ADVOCATE BURNOUT – HOW TO AVOID IT
A parent of a child with exceptionalities quickly learns that growing a thick skin is mandatory. Anyone dealing with years of phone calls, follow-ups, reminding, begging, pleading and pestering is susceptible to burnout at one time or another. These helpful tips will help you avoid Advocate Burnout: Try to see things from the side of the system. It helps to remember that many people involved in the red tape you must navigate are underpaid and overworked. Most of these people truly want to help your child, but are as bound by restraints and run-around as you are. Having this in mind puts you more in the brainspace of being “on the same team”. Hug your kid(s), keep a stiff upper lip and when all else fails, I hear they’re having an ice cream sale at the supermarket…
WHY YOU NEED A PROFESSIONAL COLLEGE CONSULTANT
“It’s an extra expense.” “I don’t have time for that.” “There’s already a guidance counselor at school.” “With older siblings around, we know all the rules of the game already.”These are all valid points, but only to a point. Let’s look at each of these issues to find what is faulty with that particular line of thinking. After all, in preparing for college admissions, your child’s future is on the line. 1. “IT’S AN EXTRA EXPENSE.” True. Hiring a professional college consultant is an extra outlay for your budget to accommodate. However, a year’s lost tuition due to an error in expectations is a far bigger expense. A professional consultant has the experience to point out issues previously overlooked, as well as to map out priorities and expectations in order to allow you to aim as well as possible toward your goals. 2. “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THAT.” Business meetings are move-able, most of your home projects can wait. Time management is big these days. Find whichever tips work for you and make the time, because time wasted, after the fact, in correcting an error or compensating for an impossible situation, will be far less flexible than planned meetings with a consultant at the before-college stage of the game. 3. “THERE’S ALREADY A GUIDANCE COUNSELOR AT SCHOOL.” Of course there is! What is the average caseload per counselor at your child’s high school? If you’re lucky, it will be even as low as 100 students within a limited number of available hours on his or her schedule. Does this counselor specialize in the specific issues your child faces? Even if you’re lucky on these counts, chances are extremely low that the guidance counselor has the experience of a professional consultant in applying to schools in order to maximize your child’s chances of acceptance to the very best schools for him or her. 4. “WITH OLDER SIBLINGS AROUND, WE KNOW ALL THE RULES OF THE GAME ALREADY.” There’s a good reason that we, as parents, have been trained over and over not to compare our children – their needs are very different. What Child Number One was looking for and researched could well have no relation whatsoever to the needs of Child Number Two or Three. At Learning Lab, we keep our finger on the pulse of developments across the nation to meet the needs of every type of student.Gambling generally isn’t considered an admirable habit, so why gamble with your child’s future?
WHAT AN IRL EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT HAS OVER GOOGLE
Educational consultants require research, possible travel, time and financial expenditure. Because of this, many parents prefer to appoint Google as their consultant in educational needs for their children. While Google is a fantastic research tool, when it comes down to it, search engines are only your starting point. But the internet is free, when and where I want it. What could be better than that? Hey, free is awesome, as is super-flexibility. However, it’s also limiting. Google knows neither your needs, nor the needs of your child. It isn’t tuned to what makes the teachers and administrators tick. There are also fine tuned questions that need to be asked and answered in order to meet needs, set realistic goals and pave a path to meet those goals. What Google is good for is initial research. Use the internet to build an initial list of the movers and shakers in your area’s educational system, consultants specializing in areas that meet your child’s needs, as well as tutors and therapists. Use the internet to find some of the most recent developments that may help your child’s situation, but bounce them off your real, live team of experts to sort the wheat from the chaff. So, got it? Search engines are great, but they have their limits. Use the internet to find your experts and build your outline, but an outline can’t turn into a life story without a team of real life experts helping, suggesting, routing and rooting for you! BeyondTutoring fuses the ease of the internet with top notch expertise. We’re real, qualified people who understand your needs, yet you’re free to choose our Consultation-by-Skype option, for your location and scheduling ease. Click here to get started!
