Atlanta, Georgia, with ADHD and dyslexia. He just published his first novel, which is a horror fiction best-seller on Amazon, which is super cool. That was my introduction for you. I would love you to share how you identify and how you would introduce yourself. Ryan: I'm Ryan Douglass. I am 26 years old, and I just came out with my first YA horror novel, "The Taking of Jake Livingston," which is out now through Penguin Young Readers. So I identify as Black, queer, non-binary, and a person with ADHD and dyslexia. I think the intro you gave was pretty good. I am a writer from Atlanta and I've been writing since I was very young, did a little bit of journalism when I was in college and got into that. And after college I was writing for a few digital magazines and also working on my first book. So I got my book deal a few years ago and the reception has been awesome. And yeah, that's right.Eleni: I think that often there's an association with people with dyslexia not necessarily being drawn to like reading or writing. And in your instance, it was something that you were really drawn to. So I would love to hear what it is about ADHD and/or dyslexia that you think makes you a good writer. Ryan: So for dyslexia, it's one of those things that has always been a challenge when it comes to reading. But I just love the written word so much that it's just something that I was able to rise to and not get over, but experience books the way that I do without judging myself too harshly. Because I probably don't read books in the way that most people read them. I do a lot of mood reading, which is when I just — it's when you pick up a book and you read a few pages, because you feel like you're in the headspace of that particular book. And then you pick up other books. So I'll usually read five books at a time, and that's also the ADHD coming in. Cause it's, I can't focus on one thing at a time, but....Eleni: Did you always like books, like even when you were a kid? Ryan: So I got really into picture books after reading a few Dr. Seuss books. And I started writing my own picture books and I was just like, I think the first thing that really caught my attention was the pictures. And then the rhyming and then the stories. And as I got older, I started reading chapter books and then I always read and I always felt like it was something that helped me communicate too. Cause I wasn't very vocal as a kid. So I started writing to express myself and it just never went away. It's just always been something that I've come back to express and escape.Eleni: Mood reading. I've never heard of that term. Is that something, is that a Ryan-ism or is that a term that is out there in the world?Ryan: Uh, I think it's out there. I actually heard that on Twitter. Someone was talking about mood reading and how people with ADHD mood read and that it shouldn't be stigmatized. And I looked into that and I was like, that's totally me. Mood readings. Eleni: I love that term. Ryan: Just read for the vibe.Eleni: Yeah, that's really cool. I'm into that. OK, OK. So you mentioned reading and ADHD and dyslexia. You haven't talked about the writing side yet. Ryan: I think that when it comes to writing, it actually helps me with the word play. Like sometimes I'll write sentences that don't immediately make sense, but the structure of them is interesting. And then when I rework them, I can make them make sense. And it has like a — it almost gives it a poetic style because the words are arranged in an interesting way. So I think that's how dyslexia has helped. ADHD has really helped with the way that I focus. I ran in like nine-hour bursts at a time because I get into hyperfocus. Then it's the only thing I can focus on.Obviously there are days when I feel like I can't write anything because I just get so distracted and then days when I'm just like so in the zone that nothing can rip me out of it. And I think that's helpful for productivity, even if it is hard to schedule your life around something like that.Eleni: Yeah. Um, so you mentioned hyperfocus. I would love to hear a little bit more about how that feels for you in your brain and in your body.Ryan: So it's two sides of a coin. Sometimes I just cannot focus long enough to finish a chapter. And then sometimes I get irritable when I'm in that zone and people try to bother me. I'm just like, why are you trying to bother me? Why don't you understand that I can't focus on anything right now? And people are just kind of like, what are you talking about? You can take a break. And I'm like, no, I can't.The thing about writing a book is that there are so many things that have to be active at one time. You're focusing on the one book, but you're focusing on character, story, plot, scene work, setting. And sometimes all these things are just playing in my head. It's like when you're watching a movie, you're focused on the movie, you know. A lot of stuff is happening, but you're looking at the movie and that's what happens in my brain. And when the movie is really clear to me, I just have to put it down. And if it's coming to me, I just can't break out of that. Eleni: So, you know, you mentioned that hyperfocus really actually helps you with productivity, and you've figured out that what works for you is doing these longer nine-hour stints and just really absorbing yourself in that hyperfocus and in the writing. What led up to that realization?Ryan: Over the years, I've just learned to honor the way that I work and focus on the fact that when work is getting done, that's the main objective. Because there's a lot of advice out there about how you're supposed to work. Not just right, but how you're supposed to work. How you're supposed to organize yourself.And I think that some of that structure is really helpful for like outlining, and that's the one thing that I do have trouble with because I'm such a vibes person that like, when I have to sit down and like be meticulous, that's where I'm like, oh God, I'll never get through this. But I think just over the years, I realized that I just have to do it the way that I do it and the way that I get things done, and try to make everything else that I have to do and all my life responsibilities work around that. Eleni: I know that you've had other stints, like in other types of work. And I'm interested in how ADHD or dyslexia has come up for you in other settings, in other environments. And if that also contributed to you realizing what works for you and what doesn't. Are there any particular moments in previous jobs that you think have led you to where you are now?Ryan: When I worked in retail, it was just a mess, especially at the beginning when I had to stock shelves, which seems like a really simple thing to do, stocking shelves. But I get lost in my head a lot. So there were moments when I was moving fast, and then there were moments when I would just get in my head and just go off on tangents and like outwardly I would be putting things on the shelf in slow motion. And I wouldn't even realize that until my supervisors would come up and say "You need more urgency, Ryan, you need to move." And they had to keep telling me because I was like, oh my gosh, I'm just spaced out. And that really made me realize, OK, this like fast-paced kind of environment is maybe not for me. Not because I can't work fast, but just because my brain was just doing that.Eleni: So when your boss at the time came up to you and said "You got to work with more urgency, what are you doing?" how did that make you feel? How did you respond, and how did you come to a place that you were like, well, actually this environment isn't for me, like this isn't about me. This is just about the environment around me.Ryan: Oh, gosh, it took me so long to come to that realization. I just felt so misunderstood, and it really sucks to feel that way. Like, even if you explained it, because you might be able to explain it, but you just feel like if they're not also dealing with something like ADHD, they're just not going to get it. Or if they don't know someone, like they're not close to someone who has it to where they're exposed to it. When you say it, it might become worse because they might make fun of you for it. It's not always something where people are like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Let me help you." You know, you don't always get the response that you want to get. So it's hard.Eleni: So Ryan, can you tell us more about the book? And also how perhaps how you wrote it is influenced by your ADHD and dyslexia, and also how you consume books yourself. Ryan: The book is called "The Taking of Jake Livingston," and it's about a teen medium, Jake Livingston, who can see the dead. And his sanity starts to unravel in his junior year because he's being followed by the ghost of a school shooter.And this ghost wants to possess his body. So it's a coming of age story about a boy going to some pretty dark places and hopefully coming out the other side with a renewed sense of self. So it's like a superhero story, but it's told through a horror format. The seeing-ghosts stuff is an allegory for being spaced out and for having ADHD, and specifically having your traumas be the things that are distracting you Eleni: Interesting.Ryan: I don't think when I went down to write it, I was thinking "I'm going to do an allegory for ADHD." I think it just came out naturally in the way that you see this character navigate the world. And you can tell that he's not plugged in to conversations, like in the classroom, at home. He's always somewhere else in his own mind. And I think that using that angle really allowed me to put the experience of a queer Black teenager who was neurodivergent on the page in a way that satisfied horror readers and added an interesting angle to it. Eleni: And it sounds like there's a little, like a few parallels with what we were talking about earlier in terms of you coming out of the other side and coming to a place where you really own all of your identities.Ryan: Yeah. So the story really is about finding the people who support you, and not allowing the people who don't support you to control your life and control what you do. And it's that journey that kind of gives Jake strength against his villain, who just kind of wants him to be so — he wants him to feel dispossessed of himself in a literal way, but also in an emotional and psychological way. So, his mission throughout the story — the villain's mission — is to basically ruin Jake's support system, bring him away from his family, bring him more anxiety as he goes into school. Cause he goes to like a mostly white prep school where he feels like he doesn't have a voice. So he's triggering that throughout the book to make Jake feel depressed, to make him feel like he shouldn't live in his own body anymore. And that's the point when the ghost can possess the vessel, according to the rules of the dead world in this story. So it was about how Jake has to fortify those things about himself and really believe in himself, because that's what unlocks his ultimate power to banish the evil. Eleni: Wow. I love that allegory. So you mentioned mood reading. Can you talk a little bit about how the way you read books influences your writing style? Ryan: Yeah. So it's very fast-paced. The chapters are pretty short, and they switch between the hero's perspective and the villain's perspective. Mostly because I can't focus on one character for too long. But it's stuff like this that's, like just ADHD, that when people read it, they're like, oh, this is intriguing. Oh, it's fast-paced. And it's just like me not being able to focus. And it's not that I — it is that I made these choices, but I just know that when I'm writing it, I know the things that I need to do to stay engaged and to finish the book.So it's fast-paced because my brain is fast-paced, you know, and that's how I read. I read fast and I write fast, and it's nonlinear because I just can't stay in one place. So I think that, yes, it's, it's craft and it's done with intention, but it's also done because that's how my brain works, and the way that my brain works is how it translates on the page. And some people read it and say, "This pacing drives me crazy. Like I'm being beat over the head with events, like every chapter." I read a review from a teacher who was like "Every chapter is over the top. Every chapter is dramatic. Something crazy happens in every chapter."You can't win everyone, but that's what I love about it. I like that it stimulates you. And I think that people with ADHD when they pick it up, they don't have to worry about reading long info dumps or reading a lot of exposition, because you're in it and you're just in it. And you can flip pages and it's not wasting any time. Eleni: You mentioned being black, queer, non-binary, someone with ADHD and dyslexia. I imagine that these identities intersect in like really interesting ways. And I wanted to share with you what I've heard through my research is that people with layered identities have like two different experiences. One of the experiences is OK, well I'm already othered. I'm already on the margins. So it actually makes it easier to embrace all of the differences. And the other side of that, which I hear a lot, particularly from Black folks, is I'm already struggling to fit in to, you know, a white-dominant work culture and like, feels like there are more things stacked up against them. And I would love to hear like how intersectionality shows up for you. You know, myself, I'm like someone in my thirties and I'm looking at the TikTok generation and I'm like, wow. Like, it feels like you really are owning all of your identities. And as you said, you just state them in a very matter-of-fact way. And like I'm a little bit envious. It took me a really long time to like embrace my queer identity. And it's really amazing to see you being like, so open about all of these identities. So, I'm particularly interested in how they intersect, you know, what it is like to be Black, queer, and someone with a learning difference. Ryan: I was able to say that I was gay in my early twenties when I went to college just because I was surrounded by a supportive environment. As for my blackness, that was a whole different thing. And I think it intersects in the sense that when you're Black and gay, you're dealing with like discrimination from your own community. I grew up in a really religious community and being gay was not something that was celebrated. I definitely think the pivotal moment was being around people who understood that we exist and that we're not going anywhere, and realizing that you don't have to be around people who make you feel like you can't be your true self. And I think that's a hard thing to let go of for Black people, especially because we're like, community is so important for us. And we have community spaces because we have to convene and we have to stick together in the face of white supremacy. But when you are gay, you know, there's like this whole language about the masculinity of Black men and how we have to be masculine. And I'm just not. And it's like, where do you belong? Do you belong in the Black community? Do you want to be in the gay community? It's that feeling of just not having anywhere to go. So I just have had to find other queer Black friends who are, maybe neurodivergent, who would just understand what it means to move through the world in the way that I do and just rely on those friendships.Eleni: Totally. So how did you come to the point where you could be so comfortable with who you are? Ryan: On my journey to accepting myself, I just had to do a lot of research, first of all, and come to understand on my own why I didn't really fit in. And find other people like online or in real life who also didn't feel like they fit in, and just figure out what to do from there.And I really do think that at the beginning of that journey, it's about accepting yourself, knowing what you can change, knowing what you can't change, not stressing over things you can't change. And just like realizing that this is also a part of me. And all of it is part of me. This might sound weird, but I think that Twitter is a really helpful resource for finding friends and like other people who are just unapologetically Black, gay, have thinking differences, have disabilities. Around 2016, when we had — that's when the big social justice wave was starting — I got on Twitter and I started following activists. And just seeing the way that they talk about their identities, that they talk about their disabilities, or just the way that they own that and the way that they claimed it and spoke about it and spoke about the movement really inspired me. So the online community, when you're isolated, can be a lifesaver. Eleni: Definitely. So what would you say to the young people listening? What advice would you give them if they were in the same situation?Ryan: It's really just about communicating, owning your own flaws and your own behaviors in a way that kind of makes people understand it. And I think that when I was in those positions where I felt like I was doing something wrong, it made me choke up and it made me feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be fired. Or my gosh, I'm going to get an F. And I just was like, I'm a failure. And then it went on rotation in my brain. Oh gosh, I just suck.But that's not the case. And there are ways to kind of explain what's going on. And even if they don't understand it, at least you try to explain it. And I think that's something that I wish I knew, and I wish I knew how to sort of say to myself at first — it's OK that this is happening. Just try to express it rather than just think, oh, they're right. I suck at this job. Cause that's when your mind starts going and you just become your own worst enemy. Eleni: And it's interesting if you state it in a matter-of-fact way, it leaves it open to the other person to ask more questions if they want to ask more questions and show curiosity and understand you, you know, like a two-way street. If you're feeling misunderstood, that's probably because someone hasn't made the effort to understand, right?Ryan: Yeah. It's so much easier for me, not just with ADHD, but with all of my identities, to just state them and not overexplain. Because I know that people are not going to understand necessarily. But it's really not my responsibility, because there's so much info out there and anyone can look up things if they want to know. So I just am who I am and I say who I am, and it's up to everyone else to do the research. Eleni: So you've written your first book. What do you think is next for you? Ryan: So I'm working on several different projects. I think that the ADHD kind of becomes a detriment when it comes to the drafting process or like figuring out what I'm interested in enough about the world to translate it into a book and sustain a full narrative. And I'm actually, I think I might actually be a poet. I really had these dreams of having my stories put on screen. So that's kind of why I got into writing, because it's easier to put a novel on screen than it is to put poetry on screen. But I feel like I want to be able to bounce between genres and I don't always want to write young adult horror.But I'm still kind of learning my style. And some people want me to write a sequel to Jake Livingston, but I feel like I, uh, my ADHD will not allow me to write any more of that because I was like done with it. I was like, I focused on this for too long now. I just want to, I want to be free. Eleni: Awesome. Thanks for spending this time with me, Ryan. It was so fun to have a conversation with you. Ryan: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this.Eleni: This has been "How'd You Get THAT Job?!," a part of the Understood Podcast Network. You can listen and subscribe to "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you heard today, tell someone about it. "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Go to u.org/thatjob to share your thoughts and to find resources from every episode. That's the letter U, as in Understood, dot O R G, slash that job.Do you have a learning difference and a job you're passionate about? Email us at thatjob@understood.org. If you'd like to tell us how you got THAT job, we'd love to hear from you. As a nonprofit and social impact organization, Understood relies on the help of listeners like you to create podcasts like this one, to reach and support more people in more places. We have an ambitious mission to shape the world for difference, and we welcome you to join us in achieving our goals. Learn more at understood.org/mission. "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" is produced by Andrew Lee and Justin D. Wright, who also wrote our theme song. Laura Key is our editorial director at Understood. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director. Seth Melnick and Briana Berry are our production directors. Thanks again for listening.
