Our daughter Sanjana was diagnosed with a rare chromosome disorder at five. At around two and half years she took her first steps, and her first words were only after she turned 5. Despite intensive Speech/ OT/ PT, her milestones came painfully slow.

In the following years, she went through inclusive schools; and by the time she was fifteen started attending a pre-vocational skills center. Her pace of progress was painfully slow, but steady, nevertheless.

She was still not reading or writing without substantial help. The snail-paced progress and constant repetition were tiring us both out. It also affected us emotionally, not just physically.

When she was around seventeen, a compassionate fellow mom shared with us about her experience with NACD. We promptly went online to read details and case studies, and with a lot of hope in our hearts, contacted the NACD team.

After the first evaluation, we realized we were working truly hard to teach her, and she was working very hard to learn—but her brain was not ready for any learning! Her processing was at an extremely low level, and it was as if we were simply barking up the wrong tree.

Then came the program. At that point, I was also running a full-fledged design studio and had my hands full. I kept thinking about how I was going to implement this with our already overflowing schedules. But hope is powerful. It makes you stretch and do things you may not think you could do otherwise. We started the program, and just then covid hit India. Suddenly I was at home all day, her Center went online, and I could see her learning and her struggles, and we could manage our time better.

After regular rhythmic work daily, we saw growth pace had picked up. We saw that the otherwise snail-paced progress changed to seeing significant change every 4 months. Her processing level went up substantially and so did her learning! Improving her processing and acing the math facts gave her a much-needed base to proceed further. The reading, which was an activity she would dread and despise because of her intense struggle to perform the activity, changed to her enjoying the process. She still needs help to read, but it is with less struggle, more willingness and joy.

I now realize the value of a home program and chose to sell my design studio to be more available for Sanjana. While she is progressing well on the academic path, what helped us most is NACD’s focus on chores, independence, and skills. She’s independently doing many chores at home, picking up most skills needed for independent living.

We honed her love for arts and crafts into being a soap artist. She makes lovely natural artisanal soaps which we help her sell through her website www.thebluelephant.in. She’s independent in making soap, inventory logging, and many other tasks around it.

However, her biggest love is coffee and food. She is now a trained barista who makes amazing coffees and is currently pursuing a baking course. Her coffees are popular in the neighborhood, and they often drop in or order her coffee on weekends. Her signature is Orange Coffee!

We are constantly looking for creative ways to build skills in the most normative ways possible. Towards this, Lyn, our coach, gave us a fabulous idea to implement a home economy system where we transact at home to buy food and coffee, etc. This is slowly building her confidence and literacy around money.

In recent times, everyone who meets Sanjana can’t help but notice the change in her confidence, communication, comprehension, and independence.

As parents, what boosts our morale the most is the increased pace of progress and her ability to manage emotional outbursts. There was a time when meltdowns were frequent and would turn violent along with crying and screaming. Now not only have they dramatically reduced in number, but they are also more manageable. She can communicate even through those difficult moments and self-regulate to an extent. It is such a huge relief that they are no longer moments of insanity.

Lyn, our coach, and the team have just been phenomenal. Her advice and motivation keep us going on the right path. We are blessed to have them in our lives. Blessed to have found this wonderful program—NACD. And blessed to be able to hold this wonderful dream for Sanjana’s future of her living an independent, dignified life.

            • Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, July 2023 ©NACD

The post Sanjana’s Journey appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

“All great change in America starts at the dinner table.” 

— Ronald Reagan

If your children are infants, toddlers, of school age, or adults, or somewhere in between, family meals can be incredibly important. Whether our motivation is teaching a skill (such as eating or participating in meal preparation) or fostering family dynamics (such as communicating about the day, participating in discussions, building independent thinking), family meals may not just be the most important meals of the day, but the most important times of the day, or even their lives.

We are all aware that times have changed and that all the changes have not been for the better. Some of the more significant changes involve family, perception of family, and perhaps even the definition of family. There are many family traditions that are being lost in our fast-paced consumption-driven society. One very important piece that has been lost in many families is simply family meals. As a society and for the sake of our children, we need to revisit what has been the norm virtually throughout human history and has been lost to a great extent over just the last 50 years.

