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Dealing with teachers can renew old fears and make parents want to defend their children against the world. Most teachers want to help, and recognizing this will prepare you to be an integral part of the team that contributes to your shared goal – helping your child to get the best education possible.

In school, as in life, sometimes you “click” with a teacher and other times you may struggle to maintain civility.

Email is often a convenient and helpful way to communicate with your child’s teacher, but you should follow the same guidelines as for any other professional communication.

• Be aware that teachers get many email messages–and have many other responsibilities during their day–and may not be able to respond immediately to yours.
• Identify your child and sign your name. Include a phone number where you can be reached.
• Be diplomatic. You can’t take back an email message and email can be easily forwarded. Be calm, choose your words carefully and avoid criticizing the teacher. Don’t write and send an email when you are angry.
• Stick to school-related matters. Don’t forward chain mail, jokes, or frivolous information.
• Don’t forward someone else’s email, including a teacher’s, unless you have their permission.

If your student is having problems with his new teacher, try to implement the following:

• Encourage older students to be their own self-advocate. It is usually best for the student to try to talk to her teacher first to resolve a misunderstanding or conflict.
• If it is necessary for a parent to step in, treat the teacher as your adult partner in helping your child succeed and listen carefully to his or her concerns and expectations. Be positive, and work toward resolving conflict.
• Do not argue with or criticize the teacher in front of your child.
• Finally, if your student is achieving academically but dislikes the teacher, the experience could serve as a good life lesson in dealing with different personalities. Unless the environment is emotionally stressful, it may be best to help your child learn how to survive the next school year with a “difficult” teacher.

While we typically do not work with toddler-aged children, I found this video to be valuable and encourage parents with children of all ages to watch.

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From Parents.com, To The Max Blog
How Toddlers With Autism Behave: A Helpful New Video
by Ellen Seidman

Given the prevalence of autism these days, both statistically (about 1 in 88 kids has it) and in the news, it’s natural for new parents to watch their babies for signs of autism. Now a new video on the early signs of autism is available free to parents, and it’s very insightful.

Developed by autism researchers at Baltimore’s Kennedy Krieger Institute, the nine-minute Bringing The Early Signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder Into Focus video includes three clips of 1-year-olds who are developing in a typical way, and compares them to videos of children the same age showing signs of autism spectrum disorder. The video is divided into three parts: Seeing social opportunity through play, making social connections, and effective communication and sharing enjoyment.

Knowing the early signs of autism spectrum disorder is important; early intervention during a child’s critical developing years can make a tremendous difference, whether for autism or other special needs. Researchers say signs of autism can be spotted in infants as young as four months old; check out this month-by-month guide of autism signs. But watching children in a video can be particularly eye-opening—take a look, and do not hesitate to check in with your pediatrician if you have any concerns.

 CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO 

It’s the most wonderful time of year for students – summer vacation!  Summer vacation makes me a bit uneasy though because I know it’s also the time of year that the skills in math and reading children have worked so hard to learn in school can slide.  Unfortunately, this “summer slide” can leave them struggling to catch up when September rolls around in a few months.

Reading, in my opinion, is the cornerstone of education and arguably one of the most important skills to master in order to succeed at school and in life. Research shows that individuals who read avidly demonstrate improved cognitive abilities. They become creative thinkers and problem solvers.

Parents: I know it’s like pulling teeth to get your child to read when they would rather be swimming or catching lighting bugs.  But now, more than ever, it is important to find ways to make reading more enjoyable this summer and less of a chore.  Last September, I bookmarked a startling Washington Post article stating:

“Reading scores on the SAT for the high school class of 2012 reached a four-decade low, putting a punctuation mark on a gradual decline in the ability of college-bound teens to read passages and answer questions about sentence structure, vocabulary and meaning on the college entrance exam.”

For parents with elementary age students, you may feel like the SATs are light-years away.  I wish they were for you!  But this record low in reading scores should set off your alarm bells and be a reminder that the foundation for these skills must be set now.  This means your child cannot take a “summer vacation” from reading.

I encourage you to look into a summer book club program for your child that allows him/her to enjoy reading with peers but also hones skills like comprehension, time management and problem solving.   Thinking Organized’s summer program, A Summer Read Book Club, is currently accepting registration and will begin meeting the week of June 24.  Your local library is another great resource. For example, check out D.C. Public Library’s summer reading program or Montgomery County Public Library’s summer reading program.

