Looking to Be More Involved in Your Child’s Therapy?

Looking for ways to become more involved in your child’s therapy? Look no further! There is no “wrong” way to become involved. Just by trying you will make a difference. Here are some ways to get you going;

1.     Try some therapy on the go.

a.     It can be overwhelming to think about working on goals when it feels like you have a million things to do, but in reality, that is the perfect time to practice. Why? Because your child does not live in the therapy room! When you work on goals in the real world, it helps them take the skills they learned in therapy and apply them to real life.

                                               i.     Example: Working on following directions? Bring your child to the grocery store when you need to pick up a few things. Try prompting them with directions such as “Pick up the Oreos and hand them to me”, or “Grab the pack of napkins, then the plastic forks, and put them in the cart”. Practice makes perfect, plus the kids will feel like they are helping you.

                                             ii.     Example: Working on using longer sentences? Bring your child to go holiday shopping with you. If they see something they like, have them tell you about it when they get home. Bonus: You can go back later and get something that caught their eye, takes some of the guesswork out of gifts.

                                           iii.     Example: Working on taking turns? When you are driving with your child in the car, take turns pointing out different road signs or colors you see while you drive.  

2.     Build therapy into day-to-day routines. 

a.     Brainstorm ways you can incorporate therapy into your daily routines. The structure of a routine is a great platform for therapy, and once you work on goals within a routine a few times, it will become an expected part of the routine itself.

                                               i.     Example: Working on reading comprehension? When you read a bedtime story to your child, ask questions throughout. Talk about the beginning, the middle, and the end. Have the child answer wh-questions or predict what is going to happen next. This is activity that has a lot of room for working on a lot of goals.

                                             ii.     Example: Working on asking questions? Play a “conversation starter” game at dinner. Take turns asking each other questions. Don’t give too much information though, give your child space to ask follow-up questions such as “why?” or “what is that?” or “who is ___?”. This is a structured way to practice natural conversation, and it’s fun too.

3.     Keep the SLP in the loop.

a.     A great way to get involved with your child’s therapy is to keep track of their communication throughout the week. If you hear something that is interesting, write it down! The more information the speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have, the better we can tailor their therapy.

b.     Let us know about exciting activities that are coming up or that have happened. This gives the SLP conversation starters for the child that allow us to work on a variety of goals such as giving details, descriptions, recall, and more. 

c.     What are your communication concerns? If something comes up, tell the SLP about it. It is always helpful to have a lot of information so we can make sure therapy goals stay relevant to your child. 

These are just a few ways you can become involved in your child’s therapy. Find what works for you and stick with it! No matter what you do, consistency is key. 

Kara Cotter

How Do I Help My Child Become More "Gritty"?

How Do I Help My Child Become More “Gritty”?

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. – Nelson Mandela

When LeeAnne, Theresa and I attended a Learning & the Brain Conference last spring, we were fortunate enough to have heard Dr. Caroline Miller speak about Getting Grit: How to Embed Passion, Persistence & Awe in Your School. Based on some of Dr. Miller’s suggestions for how teachers and schools can help children, here are some ways you can help your child become grittier:  

·      Help identify passions

o   Help your child figure out what is important to them, things they really love.  People are more willing to work toward things they have chosen rather than things that were chosen for them.  When dealing with academics or less preferred tasks, help your child to see how such accomplishments can related to their passions. 

·      Teach goal-setting & value of hard goals 

o   As LeeAnne stated in her blog on setting goals, setting up appropriate goals that are self-driven, measurable, and important to the individual helps the individual stick to the goals and not give up. Such goals can help motivate your child as they would be working on something that is important to them.  If your child feels the goal is not achievable or important, there is greater chance they will feel defeated and give up. 

o   Help your child set small, measurable goals that can help them to be successful.

o   Ask your child what their goal is for the week or month which will enable you to help your child to turn those goals into S.M.A.R.T. goals so they can see progress they are able to achieve. 

·      Promote process over outcome and teach & reward risk-taking

o   Help your child to realize that the way they approach tasks and work toward them is more important than the outcome.

o   Allowing children to fail and then form a plan to be more successful helps to develop grit (Dr. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance) as responding to the failure can help them become more determined.

o   Learning to deal with failure and adversity helps us establish more self-control and the ability to work toward a goal

o   Teach your child the acronym: 

FAIL =

·      First

·      Attempt

·      In

·      Learning

o   Debbie Pincus, a family therapist who created the Calm Parent AM/PM, suggests focusing on what your child has done well for activities even though they may have been unsuccessful for other aspects.  She also suggests helping your child to assess what they did to be successful and what they may have done that resulted in errors. Redoing errors (even if it does not change the test scores or the outcomes) can help the child review and learn from mistakes while learning to develop grit.

o   Emphasis on the drive and willingness to keep working and trying rather than the outcome (such as grades) helps children achieve grit.