In many homes today, family meals are becoming more and more something that is part of family history or perhaps something reserved for special Sundays and holidays. For most families, breakfast is something you grab on the way out the door or something that gets shoved into children before they start the day. Today, rather than someone taking time to prepare a healthy breakfast meal for the family, most people grab the home equivalent of fast food. How about lunch? Lunch is rarely something that is done as a family. Everyone is off doing school, work, or whatever. In most families the best shot at getting the family together for a real meal is dinner. Let’s look at some of the problems being caused by the loss of family meals, as well as the benefits that we can derive from this old foundational family institution.

Over the past number of decades, I have observed an increase in several issues negatively affecting virtually all children that can be associated with missing family meals.

Just last night I had a family dinner with my son, Laird, his lovely wife Sadie, and my grandchildren, 5-year-old Arielle and just-turned-two Lachlan. Lachlan sat across the table and as he typically does, he kept an eye on me throughout the meal. The degree to which he observed me became obvious when he carefully nudged a piece of carrot to the edge of his plate, then onto the table with his fork. I had not had a chance to comment before he looked up at me and did an amazing job of imitating my head tilt and disapproving expression, which resulted in my smiling at him in spite of the fact that I knew I shouldn’t do it. (Lachlan fits “too cute for his own good.”) This was followed by my tilting my head and making different expressions that Lachlan mimicked beautifully. This went on for about 90 seconds, following which he picked the piece of carrot up and put it back on his plate. The degree to which children observe us and learn from us when we are in close proximity is greatly underestimated. Rarely throughout a typical day do these opportunities present themselves as they do during a family meal.

Although at two Lachlan has yet to learn that experimentation has its limits at the dinner table, there are many things he has learned from eating meals with his family and observing, things that many children who are fed by themselves or eat by themselves often do not learn until much later, and some of which are sadly never learned.

Optimally a family meal entails having the whole family together—Mom, Dad and all the kids. The only thing that generally beats this is when the extended family is included, as this grandfather can attest. Although we realistically can’t always, or even often, create the ideal, the closer we can come to it, the better. A parent, or a parent and a sibling, having a meal with a child is preferable to the child just eating alone or being fed, while the parent or caregiver simply attends to getting the food into the child. Part of this equation is delineating between eating as in consuming food vs. sharing a meal together, a learning experience. Eating is a process by which you get food from your hand, a utensil, or some container to your stomach, generally as quickly and as unceremoniously as possible. Having a meal together, sharing a meal, is often the most educational part of the day for children and parents alike. I grew up in the ’50s outside of Philadelphia. In the ’50s most mothers’ job was the family—period. Moms had time to cook and to sit down and share good meals with their family. Sunday dinners and extended family dinners often meant coats and ties for the guys and dresses for the girls. These meals were treated as significant events, even if they were frequent. I recall as a child learning early on that at a meal you talked. There was no TV, you didn’t read at the table, and an effort was made to include everyone in some form or level of discussion. Everyone participated or received some attention. I was in a restaurant recently and was shocked by a large family that was seated near us. You might not define eating at home as “dining,” although one would hope to approximate that as often as possible; but if a family goes to a restaurant and makes that financial and time investment, you might hope that the experience would approximate “dining.” On this particular evening while I was dining with my family, I noticed the large family next to us that consisted of both parents and six children who ranged from about six to sixteen. All sat the entire time staring at their phones. It would have been bad enough if they had answered calls, but not a word was spoken. Throughout the entire time they were in the restaurant, the only words spoken were to the waitress who took their orders. This was not a family sharing a meal together; it was an opportunity missed and lost, and sadly a statement about this family and many others.

Let’s look at our children of various ages and families at different stages and explore the significance of the family meal.

• Part 1 Infants and Toddlers
• Part 2 Three to Five Years
• Part 3 Five to Eighteen +

Part 1

Infants and Toddlers

Learning to chew, self-feeding, eating a variety of nutritional foods, auditory processing and language development

Learning to chew

As part of our program at NACD, which entails working with the whole child, we have families post many videos of their children on our NACD Portal. These videos provide our staff with vital information and insights that help us educate the family and assist in the child’s development. Observing many parents spoon feeding their little ones is often a bit of a painful experience. In these instances, it is very apparent that the obvious goal is to get the food from the bowl to the child’s stomach as quickly as possible. To accomplish this goal, the parent is often using an amazingly large spoon. Not only do we observe food being shoveled into the child’s mouth, but the rate at which the food is shoved in is such that the child has no opportunity to learn how to use their tongue to manipulate the food in the mouth. Learning how to use the tongue is a significant component of a child learning to chew and to speak. In order for the child to progress from purees, to chewable foods, to self-feeding, they need to learn how to chew. Chewing is a very important part of digestion, and children who do not chew well often have digestive issues and constipation. In addition, chewing is the first big piece of oral motor development that establishes the foundation for good articulation. If Johnny was being fed while some of the family was eating, it would be a much slower process with a significantly different goal. The goal would be to assist the child in eating, teaching them how to eat, and interacting, not simply filling their stomach. The children who are fed as previously described often are very slow to learn how to chew because they are not only being deprived of the opportunity to learn how, but deprived of the opportunity to observe Mom, Dad, and big sister chew.