- In It
Dyscalculia, more than “bad at math”
When it’s time to split a bill or calculate a tip, lots of people confess to “not being a math person.” But when does struggling with math mean something more?When it’s time to split a bill or calculate a tip, lots of people confess to “not being a math person.” But when does struggling with math mean something more?On this week’s show, hosts Lexi Walters Wright and Amanda Morin discuss dyscalculia, a specific learning disability in math. Expert Daniel Ansari, PhD, explains why kids with dyscalculia have trouble understanding number-related concepts, like time and directions.We also spend time with Lily, a teen with dyscalculia. We hear how math challenges pop up at expected times — like when she makes grilled cheese sandwiches for her family.And of course we hear from callers about their experiences with dyscalculia and why being “bad at math” often gets overlooked.Related resourcesUnderstanding dyscalculia10 surprising ways dyscalculia impacts kidsMath anxiety vs. dyscalculia: Comparing the signsVideo: Why is dyslexia diagnosed more often than dyscalculia?What “I’m not a math person” means to meEpisode transcriptAmanda Morin: Hey, "In It" listeners. Before we get started today, we have a small but important ask: Please take our quick survey about who you are, what you like about our show so far, and what you want to hear more of. Head to U.org/podcast. Take a three-minute survey — really just three minutes. That's U dot org slash podcast. And thanks. Your input means so much. Amanda: Hi. I'm Amanda Morin, a writer for Understood.org and parent of kids with learning and thinking differences. Lexi Walters Wright: And I'm Lexi Walters Wright, community manager for Understood.org. And we are "In It." "In It" is a podcast from Understood for Parents. On our show, we offer support and practical advice for families whose kids are struggling with speech and language, executive functioning, and other learning and thinking differences. Amanda: Today, we're talking about helping our kids who struggle with math — like really struggle with math. Lily: So sometimes when I'm doing a certain problem, my brain — it just kind of gets stuck. Amanda: This is Lily. She's 13, and she's had a hard time with math for as long as she can remember. Lexi: Amanda, lots of people have a hard time with math. I definitely did as a kid, and I still clam up the moment I need to calculate a tip. I know some adults who feel allergic to Excel documents. Amanda: So you've met me and my Excel document allergy. And lots of us have those moments. That's called "math anxiety." But what Lily's dealing with is different. It's a learning disability often called dyscalculia, which you'll hear pronounced in a number of different ways. No matter which way you hear pronounced, you can sort of still hear the word "calculate" in there. And dyscalculia, at its most basic, is about difficulty with number sense — adding, multiplication — and sometimes visual-spatial skills things, like where you don't know left from right very easily. Lexi: The thing is, compared to something like dyslexia, dyscalculia is not widely known. So it can leave kids like Lily, who have it, feeling dumb. Lily: Yeah. I just kind of thought that I was bad at math, until I was 12. Amanda: We're going to hear more from Lily in a bit, and from her mom, Tracie. Lexi: But first, we asked you what dyscalculia looks like in your family. And here's what you had to say. Caller 1: For my daughter, when she was in elementary school, she really struggled with reading the clock, being on time for her classroom. Adding and subtracting is super difficult. And then math homework took hours and hours and caused a lot of anxiety. Caller 2: Long division — that was literally a nightmare. She just could not handle keeping track of every step and where to put each and every one of the numbers. Caller 3: A bigger trigger for us in noticing something was wrong, though, was his inability to connect with the idea of time and the passage of time. For him, everything was now. The idea of tomorrow or yesterday really didn't register for him at all. And when you started talking about longer spans of time, like weeks or months, he was just completely bewildered by that. Once he started kindergarten, he also really struggled with the idea of money. And while other kids were picking up the idea of penny, dime, quarter, or nickel, he couldn't associate the different values with those coins in any way. Amanda: So as we're hearing, Lexi, dyscalculia can play out in many ways. Lexi: Yeah, this sounds like a very complicated topic. Amanda: It really is, and it's not exactly my specialty. So we're turning to someone else to help us really get a grasp of what it's all about. Lexi: First I have to ask your professional opinion: Is it dis-CAL-coo-li-a? Dis-cal-CYOO-li-a? What do you say? Daniel Ansari: I say developmental dis-cal-CYOO-li-a. But you know, people vary in the way they pronounce it. Yeah. Amanda: Daniel Ansari is a professor of psychology and education at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. He studies how children develop numerical and mathematical skills — and why for some children it can be such a struggle. Lexi: Daniel says there are other names for dyscalculia, like math learning disability or mathematics disorder. Daniel: I think they can be used pretty much interchangeably, because they point to the same thing. I find dyscalculia useful because we hear so much about dyslexia. The contrast to dyslexia helps, I think, some people to better understand what it is. Lexi: And how would you explain dyscalculia to someone who's never heard of it before? Daniel: I would say dyscalculia is a severe difficulty in acquiring basic numerical and mathematical skills. Being able to judge which of two numbers is numerically larger. They will also have great difficulties in learning their math facts. Lexi: Daniel says that long after their peers have figured out which two numbers add up to 10 and they can do simple calculations in their head, kids with dyscalculia may still be counting on their fingers. And sure, that makes math class tricky. But dyscalculia doesn't just shut off when kids walk in the door from school. Lily: I guess I'll just make my grilled cheese. Lexi: That's 13-year-old Lily again. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri. She has an older sister, a younger brother, and a pet guinea pig, Fezzy, who is named after Fezzik from "The Princess Bride." Amanda: Lily and her mom said it was OK to come to her house to see what dyscalculia looks like for her. Lexi: It comes up when she's doing her math homework, but also when she's trying to make lunch for the family. Lily: I have to put the butter in here and melt it in the microwave so it doesn't take forever. Amanda: When you're making a grilled cheese sandwich, you're probably not thinking about all the steps it requires. But for people with dyscalculia, going through a long sequence of steps in a row can be a real challenge. Lily: First you have to do this, then you have to do this, and it just kind of makes my brain tired. Lexi: Lily was diagnosed with dyscalculia two years ago. Before that, she just knew that math was really hard for her — which was confusing, because reading and writing have always come easily to her. Lily: I can read like a 300-page book in less than a day. Lexi: But Lily's math troubles go back as far as first grade. Lily: So a really long time ago, when I was having trouble with even addition, it just took so long — just takes longer for my brain to calculate things. Amanda: She understands that about herself now. But when she was younger, those math struggles made her really upset. Lily: I would usually cry about it, because that's what I do. Yeah, and I'd yell, because I was just so mad that I couldn't get it right. And then I'd kind of start thinking about like, "Oh, other people can do this, so why can't I?" Tracie (Lily's mom): She would say things to me those times when she was upset. Amanda: That's Tracie, Lily's mom. Tracie: And I won't repeat them because they're not true. But just really down on herself, and that no mom wants to hear her daughter, who is, you know, at that point 10, 11, to have that view of herself, you know, it's starting to go into all areas. And I didn't want her to think that just because there is a struggle in one area that means that she's an awful person. Lexi: All this was hard on Tracie, too. Tracie: I can remember one instance where she brought home a math paper and it was, you know, she had gotten like half of them wrong. I just felt so deflated because 45 minutes a night we were spending on math. And I just thought "Oh my gosh," you know. And then getting the next chapter's homework and I'm like, "Wait a minute, we're not getting it." And I kind of thought, "What is this going to look like in two or three years?" Lexi: Tracie had studied to become an elementary school teacher. And while it was never her plan to homeschool Lily, she and her husband decided that might be best. Amanda: So now Tracie was the one trying to teach Lily math. But no matter how hard they worked on it, it didn't seem to be getting any easier. Tracie: I just kept telling myself "I haven't found the right curriculum yet." So we would start with something that was new, and I would get really, really excited, like "We are going to get through this hurdle. The answer is going to be in the curriculum." And then after a couple months, we're still stuck in the same — in the same place. And I think both of us were kind of feeling — we would get very emotional, not just with each other but... I know I would cry and worry about, you know, are we ever... what's this going to be like for her, you know, as she's an adult. Because that's what moms do — we always go to that place. So, you know, it just felt like, you know, August rolls around every year and I'd have hope, and then by October that feeling in my gut would sink. You know, I would just think, "Oh gosh here we go again." Lexi: Even though she's an educator, Tracie had never heard of dyscalculia. She says she came across it while reading up on dyslexia online. Tracie: And then I went down the rabbit hole. So it was all new to me. Amanda: For Lily, discovering there was such a thing as a math disorder was a big deal. Lily: It was a relief knowing that there was really nothing wrong, and that I just need to learn differently. Like I had always worried that once I got to adulthood, I wouldn't be able to do things because I was so bad at math. Amanda: Lily started working with an educational therapist — a specialist who's trained in working with kids with learning and thinking differences. Together they figured out techniques to make math easier and more accessible for her. Lily: Once I started going to Mrs. McCormick's and I started figuring things out, I realized that with more work I could go into a store and be like, "Hey, 20 percent off — this means I can get this for so much," and not have to think about it so much. Amanda: Daniel, can you talk a little bit about some of those methods that can help children learn math? Daniel: Yeah. I mean, there's no proven method for, you know, for helping somebody with developmental dyscalculia. But I think it's good educational principles that run across different educational subjects, such as giving students who struggle more time, repeating things more often, providing them with opportunities to strengthen their basic understanding of numbers. Making sure that they understand that, for example, the Arabic numeral 5 represents all possible sets of five objects. That's quite an abstract thing to understand, and it may take children with math difficulties more time to learn. Amanda: So like five means five cookies and five blocks and five more minutes and... so five means five, right? Daniel: Exactly. Lexi: Tracie tells us they've found some really effective ways to work with Lily on math. Tracie: So one of the things that we found was when she was first tackling things like multiplication, that what worked best for her was to have some manipulatives, so that she could touch it, move it around. Lexi: Wait. Amanda, what are manipulatives? Amanda: So manipulatives are when you use objects that you can move around in order to connect those abstract ideas of groups, sets, or patterns to visuals, so you can actually see and, well, manipulate the numbers. Lexi: Got it. Tracie: And a dry erase board worked wonders for calculations. And we still use that because erasing is really fast and it's not so labor intensive when you make a mistake. And that's kind of what — it's OK to make a mistake, it's OK to struggle — so we just wipe it away and start fresh. Lexi: So here's one game Lily learned to work on visual-spatial skills. On a chalkboard, Tracie draws a figure 8. Tracie: It's not too wonky, is it? Lily: No, it looks fine. Amanda: Then Lily starts tracing over it. Tracie: Left, right, ready, begin. Amanda: As she traces left, she has to say left. As she traces right, she says right. Lexi: And then her mom starts firing off questions. Math questions or something else related to numbers. Tracie: When's your birthday? Lily: Right. March 21st. Left. Tracie: When is my birthday? Lily: Right. I think it's May 9th. Left. Tracie: Oh no! Lily: Sorry! Is it May 7th? Tracie: Yes. Lily: OK. Sorry. Amanda: It's that combination of keeping multiple things in our working memory that she's developing there. Some of that's a muscle memory thing, where Lily is learning to recognize the feeling of going left with where left is, and the feeling of going right with where right is. But some of it's about being able to access that information quickly while there are other things going on in the background. So for example, if she were going to start driving, she'd need to be able to listen to the GPS and know right and left automatically. That's the kind of thing this is starting to work on for her. Lexi: Another thing they do to help Lily is to put lots of number-related information around the house. Tracie: See that up there? It's on our chalkboard. We have all of the squared numbers — one times one equals on, two times two equals four — to give her an anchor. So if she's got six times eight and she's stuck and she can't remember, she has six times six to go off of. And then she can do the math from there. She has a multiplication chart, too. It's the multiplication table, one through 12. And I give that to her any time that she needs it. Just the more she can see them visually, the better it's going to stick in her head. Lexi: Lily has made incredible progress in the last two years. But some things are still hard for her, like going to the store. Lily: So I'm kind of trying to work on that, and sometimes I think it's more of a — I don't know — fear of social issue. But paying is a little hard for me. Yeah. So the store is kind of one of the main places. Tracie: One of the things that I notice is when there's a lot of people and she's in line, that's kind of off-putting for her. You know the stress of "Oh my gosh, I have to do this and I have to do it fast." She doesn't want them to get mad at her. So I've noticed that. Caller 1: Now that my daughter is a teenager, dyscalculia looks a lot different. The things we struggle with are helping her manage her money, so her wallet is a complete disaster. There's bunches of dollars rolled up in it. There's too much change in there, because she struggles with continuing to add and subtract money, as well as to identify what the money denominations really are. Caller 4: The driving — a lot of times he would get lost, and that is a huge anxiety issue, because he would not know where he was, because he would try to follow somebody's directions of turning right or left. So I would teach him to look for landmarks, so that when he would call us and he was upset and didn't know where was and was mislocated, so we could determine his location. The GPS "find