Complete loss on helping a p5 special need boy

[yxl]

Dear Parent


I wonder if anyone had came across situation like what I am facing now.
My boy P5 this year had never pass his exam & is not motivated to study(despite the full support given at home) He is a child who suffer from visual processing disorder & find studying very stress.

I am a fulll time mother who work with him closely but it seem like our relationship get worse as he grow. He think that I am evil, cruel by pushing him to study everytime. To him all the therapy is useless. He just refuse to cooperate and put in the little bit of extra effort to overcome his difficulties.

I am relly at a loss what to do with him. Pls help Thanks

[verykiasumummy]

hi yxl, my heart goes out to u… i can imagine how hard u will be facing ur ds when he actually doesnt appreciate…


no doubt that having any forms of disorder will deter his interest in studying… parents should not be pushing too hard, need to get a balance somewhere… u should know what he likes and in terms of having to study for 1hr, have a 10min break for him to relax before continuing…

[verykiasumummy]

get him on something he likes to eat or play… for eg if he likes badminton very much, allocate some time to let him play while not studying… maintaining your relationship with him is as impt as well… dun kill his love for u just because u wanted him well but he doesnt understand…

[verykiasumummy]

he could be developing some rebellious feelings towards u or are there any bad influence from sch???


maybe ur dh or any other relative could talk to him to find out more about it… he certainly needs help and any delay will not make him any better…

[ammonite]

Yxl, my son had vision processing issues. He is coping ok for now, by my standard. The thing I realised was that he had missed out on the foundational years in the years when he was struggling visually. I spent time rebuilding the foundation, looking for gaps or basic misunderstandings of certain things. You may want to consider if this was the case.


Which area of vision processing is your son having trouble with and what therapy is he undergoing now? How long has he been undergoing therapy? If he feels it is useless, I would be very interested to know why he thinks so. He may be right you know. After all we are only bystanders and won’t know how it is for him.

[levite612]

Hi,

You could check out bal-a-vis-x. There’s a youtube video on it. It’s basically playing with racquetballs. Strengthens the eye muscles and trains eye to track efficiently. There are 2 parties teaching it in Sg; BrainWaves Educational Kinesiology and Steady Steps. It’s worked wonders for my kid.

[yxl]

Thanks everyone.

He is struggling when come to study or learning involve coordination.
Frequent break was given but he is very resistant whenever come to sitting to do work. Have sent him to Singapore brain,orthovision for eye training, currently at AWWA for some eye tracking & coordination therapy. As support in school, teacher had taken note of his condition & assign him a buddy to remind him of his work.

[Chenonceau]

yxl:

Thanks everyone.

He is struggling when come to study or learning involve coordination.
Frequent break was given but he is very resistant whenever come to sitting to do work. Have sent him to Singapore brain,orthovision for eye training, currently at AWWA for some eye tracking & coordination therapy. As support in school, teacher had taken note of his condition & assign him a buddy to remind him of his work.

The issues of (1) Special Needs Learning and (2) Motivation are separate. Special needs kids by and large, respond to the same motivation strategies. Your problem does not seem to be Special Needs learning since he has professional therapy to help him in that area.

Anyway, I dun think I can help advise on Special Needs Learning because I know that area very superficially only... but I can help with the bit on motivation.

I am reading that his resistance to getting work done interferes with the effectiveness of the cognitive therapy he receives. This resistance to work MAY be resolved through some simple to understand but hard to implement motivation strategies. The same write up I wrote a while back to help a Mom whose child REFUSED to study may help you...

Post 1: http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?p=775829#p775829
Post 2: http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?p=775943#p775943
Post 3: http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?p=776158#p776158

[yxl]

Thanks so much for sharing chen. Perhaps it really the emotion that I need to work on. I will learn and try to be more patient.


I think I have to keep reminding myself that it’s already a blessing that he is healthy right now after having been thru 2 liver transplant at a young age.

[Chenonceau]

yxl:

Thanks so much for sharing chen. Perhaps it really the emotion that I need to work on. I will learn and try to be more patient.


I think I have to keep reminding myself that it's already a blessing that he is healthy right now after having been thru 2 liver transplant at a young age.

Don't forego that emotional connection for school results. Ever. It's just not worth it in the larger perspective. A neighbour of mine used to lecture at NIE. She taught teachers how to teach Math. Her own son failed Math quite consistently. When my book came out, she read it from cover to cover and then she came to me eyes wet.

She regrets. So much. Her child is 18... and it is too late to turn the clock back.

Her relationship with her child was poor in the past 10 years. So many years spent in anger at each other. Years of loving joy that Satan stole from this family. Today, they have a distant relationship. Her child, because of all the anger and toxic emotion arising from the mother's inability to control her own anger, disappointment and frustration... hated to study and did poorly in school. Performed far below his potential. The child paid a price in grades.

The whole family paid a price in love.

Do not sacrifice LOVE at the altar of grades because in life, when push comes to shove, it is LOVE that binds a family together and sees individuals through challenges of EVERY sort. If the mother's love had not been clouded by toxic emotion, I think that child would have been a high flyer indeed.

Our fear... our stress... our anger poison our children, and cause them to falter at the key challenges of their lives where they NEED to stay steady. These toxic emotions poison family relationships and leave parents bereft of youthful companionship in our old age. It's not worth it to gain all the academic success in the world to lose your child. There is a reason why God called anger, a sin. It is even worse when Satan leads you to invest in toxic emotions and you lose BOTH your child and the academic success that could have been his.

This is what happened to my neighbor... years that Satan stole away.

At this point, I would like to speak blessings into your home. May your home overflow with love so rich that your faces shine with it.