Expanding taste, accepting a variety of foods

A side effect of delayed chewing is the slow introduction of a variety of identifiable foods. Pureed foods all tend to look and feel the same in the mouth and are often all mixed so that the child cannot differentiate between specific flavors and odors. It’s experiencing a wide variety of food, textures, tastes, and smells that develops the acceptance of a wide range of food and teaches the child not only to eat, but enjoy a variety of nutritional foods. Guess what else the child who is fed alone misses? The opportunity to observe what other people eat and enjoy. The nature of the beast is to want what others have; and observing what other family members have and then being offered the same thing contributes to the child’s trying and enjoying different foods and textures. The child who is fed and eats alone is deprived of these very important opportunities that can lead to picky eaters and lifelong rejection of many nutritious foods. The first tastes that a child perceives are sweet and salty. Delaying the introduction of other tastes often leads to the child rejecting the more nutritious foods and craving sweet and salty food.

Self-feeding

As we move from baby to infant to toddler, we want to be teaching the child how to feed themselves, moving from finger foods to utensils. Self-feeding is a very important step toward independence. The more independent a child becomes, the more the child initiates doing more things on their own; and nothing is perhaps more significant to independence than feeding oneself. The longer a child (or adult for that matter) is dependent, the harder it is to foster independence, initiation, change, and progress. The more the child initiates, the faster their global development. There are many other pieces to this, including the child who eats alone and is trained to need a distraction for meals, such as a screen or toys.

Moving along in the child’s development, eating with the family teaches many important things, from how to eat appropriately with utensils, to table manners, to simply sitting at the table until the meal is finished. Children learn how to be civilized from adults who are and who model appropriate behaviors. Eating with your child is an important modeling and teaching opportunity.

Family meals often present one of the most important opportunities for the child to observe and learn. Young children learn visually, by observing. If a child is eating alone and not sitting next to family members who are feeding themselves, they do not even have a mental picture of someone feeding themselves. As a result, they are slow to initiate self-feeding and are content to continue being fed. Conversely, the child who closely observes people eating with utensils learns how to eat with utensils.

One disturbing thing that children who are learning to self-feed, but who are eating by themselves, commonly learn is to throw food or drinks and plates and whatever is within reach. Why not, if they do not have sufficient modeling to show them how to eat and act appropriately or do not have the opportunity to simply observe and interact with other members of the family during a meal? If they are eating with someone else and happen to throw something, someone is there to give them immediate feedback. 

Processing, receptive and expressive language

Young children learn by being in close approximation to other people and observing. They also tend to observe some more than others. The family meal affords them the opportunity to focus and learn from specific family members. The family meal is an ideal time for the child to observe, listen, and begin to understand and process language and produce sounds and language themselves. Auditory processing (the ability to process a word, then phrases, then sentences) is of paramount importance to the development of cognitive function. The child at a family meal is a relatively captive audience who can observe and listen to what is being said and learn.

One of the keys to development is neuroplasticity. The child’s brain develops from specific input being provided with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration. Children need consistent opportunities to observe, interact, and learn.

Part 2

Three to Five Years

Table manners, expanding taste, attention, processing and language development, chores, responsibility and independence

We often think the goal of meals is simply to eat, to get nourishment; but as already discussed, there are many associated pieces that are extremely important. At each stage of the child’s development, there are important developmental pieces that relate to, and are aided by, family meals.

Table manners—taming the beast

It’s often easy to spot a child who typically eats alone: their table manners are horrific, and it takes longer to clean up the table and the floor after a meal than it was for the child to consume it. Teaching a child appropriate table manners requires first and foremost modeling appropriate table manners and then providing the child with appropriate instruction and feedback. The more often someone else is present and demonstrating appropriate table manners, the more quality input the child receives, and the faster they learn what they should do and how to do it.