me" apps that we can put on a smartphone for tracking are really useful for that too. That's it. Thank you. Andrea Tudhope: Is there any advice that you would give to parents who are just learning that their child has dyscalculia or are going through some of what you guys have gone through? Lexi: That's Andrea, the reporter we sent to spend some time with Tracie and Lily. Tracie: I would just say to not worry so much about if your child is working at whatever grade level they're supposed to be in. Really, it's just important to have the master number sense and those things that are their struggle. And I know it's really hard to do that, because that's just not how — that's not how we operate with school. But it's just so important to meet them where they're at and to work on the things that they're struggling with, so that they can overcome those — so that they're not always a struggle. And just to be patient and trust the process. Amanda: Why isn't it more well-known? Why aren't math issues sort of more widely discussed the way dyslexia is? Daniel: I think, at least in the West, we have a tolerance for being bad at math. It's not something that people feel shy about admitting. I often — when I meet new people and they ask me what I do, and I tell them, you know, "I do research into math learning difficulties," it's like, "Oh my God, I wish I'd met you when I was young." Amanda: I think we have this conception that math doesn't — sometimes doesn't matter. You always use our smartphone or a calculator. But how do we use it in everyday life? Daniel: We use numbers all the time without actually thinking about the fact that we're using numerical information. Just think about waking up in the morning, and let's say you open your computer or you look at your smartphone, and you look at your favorite news site. You're immediately processing numerical information. You go to your office, you look at your bank statement, you're trying to understand the transactions, you're trying to understand how it is that you've got this balance, and you're trying to add up the different expenditures and things that came into your account. Again you need numerical information. Lexi: So Amanda, imagine — say 10 or 15 years from now — that dyscalculia is as well-known and as readily diagnosed as dyslexia is. That could really bring about a profound shift in how parents and educators respond to students with math disorders. Amanda: Totally. And you know we're still getting there with dyslexia and ADHD. If we get there with dyscalculia, it would probably also bring about a profound shift in how those students think about themselves. According to Tracie, that seems to be the case with Lily. Tracie: I know her therapist and I always say, "You can't say you're bad at math anymore — you can say it's a challenge and that you work harder at it than some people." We try to say that repeatedly to her, so that that internal dialogue changes. And so when she does come against the struggle again with math, to not have that initial reaction of, "Oh I'm really bad at this." To just stop and say, "This is hard. I need to fall back on, you know, the strategies that I use in order to figure this out." Lexi: As her sense of her abilities has shifted, Lily's gotten more confident in other areas too — like cooking. In fact, she has become something of a grilled cheese expert. Lily: It usually takes less time to cook on the other side than it does the first side, because the pan's already hot and all that. So yeah, it should probably only be about three more minutes. Amanda: And she offers these words of wisdom, which I fully support. Lily: If you use a lot of butter, it's better. Like that's the secret to a good grilled cheese: butter. Amanda: You've been listening to "In It," a podcast from Understood for Parents. Our website is Understood.org, where you can find all sorts of free resources for people raising kids with learning and thinking differences. Lexi: We also want to hear what you think of our show. "In It" is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Go to u.org/podcast to share your thoughts and also to find resources. That's the letter U, as in Understood, dot o r g slash podcast.Amanda: We heard from several of you after "Episode 2: How to Deal With 'Is ADHD Real?'" And we wanted to play some of your awesome voice memos to let you know we are listening. Caller 5: I'm calling about the question of "Is ADHD real?" It's hard for me to sometimes respond to that question because I feel I don't have the emotional energy or the courage to do that. And then I realize that if I don't, I'm putting it on my first-grade son to be the one to have to respond to that as he gets older, and that's not fair to him. But I also feel like it shouldn't be just on the parents of children with ADHD to answer that question, and that schools and pediatricians and all the people that are important part of children's lives need to do a better job of communicating what is ADHD and what are other forms of learning differences and attention issues and disabilities. So it's not just on the individual to negotiate that, to be the ones to explain themselves. Amanda: Please keep your voice memos coming. This is, after all, a show for and about families like yours — and mine. If you like what you heard today, please tell somebody about it. Maybe share it with your child's math teacher even. You can also go to Apple podcasts and rate us, which is a great way to let other people know about "In It." Lexi: You can subscribe to "In It" on Apple podcasts, follow us on Spotify, or keep up with us however you listen to podcasts. Between episodes, you can find Understood on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Or visit our website: U — that's the letter U — dot o r g. Amanda: Come back next episode when we'll be talking about the unique challenges of raising kids who are gifted and who have learning and thinking differences. Penny Williams: I mean, he was really severely affected by the fact that he couldn't meet expectations and that people didn't understand him. Lexi: If you have stories about raising twice-exceptional kids, you can call and leave a voice message that we just might use on the next episode of "In It." You'll find that number at U.org/podcast. Amanda: "In It" is a production of Understood for Parents. Our show is produced by Blake Eskin of Noun and Verb Rodeo, Julie Subrin, and Julia Botero. Mike Errico wrote our theme music, and Laura Kusnyer is our director of editorial content. Thanks also this week to reporter Andrea Tudhope. Lexi: And thanks to all of you for listening and for being in it with us.
In ItHow to make the most of parent-teacher conferences
You have a ton of questions for your child’s teacher, but only 15 minutes to discuss them. How can you make the most of parent-teacher conferences? If you have a ton of questions for your child’s teacher — but only 15 minutes to discuss them in a parent-teacher conference — you’re not alone. How can you make the most of this meeting? In this episode, hosts Gretchen Vierstra and Rachel Bozek get advice on how to prepare for parent-teacher conferences from DeJunne’ Clark Jackson. DeJunne’ is a parent advocate, an education consultant, and president of The Center for Literacy & Learning. She’s also a parent of two who’s proudly earned the badge of “five-inch binder mom.” Hear how DeJunne’ prepares herself — and her kids — for parent-teacher conferences. Learn how she approaches the conversation with facts, not feelings. And get tips for helping your child talk with you about school. Related resources 3 ways I engage my child in parent-teacher conferences9 tips to make the most of your parent-teacher conference7 questions to ask your child about how school is goingEpisode transcriptGretchen: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It," a podcast about the ins and outs… Rachel: …and ups and downs… Gretchen: …of supporting kids who learn and think differently. I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood. And before we do anything else, I want to introduce you to my new co-host, Rachel Bozek. Rachel, welcome. Rachel: Yay, thank you! I'm really happy to be here. Gretchen: So, I know you as a writer and an editor who's done some work for us that Understood. But you're also a mom to kids with learning and thinking differences, right? Rachel: That's right. I am. My two kids are in fourth grade and eighth grade and they both have ADHD. So, that's something that we're navigating and learning about every day at home and at school. Gretchen: So, today we are talking about parent-teacher conferences. And I don't know about you, Rachel, but when I see those words on the school calendar, I used to kind of feel worried and overwhelmed. Now that my kids are a little older, not so much, and maybe that's not a good thing. But for a lot of families, parent-teacher conferences are stressful. What do you think? Rachel: I think they can be. And I also think they sometimes are a little stressful and worrisome for the kid. I remember as a kid feeling this kind of sense of doom. I always felt like I was waiting for my parents to get back with some like, "So, we talked to your teacher." Gretchen: Totally! Rachel: But for me, I feel right now when we get that kind of, you know, heads up that conferences are coming, I'm kind of like, "OK, now we're in the year." Gretchen: Yeah. And, you know, since I'm a former teacher, I want to just say that like, I know the doom and gloom thing, but I also want families and kids to be excited, right? Because it's a time to start building relationships, which is why I'm so excited that today we're speaking with someone who has a lot of useful tips and insights to share on this topic. Rachel: Yes. DeJunne' Clark Jackson is a former classroom teacher, school counselor, and student advocate and is now the president of the Center for Literacy and Learning, a nonprofit supporting teachers who teach reading. And she's a parent herself. DeJunne', welcome to In It. We're so glad you're here. DeJunne': Thank you for having me. Gretchen: OK. So, DeJunne', are Rachel and I alone in feeling our blood pressure go up just a little bit at the mention of parent-teacher conferences? DeJunne': You are most certainly not alone. Gretchen: OK. DeJunne': Because it is quite, not always, but can be quite overwhelming. Rachel: So, I want to start with the basics. What is a parent-teacher conference for some families who may have not experienced a conference before? What is it for and what is it not for? DeJunne': A parent-teacher conference is just a school-based meeting, and it's centered around your child's progress. Usually, like Gretchen mentioned, you see it on the calendar, so it could be mid-quarter or mid-semester, but they can be requested at any time. The meeting itself, the duration of the meetings, can vary, but it's not meant to be very long. The bottom line is it's a conversation. It's not just a listening session. It is an active dual role that we share with our child's teachers. Gretchen: Yeah, and you're right that for your typical school, it's probably a really quick conversation. So, if you're the parent of a child who learns and thinks differently, is this the place to review your child's IEP or 504 plan? DeJunne': The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can't have a meeting about your child's progress in the classroom without discussing those things that exist on the IEP or the 504 plan because they exist within that space. It's different in the way that a typical IEP meeting or a 504 meeting involves lots of parties. Gretchen: Yes. DeJunne': You show up to that space and there's a table full of folks. I have, so my child has been through the IEP process since diagnosed in third grade. My kiddo is dyslexic and ADHD and we have been on this journey for quite some time. We are now a freshman in high school, so I have been a member, and I say that because as a parent I am a member of that team and I have a voice. And I always say, like, if you've survived and I mean that an IEP meeting, then a parent-teacher conference is a breeze. IEP meetings can be really daunting. And so, parent-teacher conferences give you an opportunity to be lighter in that space. Rachel: Yeah. And I think one thing that makes parents and caregivers nervous about these meetings or kind of gives them this real anticipation for the parent-teacher conference, I mean, is that we're not always sure if or how much we should prepare, right? So, what's your advice on figuring out like how much to bring with us, especially knowing that there are definitely time constraints? — whether the conference is 7 minutes for middle school or 15 or 20 minutes maybe for grammar school. DeJunne': So, I'm wearing sort of two hats, like your regular parent-teacher conference with a child who doesn't have, you know, an IEP or a 504. But if your child does, like mine, I am known as the five-inch binder mom. And I wear that badge proudly. I have in my binder my son's history throughout his schooling, all his evaluations, parent-teacher conference notes, his test scores. So, all of those things, when I'm having a conversation with a teacher about his progress, those things are important to bring to the table. That conversation is rooted in that information. And so, you should absolutely prepare how much you prepare for, you know, it's individualized. Depends on, you know, where your child is, especially if a child doesn't have any — my youngest is eight and we have been very fortunate to not have our hands on him as much as my oldest — and so, my parent-teacher conferences with his teachers look different. And I show up to those meetings with barely a thing in hand. And I'm just there to mostly listen about how he's doing and anything that I can contribute to how he's doing. And so, your preparation is very, you know, dependent on your own child situation. Gretchen: You're the one-inch binder mom for those, right? Sort of half an inch. DeJunne': I think I’m the spiral notebook mom for those. Rachel: You know, as you get ready for that, you know, like just what I was mentioning earlier that I used to feel nervous or just this kind of like sense of anticipation or anxiety or something, knowing that my parents were going into a conference. So, do you talk to your kids beforehand or like give them kind of a heads up so that they're not worried about what's happening when you go in there? DeJunne': Yeah, and that's part of that preparation process. One of the steps that I take is to set those expectations, right? This may involve explaining why you're meeting, like kids, no matter how old, may not have an understanding of like, "Why are you going to talk to my teacher? What did I do?" Like, "What happened?" And so, just to know that it's a regular occurrence and that all families are invited to that meeting, that it's not about what you did wrong or what you're not doing. And because of my line of work and what I do and how I do it, my kid would always have this like deep sigh followed by an eye roll when I share with him that I'll be meeting with his teachers. But by opening up to him about the nature of the meeting and what I intend to share at the meeting and what I expect to get out of the meeting, he doesn't have to sit and wait with bated breath to know what's going on, because I involve him in that process is so important for his well-being that he understands and is aware and is involved. Rachel: Yes. DeJunne': One of the things I do to prepare my son for our meetings — in addition to like letting him know that it's going to happen — it's really leaning into what he feels that these meetings are going to be centered around, the conversations are going to be centered around, and really allow him to formalize his own ideas, then that may even help me discover where he thinks he is, not where his teacher sees where he is, not where I think he is, but really where he's gauging his progress and then allow him to