Sue DeAraugo

Having a child who finds it difficult to learn can be a challenge and often heartbreaking. I have two out of three children who experienced learning difficulties. They would both often say “I am so dumb”. When children are in a school environment and feel embarrassed and uncomfortable being teased about their learning ability it can be difficult to instil confidence in them.

Apart from using high profile success stories they could relate to as examples, I would always try to focus on the most positive talents of both children, whether it was how well they could tell a joke, how good they were on the computer or how well they could converse with an adult. All these things take a certain skill or talent, be it memory, articulation, common sense or creativity. Everyone is good at something! Often the most insignificant things to a child such as common sense are the most important tools in adult life. A kid who is great at computer based skills may very well excel in an IT career, a child who can converse easily may end up with an enormous talent in sales.

In my son’s case, he had a terrible time learning all of the core academic subjects but had an amazing sense of humour, a quick wit and a warm heart, which were always pointed out to him. He is now forging a successful career as a breakfast radio announcer and producing radio commercials. He still has trouble with spelling, but has found ways to get around those problems. He enjoys his job and uses the skills he has learned to further his career.

In my daughters case, there were a few things she enjoyed at an early age that she became passionate about and ended up using both singing and swimming in her adult life to develop a career path. She now has a career as a singer and still has problems with spelling and writing; her way of managing the problem is to actually tell people she can’t spell very well.

The most important lessons I learned as a parent of children with a learning problem were mostly by trial and error. Organisations such as BOLD didn’t exist. I did learn these things though:

• Instil self confidence by recognising a learning problem in one particular area, but point out other areas of learning they might be great at eg making good decisions or being good at remembering people's names.
• Surround them with positive friends, teachers, and family who recognise their talents.
• Where possible make a learning difficulty a positive energy rather than a negative.

In my experience, a child will be happier if a problem is recognised and managed rather than a large part of their time being spent trying to cure it.

The gift of confidence comes with focusing energy on the small things a child may enjoy and do well, even if it is as small as talking or drawing a picture.

 That’s what worked for us... 

Well done BOLD