Expanding taste—nutrition

Children who eat meals alone tend to learn to want the same things at every meal. Breakfast and even lunch is often the same every day. It is often easy for parents, once they discover what the child will eat for breakfast and lunch, to give the child the same thing every day; and unfortunately the child learns to want the same thing. So they both establish a pattern that neither is motivated to change. Eating the same thing daily is not nutritious, particularly if we look at what the children typically get for breakfast and lunch. Often the only opportunity the child has to learn about different foods is at dinner, assuming that the child is eating with the rest of the family. Healthy foods are rarely a child’s preferred foods, which again tend to be sweet and salty foods, which are often followed by grains. Gluten is becoming of greater concern in regard to allergies and intolerances. Children eating cereals, breads, and pastas often become addicted to these foods and reject what they should be eating. The taste for a variety of foods needs to be developed for the child to not only learn to eat, but enjoy the variety of meats, fruits, and vegetables that contribute to a healthy diet. The greater variety of foods we can introduce, and the earlier, often the better.

One good example of children learning to eat more sophisticated foods if exposed to them from an early age is what I observed in southern California in the ’80s. The first couple of times I saw this I was honestly a bit shocked; but it occurred so often that it became almost the norm in southern California. The snack food of choice of these families for their children under five and often as young as eighteen months was sushi. And the kids loved it! It was a great demonstration of how rapidly taste can be developed if given the opportunity.

Processing—cognition

Young children, when seated at a table with family members, attend to those family members. If they are not offered distractions like the TV, iPads, crayons and toys, they pay attention to what the other members of the family are doing and saying. Hopefully the family members try to engage these little ones during the meal. This process of attending without distractions helps build the child’s processing and attention span, which is a key to learning.

Perhaps the most important thing that drives the development of receptive and expressive language, cognition, and global development is the development of sequential processing. Building sequential processing develops short-term memory, then working memory and executive function, the pieces that determine our level of function even more so than innate intelligence. The primary thing that pushes processing is specific targeted auditory and visual input. One of the things that most children do well is let you know whether what you are saying to them, showing them, or doing with them is targeted to them or not. The test is their attention to it. If you are hitting the nail on the head, the child attends; if not, they don’t. Children sitting at a table with family members can be relied on to give the rest of the family feedback as to whether they are being included or not. The children tend to shape the family’s behavior. The more targeted the input, particularly from a family member, the faster the development of these vital processing abilities that will influence how the child ultimately learns, thinks, and functions.

Language development

Teaching a foreign language is not an easy task. It’s important for parents to understand that any language is a foreign language to a child learning their first language. The best way to teach any language is through immersion. Immersion simply means that you are living with the language and learning from your observations and involvement and out of need. Throughout the course of the day, the child has an opportunity to observe and interact and start to learn the language; but throughout most of the day there are many things going on, and it’s difficult to isolate words and their meanings. The family meal gives the child an excellent opportunity to isolate, observe, model, and learn to understand and then use language. It’s not a shock that one of the first words that a child learns is “more” and that one of their first word combinations is “Mom more,” followed by the phrase “Mom more please,” to using full sentences. The family meal should be a focal time in the day for relevant talk that contributes to the child learning the structure of the language and developing their own receptive language abilities. The language function of most children in this age group is a direct reflection of the targeted interaction between the child, parents, and siblings who naturally expand their use of language to fit the child they are speaking to. No one is better suited to this job than the people who know the child best; and no time may be better suited to this development than the family meal.

Chores, responsibility, and independence

I have written several articles talking about the importance of teaching a child to do, be responsible for, and to own chores. Most parents grossly underestimate their child’s capabilities and the global importance of their children learning to be capable, contributing, and independent and “owning” chores. The best initial chores to teach a child to own are those that are associated with specific events that occur daily. The first such event is simply getting up in the morning, but following that are meals, and again, particularly family meals. It is important to separate “helping” from “owning” a chore or job. Many children learn to follow specific helping directions and prompts even before the age of three and can be helpers. This period between three and five years, however, is an ideal time to teach your child not only how to do chores, but to own them. In response to the questions asking what chores children have, I often hear such things as “Johnny takes his dish to the sink.” My response to that is often, “If Johnny is capable of taking his dish to the sink, why not everyone else’s, and how about him completely cleaning the table?” Sadly, the parents’ response to that is often that Johnny eats alone, and if not, the parents do not even perceive that Johnny could do it if taught. They totally miss the understanding of the huge benefits Johnny would derive from doing it.

