Twelve points to consider if your child seems to be academically or socially out of step

Ann Marie Lynch knows what it is like to be a teenager, embarrassed at messy handwriting and an inability to spell words, despite her best efforts and wanting to please teachers.

After becoming a secondary teacher, she has also experienced trying to teach history and geography to teenagers who struggle to read and write. It prompted her to retrain to work in the area of additional educational needs.

She then discovered what it was like to be a concerned parent of two children with learning difficulties – or learning differences, the term she prefers. One of her daughters has dyslexia, the other dyspraxia.

Lynch (50), who is an additional educational needs co-ordinator in a Dublin post-primary school, brought all three first-hand perspectives to the writing of her recently published book, Understanding Learning Difficulties Differences. When parents realise a child has a learning difference, they often don’t know where to go or what to do, she says, so she wanted to support them by providing a non-academic, easy-to-follow overview. It also aims to guide teaching colleagues.

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“People think they’ve heard of dyslexia or dyspraxia or autism, but if you ask them about it, they don’t really know what it is about. And you can’t actually [know] because it’s very individualised,” she says. “I wanted something that was kind of simplifying the whole area of learning differences.”

If there is just one message she can get across, it is “step away from the stereotype and look at the individual”. That applies not only to parents and teachers but to affected children and their peers. She recalls how one of her students remarked that “my greatest disability is other people’s lack of understanding”.

For any parent worried that their child seems to be academically or socially out of step with their peers, here is Lynch’s advice on 12 points to consider:

1 Look to the basics

Sleep, diet, hydration and exercise can all have a significant impact on a child’s ability to learn. “Get the phones out of the children’s bedroom,” she says, because they are so often the root cause of poor sleep.

2 Need for assessment

You only need to seek a “diagnosis” if an observed difference is holding the child back or distressing them. “It isn’t a problem unless it is in fact causing problems”. That is, issues for the child, not for a parent who might want them to be “better” in some way.

She is an advocate of assessment, if you can get one, for any child where there is an indication of a learning need. “People forget that assessments actually throw up what you’re good at.” In an ideal world, perhaps, we would all be assessed – “we’d all show up with something”. However, being unable to get an assessment, or deciding not to, does not mean a recognised difficulty cannot be addressed. Schools no longer require a diagnosis for the provision of resources and support. The mantra now is “greatest need, greatest support, regardless of assessment”.

[ Most schools that appeal for more learning support hours are turned down ]

3 Limitations of labels

Learning differences are not easily categorised and often children may have traits of various conditions. “Think of it like a pick‘n’mix sweet shop – it is possible to have a little bit of this and a lot of that.”

It does not define the child, she stresses. “They are the same child as they were yesterday when they didn’t have the diagnosis as they are today when they do.” It is important to look at what the strengths are because if the focus is on weaknesses, children will pick up on that, believing there is something wrong with them and that they need “fixing”.

4 Telling the child

Parents must decide for themselves if and how information resulting from an assessment is to be shared with a child. Lynch is categorical in her advice to “tell the child” but do not make a big deal of it. Deliver it not as bad news but rather as the answer to a puzzle over some difficulties they may have had.

Explain they may need some extra help due to their style of learning and ask are they okay with that. “We can’t just suddenly start giving them extra support without explanation.”

5 Accept the child you have

This is what Lynch has been counselling parents over the past 20 years in her role as a special education co-ordinator. “Only work on something that will make their life easier.”

But she admits after her own daughters were diagnosed, “I suddenly felt a surge of regret for offering such bland (albeit accurate) advice”. While children with learning difficulties thrive when parents are proactive and involved, it is counterproductive when mothering becomes smothering.

Yet, “as parents we cannot help being overinvolved”, she says. “Sometimes we can get carried away in doing the best for them, and actually, when you step back, going, ‘Oh my God, I’m actually torturing this child’.”

