These are ‘hot’ topics of interest

How To Motivate Unmotivated Kids

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How To Motivate Unmotivated Kids

“Just do it,” as Nike says is catchy but most people don’t become highly motivated by a picture and an inspirational saying. If that worked, I would not hear from parents, “My child is unmotivated and lazy.”  Why are some kids so difficult to motivate? Does your child get too much screen time or is it the absence of recreational programs due to COVID?  Does your child have a developmental problem?  Maybe it’s just that many kids in our area live in the land of entitlement.

Start at Home

Start at home if you want your child to be a motivated self-starter. Give your child age appropriate responsibilities rather than doing tasks yourself just because it’s easier as compared to nagging your child. Kids feel better about themselves when they feel like they are contributing to the family. Regardless of your child’s age, start now. Ask yourself, “What am I doing for my child that he or she needs to do for him or herself?”  Make a short list and then have a sit down to discuss your child’s new responsibilities.

Motivate with Prestige, Power, Praise

Most parents try to motivate their child using incentives including toys, screen time, or events such as a play date.  While that works for some children, other kids are motivated by either prestige, power, or praise.

If your child is motivated by prestige, then reward him for a job well done with a best kid award to put on the refrigerator, a public compliment in front of friends, or something that makes him feel prestigious.  If she is motivated by power, give her choices.  “When your work is done, you can do this or this. Which one do you prefer?”  Or say, “When the work is done, you get to pick the restaurant for dinner.”  If praise motivates your child, lavish authentic verbal praise upon him.  If he had great behavior at school, verbally praise him and then place a praise note in his lunchbox so the praise encourages another great day.  Motivating kids occurs in small steps and motivators change with time.  Check out Rick Lavoie’s book, “The Motivation Breakthrough.”

What is My Child’s Learning Style?

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If you are like many parents, helping your child complete schoolwork online was a tiring process.  Many kids struggled with focusing, maintaining effort, and getting every assignment done without a battle.  One parent told me she developed a new appreciation for what teachers do in the classroom.  Being your child’s home education teacher might have made you wonder about your child’s preferred learning style.

Auditory Learning Style

Some children are primarily auditory learners.  These kids learn best by listening to audio books, podcasts, and discussion.  Auditory learners have stronger reading comprehension when they softly read aloud so they can hear themselves.

Visual Learning Style

Other children are primarily visual learners, they learn best by seeing a diagram, map, or watching a video.  Children who are visual learners study their notes for a test and then during the test can visualize the page of notes that has the answer.

Multisensory

Many children are multisensory learners and they learn best using a variety of strategies.  They benefit from touching flash cards and sorting them into categories as they study.  Color coding important information helps multisensory learners.

Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic learners need to be moving as they learn.  These children can bounce a ball to a rhythm while saying aloud their multiplication facts.  Some children stand or walk around as they study.  Kinesthetic learners benefit from hands on learning.

Testing

I can test your child to determine his or her learning style and then give you recommendations on how to build upon these strengths to help your child excel in school.  You can also Google “online learning style survey” and complete a free one or try this one: http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml.

Once you understand your child’s learning style, you can use it to help make learning more interesting and fun.

We can help you understand and help your child. Call us (561) 625-4125

Three Ways to Help A Struggling Learner

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Is your child a struggling learner?  Learning struggles cause frustration for parents and kids.  Most kids who struggle with learning do so in reading as approximately 80% of learning disabilities are reading related.  Kids who continuously struggle to learn become turned off to school so being a proactive parent can help prevent future problems.  Here are three ways to help your struggling learner.

Struggling Learner Help Number 1

First, capitalize on your child’s interests to help make learning fun.  If your young child struggles with reading, use his interest in Minecraft to learn sight words.  Make flashcards using a Minecraft type font.  You could create a fun way to memorize sight words by making a flashcards Minecraft concentration game. Or, you and your child can staple paper together and use some sight words to write a story about your son and Minecraft. He can practice reading the story which can motivate him to read.

Struggling Learner Help Number 2

Help your child make the most gain in the shortest time by using specialized reading tutoring.  As a well-intentioned parent you might hire a teacher to work with your daughter but many teachers don’t use a specialized reading program.  Hire a reading specialist that uses the Barton, Wilson, or Lindamood-Bell reading programs.  These are designed to help kids with persistent reading difficulty.  To make improvements use at least twice weekly tutoring.