tell me what he would like me to ask. Oftentimes, no matter how much I try to push self-advocacy, my kid particularly really respects his teachers to the point where if he feels like he's going to ask a question that teeters the line of disrespect, he will fall back and he will not, you know, stand up. And so, as his advocate, I want to be his voice in that space. So, yeah, I allow him the opportunity to share this experience with me. Gretchen: That's awesome. Rachel: What if I have concerns about how my child is doing socially? Is that something that is kind of fair game for the conference? Is that OK to talk about, you know, within the parent-teacher conference or is it should we really be focusing just on academic performance? DeJunne': Focus on all the things. So, parents should raise concerns about whatever is going on that they feel that they want an update about. A child shows up to school as a whole child and you don't take off your social development hat when you step into the classroom and only wear your academic hat. And so, parent-teacher conferences are an opportunity to discuss your child's progress in all areas. You know, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And all of those areas are inclusive of their academic performance, their social development and interaction with their peers, their interaction with their teachers, the ability to follow directions, their emotional development, which is huge. All of those are part of the evaluation process. So why should we not include that in our conversations with our child's teacher? Gretchen: Makes a lot of sense. DeJunne': I have to put in this disclaimer, not all parent-teacher conferences are built around talking about your child's lack of progress. Gretchen: Right. DeJunne': There should absolutely be conversations about the wonderful progress your child is making. Rachel: So, when we're at home talking with our child and, you know, everything seems like it's going fine, and, you know, we ask like, "How's everything going at school?" I'm trying to, you know, make sure I ask the right questions at your conference. And the child is like, "It's fine" or "Nothing,” which is sometimes what I get, I'm like, "Really, nothing?" What happens when we get to that conference and we find out that, you know, there's an area where the child is struggling, whatever it is, if we're kind of taken by surprise, right? Once we get there. What should we do with that information? And then how should we go about approaching it with the child afterward? DeJunne': Look, I think I may be the president of that club of "fine," the fine club. How was your day? "Fine." And so, yes, that the ability for your child to be open and have dialog about their progress, you know, daily before we get to that space, is a struggle. But then to enter into that parent-teacher conference space and discover that things are not as they seem or as they are being reported, that's why it is so important for parents to have direct communication, consistent communication with their child's teachers. And that is not because you don't believe your child, or your child isn't being truthful with you. It's because they hadn't really developed the ability to inform you of all the things. This is a very important point to make, especially for our students with executive functioning challenges, because by the time they get to you, at the end of the day, it's not that they don't want to share their day, it's so much has happened, Rachel: They're done.DeJunne': where do I start? Gretchen: Right. DeJunne': What do I start with? Do I tell you how my day ended, how it started, or what the middle of the day was like? And so, I give my child permission to, "It's OK. 'Fine' is OK." And so, part of that preparation for those meetings, like we talked about before, is it's sort of drawing out those specifics of their concerns that they may have not being able to share with me daily. And so going into there and having this discovery and not putting the blame on your child, because "You didn't tell me" and "This is what I found out." Gretchen: Right. DeJunne': You know, they don't want to have that burden of "I didn't remember to tell you and I didn't mean to keep it from you. I just didn't know when or how or who." And so, permission is so important as we have and are developing our kids to be participants in this space. But if we, as the parent, open that line of direct communication because we already know how our child is going to come to us or the information that will get lost in translation, then we can own that communication. And it's so important to have that built in. And as a matter of fact, I have direct homeschool communication built into my child's IEP because I already know I'm not going to find out the things through him. Gretchen: So, what about if you go to a conference and you feel like the teacher is just not getting your child, or you and the teacher are just not seeing eye to eye on something? How should parents handle that? DeJunne': Oh, man, it is so difficult, right? And it's so hard as a parent going into a parent-teacher conference, you know, because it's such an emotional process, right? 'Cause this is your baby that we're talking about. And it's so important for our voices to be heard, but it's also important for us to listen and lean into what the teacher is saying. Because just like your experiences are valid for what's going on in your setting, your teachers' experiences need to be listened to and validated as a part of their experience. And so, when I talk to parents about how to manage this process and navigate the school systems, I have a saying that says we lead with facts and not feelings. And this doesn't mean that feelings don't exist, because they most certainly do, and you have permission to feel all the feels. But when we are talking about trying to get to a solution, then we want to lead with facts. So, no matter if I, you know, me and the teacher are, you know, brunch buddies or if we are just here to take care of business, we have to keep my child, the student, at the center of why we're doing what we're doing and leave our feelings to the side. And that is so hard. But we have to lead with our head and those facts and usually, we can find common ground in that. Gretchen: I love that. And I, you know, as a former teacher myself, I, sometimes I worried about going into a conference and feeling like I might have something tough to share with a family that I'm only just finding out and that's why we're just going to talk about it now. And I would worry that it wouldn't go so well because it's got a lot of emotions involved. And so, focusing on the facts is a really helpful piece of advice. Rachel: Yeah. And I've found it also really helpful to pretty explicitly say to the teacher that I want to hear about even the bad stuff. I have definitely had the experience where I've been in a conference and heard something that's not even necessarily surprising because most of the things I've, you know, had most of the conversations I've had with teachers about my kids are things that I already know about them. But like, "Oh, so this is going on in the classroom" and I'll start to cry. I have started to cry in so many conferences and you know, the teachers have been wonderful. They just kind of give you a minute, hand over some tissues, and like we just continue the conversation. But it's hard. It's hard to hear that stuff, but like it is so important to know where they're coming from. You know, they're not here to make us feel bad, but sometimes we hear stuff that makes us feel bad. Gretchen: So, once the conferences are over, regardless of how it goes, how do we continue that conversation with the teacher? DeJunne': So, the follow up can be twofold. It can involve just something as simple as just sending a thank you note or emails, like just to send a thank you note for having the opportunity to talk with the teacher — although we, you know, it's built in — but, you know, you want to thank the teacher for meeting with you and then following up on any action items that were discussed or simply checking in to see how your child is doing with those things that you guys discussed. I personally like sending a summary. I know, I'm so extra. I like sending a summary of my meeting notes to the teacher just because I, in my processing, I want to make sure that we heard the same thing, that we're on the same page. And so, that follow-up "Here are the things that we talked about, and here are action items. Please let me know if I've missed anything or misunderstood any information. Feel free to offer corrections, revisions, updates, additions," and it builds both the relationship with the teacher and the parent, but it also builds a system of accountability. You all are there with the same goal in mind, and so you want to keep each other accountable for the things that you agreed on. Gretchen: One follow-up to this. So, how are you continuing the conversation with your child? So, if you started this, right? by asking, "Oh, what am I going to expect in this meeting? What do you want me to ask about?" You go to the meeting, your kid's at home waiting, right? If they don't come to the meeting with you. So, what do you say when you come home? DeJunne': Yes, absolutely. So, that follow-up not only involves the teacher, and that's a great point, but to follow up with them pretty immediately, you know, as soon as you know, you get home and you get things settled, you go, "Hey, can I share with you how the meeting went? " You know, and it's important for you to spend that specific time, maybe over dinner or some family time, to talk about those things that were discussed and then talk about the responsibility that your student owns in that space. Because sometimes we put everything on the teacher and the teacher has to wave this magical wand and fix all the things. And then as parents, we want to take on all of that and we want to fix all the things. But sometimes we leave the child out. It's that student's responsibility. I cannot do your homework for you, although I might. But sometimes we have to just get through or, you know, just. "I can't be in the classroom with you. It's your journey. I am here as a supportive part of this process and you have to own it because we want to build independent adults who can think, who can act, and who can empathize." And so, it starts with the school journey. So, yes, let them own their stuff and give them the things that they can carry, and you carry the things that you need to. And the teacher does his or her part. And that's how we work harmoniously to get you across the stage. Gretchen: Oh, my gosh. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us on "In It," DeJunne'. It's been great. DeJunne': Thank you for having me.Gretchen: Yeah, seriously. You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network. Rachel: This show is for you. So, we want to make sure you're getting what you need, and we want to hear from you. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from you. Gretchen: If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode. Rachel: Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at understood.org/mission. Gretchen: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music. Rachel: For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director and Seth Melnick is our executive producer. Thanks for listening. Gretchen: And thanks for always being in it with us.
Questions to ask about online schools
Wondering if an online school might be a good fit for your child? Some kids thrive in an online setting. But online schools tend to have much lower graduation rates than traditional schools. And researchers are concerned that kids with IEPs and 504 plans might not be getting enough supports and services in online schools.Here are some questions you can ask an online school to get a sense of how well it can meet your child’s needs. It’s also important to think about your child’s temperament and how much time you can spend each day helping with online schooling.Questions to ask the online schoolStructureHow many hours do you expect kids to spend on online coursework each day and each week?What are some examples of typical assignments and deadlines?In terms of time and work, are your overall expectations the same as or different from those of a traditional school?How do I track my child’s progress?Is there a webinar that can explain the program to me?Does the school provide reminders and other kinds of support to help kids who have trouble getting or staying organized? What happens if my child misses deadlines?Does the curriculum focus mainly on academics? Or are there social and emotional learning activities to help kids develop skills like self-advocacy and working in groups?How do the students interact with each other? Are there any in-person activities like field trips?How does the school manage behavior issues? How are parents kept in the loop?Is the school accredited in this state? If so, where do your students take state assessments? Can the testing accommodations in my child’s current IEP also be used on these state assessments?TeachersWhat is the main way teachers and students will interact — email, video chats, phone calls?How do teachers provide feedback? How often do they do this?How do teachers assist kids who ask for help? How often do they do things like hold extra help sessions or workshops?Does your school have special education teachers? If so, are kids with IEPs only assigned to a special education teacher, or do they also have access to general education teachers?Are your teachers certified to teach in public schools?Are your teachers considered highly qualified?Have your teachers received training on how to teach students who learn and think differently in an online setting?IEPs and 504 plansWhat accommodations can the school offer my child?Are there built-in supports for kids who struggle with organization? What about accommodations for struggling readers?How does the school provide speech therapy and other kinds of special education services?How much experience does the school have in providing [a specific accommodation or teaching method that has helped or may help your child]?OutcomesHow do the outcomes for kids with disabilities at your school compare to the outcomes at other schools in this district and in this state?What percentage of kids graduate and go on to college (if this is a high school)?Questions to ask your school districtDoes the district accept credits from this school?If yes, how do I request a letter from the district that confirms in writing that it accepts credits from this school?If no, why not? How would this affect my child’s ability to do things like apply to college?Is the online school at risk of losing its accreditation?Has the online school changed accreditors within the last 10 years?Questions to ask your childAre you ready to map out assignments and be responsible for completing them on time? Are you ready for this much independence?Can you stick to a study schedule at home? Can you spend several hours a day doing schoolwork without getting too distracted by games, TV, etc.?Can you handle waiting a few hours or maybe even a few days between asking the teacher a question and getting a response?Questions to ask yourselfAm I willing to be my child’s “learning coach” or co-teacher?How much time can I spend each day helping my child with school?Can I provide structure and motivation to help my child spend several hours a day on schoolwork?Does our home have a quiet space that is free of clutter to help my child focus on daily schoolwork?Church groups, youth clubs, and teams can be helpful to kids with social skills issues. You can also join Wunder, Understood’s free community app, to connect with other families about online schooling and more. Find out what happens to your child’s IEP if you switch schools. Learn about public resources that are available to homeschoolers.