Unless children learn otherwise, they are egocentric, believing that the world revolves around them. Unfortunately, egocentric children can become narcissist adults. At three or even before, most children are ready to learn and own jobs and to learn that they can contribute; and they will learn to welcome and seek other ways to serve and contribute.

Ownership of a chore or job means that the child owns a particular task and preferably that they alone do it, so if they don’t do it, it doesn’t get done, which creates a problem. One of the first meal-associated jobs is teaching the child how to put silverware away from the dishwasher. Most children enjoy doing this job and can see that they are contributing and like it. Other meal—associated jobs that children in the 3-5 year range can do includes setting the table, cleaning the table, cleaning the floor under the table (even three year olds can learn to use a dust buster well), moving into washing dishes, loading, and unloading a dishwasher and even initial food preparation. Family meals can provide consistent opportunities for children to learn that they can be capable, contributing, members of the family. The earlier our children learn to happily and competently contribute, the sooner they start on the path of learning to be responsible, altruistic and selfless, self-reliant, contributing members of the family and society. Learning to be responsible with definitive chores helps children understand intention, which generalizes to other things including academics.

The more our children learn to do independently, particularly things that go beyond their own needs, the more they perceive what they could do, and the more things they initiate doing on their own, creating attributes that will serve them well in everything they do.

Part 3

Five Years to Eighteen Years +

Language development and social skills, processing (short-term memory, working memory and executive function), communication between parents and children, education, learning family values and history, learning critical thought and expression, becoming highly capable.

Theoretically a child moving from five years through adolescence to eighteen year of age is taking a young child and creating an adult. Unfortunately, there are not many eighteen-year-olds who we can confidently consider adults today; and that number appears to be shrinking every year. If you have a child five years of age, it’s not too early to remind you that your job is to put together the pieces to turn that child into a functional adult, who is equipped to go off to college or trade school by themselves, seek full time employment, start a business, join the military, or explore other adult options. These years pass at an amazing speed, and the target needs to be kept within the sights. This job requires putting together a lot of pieces. At NACD we know the need to work with the whole individual and the need to have someone at the helm steering the ship. No one knows a child as well as the parent. Teachers, relatives, coaches, clergy, and friends do not know as many pieces of the child as do actively involved parents. I have built several houses which have all come out well. Each one required my vision and design, the help of an architect, an engineer, a head contractor, and sub-contractors. The vision for the houses were mine, and I needed and used the various folks to help put the projects/visions together; but the houses were my babies and from concept to completion they were my responsibility. If they had not turned out as I envisioned, it was my fault and no one else’s. Building a house, even a large, complex house, is nothing compared to helping to assist a child in becoming a happy, successful, capable adult. And the need for attention to detail and ongoing participation cannot be overstated. One needs not to look too hard at society in general to see and hopefully understand the need to have actively involved parents steering the ship.

Language development and social skills

One of the most important jobs as parents is simply to talk to our children. In our busy lives meals are often the best, if not the only, regular opportunities parents have to get and hold the attention of their five-to eighteen-year-old and speak with them. A parent innately knows how to speak to a specific child. You innately use sentences of a length they can process and language they can understand. You have a pretty good idea as to what your child knows and doesn’t know, so you know if they have a frame of reference for a topic or not. A parent with the knowledge of their whole child is better suited to provide this invaluable input than anyone else. We call this targeted input. This targeted input and verbal interaction creates the building blocks of language and much more. If we are verbally interacting with our children throughout the day, it is often language that is directing them to do something or stop doing something; and although there may be opportunities throughout the day, particularly for families who are home educating their children, to really talk and communicate, the family meal can and should be perceived as a daily unique opportunity to have Dad, siblings, and even extended family participate. Language development occurs most rapidly when verbal interaction is of interest to the child, meaning you are talking about things your child has a frame of reference for, knowledge and interest in, and when the actual language being used is targeted to them. Parents almost universally use language that their children can understand and process, and constantly, even though they are rarely aware of it, they use language that is always just a notch above their child’s, which helps develop their language skills. This targeted interaction can be tremendously more efficient in building the child’s language structure and vocabulary than most group classroom instruction or interaction between children. Such group or child-to-child interaction is either not targeted to an individual or, as in the case of verbal interaction between children, they are modeling sentence structure and language that is not developmentally advantageous and perhaps not even acceptable. Children often speak to each other in abbreviated code, economizing on words and using vocabulary that Webster would scratch his head over. That’s not exactly conducive to proper language development.

