Smart Kids With LD

Right about now, midway through summer, the euphoria of just a few weeks past is fading fast. The promise of long, lazy days that your child with LD was relishing is turning into your worst nightmare—long, lazy days, with no end in sight. It’s not too late to get your couch potato moving. Here are some guidelines to help make the rest of summer a positive experience for everyone:

1. Reframe the experience. Think of summer vacation as a time to relax and regroup. Some students benefit from light academic reinforcement, but avoid replacing downtime with an intensive study regime. Look for activities that offer the opportunity for physical and emotional relaxation. Use the free time to support your child’s interests, build self-esteem, and reinforce special contributions.
2. Choose activities that promote his strengths. Don’t give a long book list to a child who struggles with reading, and don’t plan a 30-stop family tour for a child who dislikes transitions. But if music, art, soccer, or stargazing is his thing, find a class or group of likeminded kids to encourage his interest. Nurturing his talents is likely to pay off with improved self-esteem that may carry into the next school year.
3. Be spontaneous. Fill your backpacks with a change of clothes, sunscreen, car games, DVDs, and snacks, and take a short overnight or weekend road trip to a nearby lake, hiking trail, sports arena, or amusement park. Be a sport, and let your child pick the venue, or surprise her with someplace you know she wants to go. That’s what summer memories are made of.
4. Look for specialized programs. It’s not too late. Summer experiences range from the incredibly positive to the astonishingly negative. Make sure that you choose as carefully as you would any enrichment activity.
5. Play, play, play. Parents of children with LD often forget that kids still need to chase fireflies, build sandcastles, watch TV, and sometimes just sleep until noon. Get creative. Think of things to do in your own backyard (literally and figuratively). Challenge your kids to put on a play, paint a mural, make a video.

Keep in mind that your child is likely to do better in the fall if his summer is filled with fun. And you can help make that happen with a little effort. Both of you will be the beneficiaries.

If your summer plans include an extensive trip, check out 10 Tips for Summer Trips.

Send us a comment with your ideas for turning summer doldrums into summer fun.

By Marcia B. Rubinstien, MA, CEP

Learning differences may have nothing to do with the ability to work at a summer job, but they may have everything to do with the business of finding one. Children who have executive function disorders, reading problems, attention deficits, nonverbal learning disabilities, or social anxiety may need coaching before attempting to enter the world of work. You know your child best. Make an assessment of strengths and weaknesses and develop a list of tips that will make the job search easier. Here are some ideas to help get the process started.

1. Help your child prepare a resume. If she’s not a sparkling conversationalist, it will ease her into the interview with questions about topics she knows.
2. Most adults find jobs through networking. Explore your family and friends’ connections or have your child do the same.
3. Look into courses that will make her more marketable. Computer technology, web design, or lifesaving are skills suited to summer work.
4. Encourage him to identify his interests, then help him find the areas he might enjoy. A cyclist might be a great help in a bike shop; a bibliophile could be happy in a library.
5. If she’s worried about reading the application and filling it out on the spot, pick up the forms, and let her fill them out at home.
6. If he can’t find work outside the home, hire and pay for him to do jobs around the house.

Summer jobs offer more than extra pocket money. They offer kids the chance to interact with the “real world” and the promise that one day they’ll be independent and productive. For kids with learning differences, that is the greatest promise of all.

Kids may be at greater risk of losing math skills than reading skills during the summer months, according to research noted by Frances Nankin, the Director of Cyberchase. This animated daily math series on PBS KIDS GO! features numerous ways to help kids avoid the “summer slump” in math.

Check out the eye-catching activities described online at www.pbskidsgo.org/cyberchase including number puzzles, keeping track of summer earnings (and developing a budget to help with money math), charting progress in self-designed exercise programs such as swimming or biking, or learning about estimating – and when an answer that is close to the right answer is good enough for the question at hand.

Strengthen your kids’ math skills over the summer? It may be as simple as engaging your kids in the activities on Cyberchase on your local PBS station – including “sneak peeks” at new episodes, photos, and behind-the-scenes videos.

With the school year coming to an end, many families are looking forward to kicking back and relaxing in the sun. For those of you choosing to send your child with LD and ADHD off to camp, don’t forget to prepare him and the camp staff for the experience.

It’s not uncommon to want to free your child from academic “labels” in the summer, and you may be reluctant to let the camp know about his learning difference. But with the right preparation, camps can match the right counselors or activity schedule to your child’s needs, creating a summer experience that is relaxed, fun, and productive.

Kids with LD often have trouble in social situations, with fine or gross motor skills, or with attention issues that can make transitioning from a well-structured school environment to a more relaxed camp environment a bit of a challenge. Informing the camp director about your child’s strengths and challenges can make the summer more successful than you or your child ever hoped.  Read how one parent told her son’s camp about her child’s NLD in “Dear Camp Director.”

Put some kids who struggle with LD and ADHD on a soccer field, and they will finally feel in control of their environment–able to show off their skills and work off their abundant energy. However, for many others, the soccer field (or any other sports venue) is a place they’d rather avoid at all costs.

Summertime is a perfect time to find the place your child will feel successful, to build confidence by exploring areas of interest in which your child may excel.  A traditional sports camp experience may be perfect should you have a budding athlete, but know that there are many other options available to children and teens over the summer break.  Some kids, who can’t throw a ball but love the outdoors, may enjoy camps that focus on outdoor experiences close to home.  Others may choose to explore  cooking, science, or photography, or classes in drama or the arts. For children who march to the beat of a different drummer, a wilderness camp experience may be the perfect antidote to feelings of fearfulness and inadequacy.

Summer is a wonderful time to build self-esteem through trying out new activities, and with a little bit of luck, they may become the basis for new friendships as well as new skills.