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Question:
My son is a typical 9-year-old boy. He's active, funny and athletic. However, he has a significant learning disability with reading. His older brothers sometimes tease him when he can't read the directions on a video game. He came home one day very sad and asked me why his brain doesn't allow him to read like everyone else can. How do I make sure he doesn't lose his confidence and continues to view himself in a positive way? How do I stop his brothers from teasing him about his disability?

Nancy, mother of 3 boys

Answer

It is important that your son hears from you — repeatedly — that his learning disability and difficulty reading is just one part of who he is. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses — my kids joke that I am missing the gene for spatial skills (I still turn the wrong way when I get out of the elevator in my own office!). All kids need to learn to define themselves as much by their strengths as their weaknesses. So, talk with your child honestly about his difficulty reading (it never works well to sugar coat the areas our children struggle with) and help him to understand that his brain is not damaged or bad. After all, that's the same brain that allows him to be funny and athletic. You can even make a list with him of his strengths and spend time with him discussing how he feels about these parts of who he is. Of course, you also want to give him time to share his feelings about his learning disability with you. Sometimes parents rush too quickly to try to cheer their kids up and they might be, inadvertently, communicating to their children that they don't really want to hear and talk about the hard things their children struggle with. So, when he comes home from school sad, ask him about it. Ask him what he feels like in school and how he feels when his brothers tease him. After he has had a chance to tell you all about it, then you can work with him to practice what he can say to his brothers when they tease him — and to himself when he is feeling down. He could try something like, "Reading doesn't come easy for me, but I'm keeping at it. Your teasing me doesn't help, so knock it off." The truth is that you can't stop his brothers from teasing him, but when you hear it, you can clearly and firmly tell them to stop. When my kids tease each other, I say something like: "We need to look out for each other, not put each other down. Your teasing hurts and I want this to be a family in which we build each other up." If the teasing is an ongoing problem, you might want to have a family talk about it — at a time when everyone is getting along. Ask the brothers to talk about times they have been teased and what it felt like and ask your son to share how he feels when they tease him. You can also ask the kids how they want to handle it when someone teases them (your son can learn from his brothers and use it against them next time they tease him!). The best way to stop teasing is to build empathy so the more your family shares with each other what it feels like to struggle with whatever it is they struggle with, the greater empathy you will all have for each other.

Question:
My daughter seems to blow things out of proportion. She talks in absolutes: "this is the worst thing ever," "I lost the game, I stink," "no one will ever like me." How can I teach her to be more resilient and not to take things so seriously?

CT Mom

Answer