Learning

Empathise with your child – if they’re having a bad time at school, let them know that you understand – they’ll likely be feeling alone in it.

Try to avoid interrogating them! This may not support them telling you everything, or the truth.

Define the problem with them – find out from their perspective exactly what’s going on. See if they have any solutions they can then implement.

Your child's teacher is, next to you, their greatest influence and many times their best advocate.

Talk to their teacher with them – try and come up with a plan where your child feels able to lead the way.

Ensure your child has people to talk to – aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, other friendship groups. Allow them to find their ‘team’ of supports.

Keep checking in (without interrogation) and praise all they're doing to overcome the problem. Celebrate their steps and successes.

Try not to pay too much attention to the negative stuff – when you hear positive stuff pay lots of attention to this and praise them for what they’re doing well.

You will know your child best so if you're thinking they may have some differences in their learning or behaviour, the best place to start is just with a general chat with your GP or their practice nurse, but if you want to do some online searching too, here's the sites we love:

• SPELD
• Altogether Autism and Autism NZ
• Dyslexia Foundation 
• ADHD NZ
• Care Matters
• Mental Health Foundation 

You play a pivotal role in sharing information about your child with their school and teacher. This is particularly important for kids with specialist needs (diagnosed or not). When enrolling your child with school or even well after, find out who supports children with specialist needs there. Most schools will have a SENCO (Special Education Needs Coordinator) who you can be in contact with. Arrange to meet them and work together with them and the teacher to create a plan to support your child in the classroom setting. 

Schools will also have many contacts with outside support agencies if your child requires specialist support in one or more areas of their learning or development. 

Once your child is at school be sure to regularly pop into the classroom and chat with their teacher. And a wee note - be sure that your child hears you and their teacher speaking positively about them and their progress and the effort they make. Recognise that for some kids, school can be a challenging place so as adults we need to provide the support they need so that it’s only ever a great place to be! 

We're big fans of the content and mahi of:

• Attitude - especially 'The Mum's' series
• Awhi Ngā Mātua
• Raising Children (Australian)
• Listening to Families 

Often our neurodiverse little super-humans are super charged with some big emotions, which makes a lot of sense in the context. 

The more we can talk about and name our and our kid’s emotions, the more they learn what they are and can feel like. 

If kids only know happy, sad and angry this can be confusing and frustrating. Our kid's behaviour doesn’t always indicate how they’re feeling, anger may be frustration, annoyance, fear, disgust or worry. Behaviour is communication. Our children typically don’t behave the way they do to annoy us – or others. They behave the way they do because of their emotions, feelings and senses - this can be overwhelming and have children attempt to ‘shut down’ from them.

Naming emotions as colours can be great too e.g. “I’m feeling a bit blue today” (tired, sad, lonely) or “You seem in a bright yellow mood today, am I right?” (happy, excited, joyful). Finding a fun way for your child to express how they’re feeling can be really helpful. And there are heaps of books out there to help too.

If your child seems particularly worried often, head to our tips here too.  

If you're interested in the things they are, this is all about ‘connecting’ with them. They may be really into My Little Pony, so learn their names, watch the programme with them.

We say this because sometimes our lack of interest in our kid's interests and taste can be misinterpreted by them as us not liking them. And, showing interest in this way may be provide opportunities to open them up to other interests too.

Kids with ADHD, Autism and other diagnoses all have strengths because of their differences – more knowledge, more energy, more curiosity, more persistence, and often more honesty. Enjoy these wonderful differences.