Welcome summer and happy reading!

One of my high school students rushed into the office last week, breathlessly excited about the wonderful happenings in the life of a teenager: prom, summer and more. Meanwhile, when asked about her upcoming research paper, she opened her backpack, dumped most of the materials out and couldn’t locate the assignment. We’re coming into the home stretch before final exams and none of her work is organized. I know her parents are wondering the same thing I am, “When will she take ownership of material organization and help herself start researching from a position of strength?” Her anxiety built as she ran to the computer to see if she could access the information from her school’s website. Before she got too upset, I asked her to stop, take a deep breath and have an M&M (or two).

This young lady is not alone. Many students begin the year with an excellent structure of material organization in place and diligently maintain it for most of the year. By spring, often these systems dim in importance, overshadowed by busy schedules and enticing social opportunities. However, this is the perfect time to re-emphasize the benefits of keeping things organized. It should be gently pointed out that it is always important to be able to locate everything the student needs to prepare for tests and final exams. Additionally, time and energy (and peace of mind) are saved in the long run when the student takes an extra minute to file each document in the appropriate notebook or folder.

If thorough backpack reorganization is needed, take the time to do this now. Parents may need to check systems of material organization on a weekly basis during these last few busy months. If so, don’t beat yourself up. Everyone needs a reminder of the importance of keeping things in order and your consistency and persistence will eventually help your student to independently recognize when her systems of organization need attention. Our bubbly teenager will become independent in her material organization . . . we’re just not sure when!

I recently read an article in The Washington Post with the headline: Overinvolved parents can make college-aged children depressed, a new study says. To summarize, this study found “so-called helicopter parenting negatively affected college students by undermining their need to feel autonomous and competent. Students with over controlling parents also were more likely to be depressed and less satisfied with their lives.”

With a pool of less than 300 college-aged children, I find there to be a very fine line in publishing a study that claims “overinvolved parenting” will harm your child’s independence and overall emotional state.

The author of this study comments, “To find parents so closely involved with their college lives, contacting their tutors and running their schedules, is something new and on the increase. It does not allow independence and the chance to learn from mistakes.”

I take a different approach that some may consider a bit more controversial today. As a parent, I believe, you know your child the best. The ultimate goal is to raise your child to be self-sufficient. Yet, for some children, self-sufficiency may not come before college – and it may not come before or even after college. Some children will struggle and will still need help with schedules and advocacy, even from a distance.

Parents also need to be aware of their “helicoptering” and be sure it is for their child’s best interest versus their own peace of mind.  There are repercussions, some listed in the study, to being heavily involved if your child is capable of handling the stresses of college on their own.

Bottom-line: trust your parenting gut. This subject is not black or white and there needs to be a softer middle ground. You do need to let your children take risks, make mistakes and learn the value of independence, but just because your child is ready to leave the nest, doesn’t necessarily mean you become a bystander.

[If you are interested in learning more about how you can prepare to send your child off to college – I am hosting a parent session in our “Next Stop: College” seminar series.  Topics like understanding signs of struggle and knowing when to reach out to professors will be covered.  Find out more and register here.]

Being a parent has never been an easy job, but helping a child with executive functioning weaknesses can be even more stressful. Mothers and fathers set up systems to organize folders, binders and backpacks and then see their student getting in the car with crumbled papers everywhere. Careful structures are set in place for accomplishing homework and long term projects and then hours can be wasted on a teenage meltdown, an “important” phone call or a shopping emergency. Many of the parents I see complain that they hate feeling like they’re constantly nagging, especially when they can’t be with their child every hour of the day. When work schedules and other family members need attention as well, it can seem like most interactions with the disorganized child become a litany of “Did you do…?” It can be very frustrating for both parties.

However, take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back. Continual, consistent reinforcement is the only way to make permanent improvements in executive functions. No system is perfect and there will always be challenges to the daily schedule, but setting plans in place and trying to stick with them teaches your child that organizing time, material and thoughts are key to achieving objectives, whether personal, academic or career goals.

So when you feel like a harassing harridan, remember, you are doing what you are supposed to be doing to keep your student on track. Calm, persistent insistence on taking the necessary steps towards success will lead to times that you can take a break and celebrate accomplishment. And one day, surely your child will thank you for your gentle guidance in helping him reach his goals.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and start to the New Year.