6 Ask specific questions

As a parent or guardian, you are the expert on your child and may pick up on differences before a teacher who has two dozen more other children in their classroom to consider. So even if the school has not raised concerns, do not be afraid to ask teachers if your child is on par with peers in an aspect you’re worried about.

Your fears may be unfounded – or they may trigger the provision of necessary support.

7 Devise strategies

Helping a child cope with learning differences cannot be left to their school. Find out from specialists what you can do at home. (See John Sharry’s six-part series on parenting a neurodivergent child). Lynch outlines in the book ways to address various difficulties.

The importance of good home-school communication cannot be overestimated as part of this. Changes in the education system mean parents of children with additional needs should no longer have to adopt a default position of “defence and demand”. Rather, approach matters with a sense of trust and do assume the school is inclusive, unless you experience otherwise, she suggests. “It is a legal obligation for all teachers to teach the child in front of them.”

Be aware that children can manipulate to their advantage a lack of home-school communication. Never let the comment “The teacher hates me” as an explanation go unchecked.

8 Act on homework distress

Alert the teacher if your child is really struggling to get through homework. The spending of enormous amounts of time on after-school assignments can have a huge negative impact in the home, she says. “Sometimes a teacher, because they’re not telepathic, might not realise that this is causing such distress at home.”

Once a teacher knows, they can adjust a child’s load. But there is always a balance between making sure the child is not underachieving because the work is “dumbed down” for them and hitting the right level of difficulty to ensure there is plenty of progression.

9 Stay strong on school attendance

Students with learning difficulties may refuse to go to school or fake illnesses to avoid “the dread of school life”. However, the symptoms may be real. Worry and anxiety can cause serious digestive difficulties and headaches. But school avoidance is likely to compound issues. “You must hold strong and be tough. Any sign of weakness and you’ll experience months of repeated fake illness performances,” she writes.

Work with the school and child on ways to get them in, even for a few hours, by listening and acting on specific issues if possible. You know your child’s individual circumstances and mental health must be prioritised. “If going to school will cause more damage than not going to school, child welfare must always be paramount.”

If you do allow a child to stay at home because they are complaining they are not well enough to go in that day, she suggests removing devices such as phones and games during school hours. It might mean such episodes are less likely to be repeated.

[ How to advocate for and empower your neurodivergent child ]

10 Seek needs accommodations

There are many accommodations a child may be entitled to, but it is important to implement only those that they find genuinely helpful, she stresses. Also parents and teachers need to weigh up the advisability of providing technology and allowances for which the child might not meet the criteria to avail of in State examinations.

However, for Lynch, the bottom line is, “you’re trying to get your kids through school where it isn’t a painful experience and that they actually pick up knowledge along the way”.

11 Social skills

While parents and teachers are always concerned about children who struggle to keep up with school work, they worry far more about those who do not seem to fit in with their peers. “It breaks our hearts if we see a student on their own or left out, intentionally or unintentionally.”

Yet, some students tell her they are sick of adults trying to get them to fit it and they like being on their own. We need to respect that and can take comfort in the fact that some students who are on their own “are not depressed, isolated or dying on the inside – they are really very content”. The trouble is life and work requires all of us to be social to some degree, so youngsters should not be allowed to become completely isolated. Social skills can be taught and it is important for parents to model these with their own behaviour. “What you decide to work on with your child needs to be examined and selected by your both.”

12 Moving to a post-labelling world

Labels have their uses because the traits associated with a condition help a parent or teacher to process how to support a child. For some students getting the label or the diagnosis is the “Ah-ha moment”, she says, when they understand for the first time what they have and that there are others in the same situation. “There’s a sense of belonging and understanding there.”

Equally there are other students who do not want to talk about it, won’t share their diagnosis with others and do not want to use accommodations, such as a laptop, for fear it would bring attention to their learning difference.

“In years to come, hopefully there won’t be labelling and it’s just the case of, I’m looking at the individual and this child needs support with A, B and C.”

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