Verbal interaction during a family meal is also an opportunity for parents to model and guide their children in proper table manners and acceptable ways to have a discussion, to agree or disagree appropriately. We all have many patterns of behavior that affect virtually all aspects of our lives. Children interacting with other children without the benefit of quality targeted parental modeling and feedback can lead to negative patterns of behavior, which can be difficult to modify or develop.

Processing (short-term memory, working memory, and executive function)

A major key to global development and function is processing power. Most children today have better visual than auditory processing power as a reflection of opportunity or lack of such. Children generally develop visual processing before auditory simply because until they can understand language, they learn and understand their world based on what they see.

As children develop, we need to provide as much targeted auditory language input as possible to balance these critical pieces. Ultimately, auditory processing is the more significant piece relative to cognitive development. Auditory processing facilitates thinking in words, and as it develops, so does the complexity of thought, language, maturity, behavior, attention span, and so on. The importance of auditory processing cannot be overstated. And what builds auditory processing? Targeted language input. Targeted language input is that which builds auditory processing. I believe that over the past decades as we have seen the increase in mothers working outside of the home, we have seen a corresponding increase in attention disorders, which are largely a reflection of auditory processing issues. You attend to what you can process, and the more and better you can process, the longer you attend. Parents talking to children is hugely important to the development of processing and its associated pieces. To learn more about processing, please read the associated article.

Communication between parents and children

If you are aware of a problem, have a misunderstanding or a question or just feel out of touch with someone you work with or a friend, your first thought should be to talk about it.

As important as it is to establish this relationship and open and maintain the avenues of communication, this often does not exist between many parents and their children. Ongoing, regular family meals do, again, provide rather special opportunities to establish this open communication. Parents can throughout the course of busy daily interaction with their children throw out questions in an attempt to find out what is happening with their children, but often this is not sufficient to facilitate good responses and open good lines of communication. As a case in point, ask the majority of kids upon their return from school about what they did at school and most parents get the same response—“nothing.”

Family meals can be used to open these critical lines of communication. If families simply talk during meals, the meal becomes this regular time to talk and communicate, and a question like “What did you do at school today?” is much more likely to produce a very different answer and open the door to further exploration, teaching the child how to express feelings and problems and to share their lives with their siblings and parents.

Education 

Most parents miss the boat when it comes to taking advantage of their unique position in helping, if not taking the lead, in their child’s education.

To understand how significant the parent’s role can be in education, let’s start by separating “what was taught” from “what was learned.” Schools and most curriculums are packed full of tons of “stuff,” and we tend to confuse all of this “stuff” that was “taught” with what was learned. If you learned something, you know it. If you don’t know it, you didn’t learn it. Pick a subject, any subject, from the explorers, to anatomy and physiology, trigonometry, astronomy, chemistry, or whatever you were “taught” and today write down everything you remember about that subject. This might not take long. Some of these things you might have been “taught” for years, and what do you remember? Perhaps not much, and certainly the more years that have passed since you were “taught” these things, the less you remember. But what you remember is very important and significant.

We tend to remember the more important pieces, the pieces that were reviewed over time, that were practical, interesting, or relevant to you—knowledge and information that helps you make connections between what you learned and understanding your life and the world today. These gems should be shared with your children, before, during and after they have been “taught” these things as part of their curriculum. “Did you know that…”. “Would you believe…” “That reminds me of…” are all phrases you can use at these family meals to introduce subjects; and over the course of a few meals, you can plant seeds, create interest and relevance, or even provide an entire foundation so that when these gems are part of your child’s curriculum they have more relevance and significance; and perhaps because of your meal discussions, your children will learn more of what is “taught.”

Talking at meals is different for your child than when you are sitting down to “teach.” Topics at dinner are presented in a more relaxed manner and are felt to be more like sharing than “teaching.” For this reason they are generally more welcome and have a greater impact. Another great benefit of sharing your knowledge at meals is that you get to pick and choose the topics. There is nothing wrong and everything right about first teaching your children about your interests, interests that you hope would be shared by your children and lead to lifelong shared interests and sources for ongoing interaction between you and your children. It’s often more important for your child to learn about your family business, your favorite sport, or any other of your interests and things that bring you joy and that you can possibly share with them for the rest of your lives than many of the subjects taught in school.

