What do we call learning? Learning is a complex act in which multiple factors and areas of a person’s life intervene. On the other hand, School learning is also the result of many learnings that begin outside of school but they take on special relevance in it, since they develop in the environment where the child begins to socialize away from the family environment.
Any student may need an adaptation at a given time, since the diversity of the student body is as great as the different ways of learning.
The majority of students create their own learning strategies and overcome the challenges corresponding to their curricular itinerary, but sometimes, students who do not show difficulties in learning in the rest of the areas of their life, develop ways of learning incompatible with the educational system’s way of teaching and for which, on many occasions, there is no effective answer either.
Mitter (2004) offers us a series of reflections on learning that should be considered with children who manifest learning difficulties:
A child who presents learning or behavioral difficulties inevitably generates reactions, many times aimed at overcoming them and other times at exclusion from the educational system; sometimes protected by special support needs and other times in the recognition by the system itself of a lack of resources to respond to the situation.
What is clear is that The school can always do something and its intervention makes a difference for better or worse. But parents are ultimately responsible for our children; in some cases with the system on our side, when the child is seen as a victim, and in other occasions fighting against the judgment of someone who does not know what he is talking about and feels with the courage and determination to pass judgment on trials in those that have not been cited.
As parents, we have the obligation to ensure the proper development of our children and provide them with all the necessary support at every stage and situation of their lives, especially when they have behavioral and/or learning difficulties thus helping them to face these situations that end up damaging their emotional stability and self-concept.
This question, which seems simple, is quite complex, since parents often do not know how we should act, what to do, how to do it, with whom to do it, etc.
The best parental support
Raising a child is not easy, and our work as parents is sometimes hindered by work and daily responsibilities. However, It is necessary to detect situations that show learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, SLI or ADHD For example.
Even if we are not experts in psychology, it is easy to identify some signs that indicate that something is not right and go to a professional. The clearest sign is when our son shows difficulties in school while his classmates advance easily, also when he is slow in his schoolwork or shows disinterest in studying. No child is lazy, none of them likes to fail and stay last in the class.
Faced with this scenario, parents sometimes react by calling our child lazy, inattentive, or lacking interest. Some children get so frustrated that they finally believe it further aggravating the problem, which could cause serious damage to their self-concept and self-esteem.
These signs show some disorder or difficulty that makes learning not easy at all. When in doubt, the best option is to consult a specialist in psychology and learning difficulties, who after a series of evaluations will determine not only if you have learning difficulties, but will also assess your emotional stability. Once evaluated, if there is a problem, the professional will inform the parents and together with them will design the intervention in which the parents will be the main participants in the therapeutic process, integrating all the areas that make up not only the school environment of the child, but the personal and family.
For parents, learning about the disorder or difficulty their child may have is decisive, because it will give you many tools to understand it and support you in achieving your objectives. It is very reassuring to know the origin of your child’s difficulty, since it will allow you to know how she can help him and how far he can go in a certain area or area. In short, it allows us to accompany our son, find his strengths and overcome his difficulties, accepting himself as he is, and understanding that each person is different and we all have abilities and disabilities.
Our support in overcoming difficulties must be constant and focused on specific objectives It is not good to act arbitrarily, we must set goals that involve some difficulty but are achievable.
Another way in which we can help our children is by encouraging their interests and activities in which they excel and feel comfortable, since the satisfaction of completing them is a great benefit for their development. We cannot subordinate our child’s success only to academic results, there are other areas that shape his personality and are as important or more important for his comprehensive development. What good would it be for our son to be a super-talent if he were not capable of developing empathy for anyone around him?
The importance of good development
There are false myths such as, for example, that dyslexia cannot be diagnosed before the age of 7 or 8, other times, we hear phrases like “he will talk, in the end everyone will talk”, “it’s okay if he doesn’t know how to read at the beginning of primary school, they will read, in the end everyone reads”… It is important that parents do not allow themselves to be dissuaded by this type of information, which is also dismantled by scientific evidence, which advocates just the opposite, for an early intervention in the golden age of children, which is just when the development of each skill should be achieved.
Learning disorders, such as dyslexia or dysgraphia, usually reduce the self-esteem of the child who suffers from them, making them feel displaced, of little value and that they do not deserve good treatment. The accumulation of failures causes them to lose interest in learning, feel frustration and anger, suffer anxiety attacks and deep sadness, which negatively affects their growth and development, sometimes causing mental health problems.
Accompanying our son will achieve greater independence, he will feel comfortable studying and sharing with his classmates and you will have the ability to tolerate the adversities of your disorder while still feeling proud.
As parents we have the role of preparing our children for life, to do so we must combine affection with authority, at all times they must feel loved, feel approval, validation, but we must also be firm with authority, setting clear limits and timely consequences.
