Dyslexia ADDventures

Nine years ago when my daughter was assessed for ADHD  and Dyslexia  she was five years old, my husband was 33. For him our daughter’s ‘diagnosis’ was like cool droplets of rain on a hot summer day. Blessed relief! He realised he was not weird or crazy. The diagnosis gave him a better perspective of his struggle as a young adult in school. Many of his inadequacies as an adult now seemed solvable and something he could deal with. It was only learning difficulty and he could cope with that! My way of coping was to equip myself with knowledge. I devoured books on ADHD and Dyslexia. (I think all of us have LD in a fashion! But when it comes in the way of daily living and impedes the ability to realise our potential, we have to seek help.) I understood Learning Disability (LD) /ADHD is primarily genetic  and runs in families. I saw a pattern. My husband and father-in-law. At least three immediate blood relatives of my father-in-law (I don’t want to name them). I am not ...

Here is the story of a persistent mum. Dyslexic children need highly committed and persistent parents to help them through their school life, or until they acquire necessary skills to cope with their 'condition'.  This is an inspiring story of a very persistent mum: Navigating School with A Dyslexic Child: One Mom's Story  

Read-aloud books are excellent Assistive Technology for children (and adults) with Dyslexia and Learning Differences/Difficulties (LD). My daughter uses Bookshare India , an online library. They have fiction, non-fiction and textbooks you can download on to your desktop computer, laptop or tablet. Once you download the book, you are good to go! It reads to you and highlights the text it reads aloud. You can choose the kind of voice you'd like to hear - Indian or an American accent. They even have Tamil and Hindi books. If you can't find a book you're looking for you can donate it to Bookshare India and they'll digitise it for you. You can use read-aloud books as one of the tools to help your child study her textbooks. But more importantly you can help her get lost in the world of language and fiction. And, membership to Bookshare India is free for one year.

Rishi at Big Man's Bakery is teaching my daughter to bake. He's good. Very, very good. I will wax eloquent over the cakes first. The Vegan, yes folks, Vegan Strawberry Cake is to die for. Lemon sponge cake was soft and spongy with the right amount of tartness. Rishi rounded off his baking session with butter biscuits. They tasted like Danish cookies. What Rishi is essentially teaching my daughter - use the same base to bake three different items. That's creative. Visit  Big Man's Bakery  and experience fine baking for yourselves. He also makes awesome chocolate. My daughter's waiting for those classes to begin! Next Monday I'll post pictures of  Big Man's Bakery  baking sessions.

I've met parents who don't want to reveal their child has a learning difficulty. Like guilt, it's hidden under carpets, shoved hurriedly into cupboards, stowed away in attics or beaten into submission inside the far recesses of their mind. Only to eventually trickle out like rainwater through a hairline crack in the roof or worse - gush out like pent up fury. Why do they do that? Imagine the shame the child goes through. Is it my fault I can't read? Don't my parents love me? Do I have a 'disease'? Will I contaminate others? We have children because we want to nurture an individual and rejoice when our child finds her individuality. Not browbeat them into an image of ourselves.

After an eight-year break, I am back to blogging. In those years I did many things. Most were fun. Those not fun then, are fun now in retrospect! My daughter is now a young adult (and that's another story). Our journey began when she was 5 years old and assessed for Dyslexia and ADHD. Special education and occupational therapy followed. Now she's a well-adjusted teenager going through normal teenager 'angst' and has 'regular' mum-daughter fights. It has not been a smooth ride. We fell off many bumps and had to jump extra hard over obstacles. That's okay. But every time we fell, we picked ourselves up, dusted our backsides and continued on our journey. My daughter and I made a good team. That's important - a good team. Another four years and she'll be out of school. An important lesson I learnt: I have to advocate for my child. At five she doesn't know it, I fight for both of us. By the time she's 8, she knows Special Ed and Occupational Th...