·      Share stories of overcoming

o   Talk to your child about difficulties you have faced and what you did to overcome those obstacles. 

o   One of Dr. Miller’s techniques for promoting gratitude, self-confidence, and grit is for individuals to identify three hard things that they accomplished each day along with how they were able to do so.  What a great activity to become a part of the daily family dinner conversation or a bedtime routine!  

·      Promote patience—“Not  yet”

o   Help your child to learn to wait for some things rather than needing to have all of their wants/needs immediately.  When children learn to delay gratification, it helps them improve their ability to work toward a goal. 

·      Praise wisely

o   Oftentimes parents feel the more they praise their child, the more it helps their child build self-esteem and confidence, however overly praising children results can backfire, resulting in a dependence on praise from others rather than feeling their own pride in what they achieve.  However, when parents do not praise their children enough, children may feel as though they have not met the expectations of their parents or that their parents do not care what they do, which may result in a lack of motivation.  Children may feel as though they have not met the expectations of their parents or that their parents do not care what they do.  The quality of praise is also important.  Praising your child for their attempts and how hard they have worked is more beneficial than praise for the outcome.  If your child works really hard at a passion or difficult task, focus on their work rather than whether they are the best at the activity.  Your praise of their diligence could encourage them to keep working at their passion and overcome obstacles.    

o   Dr. Judy Willis (a board-certified neurologist who later worked as a classroom teacher) wrote a great article titled, Good Praise, Bad Praise. http://www.parenttoolkit.com/social-and-emotional-development/news/general-parenting/good-praise-bad-praise

·      Mentoring & messages

o   Help your child develop a growth mindset, a topic LeeAnne will be writing about in an upcoming blog.  This includes looking at the positive aspects of things rather than the negatives and approaching things as though they will not be successful (fixed mindset). 

o   Let your child know you will be there to help and support them if they need help rather than just providing the help. This allows your child the opportunity to problem-solve and attempt strategies on their own rather than becoming dependent on you to solve their problems. 

o   If needed, help your child identify obstacles they may need to deal with when working on goals. Rather than just identifying possible obstacles for your child, ask them some leading questions or point out some things they may need to think about in order to problem-solve on their own.

As I wrote my first blog on grit, I talked about the grit shown by Nick Foles, the quarterback of the Eagles, right after the Eagles won the NFL divisional championship.  Today as I’ve been finishing this blog, I have been watching the pregame shows for Super Bowl LII.  There have been many more examples of grit in players and others who have demonstrated “passion and perseverance to their long term goals”, often in spite of adversity and naysayers. Grit is essential in helping your child develop a more positive mindset (which LeeAnne will be talking about in an upcoming blog) and achieve their goals. You can help your child become “grittier”!

Carol A. Walck, MS, CCC-SLP

What is "Grit"...and is it Something My Child Should Have?

As I was working on this blog about grit and watching the post-game show after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Tennessee Titans in the NFL divisional championships, Nick Foles, the Eagles quarterback, was being interviewed. When asked about the preparation and performance of the Eagles, he stated that it “goes back to believing and having faith in one another that we can get this done…preparation will give you an opportunity to win, but then your heart’s got to go out there and you’ve got to play with all your heart and give up everything you have”.  What a great example of grit! 

So, what is grit?  According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, one of the definitions of grit is firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.  Dictionary.com defines grit as firmness of character; indomitable spirit; pluck.  It has been reported that many children and young adults in today’s society are lacking grit; they have difficulty dealing with adversity, easily giving up when things get tough. 

Although many people believe that success is dependent upon intelligence and talent, research has demonstrated that those characteristics do not necessarily translate to what is considered to be “successful” lives.  In fact, there are many “successful” people who struggled through school due to learning difficulties or low socio-economic status, or who have even dropped out of school due to some type of adversity.  Some of these people who became very successful in their later endeavors demonstrated skills other than intelligence and traditional talent.  Dr. Angela Duckworth (author of the book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance) attributes this success to grit which she describes as “passion and perseverance to very long term goals”.  Dr. Duckworth has been researching grit and how it affects a child’s ability to succeed in school, a young adult’s ability to succeed in their jobs, and for all people to succeed in their lives.  She formulated two equations to demonstrate how to take talent and translate it to achievement: 

            talent X effort = skill

            skill X effort = achievement

In these equations, effort equals grit.  