In ItADHD TikTok 101 with Dr. Sasha Hamdani
Many kids and teens go to TikTok for information on ADHD. But is everything they find on TikTok legit? How can we help our kids navigate TikTok? Many kids and teens — and even adults — go to TikTok for information on ADHD. They search for tips, advice, personal stories, and sometimes even a diagnosis. But is everything they find on TikTok legit? How can we help our kids navigate TikTok, especially when we may not even understand it ourselves?In this episode, hosts Rachel Bozek and Gretchen Vierstra learn all about the world of ADHD TikTok with Dr. Sasha Hamdani. Dr. Sasha is a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD and anxiety. She also has ADHD, and she uses TikTok and other social media platforms to provide ADHD tips and debunk myths. Tune in to hear Dr. Sasha explain why many people with ADHD find TikTok helpful — and what to watch out for.Related resourcesTikTok creators show the “real” ADHDHear Dr. Sasha’s story on ADHD Aha! ADHD and emotions, from anxiety to boredomDr. Sasha on TikTokDr. Sasha’s book: Self-Care for People With ADHD: 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress, and Prioritize You!Episode transcriptGretchen: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "In It," a podcast about the ins and outs...Rachel: ...the ups and downs...Gretchen: ...of supporting kids who learn and think differently. I'm Gretchen Vierstra, a former classroom teacher and an editor here at Understood.Rachel: And I'm Rachel Bozek, a writer and editor raising two kids with ADHD. Today we're talking about the wonderful, sometimes overwhelming world of ADHD TikTok.Gretchen: Yes, ADHD TikTok is a thing. People go there to exchange information, tips, and stories. And one bright light in that messy, noisy world is Dr. Sasha.Rachel: Sasha Hamdani is a psychiatrist based in Kansas City, specializing in ADHD and anxiety disorders. And in the past few years, she's also become an influencer, thanks to her informative, accessible, and sometimes deeply personal short videos on TikTok and Instagram. These posts routinely get hundreds of thousands of likes. Here's one where she explains what it's like to experience what she calls executive dysfunction.Dr. Sasha: To ask yourself these questions, do you often forget appointments and tasks? Do you have a hard time putting thoughts and abstract concepts into words? Do you have a hard time navigating setbacks? Are you miserable at multi-step directions? Have you ever tried to assemble an IKEA desk without instructions? Because they seem complicated, then you get overwhelmed and basically weld together two pieces that should never have gone together. Then get even more overwhelmed when you try to pull it apart. So, you push it to the side of the room where it will remain till the end of time.Gretchen: If you listen to "ADHD Aha!," one of the other podcasts in the Understood Network, you may have heard Dr. Sasha talk about her own ADHD journey. She was first diagnosed in fourth grade and began taking medication soon after, but she didn't actually know she had ADHD until she embarked on an accelerated medical school program straight out of high school.Rachel: Under that intense pressure and on her own for the first time, things fell apart. It was only then that she found out her diagnosis. This led first to a lot of pain and confusion and then to a deep dive into how ADHD affects the brain, the body, our thoughts, and our feelings.Gretchen: It's an incredible story and I highly recommend you go listen to it if you haven't already. But today, we wanted to talk to Dr. Sasha about what she's up to now.Rachel: Specifically, we've invited her to walk us through the world of ADHD TikTok. What does it have to offer people who are trying to understand ADHD? And where does it sometimes lead us astray?Gretchen: So, Dr. Sasha, nice to see you and nice to have you here.Dr. Sasha: Yeah, likewise.Gretchen: We're so excited to talk TikTok with you today. But before we get into that, let's look back to a time when there was no TikTok. You were diagnosed with ADHD back in the nineties, though, as you've said elsewhere, you didn't know about the diagnosis at the time. Even so, do you remember other kids or grown-ups talking about ADHD and how they talked about it back then?Dr. Sasha: So, I try to remember back, and I think honestly, I don't remember it being part of the discourse at all. And keep in mind, I'm in fourth grade, like I don't know what we're talking about. I became more aware of that concept in general, not that I had it, but that concept in general in high school, and it was used to describe like when a boy was acting out of control and couldn't keep it together.Gretchen: Totally.Dr. Sasha: And it was actually part of like a slang or almost like a put down like fat kid. And we weren't using ADHD yet. "That kid is so ADHD" or "They can't stay in their seat. They can't keep their hands to themselves." So, that was kind of, in my limited scope of things, that was my understanding of it.Gretchen: Mm hmm. I mean, I remember people using ADD as a negative term and a put down, like you said. So, now that you work with patients who have ADHD, do you get a sense that that same kind of put down or that shame and embarrassment around ADHD is part of their experience?Dr. Sasha: I think it's less because we're talking about it more, and I think that just happens as you increase cultural competence around a certain topic and as you just open up dialog. I think that people still do experience quite a bit of stigma and not just in the early childhood or early adolescence period, but I think it bleeds over into adulthood also, like when they're trying to figure out accommodations for work or trying to figure out how they approach this with a loved one or a spouse or a partner or whatever. So, I think that there is still a pretty significant stigma, although it is less.Gretchen: OK. Makes sense.Rachel: So, let's pivot now and talk about how TikTok has become part of the conversation around ADHD. And first, can you just explain what TikTok is and how people, especially young people, use it these days? I think there are probably some parents and caregivers out there in our listening world who are maybe not in the know or still learning about the phenomenon of TikTok. And honestly, that includes me because every time I think I'm like, "OK, I've got it," I'll come across some new feature. And then I'm like, "Oh, no, no, I don't really understand this at all."Gretchen: Same with me.Rachel: So, tell us about the TikTok.Dr. Sasha: Sure. From the history of what I understood about it, it started off primarily as a music app. People would use it for learning dances and lip-synching, and there's still a significant portion of that. But early in quarantine, we saw that it really exploded, and it started to take off more as this social media channel and platform that people could use to connect to each other and then really exposing us more to this vertical video form in small, digestible chunks. And you just kind of scroll through.So, for people with ADHD and things, it's, you know, you can find yourself just spending a lot of time there. And so I think, number one, that's part of the appeal of it. And number two, that's part of the reason why I think ADHD was so talked about during that time because I think it just naturally lended to people of neurodivergence whose brains were moving faster, really gravitated towards that form of media.Gretchen: My kids do a lot of the dance portions, and I may have been roped into some. Never posted, just saved in drafts.Dr. Sasha: Sure.Gretchen: Your mother cannot be posted.Rachel: I do know about saved in draft.Gretchen: But if I were to go on TikTok though, and type in ADHD, what is going to come up?Dr. Sasha: A lot is going to come up. So, first and foremost, it's important to understand that both with TikTok, and actually with a lot of the algorithms, their interest based. So, depending on what you're clicking on and what you're engaging with, you're going to see more of that. So, if you type in ADHD and you're already kind of moving down this ADHD pathway of like what happens with the emotional side of ADHD or things like that, you're going to get a lot of that. If you are down the unfortunate rabbit hole of is ADHD real or not, you're going to get a lot of that.So, it kind of depends on what you've been interacting with, but there's kind of all different spectrums. There's educational stuff, there is lived stories, stuff of people talking about their own experience. There is marketing for ADHD-related medication apps and behavioral management apps. I think ADHD is kind of become a little bit of a buzzword on the Internet right now. And so, I think there's also a lot of exploitation of ADHD in that a lot of people are using that to hook an audience in for relatability.Rachel: Right.Dr. Sasha: There's a lot there's good, there's bad, there's garbage, there's tons.Rachel: Yeah. So, I think it's fair to say that the ADHD presence on TikTok is a phenomenon. What would you say are the pros and cons of this phenomenon? I mean, we can start with the pros. Is there good stuff out there? Helpful information. I mean, I think your content is really helpful.Dr. Sasha: Yeah. So, I think there is a lot of good. So, when I originally started, I started in December of 2020, and it was because I was seeing patients remotely and they were showing me videos like via telehealth, and I was like, "No, no, no, that's not a thing." And so, I originally started posting videos to kind of counteract some of that information. But then as I immersed myself more in it, there were really good avenues of information and a lot of physicians were getting on there, a lot of behavioral therapists, a lot of authors.So, I felt like there was a really good source of information from TikTok. But in order to get to that solid source of information, you're also exposed to some not-so-solid information. And so, you're left to kind of sort through. And unfortunately for some of those, not-so-good information, like if you are getting a lot of fighting in the comments, if you are getting a lot of engagement that's pushing this video up the algorithm and eventually you kind of start to lose sight of is while this video has 10 million views, that must mean it's accurate. Not like "This video is 10 million views because it's garbage."Rachel: Right. Can you give us an example of a specific time where you were like, "No, that's not a thing." Or like, "This is actually not helpful."Dr. Sasha: I mean, the video that I originally wanted to, I remember the patient showed me a video of someone who sneezed multiple times in a row, and that it was a sign of neurodivergence. And I was like....Gretchen: What? Dr. Sasha: What? And then I was like, "Wait, I do sneeze multiple times in a row." And I'm like, "No, what? No."Gretchen: It's like a horoscope. You just read into it, right?Dr. Sasha: I know. And so, I'm like, "This is crazy. This is not diagnostic criteria. What is this?" So, there's stuff like that. There was a lot of stuff like if you can follow multiple songs at once, you have ADHD. So, it's like very clickbaity stuff that people were reading into and they were like, "Oh, I have this." And so, the problem is, is that to be totally frank with you, self-diagnosis actually doesn't bother me very much. I have a problem with self-treatment.So, in terms of self-diagnosis, like, I think it's important to understand and find names for your own internal environment. Be curious, ask questions about what's going on internally because you're, you should be the expert on your own brain. But a lot of people don't have the training to kind of sift together and figure out all these multiple data points. And that's why seeing a professional can be helpful in trying to figure out and cement or corroborate is this the right diagnosis? Were you missing something? And may help you with, if that needs treatment in some regard.Gretchen: Right. Right. And so, like the sneezing example — that's such a good example of you know, something that I could see my kids watching and being like, "Oh, mom, I must have this. Right?" So, I like that your work, you include a lot of explainers and concrete information about ADHD in your social media posts. What are some of the ideas or maybe misconceptions that you in particular are focused on trying to tackle?Dr. Sasha: I think the biggest one I'm trying to tackle is that ADHD is very nuanced. And so I think that's part of the reason why it's important to get that formal diagnosis because I don't think a lot, especially for females, there's not a lot of good concrete information about the emotional component and the dysregulation that happens there.And so, that's where you get a lot of misdiagnoses with depression and anxiety and cycling mood disorders and things like that where it's really ADHD. And so, you're on these heavy hitter medications which are hurting you more than they're helping you when really you're just misdiagnosed. So, I think it's important to just kind of recognize that that could be a phenomenon happening.Rachel: We already touched on this a bit, but I'd love to talk a little more about this phenomenon of people casually throwing around the ADHD label, kind of using it as shorthand for like, "Oh, I'm easily distracted," or "I go down a rabbit hole watching YouTube videos for hours." What's your feeling about that?Dr. Sasha: So, I think it's important to recognize, like number one, as someone who does have ADHD, that's so annoying to me, it's so objectively annoying. Like in medical school when at was first, figuring out this diagnosis and I had a lot of peers that were like, "Well, I do that too." And I'm like, "You really don't, because it's not impacting you in the same..." like everybody has distractible moments for sure. But this is so pervasive in nature. It's my all-day, everyday state. And so, I think that it's really annoying. But how I've learned to handle things like that is to instead of approaching it with like immediate animosity, which was my go-to for a long time, is approaching it with curiosity, right?And so, like sometimes people are, number one, they're doing that because truly they think that ADHD is just this piecemeal kind of diagnosis where if you're sometimes distractible, and so that might be an episode where you can educate and you could be like, "That's interesting that you're having those phenomenons. I'm sure you know how it feels. What's interesting about how I present it is that it is all the time." And so, you could use that as an educational thing, or you can also approach it in like this sense of curiosity. Like maybe they really do have ADHD...Rachel: Yeah.Dr. Sasha: ...and they don't have resources and they don't know where to start this journey. And so, using it as like, "OK, they might be trying to open up a dialog about that. How can I help you?"Gretchen: I mean, I've heard my own kids talking about kids they know who have ADHD and like, "Oh yeah, like they do this" or Oh, that's because, you know, she got distracted because of this." And they seem to, they seem to know it. But then sometimes I fear, though, that the way that kids are talking about it is maybe to like just off the cuff, like, I don't know, it feels like there could be sometimes a fine line drawn between those two areas.Dr. Sasha: Yeah, I would say that I think it's important to just not be on either end of the spectrum, right? And not overly stigmatized and not overly nonchalant about it. But at the same time, like if I had to pick I'd rather be the more nonchalant about it because I think that it's that inherent stigma, like such a significant limitation to care because people are so reluctant to carry that diagnosis because of it. And so, if people are like, "Ah, whatever,"...Gretchen: Right?Dr. Sasha: ...OK, fine. Like, you can get treated and you can go forward, and you could feel a little bit more normal in settings that you might have previously felt were issues.Gretchen: Yeah.Rachel: So, taking a step back, can you talk about social media a little bit more broadly? What impact are you seeing it have on your patients?Dr. Sasha:Social media has a lot more impact than it did ten years ago for sure, and ten years before that it didn't even exist. So, like, I think that we're moving to a period in our culture where social media is such an influence because it's replacing our news, it's replacing our correspondence, it's replacing how we interact with each other. And so, now we're heading to this singular source to kind of fill multiple, multiple needs, which inherently increases how important it is to us.Rachel: Mm hmm.Dr. Sasha: So, I think that based on that increase in importance, yeah, of course, it's impacting my patients and myself hugely, right? I mean, it's become such a significant portion of your life. And you realize that when you spend so much time on social media that you're like, "OK, this is, it's having significant impact." Now, what I will say is just like, circling back to the beginning part of this conversation about those algorithms being interest based, it's really important to be conscious of that.And this is what I talk to about my patients, if you're spending a significant amount of time on social media, it's important to be conscious of the content you consume because what's going to happen is you're going to be fed that content more and more often, and social media should be a safe place for you. It should be a place that's very cultivated.So, if there's something that you're like, "Ooh, this makes me feel bad about myself. Oh, I'm comparing myself too much. I feel unsettled after watching that," you should block, you should mute, you should get off of that trend. And that involves people as well. Like if there's social interactions that you are not feeling at the time, I feel like it’s social media, is the place to protect your peace. It's important.Gretchen: That's good advice. And so, then if you're a parent trying to pass on some advice to your kids about being on social media, do you have any advice about that, about how parents should be talking to their kids about it?Dr. Sasha: So, I've thought about this because I've thought about how to handle it with my own children — I mean, I don't know what it's going to even look like when they get old enough to deal with that. But I think my go-to is going to literally pull out an anatomy textbook and be like, "This is your frontal lobe. This is not developed." The frontal lobe, judgment processing, it's all about input of data and figuring out what to do with it with a young and developing brain. You're being flooded at all times with input.And so, if you're not getting the right kind of input, that's going to shape how you mature and develop. And so, to put those expectations on a young child of how to responsibly consume content is really difficult. So, I think it needs parental mediation for sure.Rachel: Well, on that note, you know, a lot of kids use TikTok, we know. How young is too young? Or is there such a thing as too young to be posting on TikTok? Like, at what point is someone kind of like in the right place to do that?Dr. Sasha: I don't know. So, I started building an ADHD app and initially I wanted, I really loved the community component of TikTok and social media, and I wanted to bring that, but I decided not to because I couldn't do a good enough job moderating what was in there. And I feel like that's one of the biggest drawbacks.And so, if you're allowing kids to post and you are allowing kids to consume content on that, there's not a whole lot of filtering you can do. There's just not. There's not, you can't control what other people are saying to them. You can't control what other people are viewing. You can't control and limit it, I mean, I guess you could do friends only, but like there are workarounds on that.So, it really is a case-to-case dependent situation and it really depends on your parenting philosophy. I don't, I can't give a good answer because I don't think there is one answer.Gretchen: Yeah.Rachel: Yes. And I really, this has been really helpful for me, and I really appreciate it. And I've been showing my daughter some of your videos because I'm like, "Well, if you want to see TikTok, I'm going to show you some TikTok."Dr. Sasha: There you go. I think the other thing that TikTok does, which is great, is that it opens up dialog. You know, that becomes a new form of communication. You're sending TikToks that are relatable to the other person to open up a little bit of conversation. But people do that with their doctors too. They show me but TikToks and are like, "This is exactly like me. I just don't have the words to say it." So, I think it's an interesting phenomenon on that thing too.Gretchen: I never thought about sending a TikTok to my doctor.Dr. Sasha: It's weird. It's not actually like to my doctor, but like in a visit, they're just like, "I want to show you something."Gretchen: Yeah, I usually just have a post-it note. But maybe next time I'll have something else.Dr. Sasha: Just pull a TikTok.Rachel: I just have a notes app. I'm like, "Hold on. No, that's my grocery. Wait a minute.".Gretchen: Well, Dr. Sasha I want to thank you so much for joining us today. This has been such a good conversation.Rachel: Yes. Thank you so much. This was really interesting, and it was so great to meet you.Dr. Sasha: Yeah, likewise. It was so fun.Gretchen:To hear more from Dr. Sasha, check out her TikTok @thepsychdoctormd, or as we mentioned before, on our very own "ADHD Aha!"podcast.Rachel: Also, she's got a book out. It's called "Self-Care for People With ADHD," and it's full of life hacks and insights.Gretchen: Last but not least, Dr. Sasha tells us her new app called Focus Genie should be out in the world in the next month or two, so keep an eye out for that. You've been listening to "In It" from the Understood Podcast Network.Rachel: This show is for you. So, we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Email us at init@understood.org to share your thoughts. We love hearing from you.Gretchen: If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode.Rachel: Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at Understood.org/mission.Gretchen: "In It" is produced by Julie Subrin. Briana Berry is our production director. Justin D. Wright mixes the show. Mike Errico wrote our theme music.Rachel: For the Understood Podcast Network, Laura Key is our editorial director, Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.Gretchen: And thanks for always being in it with us.
