Academically, Ray was really bright. He had trouble with motor skills, so his dad began taking him for walks. As Ray got older, they went on weekend hikes. Ray learned the geography and natural history of different trails. He formed friendships—another victory for him—with hiking partners. He learned to love the natural world. Hiking and camping became things he did really well.

As a small child, Ray had been unaware of his issues; then he was confused by them; and then he realized his differences and felt a lot of pain. But he modeled his attitude on his parents’. “Some people need glasses, I need help learning how to read faces,” he told me. And then he added, “Even though I don’t read all the social cues you give me, the ones I do get, that show your approval, matter to me.”

Ray has developed far beyond his parents’ early hopes. He’s been through college and grad school. He has friends. During college vacations he hiked the Appalachian Trail. He volunteers at the Boys and Girls Club. In their enjoyment and acceptance of him, Ray’s parents gave him a model of enjoying and accepting what comes to him. Despite hardships, Ray is grateful.

Gratitude isn’t about thinking everything is perfect. It’s about having the feeling: “I’m so happy to have what I have.” It puts life in a positive perspective. As parents you can do two things to help your children grow up to be grateful for their talents, their relationships, and the good things that surround them.

One is to show your own gratitude. Remind yourself and your kids when things are a pleasure. Say something positive when things work out well or when people try to make your day better. The other is to teach your children to think about others. When they’re little help them realize that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs, values, and intentions. Sharing and being thankful go hand in hand, and it is easier to share when you realize that other people are as fully human as you are. Supporting your children’s awareness of others will make them appreciate and want to share the good things in life that they have.

Without realizing it, Mrs. Mason was describing the symptoms of a recognizable problem. Kids like Abbie, who are fine most of the time but whose behavior deteriorates in busy, noisy places—parties, airports, amusement parks—often have trouble processing visual-spatial stimuli. Their minds can’t handle all the non-verbal information they’re taking in—lights, colors, sounds, movement. So they either shut down,as Abbie had at first, or they act out. Abbie felt like other kids were deliberately bothering her because her senses were being assailed by more than she could handle.

One solution, I told Mrs. Mason, was to make sure Abbie had a chance to prepare for new experiences. But dressing up for a Halloween party wasn’t mandatory. Abbie could skip the event entirely. Or Mrs. Mason and the classroom teacher could limit and structure her experience to be less overwhelming. She could do small parts of it to make the experience gradually familiar. She could be a helper who made snacks or decorated the room beforehand. She didn’t have to wear a costume or be there during the party. The idea was to let Abbie know she had choices. She could learn to recognize her own reactions and to problem solve.

“But what if she feels left out?” Mrs. Mason said.

“Then the next time, she might want to figure out what she can do to be more comfortable,” I said.  “And you can help her prepare for the event. But that can be her choice.”

Once the teacher had been clued in, she gave Abbie a special assignment; preparing a ghost hand to float in the punch by filling a disposable glove with limeade, freezing it, then peeling off the glove. During the party, Abbie read a Halloween book in the library. In the chaos of costumes and games, no one noticed her absence.

Afterward, everyone talked about the ghostly hand. The teacher thanked Abbie for her work on “special effects.” Abbie described the event she hadn’t attended as, “The best party ever” —and she really meant it.

Children’s Party Basics

1. Events that are purely for fun aren’t mandatory
2. Don’t confuse your own excitement about an elaborate party plan with your child’s enjoyment of the event.
3. Honor children’s differences. Some children have a terrible time in situations that are highly stimulating, others revel in the excitement. If you’re planning a children’s party, make sure there’s a quiet, out-of-the way place to avoid sensory overload. 

Once again Mrs. Baker decided she’d have to do something about Francie’s homework. But this time, fortunately, she really meant it.

“Good,” I said. “ It’s much easier to get teachers to work on this kind of problem with you in the lower grades. Later on, when she gets more homework, it’ll be too late.”

We worked out a plan, but I warned that the plan alone wasn’t enough. “Demanding something doesn’t make it so. You may have to supervise her homework a hundred times before she can get assignments in on her own.”

Francie’s mom worked hard on this. She took the TV out of Francie’s room and put in a desk and reading lamp.  She enforced a rule that there was no screen time—TV, computers, video games—until she had seen each homework assignment completed and in Francie’s backpack in a special homework folder.  She met with Mrs. Sweeney and together they agreed to three things.

1.      Mrs. Sweeney would check Francie’s assignment notebook at the end of the day then watch Francie put the notebook in her backpack.

2.      If an assignment was missing, Mrs. Sweeney would leave a message for Francie’s mom the same day.

3.      Mrs. Sweeney would inspect Francie’s desk and locker once a week, and give Francie time to clean them before she went to recess.

And lo and behold! Francie started getting her homework in. In the beginning, she whined, argued, wasted time, and got under the table with the dog. But within a few months, Francie had formed new habits. Her assignments were in and on time.

“Holding Francie to this has been brutal,” her mom confessed. “I’ve had to be really organized to keep Francie organized.  But it’s really paying off.”

 We did an assessment of her son, Pablo, the eldest of three boys, and found that his problem was a nonverbal learning disability. Seventy-five percent of the information human beings take in is nonverbal – a gesture, intonations of the voice, facial expressions, spatial relationships – and that was the material he had difficulty processing.

 I laid out a treatment plan and Alessandra went over it carefully, so she could assist in his treatment and explain to Pablo’s teachers how the plan should be implemented. With the involvement of such a dedicated parent, it was no surprise that Pablo was doing extremely well when I saw him a year later. Nor was it a surprise when Alessandra, who had more determination and personal magnetism than anyone I’d ever met, told me that she had started an organization called the Association of Parents and Professionals for Children with Special Needs (APANNE).