THE WHENS, WHATS AND WHYS OF ADD / ADHD ACCOMMODATIONS IN HIGHER LEARNING
On the heels of the “That’s not fair” age, students often set themselves up for failure by failing to make use of a system that has been set up exactly to put them on EQUAL footing with other students. Accommodations are neither a gift nor a bonus.They were created and enacted and put into law to provide FAIR learning opportunities for students across the USA. It is important to note that students are no longer covered by the IDEA and now are covered by the ADA which offers different accommodations, that the student must seek out. If you are a student dealing with diagnosed attention deficit issues, you owe it to yourself to set the stage for your own success. Again, since there is a new set of laws in university requiring you to be more proactive — be your own advocate. Follow these steps to make sure your academic needs are covered: If you receive a denial of requested accommodations, most schools do have a process for appeal. However, submitting everything clearly in the first place ups your chances for success. Accommodations include but are not limited to the following possibilities:
INDIGO CHILDREN, ADD / ADHD AND THE AUTISM SPECTRUM: MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL
I have received this question in some variation a lot lately. First let’s talk a little about what an indigo child is and what the pros and cons are of your student being classified as an indigo child. According to the New Age Journal, your child may be “indigo” (sometimes known as “crystal”): Gone are the days of threatening “Wait till your father gets home,” or “You’ll be suspended,” the indigos don’t care! They have inner-lie detectors and will not be manipulated nor fall for hidden agendas. They are very head strong and do not like to be told what to do, nor do they want to do it your way. If we do not break out of our old control habits, threat habits or any other destructive behavior, they will show us that we must learn new methods in order for peace to prevail! This is done through heart connections, with love. They simply do not have the ability to disassociate from their feelings and pretend that everything is okay. They respond the best to all situations when they are treated like a respected adult. If we are acting childish in a manipulating, hurtful way, they will mirror back to us our own behavior. This causes more frustration within ourselves than it does within them! Their goal is for US to change, not them. Their horns toot “Treat others as you would want to be treated!” They are not shy in letting you know exactly what they need. Watch them. They have no hidden agenda. They are our teachers! (Source here!): The journal continues to say that most indigo children have been wrongly diagnosed with ADD / ADHD and are acting out to buck the system and usher in a new way of doing things. First let’s start with the positive, isn’t it great to acknowledge every student’s individuality and use their unique perspectives to spark systemic change? I think it is amazing to honor and respect what makes our students different and acknowledge the special contribution each student can make, despite any classification. I also agree with the many different recommendations to foster the spirit of the indigo child, such as exercise, being in touch with nature, keeping electronics out of the bedroom and in certain cases energy healing. These techniques can benefit all students despite their classifications. Well you know this was coming, and here it is, if you chose to ascribe to the idea that your child is simply “indigo” in lieu of a formal and legal classification, you may risk in-class and after school accommodations. In order for a student to receive accommodations in school, it is likely that he or she will need either a suspected or an actual cognitive diagnosis such as ADD/ADHD or a condition on the Autism spectrum. With that said, it is important to not let a diagnosis define your student and if the student feels more comfortable identifying at home as “indigo”, more power to your family! Just be careful and cognizant as to how you advocate for your student at IEP meetings and in more informal settings.
10 POINTS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WHEN CHOOSING AN EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT
With extensive experience and a history of success facilitating and solving a wide array of educational issues, LearningLab is a great option for educational consultations. We have a wide scope and cover all the bases. Contact us here with all your questions and requests!