6 Tips for Helping Your Child Build Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) allows kids to act on feelings in an effective way. This key ability can help kids who learn and think differently work through their challenges. Learn ways to help your child build EI.1. Help your child be aware of emotions.Encourage your child to talk about the feelings that come with challenges like these. Have your child name the emotion (“angry,” “sad,” “jealous”). Then ask, “Why do you feel this way?” You can do the same when your child has a positive experience. If your child remembers to hand every homework assignment one week, for example, ask, “How does this make you feel? Why?”2. Practice reading emotions in others.Watching TV can be a great way to practice this. Turn off the sound and, with your child, try to guess how characters are feeling. Talk about how body language and facial expressions can be clues.3. Reflect on how your child has reacted in the past.Take time to look back at specific situations and talk about how your child has responded. Offer helpful praise if your child reacted in a constructive way. For example, maybe your child was feeling frustrated with math homework and asked you for help. If you got a not-so-helpful reaction—like your child throwing the math book on the floor—talk about what other reactions might have been possible.4. Come up with new strategies.Use tough situations as learning opportunities. Talk about what your child can do when she’s feeling a certain way or facing a challenge. For example, instead of yelling at a sibling, what could your child do when someone else in the house plays music too loud?5. Find ways to help others.Working together to take care of people can help your child build empathy. Join a volunteer effort. Or have your child come with you to deliver a care package to a sick relative or friend. You could even consider getting a pet. Having to walk a dog on cold or rainy days can help serve as a reminder to your child that their needs may not always come first.6. Explore options at school and elsewhere.There may be a school program that could help your child build emotional skills. Find out if they have a social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum. Or maybe they have a “lunch buddy” program your child could join.You could also look into the option of getting outside emotional help. Going to therapy can help kids learn how to identify—and regulate—their emotions. Some therapists also offer social skills groups.
The Opportunity GapBusting myths about special education
Debunked! Learn five common myths about special education, and find out how families can help kids of color get the support they deserve. Debunked! Learn five common myths about special education that can keep kids of color from getting the support they deserve. Host Julian Saavedra and expert guest Christina Gutierrez explain common misconceptions and offer tips on how to help your child thrive.Christina is the mom of a child with an IEP. She’s also a former special educator. Find out which of the five top myths “gets under her skin” the most — and which one crept into her own thinking when her son was struggling.Related resources Common myths about special educationWhat to do when people don’t believe your child has a learning or thinking differenceHow to get past parenting guiltWunder, the first community app for parents of kids with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexiaEpisode transcriptChristina: Smart and special education — they're not mutually exclusive. You don't get put in special education because you're not smart. Julian: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "The Opportunity Gap." Kids of color who have ADHD and other common learning differences often face a double stigma. But there's a lot that families can do to address the opportunity gap in our communities. This podcast explains key issues and offers tips to help you advocate for your child. My name is Julian Saavedra. I'm a father of two and an assistant principal in Philadelphia, where I've spent nearly 20 years working in public schools. I'll be your host. Today's episode is about busting myths. There are a lot of myths about special education, and these myths can keep our kids from getting the services and support that they deserve. To help me explain some of the most common myths, I want to introduce today's expert guest. Christina Gutierrez is a mom in New York City. Her son has an IEP, so she's been through the special education process personally. Christina also spent nearly a decade working in public schools as a special education teacher and as an RTI coordinator, helping schools decide which kids need to be evaluated for special education. Hey, Christina.Christina: Hey, Julian. Julian: Before we jump in, I'm going to start us off with a question just so we could break the ice. What is saving your life? What is that thing that's just saving your life right now? It could be a book. It could be a friend, TV show, hobby, your favorite ice cream. Like something right now that's just really saving your life. What would that be? Christina: Meditation. Julian: Meditation. Christina: I'll put on a meditation that I find on YouTube. I'll listen to some calming music. I'll listen to River Sounds, even to unwind at the end of the day. Just like knowing when my mind is wandering or taking a minute, even if it's 2 minutes, to just sit, be still, be quiet, has been life-changing for me. Julian: Wow. OK, so everybody, listen. Especially parents out there. Meditation works. So before we dive into some of these really common myths that you and I keep hearing from parents, I wanted to really jump into your own personal experience. So you're the mom of a child with an IEP. So, you know, you've been on both sides of the table as a teacher and as the mom. Anything that that kind of jumps out — myths, stigmas, thought traps, or other misconceptions that you noticed when you were thinking about as you went through this process from the parenting side. So as a parent, anything that kind of jumps out to you? Christina: I definitely fell into the trap of believing that I had failed my child, that I had done something wrong, especially so because I was a teacher, right? So there was this pressure of like comparing him to other children. Or is there something more that I could have done? Or what can I do in the meantime. Julian: I mean, as parents, we know. We know that feeling, all of us. Let's dig into some of these common myths about special education. You know, you and I, we've worked with thousands of families over the years. Let me say that again to make it real. Thousands, right? We're old and we've been in the game for a while. And there's some common themes that constantly emerge that we really want to jump in and debunk some of them. So we're going to go back and forth between some of our top five. So the first myth, the one that I personally hear a lot or I experience a lot from the work side is families come in and say, "I'm worried my child's going to feel and be treated differently, like they're not going to be treated the same as everybody else. And that really worries me." Sometimes they might be worried that their kids are going to be in a completely separate classroom. Or sometimes they might think once the teachers find out that my child has an IEP or that they receive services, they're going to be treated very differently. You know, I heard this one a couple of days ago during an initial IEP meeting with a parent. They were worried about their college aspirations. "Mr. Saavedra, and I don't think that they're going to be able to go to college with this. What do I do?" So thinking about all these worries, is that true?Christina: No, that is completely a myth. And I think often of when we were growing up, right, the phrase like, oh, "They're on the special bus," or like "They're on the cheese bus." Especially in New York City, children do get specialized busing. There's like, for families who have been in New York or have been in the States for a long time, Black families, Latino families, and Puerto Rican in particular. Those of us that were in New York for a longer time, there was a stigma, and IEPs weren't always the most beneficial thing. They were often over-generalized to our students. So an example would be my my mom has a lot of stigma with IEPs because my sister was both bilingual for English and Spanish, but she was a quiet child and they automatically tried to put her in special education. And so my mom's relationship with special education is one of like, they just do that when they don't want to teach you. And, you know, the truth was in the '70s, that is how it was. Like that isn't the same anymore. And so I found in my relationships with families of color in particular, having to debunk this myth a lot. Your child will not be treated differently. In fact, it is a legal document requiring teachers to spend extra time with your child and meet them at the needs that they have. That piece of it, I think, has been, in my experience, what has comforted parents. But the myth existed because at one time we were treated differently. And I think in my experience as well, that is something that has helped me with parents, is that you're affirming that you're right to have had that hesitation, because years ago this was your experience or this was your sister's experience or your brother's experience. But special education has has changed a lot. Julian: So I'm in Philly, and a lot of my parents will come in and that's their worry. But also they might have siblings or even themselves when they were in school, where if services were provided, they would be segregated into a different room. And they automatically come in worrying that's what's going to happen to their kid. Christina: But the truth is, in some cases, some children do spend all day in a classroom that is separate, but not necessarily separate in that it's like a shun. But there are students who are in self-contained classrooms all day. And there are students who do require those needs and that don't — I think for me, the framing for parents has been this isn't a bad thing. This is giving your kid what they need. And taking parents through the — like OK, we tried just services, right? We're just going to give you related services. Just speech. Just occupational therapy. OK, that didn't work. We went to integrated co-teaching. OK, that didn't work. At this point, your student is still struggling with X, Y, Z. I had a lot of students like that. And having to break that to parents, like look, here we did this, we did this, we've done all of these things, but why don't we try? So separate setting is a thing, like if your child is in a 12 to 1, which is 12 students, one special education teacher, one para, and your child is receiving the education and academic support that is most needed for their level of functioning. And empowering parents with that has been what I've been able to succeed in the most. Julian: And I think that's the key to what you said, is that there's levels to the support. You know, what we want to make sure to point out is the vast majority of students with IEPs are in general education classrooms. It's much more — a smaller percentage are in those different situations like you described. But the vast majority of students get accommodations or modifications within a general education setting. But no, your child should not be treated differently. At the bottom line, that is a myth and it has been debunked. Christina: It has been debunked. Julian: Let's go on to myth number two. Christina: Myth number two: "My child is smart, and smart kids don't need special education." There's a huge misconception that special education or a child being put in special education may lead a family to refuse services and supports because of the fear of "Oh, this means my kid is dumb." There are students who are twice exceptional, really gifted, but maybe have ADHD or being put in special education. I've always explained to parents in the most simplest form, and obviously it's more nuanced than this. But we are giving your child like a script for what they need to learn best. And we figure that out by teamwork. Smart and special education — they're not mutually exclusive. You don't get put in special education because you're not smart. Julian: I find that a lot of my conversation revolves around helping parents understand that even the word "smart" is a very nuanced thing. Like, what does that mean? We know through our educational training there's multiple ways that you can display intelligence. Just because I might not show linguistic intelligence doesn't mean that my kinesthetic intelligence isn't high, doesn't mean that I can't do all these other different things. And our job is to make individualized education as focused and purposeful for our students as possible. And we know that the vast majority of people who do have IEPs are not intellectually disabled. So another myth debunked. Let's go on to myth number three: "My parenting caused my child to need special education." Christina: I found that. Julian: That's a lot. That's heavy. Because I've felt that. I've felt that. I've seen parents feel that. You're sitting across them in the meeting and you explain that services are going to have to happen. And their facial expression, just the rush of emotions, right? Those are our babies. Those are our babies. And I don't care what anybody says, that's a hard thing to hear. That's a hard thing to not want to blame yourself immediately when you hear that something's wrong with my child and it's my fault. Christina: And to sign and IEP means I did something wrong. And I think even myself, having gone through this process, I actually felt this. What did I do wrong? Julian: I mean, I think there's a couple of things and we're seeing that it's not anything that you did as a parent to cause this situation. And a lot of times when they hear it from somebody that's in education and there's that trust that's built, then it takes the edge off a little bit of hearing that heavy news. So it looks like we got myth number three debunked. All right. Myth number four. All right, Christine, that's you. Christina: Myth number four: "My child doesn't really have a disability. My child is choosing to misbehave." I would say this myth is one that gets under my skin and so irritates me. I see this especially with children who've been diagnosed with emotional behavioral disabilities or disturbances, or where I would say that it's not so much the academic component, but other components of school that are the thing that they're struggling with. ADHD and attention, hyperactivity, or even oppositional defiant disorder, especially in a culture of of people of color. Like I have cousins who are diagnosed with ADHD. I have cousins who were diagnosed with various emotional behavior disturbances, and we didn't believe it. It was like, no, you're choosing to disobey. But the scariest part for me was places where I saw teachers misunderstand that component of like, no, this is a choice they're making. Or personalizing, like "Not paying attention? You don't respect me." Or, like skittish eyes everywhere is like "You're choosing to ignore me on purpose." Julian: There's such a fine line between understanding when this is an active chosen behavior, like I'm choosing to just not follow directions, versus things that are not a choice. Like the child at some point can't control it or doesn't have the tools or strategies or support to deal with that. You know, I've seen, especially in my experience, a lot of our Black boys. Christina: I was going to go there. I always find myself bracing myself for those boys in particular, Black boys in particular, because there's just been an overrepresentation of them, as diagnosed as emotionally/behaviorally disturbed, and protecting them when that is, in fact, what the issue is. Part of it is educating parents around discipline styles and what does or doesn't work. There's that stigma like it's a choice. It's my favorite as a parent that I've been big on, like notifying my family about is like, maybe there was a bad choice, but there is no inherently bad child. Julian: Again, going back to what we said earlier with one of the