Often, when I meet with students and/or their parents, I am reminded just how challenging executive function weaknesses can be. At the end of December, I met with a lovely young man and his mother to discuss his organization challenges.  The student had a very hard time knowing what assignments he needed to do, where he put his completed homework once he did it, what he had coming up next week and how much time he had to actually do the work on any given day.  Yes, we all know students who have similar struggles.  But, this young man was particularly challenged because not only was he struggling to keep his materials for school in one place, he also struggled with finding the articles of clothing that he needed to get dressed in the morning.  He took his shoes off when he got home the day before, but they “disappeared” by the next morning.  Try as she might, his mother designated particular places for shoes, but to no avail.  The morning was always frantic and the student was exhausted before he left the house.

This made me think that we all need to remember that children do not choose to be disorganized.  They are really not trying to make their lives more complicated, rather they are trying to “survive” with all of their belongings from day to day.  So, next time you get frustrated with your child, and believe me, there is reason to get exasperated,  remember that we have to keep reinforcing the structure set in place until the child had learned it.  This, of course, is not an easy task, but keep the faith, it WILL get better!

Many times throughout your child’s educational career, he will be required to write on a topic that is not of his choosing. Add in the pressures of not knowing the prompt ahead of time, having to write within a specific time period and being graded on multiple aspects of the essay and you can end up with a very stressed out student.

However, writing is an essential tool for your child to master in order to be successful in school. Many states have a writing assessment as part of their annual standardized testing. Additionally, in order to score well on the SATs, your child will need to write an organized, sophisticated, relatively error-free essay in 25 minutes.

The biggest problem I hear in my practice with writing is that students do not know where to begin. Sometimes they just start putting their ideas on paper and end up with a disorganized, unfocused jumble of thoughts that are difficult for a reader to follow. Other students are minimalists, afraid to write anything for fear of making mistakes. I have found that the best tool to teach struggling writers is prewriting. Once a child has a structure in place, writing the essay is much easier.

The first step is brainstorming. When teaching your child to brainstorm, let him talk while you write down his ideas. Encourage him to give you as many thoughts as possible, both good and bad. When he seems to be running out of ideas, ask a lot of questions. If the child can explain, “Why?” or give you examples, he will have more material to include. Another suggestion is to ask the child to pretend he is teaching his subject to a class. He can imagine what questions the students would ask and what information would be pertinent to help them understand his topic.

Next, have the student group his ideas into categories. Each of these groupings can then become body paragraphs. Using a graphic organizer, such as a map, web or outline will help your student develop a visual “big picture” before writing. If drawing a chart is too difficult or annoying, then just group ideas by topic on a piece of unlined paper.

Sometimes children balk at being required to do what they might consider “an extra step” before writing. However, when a student takes the time to prepare a prewriting structure, he usually finds that his ideas flow much more freely, resulting in a well-organized, clearly focused essay and a much happier writer.

Today I was working with a new student who is quite bright, but struggling in school.  Have you ever heard that before?  We started at the beginning and reviewed all of his systems of organization.  He did not use his planner, but his binders were organized with 65% of the material where it should be.  He and I reviewed his latest reports from his online grading system at school to discover that in most of his classes, he received either A’s or F’s on his work.  Why?

Well, 90% of the F’s were due to not turning in his homework.  He either forgot to do it, or forgot to turn it in.

In this young man’s math class, he received A’s on all of his homework assignments and turned everything in.  It made me stop for just a moment to remember why this student was successful in this class.  He is handed a new sheet that must be completed each day.  The sheet is something tangible that he can locate, complete and return the next day.

The work is consistent and reliable.  This makes organization struggles much easier to manage.

So, how can we do this with the other subjects?  It’s not that easy, because if it were, we would have already instituted the plan.  I do think that today’s session made me think about how consistency is the key to staying organized.  Here’s my advice; if your son or daughter does not get a sheet to be handed in the next day, make sure that you substitute that “sheet” with a specific task for each class.  It may be reading, working on a long-term project, studying for a test, or just reviewing notes.  But, if your child can engage with each subject, even if it is only for ten minutes, he or she will remember to think about all of the subjects each day.