Empowering Multilingual Kids: A Mother’s Triumph Over Dyslexia
Empowering Multilingual Kids: A Mother’s Triumph Over Dyslexia
“You know what they told us at school when we first brought Gleb and said he has dyslexia? ‘You have a gifted child.’ And that’s what we’ve been going with,” shares Maria Stolyarova. During Dyslexia Awareness Month, Maria, a mother of a child with dyslexia, shares their journey and how they cope.
What to Do If Your Child Has Dyslexia?
This is the most common question I’ve been asked since we found out that the youngest member of our family, my son, is dyslexic. My answer: keep living your life calmly. And here’s why.
Living in the Age of Information
We live in an era of social media, AI, and instant messaging, so we shouldn’t have trouble accessing information. But when it comes to dyslexia, I feel like I’m stuck in the Stone Age. There are many misconceptions about this different way of thinking because society’s awareness is extremely low, despite the tremendous efforts of certain communities and dyslexia associations.
The average parent has either never heard of it or has a vague idea of what it is. “People who can’t read? Can’t write? People with something wrong in their brains? Kids who struggle in school?” Ask your friends what they know about dyslexia. Share their answers with us.
The Initial Panic
Naturally, when parents find out their child is dyslexic, most of them panic. Because it’s scary, unclear, and complicated, and they don’t know where to turn.
Where to Turn
Here’s where to go: to a neuropsychologist. This specialist will diagnose your child for dyslexic traits, create a profile of their cognitive characteristics, and provide recommendations on what to do next. And this is just the beginning of your journey.
Explaining Dyslexia to Your Child
This is the most delicate part psychologically, and it’s best to go through it with a specialist. In our case, the neuropsychologist first explained to me how my son’s brain works, and then we communicated with the child together. Dyslexics are often traumatized by insults from teachers and classmates, and sometimes even parents, due to slow reading or poor writing, so they quickly shut down and avoid contact. School performance declines due to lack of self-confidence, and over time, school becomes a nightmare.
Your task is to create a positive attitude in your child towards themselves. They are not stupid, not sick, not defective. They are completely unique and very smart. In studying dyslexia, neuroscientists consistently confirm the fact of high intellectual abilities in such people. Most often, they have an inventive mind. Remember Thomas Edison, who couldn’t learn to read properly until he was 15, and then literally illuminated the whole world.
How to Help Your Dyslexic Child
If you’ve gone from diagnosis to accepting the fact of dyslexia as a family, then a long road of comprehensive systemic support begins. It only sounds complicated; in reality, it’s not that scary. You’ll have sessions with a neuropsychologist, additional exercises at home, and regular school. The latter can be challenging due to the low level of awareness among teachers and children, but this will improve over time.
For example, my son’s classmates started drawing pictures of what he couldn’t read at some point. They genuinely helped, and this game allowed him to build relationships with the class.
Dyslexia Can Be Compensated
Children read, write, act in theater, play music, solve math problems, and, in general, are no different from neurotypical children. Some manifestations will remain in adulthood because it’s not a diagnosis, it’s not treatable, and you can’t get rid of dyslexia. It’s just a different type of thinking.
We’ve also gone from complete despair to full acceptance. And today, when I see my son reading in Russian, German, and French, I’m proud of him to the skies.
I like the thought of neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, which she expressed in her book “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain”: perhaps dyslexia is an alternative evolutionary model of the brain, where in some individuals, the development of neural pathways went differently, which is why dyslexia is often hereditary. But this is just one of the theories. Scientists around the world are still trying to figure out how dyslexia appeared.
What to Do?
- Love your child with all their peculiarities.
- Give them confidence, accept them, help and support them.
- How the parents relate to everything depends on almost everything in their further life.
- We are not like our parents; we are them.
For more information, visit the International Dyslexia Association.