Struggling Learner Help Number 3

Last, test your child to pinpoint the exact struggle.  My testing helps you understand the root cause of the struggle and know how to best proceed with focus. This can help you know if the struggle is a behavior or neurological issue.  It’s my belief that you don’t want to punish your child for something he or she can’t help.  Many times learning disabilities are hidden disabilities because they occur internally and are only apparent when kids struggle with academic and learning expectations.  Testing gives you understanding about your child.

We test kids age 5 to 25 for dyslexia, ADHD, processing problems, and gifted. Call (561) 625-4125

Let’s Identify Your Child’s Struggles

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Are you at your wits end? Yes, your child’s struggles are real.  Now that kids are learning from home you’ve had an up close and personal look at how much your child struggles with focusing or learning.  You’re like many parents who now realize a processing problem might be occurring within your child.  The school staff did not want to bring this to your attention because they had limited resources available to test your child.  Thus, they keep pushing struggling kids along.  You can have your child privately tested to determine why he or she struggles.

To help your child you need to identify what is causing the struggle so that you know exactly where to target support.  Testing your child can identify your child’s underlying problem so that you can start to help in a meaningful way.  Why let something hinder your child from reaching his or her potential?  Schoool neuropsychological testing includes tests of memory, speed, language processing, visual-spatial processing, attention, executive functioning, flexible thinking, reading, math, writing, self-esteem, and much more.  This approach identifies your child’s strengths and weaknesses so we can target the right support.

In addition, when school resumes you can share the results report with the school so they can write up a 504 Plan or IEP.  These are the special plans that provide accommodations for your child. This means the school can do things to help your child so you have systems of support from multiple areas.

If you are supervising your child’s work, try these three strategies.  1. Reinforce what your child is doing well.  Your child has to feel like they are doing things right. 2.  Use Grandma’s rule which is you have to eat your veggies before you get dessert.  Your child must do their school work in order to earn reward time of a tablet or video game.  3.  If you have a say in your child’s school work schedule, try to do the hardest tasks first thing in the morning.  Most kids work better in the morning than in the afternoon.  Your chid’s struggles are real so invest in testing to help him or her overcome any hinderances while at the same time unlocking potential.

Call today. (561) 625-4125

Is Testing My Child Worth the Money?

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You might wonder if testing your child is worth the money.  The short answer is, “Yes” because testing provides information about the best way to help your struggling child. It also explains how your child learns and processes information.  Testing your child also helps you understand your child’s self esteem.  Furthermore, the testing process discovers any hidden areas that can be the underlying cause of your child’s struggles.

Think about this. Have you ever purchased a house?  As part of the process you hired a home inspector to spend time doing a thorough inspection to identify problem items that are hidden from your visual inspection.  The home inspector looks for hidden concerns that might cause you future problems.  This money helps you avoid items like a leaky pipe that, if left unrepaired, will cost you a bundle.

In that same spirit, testing your child could identify hidden concerns like anxiety or low self esteem.  If these areas are treated when your child is young, the outcome is much better than if anxiety and low self esteem worsen all the way into adulthood. Likewise, the toll from an unidentified reading learning disability that goes undetected all the way until high school causes your child to harbor a lot of emotional baggage.  These kids often live feeling dumb and like they don’t fit in at school.  They often associate with others who might be prone to risky teen behavior.

Imagine you just haven’t been feeling right for a while and finally go to your doctor who runs tests and tells you that you have stage one cancer. If you start treatment early your prognosis is much better than if you have stage four.  Of course a learning disability is not going to physically cause death but it can cause indirectly lead to life problems that can cause bodily harm.

In my opinion, the moral of the story is the testing is worth the money because it’s an investment in your child that can prevent some serious future problems.

Here’s a quick rundown of what happens during the testing process.

  1. First we meet with parents so you can share your concerns and we can review paperwork that helps us create a unique evaluation to answer your most important questions.
  2. We individually test your child and take a short break at least every 45 to 60 minutes.
  3. We analyze the results and write up a written summary.
  4. Parents meet with us to discuss the results.
  5. Together we create a brief action plan of next steps.

The recommendations offer suggestions for helping at home and in school so most parents share a copy of the report with your child’s school administration.  The school staff review the recommendations and then meet with you to write up an accommodation plan of items they will do at school to help your child.

At the conclusion of the testing process you understand more about your child and what to do to help at home and school.

Contact us if we can help you have more understanding about your child. (561) 625-4125