prior myths, there's a lot of historical experiences that people of color have gone through. I know I went through it in my own school experience. I know a lot of my families to this day still feel that way when they walk in the school building. And so making sure that they understand that there's a whole process to determine whether or not there is a disability there versus if this is just a choice that the child is making, is really important to understand — that it's not just out of the blue that this child's doing this. Like there is a reason for it.Christina: So even if it isn't diagnosed, what is the need that you have that I'm not meeting? And I think when I've been able to ask myself — I need to ask my son that, like, what do you need right now? He had a meltdown today. We're braiding his hair and getting ready for school. Tomorrow is his first day. He has really long hair and he's like, big day. He's like big feelings. Like, everything was just like, oh, and like, like in a very dramatic way. And I stopped. I was like — because I was getting frustrated. I was like, what do you need? You need something. Like, "I'm so nervous about school.". And it was just like tears. And I was like, oh, OK, so this is what I really was. It isn't about the hair. I'm not doing something wrong. Because automatically it's like, what am I doing wrong? What, you know, like frustration with myself. And I was like, well, not what do you need? And sometimes our kids don't have the words, even the the oldest of them. Julian: And that leads us to our last myth for today. Myth number five: "As a parent, I don't know how to help my child." It's a myth that comes up a lot, especially during eligibility determination meetings or even during IEP review meetings. People are wondering, "I really don't know what to do." What's your response? Christina: Well, my response is, "You do. You're here. You're supporting your child. You're advocating for your child, and you're doing all of the things you need to do as a parent." I do like to put ownership on the teachers and schools and the system as well, right? Like here we are doing this part. You showed up. You're acknowledging your child has this need and you called out of work. Or you sometimes are at threat for losing your job because you have to go to all of these meetings and, like, you are doing the thing. If you're talking to me about the thing your child needs, then you're doing it. And reaffirming parents in that — no, you are doing what, you know how to help your kid because you're asking for help. Maybe you don't know how to teach them to read in English because that's not your first language and you don't know how to read in English. But you do know how to advocate that your child is having a need in this area. Julian: I mean, it's a simple thing, but it's one of those that sometimes you need to hear somebody else say it to you because you go back and you go to sleep at night thinking like, what am I doing wrong? I don't know what I'm doing with this. You've got all these things going on and then you hear somebody else who knows your child and they reaffirm that. But that's all it takes. So not overanalyzing it and just really realizing, I know what I need to do. I know my child. I've known you since you were in diapers. I know all the things. I taught you how to walk. I taught you how to talk. I'm going to help teach you how to do these things, too. Christina: Yeah. I taught you how to use a bathroom. Miraculous, because potty training — oof, rough. Julian: Oh, yeah, that took a while. At the Saavedra household it took a while. Christina: It was a mission, right? It was a mission. If you can do that, you can do anything. Julian: That ends with myth number five debunked. You know what you're doing, parents, you know exactly what you're doing. And if you don't know, you will find a way. You will find a way. At this point, before we leave out, we wanted to just give some tips, some specific tips on what you can do as a parent or a parenting adult or somebody that's an advocate for a child in your life to help out and really make sure that your child or student is getting what they need. So the first tip that I want to share with everybody out there is really know your own biases about special education. Know yourself. Know what you think, know your own experiences, know some of the things that you might come to the table with so that you can address them. And I say that because a lot of us don't even realize the things that we're bringing to the table if we don't actually sit down and think about it. And I decided as a teacher, I'm going to learn the process. I'm going to ask all the questions. And I think it took a while for me to really understand that I came to that realization where I need to check myself. Before I sit in front of students and try to do this work. I need to check myself. Christina: I went through the same thing. I would say even before being the parent of a child who had learning differences, it was this "Oh well, if I did it it. Like I'm from Brooklyn, I'm Puerto Rican. My parents speak Spanish. I was low-income. If I could do it, you could do it." That's not always true. I didn't live sometimes — I didn't live in a shelter. I didn't have a parent, you know, struggling with whatever struggles they were having that may not have been the most ideal for students. I wasn't in a charter school. I went to a very wealthy, very wealthy — we were the minority, right? With not that many of us there, but that was a privilege in and of itself. And like knowing the privileges and having to check myself on that as well, that like my experience isn't universal. And I think that even as a parent, right, for me, I'm much more — I was the kid who was reading all the time. My son is the kid who's running all the time. And learning how to differentiate that. He doesn't learn in the way that I do. And so in that way, I have to be able to support him, because my experience isn't his experience. So I think checking yourself is absolutely one of the best ways to navigate this process. Julian: So another tip is talk with a teacher or administrator you trust and ultimately find a support system. A lot of us in the Black and brown community have had adverse situations with school. Like we either have had history that is not so great with the school experience. And so that ability to find somebody we trust is incredibly important. I'm proud that I serve that role for a lot of families. You know, they see me, they know me. I put that out there that, you know, we come from the same type of situation and we can talk. And they'll come and ask me, even if I'm not in the meeting at all or I'm not involved in it, they might call me later or ask me "Mr. Saavedra, let's sit down and actually tell me what's going on here." Finding a teacher that you trust or an adult that you trust in the building is something that is really going to help a long way, because they're going to shoot straight and they're going to give you some of those jargony words that you can drop when you're in some of those meetings to make sure people in the meetings understand that you know what you're talking about. So talking to a teacher you trust is really important. And Christina, what about talking to other families? What advice do you have on how families can find other families who are going through the same thing? Christina: Yeah, you can go to a social worker. You can ask your teacher. You can ask, who are some people who — maybe they can't give you the child's name or anything like that, but are there support groups or is there help? Go to Understood.org. Find the resource in the community that's going to make you not feel so isolated. As an education advocate, one of the meetings that I had with a parent, she called me after the meeting was over and she was like, "Thank you. This is the first time I've ever felt understood. Like, I'm not alone. Like, you knew and you didn't blame me." And, like, she was in tears. And to me, I was just simply someone who understood. Julian: She said the word "understood" a few times. Shameless plug. Understood.org, Understood Facebook group, or Understood even has a free community app, Wunder. W-U-N-D-E-R, Wunder. They're all great resources. But just go out there and find people that really are in the same boat and have that support. Last tip. As your child's biggest advocate, we cannot stress enough: Think about what is it that you want for this child's experience. And once you have startrf thinking about like, what is it you want school to be like, sit down and just start writing out a list. What are these three or five like non-negotiable things that no matter what happens, I want to make sure that this is part of my child's school experience. So thinking going about like the myth we shared earlier: "I don't know what to do." You actually do, because you've thought about what is it that I want for this experience? So it's really being prepared when you're having conversations, or when things are going haywire, or you're having all these different feelings, you can go back to this list of these things that you and your family has identified as really non-negotiable things that need to happen during the school experience. And it could be really simple. I know my wife and I did this for our kids. We thought about — we want our kids to just play at recess. That's non-negotiable. They have recess. We want them to play. We want them to socialize. We want them to make friends and have deep and lasting relationships. That's just a non-negotiable. Christina: Yeah. And I found that one way to make that not so abstract for parents is to think about what is the thing that causes your child the most distress. Is it, for example, in some examples, is like my kid freaks out before a test. They struggle. They're fearful, they're anxious, they're.... OK. You can ask for more testing time. You can say you want extended testing time on the IEP. So finding ways like — because they're often, it's like they need all of the help and it's like, yes, but what is the thing that is the most stressful in the house? That's the thing you want to ask for help with. And I think I have found in my experience that has been what helps parents navigate that process a little bit easier. Julian: Sadly, our time has come to an end, but Christina, I can't thank you enough. Because, one, it's just a pleasure talking. Like, we could talk like this for hours. But two, the expert knowledge you have as a mom. Christina: Thank you. Julian: He has a great mom. But then all those students, the fact that you've worked with so many families, I can just hear the love in your voice. Keep fighting the good fight. And you are always welcome to come back and join us to give us some more tips. Take care. You've been listening to "The Opportunity Gap" from the Understood Podcast Network. This show is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Is there a topic you'd like us to cover? We want to hear from you. Email us at OpportunityGap@Understood.org. If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode. Understood.org is a resource dedicated to helping people who learn and think differently discover their potential and thrive. Learn more at understood.org/mission. "The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Cin Pim and Julie Rawe. Briana Berry is our production director. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Laura Key is our editorial director, Scott Cocchiere is our creative director, and Seth Melnick is our executive producer. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.
8 teen and tween books with characters who learn and think differently
When we relate to characters, or when the topic is something that reflects our own lives, books are often more meaningful (and fun to read). Check out these great reads for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers who learn and think differently. They feature characters with ADHD, dyslexia, and other differences. Be sure to have a look at the nonfiction choices, too — they’re great sources of information for teens.Hank Zipzer, by Henry WinklerYou may know actor Henry Winkler from his role as “The Fonz” on the TV show Happy Days. Winkler has lived with dyslexia all his life. With co-author Lin Oliver and illustrator Jesse Joshua Watson, Winkler created the Hank Zipzer series about “the world’s greatest underachiever,” a boy with dyslexia. The series is written for kids 9–12 and deals with learning differences in a funny and sensitive way. Titles include Summer School! What Genius Thought That Up? and The Night I Flunked My Field Trip.Trout and Me, by Susan ShreveTrout and Me is a fictional story about 11-year-old Ben, who gets into trouble because he has ADHD. But Ben — who also has dyslexia — is not a bad kid. Then a new boy named Trout shows up in class. Trout also has ADHD. But Trout is a much bigger troublemaker than Ben. Can Ben convince the adults that it’s the ADHD, not Trout, creating problems? This story for kids 9–12 takes a frank look at ADHD and gives kids a lot to ponder.Bluefish, by Pat SchmatzBluefish is a fiction book about an eighth grader, Travis, who can’t read. In this witty novel for ages 12 and up, Travis finds an unusual friend and a determined teacher who both help him succeed at his new school. The book is about the power of literature — and the power of friendship.Backwards Forward: My Journey Through Dyslexia, by Catherine HirschmanThe nonfiction book Backwards Forward: My Journey Through Dyslexia is a firsthand account of living with dyslexia. The book was co-written by Hirschman, a 32-year-old woman with learning differences, and her mother. The authors offer a personal window into their lives, beginning in early childhood and continuing through adulthood. Of special interest are Hirschman’s descriptions of how her struggles with dyslexia affected her relationship with friends and family. The book is good for older kids (middle and high school) as well as parents.ADHD in HD: Brains Gone Wild, by Jonathan ChesnerADHD in HD: Brains Gone Wild is a fun and practical nonfiction book about living with ADHD. The book features bright colors and designs. More than 60 short chapters address distinct topics, such as dating, homework, and family life. It explores how kids with ADHD can adjust to or accomplish things that don’t come easily. This book is for kids 13 and up.Caged in Chaos: A Dyspraxic Guide to Breaking Free, by Victoria BiggsThis nonfiction book was written by a teenage girl with dyspraxia, which affects motor skill development and often exists with learning differences. Caged in Chaos: A Dyspraxic Guide to Breaking Free is a positive, practical guide for teens struggling with the physical, social, emotional, and learning differences caused by dyspraxia. In a conversational style, Biggs describes the primary effects of her learning difference — disorganization, clumsiness, and poor short-term memory. And she also talks about the bullying, low self-esteem, and loneliness she endures. This book is for kids 13 and up.Learning Disabilities: The Ultimate Teen Guide, by Penny Hutchins Paquette and Cheryl Gerson TuttleLearning Disabilities: The Ultimate Teen Guide is a highly readable nonfiction book. It offers teens a solid base of information about learning disabilities. The book includes definitions, coping strategies, tips on interpreting test results, legal considerations, and postsecondary school options. Each chapter includes a description of how it feels to have a particular disability. It describes symptoms and offers practical suggestions and resources. Profiles, success stories, and quotes are sprinkled throughout.College Success for Students With Learning Disabilities, by Cynthia Simpson and Vicky SpencerAs high school students with LD start to think about college, how do they plan for their college years? There are no IEPs in college, so a student’s skills in self-advocacy become even more important. College Success for Students with Learning Disabilities provides guidance and practical strategies specifically for students with learning disabilities so they can make the most of their college experience.Looking for more ideas? Find out why graphic novels are a great choice for kids who struggle with reading.