An article by Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller (Research Says Grit Plus Talent Equals Student Success) suggests that grit is a matter of characteristics including:

·      Goal-directedness (knowing where to go and how to get there)

·      Motivation (having a strong will to achieve identified goals)

·      Self-control (avoiding distractions and focusing on the task at hand)

·      Positive mind-set (embracing challenge and viewing failure as a learning opportunity)   

LeeAnne, Theresa and I were fortunate to see Caroline Adams Miller (author of Getting Grit: The Evidence-Based Approach to Cultivating Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose) speak at a conference last spring.  She presented and spoke about various types of grit:

·      Authentic grit is the passionate pursuit of hard goals that awes and inspires others to become better people, flourish emotionally, take positive risks and live their best lives

·      Stupid grit is the obstinate pursuit of a hard goals that presents more negatives than positives because the circumstances have changed

·      Faux grit is embodied in people who pretend to themselves and others that they have achieved hard goals, but who have taken shortcuts or faked those accomplishments

·      Selfie grit is the relentless celebration of your pursuit of hard goals, including triumph over challenging obstacles, real or imagined

·      Ordinary grit is the willingness to persist in overcoming the challenges, setbacks and disappointments of everyday life to create extraordinary and empowering outcomes in unlikely circumstances

Do you feel your child needs grit?  Look for my upcoming blog, How Do I Help My Child Become More “Gritty”?

Carol A. Walck, MS, CCC-SLP 

Surviving Holiday Family Time When Your Child Has a Communication Disorder.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or so we’re told.  When we have a child with a communication disorder, whether a language delay, a stutter, or an autism spectrum disorder, we tend to want to shut down the whole holiday season, especially if it means time with extended family.

To be fair, many of us have been blessed with supportive family members, but most of us have at least one person in the family tree who just doesn’t get it.  They display their lack of knowledge through judgment or exclusion.  Today, I don’t want to discuss how to make ourselves feel better.  That’s for when we have a psychologist guest blog.  Below, you will find ideas to make the holidays smoother for your child.  These suggestions are not age or diagnosis specific, but general guidelines to make the most of a potentially difficult situation.

1.     Provide a schedule of events: Depending on the needs of your child, you can provide a picture schedule, a social story (http://carolgraysocialstories.com) or just share photos from past holidays to discuss the usual order of events.  

2.     Give your child a “job”: This will help your child integrate into the extended family, make him feel useful, and give him something expected to concentrate on.  Your child could collect coats, plan activities for younger cousins, or be a photographer.  If his tech talents are high, he could gather his photos to create a slide show to share at the end of the get-together, or he could email them to family members after the holiday.

3.     Plan for and practice gift-giving: Practice taking someone else’s point of view when choosing gifts for others.  You can model this when you are out shopping by saying, “Grandma loves to bake, so I think she would like these cupcake tins.”  Follow up with asking what your child thinks someone else might like.  Setting aside time to make gifts for others is especially thoughtful and can add to your child’s sense of accomplishment.  The internet is full of simple craft ideas.

4.     Prepare your family through a newsletter: Often, a family member says something thoughtless about your child because of lack of knowledge, so give them the information they need to understand.  There was a time in our lives when I would send out a quarterly email to everyone on my daughter’s “support team.”  These were friends and family members who had agreed to take a special interest in helping my daughter achieve her goals.  In the newsletter, I would include information about her education, her accomplishments, her social activities, and any difficulties that we had confronted.  Another type of newsletter would be to simply update your extended family members about everyone in your family via email on a regular basis.  This works especially well if your siblings agree to do the same, creating a family tradition of sorts. Keep in mind that you should not write a list of demands on how to accommodate your child. If your child is a picky eater or if they have food restrictions, feed them before the event, and bring appropriate snacks.

5.     Prepare activities: Bring crafts, movies, and/or puzzles.  Toss a ball around outside. Electronics will tend to isolate your child; try to stick with an activity that can be shared with all the children at the same time.

6.     Alter questions: If your child has difficulty answering questions, particularly lengthy ones, reword them into choice questions.  For example, when Aunt Judy asks, “How is school?”, reframe her question into “Is your favorite class art or math?”.

7.     Share supervision: If you have a significant other, discuss ahead of time how you will share responsibilities for your child. What will happen if your child has a melt-down?  Who will take care of any disagreements among the cousins?  Who will make sure that the child has eaten foods within his diet plan?  Trouble brews when both spouses think that the other one is supervising.

8.     Review the rules of the house: Prepare your child by discussing the rules of the host’s house. Maybe Grandma doesn’t like grandchildren to touch her prized figurines or Aunt Shelby doesn’t let food in the family room.  This is also a good opportunity to talk about other people’s perspectives and viewpoints. 

9.     Preplan a break room: If your child needs quiet alone-time because of overstimulation, discuss a safe room with the host ahead of the holiday.  Allow your child to bring a favorite toy or blanket into the room, and make sure you check on him on a regular basis.  Obviously, this suggestion is age-dependent.

10.  Discuss social expectations ahead of time: What happens if they hate a gift or if they don’t like their dinner?  Review and roll-play the proper responses well in advance.   If your child tends to dominate the conversation talking about their specialty interests, roll-play conversations where she gives no more than 3 pieces of information at a time, allowing the conversational partner to contribute as well.

There is no way to guarantee that your child will have an easy time at a family gathering or that a family member won’t say something insensitive to you, but at least improve your chances that you will survive the holidays. And remember, leave before your child is worn out!

LeeAnne Fura, MS, CCC/SLP