Focus on Their Strengths

Summer has finally arrived and afforded us time to reflect on the school year that has past. The good, bad and ugly of it all. We have been out of school for three weeks and are only starting to exhale and decompress. It was a rough year.

As a state we passed the first dyslexia law on May 1, 2019. It has taken the better part of fourteen years to get this far. We also were significant part of the state OPI Dyslexia Task Force where a lot of accountability will happen as we implement new curriculum and start training administrators and teachers.

The overwhelming take away is that schools want to blame someone else for failing student and spiraling literacy rates in reading and mathematics. They are most interested in fitting children in to neat and tidy little boxes that are labeled and mislabled for decades. It is extremely difficult and rare for a school to work from a place of strengths instead of from a place of broken, defective. It is heartbreaking to watch and even worse to experience your child never being understood or valued for their immense abilities.

Please do not allow your child's school, teacher, administrator, coach, or student support services to lead you astray. Your child is no different than they were before they entered school and began to fall apart. What has changed is the environment they spend the majority of their day in. The environment is causing the issues. Work towards helping their school understand the need to change the environment so that your child can thrive and learn. Help them understand the strengths our child has, always has and always will have. Do not let them get their hands on your child and make them feel less than.

Once the environment reflects the supports and the correct teaching methods your once and still talented, unique child will soar. Until then it is the school who is failing to provide an environment where they can flourish and grow.

Focus on your child's strengths, foster those strengths and do not let anyone diminish those strengths. Undoubtedly, your child will gravitate towards his or her strengths in the future after their brief sentence at school finishes and they are our in the world contributing and making a positive impact.