How’d You Get THAT Job?!ADHD, invisible disabilities, and making the digital world accessible
Albert Kim is passionate about digital accessibility because of his ADHD, dyslexia, and invisible disabilities. He wants you to join him. Albert Kim first got interested in digital accessibility because of his ADHD, dyslexia, and invisible disabilities. He wanted to make websites and apps usable for everyone, including himself. After all, he uses a screen reader and text-to-speech to read text online. But when Albert started to explore a career in digital accessibility, friends discouraged him. They said it wasn’t a good career path. Albert decided to try anyway. Within a few years, demand for his expertise exploded. People who had discouraged him before were now asking about jobs. In this episode, Albert shares how to start a career in digital accessibility, and why he wants others with learning differences to join the field. He also talks about the challenges of being a first-generation college student and immigrant from South Korea. Related resourcesConnect with Albert on LinkedIn or Twitter to learn more about digital accessibility.Read about our commitment to accessibility.Check out free assistive technology tools online. Episode transcriptAlbert: So I started talking to different people around me who are working in tech industry, but then most people were discouraging. Most people actually didn't even know about this field. Most people didn't really recommend it. But growing up in such a hardship raised by a single mom and everything, yeah, it is challenging. I get it. But I went through a lot of challenges already.Eleni: From the Understood Podcast Network, this is "How'd You Get THAT Job?!," a podcast that explores the unique and often unexpected career paths of people with learning and thinking differences. My name is Eleni Matheou, and I'm a user researcher here at Understood. That means I spend a lot of time thinking about how we find jobs we love that reflect how we learn and who we are. I'll be your host.If you have a learning or thinking difference or a disability, you might've heard of the word "accessibility." This means making things as usable as possible by as many people as possible. Well, our next guest, Albert Kim, is an accessibility expert. He also has ADHD, dyslexia, and other invisible disabilities, which is part of the reason he feels like he found his calling.Hi, Albert, welcome to the show.Albert: Yeah, thank you for having me.Eleni: So, I thought a nice place to start would be just like, kind of explain it, what it means to be an accessibility expert. I'm on the product team at Understood. And so I work really closely with the experience and design team, and I've actually worked on a few accessibility projects, so I'm pretty familiar. But for our listeners, I thought it might be valuable for you to explain what it might mean to be an accessibility expert and just describe it to them as simple as possible.Albert: Basically, the work that I'm doing, accessibility specialist role, it actually focuses on digital accessibility. So just like buildings, there's a law to make it accessible for people with disabilities or anyone to be able to access for wheelchair users and things like that. Digital space, same thing for digital products, whether that is like an app or a website, it needs to be accessible for everyone. So I basically help companies make these digital products accessible to everyone. And it's not just people with disabilities, because disability has three different categories, like permanent, temporary, situational. For example, my mother, as she gets older, her vision is lower, and so her text size has to be bigger, and things like that. So it's a really interdisciplinary subject. It involves human/computer interaction, design, computer science, and psychology. So yeah, it's a very fascinating subject area.Eleni: I think one thing that we talk about UX is really I'm trying to understand the state of the person using the technology, whether that's like an emotional state or a physical state, and designing with that in mind.Albert: Yeah, of course, mm-hm.Eleni: I would love to hear why accessibility is so important to you and why you chose to dedicate your career to accessibility.Albert: For me, accessibility is really important because I deeply empathize with the struggles. I myself have disabilities. I was born with some disabilities and also attained some growing up. And so for me, the representation and advocacy for people with disabilities is really important.Growing up, I was born in a South Korean family. And South Korea has a lot of stigma toward disability, especially invisible disabilities, like mental health and things like that. And my parents have never gone to any school. They never got any formal education. So, for me, growing up, I've never really seeked out for any medical help or any diagnosis for my disabilities. And even when I became adult and tried to seek for medical help by myself, my parents were against it. Because they just simply didn't want their child having a diagnosis of a certain disability and things like that.So having gone through such a struggle, even within my family, in my environment, in my society, wanting to be accepted as who I am, I deeply empathize with such struggle for anyone, honestly, not just people with disabilities. When I came across this subject, this field, for me, it was like a calling. It was like a life mission. And especially, even within digital accessibility, these invisible disabilities that cognitive and learning disabilities, as well as mental health, have not been traditionally covered much. Which it was very absurd to me because if not accessibility area talks about these issues, then where else can we talk about it, right?Eleni: Definitely.Albert: So, kind of felt like a calling, and I feel like I had to jump in and really bring more representation of people with disabilities, similar disabilities that I have, in this field.Eleni: That's definitely something that I've heard in my research too. When we talk more broadly about diversity and inclusion, often disability is left out. And then even within the disability spaces, invisible disabilities are left out of that conversation too. So there's, like, a number of layers. And as you said, learning disabilities in particular are often, you know, not considered. I would love to hear some examples of where you've noticed perhaps digital platforms not being as accessible as they could be for learning disabilities and, like, a common mistake or gap that you see on these platforms.Albert: I think one of the challenges I have is the reading comprehension difficulty due to my dyslexia. And because of that, I use screen readers a lot. And a lot of websites, actually majority of websites, are inaccessible. And one of the most common thing is these screen readers are assistive technology that requires specific technical compatibility.But many websites are not designed and developed with these assistive technologies in mind. So for example, if I'm trying to use a screen reader to read the content, sometimes it might skip, like there is no, for example, alt text for images, or there is no coherent orders, and it's just really not the pleasant experience.So those are one of the biggest challenges. And also in terms of, from the mental health aspect, a lot of contents that might trigger mental health traumas, there is no trigger warning or the contents might be just dangerous subjects, right? Dangerous things. And being able to write contents in plain language rather than overcomplicating things. And a lot of it is design content. Those are the biggest parts that I find a lot of issues.Eleni: And I know you mentioned that you didn't necessarily see some of your diagnoses considered, so I thought it might be helpful for the audience, if you feel comfortable, to share the learning differences that you have.Albert: Yeah, thank you for asking, because I know there's a lot of stigma toward disabilities, and I know many times people tend to not to disclose. And I was advised not to disclose if I don't feel comfortable to, but I try to disclose as much information as possible, because I want to break that stigma a lot. And I have cognitive and learning disabilities, such as ADHD, dyslexia, OCD. I also have anxiety and depression, as well as PTSD. So, it's quite a lot, but these are the diagnoses that I got and been on medication for them. And I'm really fortunate to be able to find a good medical team who was able to help me out in this journey.Eleni: Yeah. I'm happy to hear that for you too. And thank you for being vulnerable and sharing all of those diagnoses. It is really important sometimes to be more open because that's setting an example for other people that might feel a little bit more shame, and it really reduces stigma around it, just talking about it.So you mentioned that when you discovered the accessibility space, you felt like it was truly your calling. I want to hear more about how you discovered it, you know, set you on that path.Albert: Actually, to share that story, I do need to share a little bit about my background because I think it's all connected.I was born in a family with domestic violence. So my mother, my sister, and I all escaped from my father. So, I was mostly raised by a single mom. I'm a first-generation college student, and we couldn't afford the cost. So I had to take a pause in my college. And at that point, I was trying to find out what can I do in terms of my career?And while I was going to college, I actually tried three different startups. I thought business success to be my fastest route to become financially independent and free so that I can support my family. So I tried different startups.And then I went to South Korean military because of the compulsory military service. And in the military, I served as a telecommunications specialist. And that was, like, the first time I kind of interacted with these more of a computer and technical things. And then after I came out, I was doing more of a digital consultant work. But then because of my startup experience previously, I got recruited by my friend and I was brought in as a business development manager. And while I was working for this tech startup, I realized, oh, like, in order for me to really get into this field, I do really need to understand more about computer science and coding and web development. So I started doing a UCLA Extension certificate in web development applications programming.And while I was studying that subject, I came across digital accessibility. At first, I was very fascinated by the subject because I never, ever imagined there is an existing field for this specific digital accessibility. And when I came across, I felt like, like, this is super cool. To me, it was kind of like looking at robots or AI, so I automatically got drawn to it and I started looking up, oh, so what are the digital accessibility guidelines for people with invisible disabilities or people like me? And I couldn't really find much resources. Oh, that's strange. Maybe I did a poor research. So I started reaching out to different people on LinkedIn and also attending different events and conferences to see maybe if I attend these professional events, I'll be able to hear more about that subject. But I still couldn't find much information. And then I realized, oh, wow, so most of the digital accessibility conversations were focused on physical disabilities, blind, deaf, and motor. But invisible disabilities have not been covered much. So, that's when I felt like, oh, it's my calling. And I need to really get into this field and try to bring more representation.Eleni: Yeah. And that's something that we also hear a lot, where people identify, like, an opportunity or a gap and for people that are more risk-averse, it's like, oh, but like that's uncharted territory. Whereas for others, it's like, well, that's actually really exciting. You can be the pioneer in that space if no one is doing it. And as you said, there's definitely a need for it. Like, you identified a personal need for it. So, there must be others feeling the same way, right?Albert: First, I didn't know how to start. So I started talking to different people around me who are working in tech industry. But then most people were giving me advice that was discouraging. Then most people actually didn't even know about this field existing. And second, most people didn't really recommend it. Like, it's an unclear career path, and the companies that have accessibility teams are only the large companies. So, I heard a lot of discouragement. But growing up in such a hardship, raised by a single mom and everything, yeah, it is challenging. I get it. But I went through a lot of challenges already, but I still overcame. So why not try? And what an interesting life because after I got into this field, shortly after, the demand has soared extremely a lot. So compared to two years ago, there was an article talking about the job increase in this field was 70 percent in one year.And because of the COVID and how the digital transformation is occurring, and a lot of government services and public services are also transitioning to digital, there is this soaring demand for making websites and apps accessible for everyone so that public services are available for everyone. So now the people who were discouraged at me before are now coming to me and saying —Eleni: Congratulating you.Albert: Congratulating me and also asking for help. They want to learn more about it.Eleni: Yeah. And I think that takes a lot of courage to block out societal pressure and other people's opinions. And just really look inward in terms of what you want and being guided by that.Albert: And I think that neurodiverse people are actually very strong at that because we've overcome that kind of stigma, always resisting.Eleni: Definitely. Yeah. We talk about that a lot. You know, if you already feel othered in whatever way, then it's actually a lot easier to go against the status quo and go against the grain because you already are. And I think it's really important to point out some of the strengths and positivity around neurodiversity.Albert: Yeah, thank you. I really hope that more and more neurodiverse people pursue this field because there's a huge demand for neurodiversity representation in this field. And it's a really, really fascinating subject that I think a lot of people will find very meaningful because you get all the benefits of working in the tech industry, like flexible location. And most companies are nowadays remote and flexible hours. But at the same time, you do work that actually benefits people with disabilities and humanity. So, it just gives me a lot of life fulfillment and meaning in my work and everything.Eleni: Oh, that's so beautiful to hear. You know, you mentioned flexibility in the tech industry and how perhaps working in tech could be a little bit more inclusive or more accessible. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that and why that's important to you?Albert: If I were to work at a traditional company where the business practice and work environment is very traditional, it would be very challenging. Because of my disability, sometimes I need to have flexible work hours. Also being able to work remotely at my home where I feel comfortable gives me a lot of room for accommodating my disabilities. And another thing is I feel like the tech industry, the culture and the community itself, is very supportive. It's all about, like, supporting each other, open-source projects, and we're all trying to help each other, so that is a huge plus for people like me, who is a foreigner, in a foreign country, without a college degree. And then being a first-generation college student with a lack of guidance, it means so much to have that kind of support, especially digital accessibility community. Because a lot of people in digital accessibility resonate and empathize with people with disabilities and actually having disability is a huge, huge strength, because you have a deep insight and understanding of users with disabilities. And that is very precious and highly appreciated skill and experience in this field. So I think that was one of the biggest part was the people in this field were just very welcoming, loving, and supportive, and that is really hard to find in other fields, I feel like.Eleni: And you also mentioned not finishing college and some of the challenges that you had from a financial perspective. But I would love to hear perhaps some other challenges that might've been related to, like, your learning and thinking differences or your other mental health challenges.Albert: A lot of challenges are so subtle and embedded in my life that I don't even know it exists. For example, I have a hard time with estimating time. So my doctor was telling me because of my low executive functioning in my brain, if I'm estimating a time for a certain work or certain task, I can pretty much assume that it is going to be wrong. And another thing is balancing my focus. It's very hard to balance my focus.For example, I have ADHD and I get distracted to a lot of environmental stimuli. So when I'm working, I turn off a lot of other noises in my room and try to be able to focus so that I don't get distracted. But at the same time, I have OCD as well. So for me, there's no middle ground. And it's, like, either I'm very distracted or I'm very, very, very focused, maybe too focused, to the point that I'm not prioritizing certain tasks and moving forward. It's kind of like a bicycle when you're riding a bicycle on a downhill, it's hard to stop for me. It's very hard to stop when I'm going down already into the path of ADHD. So learning coping mechanism to help me balance that has been very challenging.Also another thing is, because of my anxiety, new environment, where it's my first-time experience, for example, let's say that I'm trying to go to medical school. I've never been to medical school before. Then there's lots of new information out there that I don't know. To me, that is a huge uncertainty, and that overwhelms me a lot. So it gives me anxiety and it triggers my OCD a lot. So I get obsessed about like reading things and learning things because I'm so anxious that I feel like if I miss one word, I might miss a huge chunk of information.So it took me a long time to really learn the coping mechanism that it's OK to fail. It's OK to try. And whether or not you fail, you will learn something, and it'll be good for you. So, just there was constant struggle but definitely I think as first step was getting medical help, and it helped me tremendously.Eleni: That was super interesting to hear how your different diagnoses interact and how they show up for you, and how one can actually then trigger the other. And since you started talking about advice, I thought that would be a really good segue to ask you about other advice you have for young people with thinking and learning differences, particularly those that might be interested in getting into the accessibility space.Albert: The main thing that I really want to convey to people who are going through a similar struggle as I am is that you are not alone. I'm here, there are ton of other friends around me who have similar struggles. We are here. And you are heard, you are accepted, you are loved. So I think finding community is really powerful.I started this community called Accessibility NextGen, because I wanted to build a supportive community for anyone who wants to learn about digital accessibility, to be able to help each other and make more friends, literally, like, that was the main reason why. Because when I was trying to get into this field, it was so challenging, and there are people, a ton of people, who are more than happy to help you.I and tons of my friends want to help people with disabilities and especially neurodiversity to get into this field. So please let me, let us, help you by reaching out to us, or connecting with us, or just shooting a DM anytime. The name of the community is Accessibility NextGen, and it's on Meetup.Also, you can find me on LinkedIn, Albert Kim, or my Twitter handle is djkalbert, but the Slack channel is actually invitation-only, so once you actually message me, I can send the invitation and then go from there.Eleni: Thank you so much for joining, Albert. And thank you for all of the work that you do in the accessibility space.Albert: Well, thank you so much, Eleni, for having me today. And I hope that my story will at least help someone feel that they are not alone. So, thank you.Eleni: I hope so too.This has been "How'd You Get THAT Job?!," a part of the Understood Podcast Network. You can listen and subscribe to "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you heard today, tell someone about it."How'd You Get THAT Job?!" is for you. So we want to make sure you're getting what you need. Go to u.org/thatjob to share your thoughts and to find resources from every episode. That's the letter U, as in Understood, dot O R G, slash that job.Do you have a learning difference and a job you're passionate about? Email us at thatjob@understood.org. If you'd like to tell us how you got THAT job, we'd love to hear from you. As a nonprofit and social impact organization, Understood relies on the help of listeners like you to create podcasts like this one, to reach and support more people in more places. We have an ambitious mission to shape the world for difference, and we welcome you to join us in achieving our goals. Learn more at understood.org/mission. "How'd You Get THAT Job?!" was created by Andrew Lee and is produced by Gretchen Vierstra and Justin D. Wright, who also wrote our theme song. Laura Key is our editorial director at Understood. Scott Cocchiere is our creative director. Seth Melnick and Briana Berry are our production directors. Thanks again for listening.
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