 “I was so touched by the impact that you and your team made in our lives,” she says, “that I felt the need to give back to others who felt as lost and desperate as I did.” She then asked me to come to Guatemala and lecture to her group.

 This was a decade ago, and since then, I’ve gone often, giving lectures and seminars to an organization that continues to grow. Last summer, the moms and professionals numbered about 300. They’ve brought in local pediatricians, child psychiatrists and consultants to train teachers in educational methods for children with special needs.

 But there was more. Alessandra decided to open a school for children with special needs. Her group of families raised the funds to start Colegio Monarch Guatemala, which now serves about 20 children. But if Alessandra’s past achievements are any indication, it could be ten times that number the next time I visit.

 Alessandra proves that the power of moms is not love alone, but the ability to focus energy and intelligence on solving a problem. She has created a community around a special need, and provided services for her children and others where none existed before. I’m beginning to think there is no limit to what this mom – and all moms – can accomplish.

At Lucy’s urging, Emma asked a girl from her class to come home with her after school.  “They wound up at opposite ends of the house,” Lucy told me later. “The other little girl sat upstairs playing a computer game. Emma came and sat in the kitchen with me.” Lucy sighed. “I’m worried Emma doesn’t have any friends.”

“If you were worried that she didn’t recognize the letters of the alphabet, you’d work with her on it,” I said. “You can work with her on this.”

After all, play dates are valuable vehicles for teaching kids sociability. So here’s what you do: Before a play date, talk with your child about the person who is coming over. What does that child like to do? What will make the child feel welcome?

Help plan an activity—baking cookies, doing a craft project—where you can be present and intervene to make it a positive experience. By example, you can teach your child to show interest in what the other child does. “What color frosting are you going to put on the pumpkin cookie? Blue? That’s cool! Blue pumpkins are incredibly rare!”

That’s what I shared with Lucy.

A couple of weeks later I ran into Lucy and asked how Emma was doing.

“Great!” she said.  “I called one of the moms and asked her daughter Gracie over to play mad scientist. The girls put on plastic aprons, and I got out all this stuff —peppermint extract, food color, powdered Jello—you name it. I made sure they each used a lot of baking soda. I can’t tell you how exhilarating it was for them to make that kind of mess.

“Then I got a little bottle of vinegar out, and said, ‘This will bring your potion to life!’ Emma and her friend each dumped some in, and the stuff erupted all over the counter. They were both laughing so hard they fell down.”

Lucy smiled. “It was a huge mess, but it was worth it. You know where Emma is right now? At Gracie’s house.”

6 Steps to Helping Your Child Make Friends

(pre-K through 1^st Grade)

1. Have a discussion beforehand with your child about what the other child might enjoy doing.
2. Structure the playdate around a non-competitive  activity where you’ll be present—cooking, arts and crafts, apple picking.
3. Teach sociability by example: demonstrate sharing, patience, interest in others.
4. If your child and the visiting child are doing well together, fade into the background.
5. If you see a problem, talk about it after the other child goes home. Note what went well and what caused conflicts.
6. Repeat. All skills, including social skills, grow stronger with practice.

Her 11-year-old son was complaining of stomach aches. His pediatrician could find nothing wrong, but they were more and more frequent, nearly every morning, and often so severe that Josh missed school.

They seemed to be affecting his schoolwork too: the child whom teachers described as “extremely bright” wasn’t turning in assignments, wasn’t preparing for tests, didn’t take notes or do reading for a long-term project.

When his dad suggested he was “goofing off,” Josh shouted, “That’s because I’m an idiot!” and stormed off to his room.

When Josh and his parents came to me at the end of 5th grade and we did some tests, what was really happening became clear.

Josh had a problem with executive functions and lacked the skills that help people manage time, break a task into manageable steps, focus attention, and discipline themselves. Because he couldn’t do those things, he felt the anxiety that caused his stomach aches, he avoided school, and worst, he was beginning to think of himself as a “jerk” and an “idiot.”

I explained to Josh and his mom and dad that executive functions were situated in the frontal lobes—the part of the brain that develops last. When growth is complete, the neurons in the frontal lobes grow a covering, the myelin sheath, that carries signals in the brain much faster than before. The frontal lobes develop earlier in some kids and later in others. Until the process was further along, Josh could compensate by learning organizational skills.

As Josh became more organized, the stomach aches disappeared. Josh’s sense of self-esteem skyrocketed. He learned to sort his assignments in different colored binders and break a reading assignment into parts he could handle. By September, Josh was excited to go back to school and explained why.

His exact words were, “I know I can handle it.”

And now he really could.

10 Ways To Get Organized For School

1. Create a home file system to store class papers, tests, and notes, so you can find them when you need them.
2. Set aside an area where you study where you won’t be interrupted.
3. Set aside enough time for homework and stick to your schedule.
4. Turn off your phone while you’re doing homework. Give yourself the incentive of  answering your text messages or making a (brief!) call whenever you complete an assignment. Set a time limit for this.
5. Look at your weekly schedule every day, noting exams and long term projects.
6. Break big projects down into manageable pieces and add those pieces to your schedule.
7. Be conscious of what a homework assignment is meant to teach. Read the study questions at the end of the assignment so you can look for the answers as you read.
8. At the end of doing homework look again at your assignment notebook to make sure everything is complete.
9. Before you go to bed organize your back pack.
10. Put projects due the next day in a color coded homework folder.