WHY SELF-ESTEEM IS SO IMPORTANT ESPECIALLY FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN
Think downtown… big, modern skyscrapers bursting with promises of success. Now, think about the process of building that masterpiece. What came first? There was all the planning, and then the foundation was built. Without that foundation, the building is nothing. Not even one story can stand without a decent base, never mind the edifice you have pictured. This can be visualized for your child using children’s building blocks. The elementary, tall towers don’t stand very well without a wider, thought-out base. Let your children play around with different building strategies until they work this out themselves, giving them a few hints if and when necessary. WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS SEEMINGLY JUVENILE EXERCISE? As I’ve written before, lectures tend to go in one ear and out the other. Hopefully, this little game, plus a short explanation, will solidify the essentiality of self esteem. Nothing, not even a dog house, can last very long without proper foundation and grounding. But you’re not aiming for a dog house. You should be aiming for the top of that skyscraper and beyond! Our next four blog posts will be focused on self esteem and how to foster this vital quality in our students, from smaller children through teens. For children with exceptionalities, keeping that self esteem up can be a rough road, but it a road that is travelable, navigable and reaches great places. Consider this series a chain of pit stops on your way to fostering a can-do-it feeling.
TEACHING ADVOCACY IN YOUR CLASSROOM
I recently volunteered on a career panel for first generation, college-bound high schoolers. I have volunteered in this capacity with various non-profits organizations before and always have been categorized as “lawyer” or “teacher” depending on what was needed more of on the day in question. What struck me about this particular career panel was that this panel and subsequent sectioning had me labeled as “advocate.” When I inquired about this title, wondering if the kids would even know what an ubiquitously labeled advocate does, I was shocked by the response by the facilitator. She said, “Yes, of course they know what an advocate is, half of them want to be advocates.” With a growing desire to be advocates and the growing need for students to become and be their own advocates, how do we effectively teach mindful advocacy in the classroom? How do we allow students to thrive through graceful and respectful argument and persuasion? Here are a few ways I have seen students develop amazing “advocacy” and rhetoric skills in the classroom. Allow a space for argument. This takes some dynamic and careful teaching skills, but allows students the space to disagree, argue a grade or make a counterargument to a point you made in class. By establishing a normative surrounding argument, you encourage both its use and the appropriateness of respectful disagreement. Establish ground rules of when and how students should present arguments or counterarguments. Enforce the necessity of evidence and rationality with a side of humor and flexibility and your students will be respectful advocates in no time. Define advocacy. Take some time to teach the concept of advocacy and build in advocacy with argument in your CCSS curriculum. Ask your students to define what advocacy means to them and how advocacy can impact their school, community and their world. Teach about the power of advocacy and what advocacy looks like for them by teaching case studies of current community advocacy. Fight. Fight the power. I am sure many teachers reading this have also read and love Paolo Friere and his amazing “Power of the Pedagogy.” It is useful to read the books about the power dynamics in the classroom and how we can begin to combat them. By teaching and acknowledging power dynamics in the classroom, students will feel more comfortable with speaking their truth in a situation when they are not the most powerful people in the room. Invite a non-traditional advocate to speak. This takes a bit of research but ask someone working in the community, at a non-profit organization or an agent of change in your city to come in to talk about how they got started in advocacy. Each person who identifies him or herself or is identified as an advocate started by challenging something small (or maybe big) that he or she felt was unfair. I got started on my journey for advocacy by being forced to navigate an antiquated disability system at my university while I was chronically ill. It was through this marginalization experience that I was able to more profoundly empathize with those who lacked power in a given situation. You also don’t need to be an “advocate” to advocate. Allow room for small advocacy and big advocacy. Encourage speaking and listening (in all forms). Speaking and listening conferences help students develop rhetoric skills and develop their persuasive voice. Ask students questions that allow them to more fully develop their critical thinking skills and their oral advocacy skills all at the same time. If time does not allow for speaking and listening conferences, engage in Socratic dialogue in your classrooms so students, again, can begin honing their spoken literacy skills to properly advocate. There is a reason that law school doesn’t aim to teach content but rather teach people to think like a lawyer. Socratic dialogue encourages students to think like an advocate, like a problem solver and like an active member of his or her community. Most of all, encourage students to change their classroom and begin to think about changing their world. These nascent minds are prime for advocacy because there is no dream too big or problem too messy for them to solve. With that said, happy advocating!