Roger Stark’s Post

Transcript

Does this sound like your child? A mother wrote to us and described her son's struggles. As follows. He gets frustrated with any type of direction or challenging tasks. He's been labeled, therefore believes he's incapable and struggles with confidence. We hear that so often and I really just want to talk for a few minutes today about labels and if your child has a label or if you're thinking about having them tested for a label, you might want to just maybe leave me a comment or, you know, ask a question. That's why I'm here and would be delighted to engage. So you can certainly post any questions here. Um, so labels are. A2A double edged sword, 2 edged sword, double edged sword. There's benefits and then there's drawbacks obviously. And when people are thinking about labels like ADHD or autism or specific learning disability or any of those. Categories of things that that. We can label our kids with. Um, it provides an option that doesn't exist without the label prides 22 main things, the two main things that a label allows. Is. Medication. Number one and #2 extra support in school. From the standpoint of medication, so physician cannot prescribe medication without a diagnosis. Therefore a diagnosis is necessary. A label is necessary in order for. Prescription to be written. So if that's something that is important for a child or for anybody, then obviously that makes a lot of sense. But that's only one part. The other part is in order for children to qualify for certain kinds of services. In through their public school system. They may also have to have a diagnosis. So that's what a diagnosis does. It does those two things. If those aren't things that are important, then. There's not really a reason to have a diagnosis. And to put a label on a child. And then on the negative side, but it can be very helpful. I mean, it can be really critically important if those are either medication or extra support services are truly the goal. Uh, but when you put a label on a child, it does a number of things. It tells them that they're different. It tells them and and in many cases, such as the story we're hearing here. Is that when a child is labeled? They believe that they are very often believe that they're not capable. And part of it is. An excuse so. When someone tells you, ohh, you, you know, don't worry about that. You're not gonna be able to do that because you have whatever that label is. Than kids. Take that to heart. They don't have to try. It makes them. It makes them truly feel incapable many times. So we have to be really careful about those labels because children will use that as a way to say I can't do this. And one of the things that really I find very concerning is that we focus. Talking about. Um, how kids learn, they're learning skills, their cognitive skills. We tend to focus in schools on the things that they can't do. Ohh this child has ADHD so therefore they cannot pay attention. Which isn't true. I mean, we all pay attention. We may not be able to sustain our attention for a long period of time. We may not be very good at screening out distractions and things like that. But we can pay attention. It just is more effortful so. One of the things that's really important for kids to understand is that everybody has cognitive weaknesses. And everybody. Has cognitive strengths. And we need to start with those strings first because. That's what makes kids feel capable. So you may struggle a little bit with this thing over here, whether it's attention or memory or whatever it may be. But look, you are really smart thinker. You can. Reason with. Language based information or maybe you can reason with visual spatial information. See see lots and lots of kids who struggle in in some areas but are but every child has strengths every child has. An area of cognitive processing that is strong for them and when we help them understand what their strengths are. And we give them strategies to use it. Uh, then. And Nicole, thanks for that. Love your :) there. When we when we give them an opportunity to do that and give them specific strategies and and strategies don't have to be hard things, but think about. A child who has maybe maybe struggles with attention and executive functions but has really good memory. And uh, particularly memory for visual things. So when the child understands that, that is his or her. I call it learning superpower. And I'm always telling kids that you probably didn't know you had a learning superpower, but I'm here to tell you that you do. And here's what it is, and here's how you can use it. And I tell him it's like a like a I'm wearing my Shaw today, but it's like your, your superhero Cape. And it's there in your closet whenever you need it and if you put it on. Then in any learning situation, it's going to help you be more successful. So when they need to memorize facts or memorize information, drawing pictures, using flash cards with images on them, when they're reading, having them visualize or maybe even create a mental movie of what's going on in whatever they're reading. Those are the kinds of very specific, very simple, straightforward strategies that we can give children to help them utilize their strongest skills. And stop focusing so much on the things that they can't do, because children do develop learned helplessness when they are told that. That they have a label and it's a label does not mean that you can't learn or you can't do things. And if we let children believe that, we're doing them a huge disservice. We need really help them understand that That means some things will be a little bit harder, but we can always use our strengths to help us. Furthermore, we can also develop our cognitive skills. Even those that are quite weak, whether it's attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility or reasoning skills. Our memory skills. All of those skills can be developed to a far greater degree than most people realize. And that's an also tremendously important message for kids. Because their brains are developing and learning how to do new things every single day. So really just wanted to to share that bit about labels. Because it comes up a lot of with parents who are thinking about having their child tested aren't sure whether it's a good idea or a child like we're talking about today who has a label and feels. Unsuccessful. Incapable. When they do that, it's just you can see the frustration, you can see them slump when they're asked to do something challenging. I can't do that. And of course, if you think you can't, you can't. That's how human beings work. But if you know you have stronger skills and you know you can use them to help you. And you know that the learning process is not perfect or linear if you know that it might take you a few attempts and a few different tries and a few different strategies. And you understand what your strategies are, the ones that are likely to make you most successful, then it's a whole different story. No, I'm going to umm. Post a link in the chat to. To a parent coach A parent training. Uh, I work with a lot of our parent coaches, so but a parent training session that talks about cognitive skills, the role they play and learning and. Really, how parents can. Changed the conversation. Start by saying. That start by setting high standards start by. Knowing that your child can accomplish things and helping them start to understand how much they can accomplish. Don't give up on them and and don't lower those standards because children could accomplish some amazing things and as those cognitive skills get stronger, they will. Well, that's it for today. I'll see you again soon.