Family values and history

I recently had two visits from family members who I haven’t seen for many years. I live in Utah and most of my family still lives in the greater Philadelphia area where I’m from. It was great seeing them and reconnecting. A lot of our time together was spent sharing memories and getting confirmation of our joint recollections. The foundation of many of our memories came from recollections of extended family meals that generally occurred around holidays. These events were always opportunities to explore family history and values and to connect as a family. Family history offers perspective, perspective that is often missing from our lives. One of my visitors was a cousin whom I was very close to as a child and who I haven’t seen for about forty years. His short visit offered an opportunity to get him and his wife together with my extended Utah family and explore family history together over dinner. As it happened, my cousin, a recently retired judge, had done some searching and discovered that both our fathers had lived as children with their parents and grandfather in a very modest 700 square foot row home in Philadelphia. His father became a physical therapist and mine a physician. Both were innovators, and their service made great contributions to the treatment of brain injured children and others, and all from their very humble beginnings. Our families’ histories are rarely documented, and if not for the verbal communication of our families’ legacies that often only gets communicated at family meals, most of it gets lost; and our children and grandchildren are deprived of the history and perspective that helps give meaning to their lives and has the power to influence their futures.

Learning critical thought and expression

We want to create a safe welcoming environment around our family meals that produces a safe place for the exchange of ideas and views. Today more than ever, our children are exposed and often bombarded with a plethora of opinions and views that they have difficulty sifting through. Without a safe place to communicate what they have heard and a forum to openly discuss these views, they are often left with simply accepting what they hear at face value and following the latest and loudest voice.

Family meals can provide our children with the forum they need to safely talk about what they have seen and heard and learn how to speak of it and, with help, to critically evaluate it, form their own opinions, and learn how to appropriately express those opinions. Through healthy discourse with people they love and trust, they can also learn how to respect and value other opinions and learn not to be threatened by differing opinions. As parents, at family meals we need to understand that we are models, and how we react and what we say, and how we say it will teach our children how to think critically and express their views and listen to others. Often our softly spoken, non-confrontive words provide the food for thought that our children can later digest.

Becoming highly capable

Several years ago, I was a keynote speaker at the Washington State Conference on the Gifted and Talented and had the opportunity to help the educators see the correlation between cognitive processing and creating higher functioning students. At that conference they were using a new term, replacing “gifted and talented” with the term “highly capable.” I liked the term and have since redefined it and now use it more globally to mean essentially an individual who knows how to function in their world independently and competently. As I see it, helping our children become highly capable adults means that we are teaching them from an early age how to be independent in all aspects of their daily lives, understand responsibility, and develop qualities that will permit them to be confident, capable, and successful adults.

Relative to the discussion at hand of family meals, we can start the process of creating highly capable adults when our children are 5 years old. Hopefully by 18 we have succeeded in helping our child well down the road of becoming highly capable. As mentioned in the previous 3–5-year section, we can start teaching chores that the children own associated with meals. As we proceed in the development of our children, we want to continue to build on this by progressively adding to these pieces. By the time our children are 18, they should know how to plan meals, shop intelligently, understand budgets, prepare meals from A-Z, and clean-up and much more; but we can use the family meals as the foundation.

I had one of our NACD graduates who chose to go off to start her college career in England from her home in the U.S. An 18-year-old with the guts to go off to college in another country says something about confidence and capability. Shortly after beginning life in her new dorm, she made a discovery that most of the other students were lost. They had kitchens in the dorms, but the other students didn’t know how to cook or even buy food for that matter and couldn’t budget. The result was that they ate out and burned through their monthly allowance halfway through the month and had to beg Mom and Dad to send more money. As our highly capable young lady discovered, these other students also didn’t know how to clean or take care of their rooms or wash and iron their clothes. They also didn’t know how to be responsible for organizing their time, getting up in the morning on time, studying, and doing class assignments. She ended up holding classes for her dorm-mates to teach them how to take care of themselves and how to become more capable. Learning the pieces involved, learning to be responsible for all these pieces surrounding planning and seeing a meal accomplished from concept to fruition can be a significant piece that fosters the confidence and independence that can help turn a helpless child into a highly capable adult. Independence produces initiation, which in turn creates the impetus to learn more and assume more and more responsibilities.

Use family meals as the foundation to start building an adult. Do not underestimate what your children are capable of doing if given the opportunity and the responsibility. They will rise to your level of expectation.

Adults

The fabric that largely defines and holds our society together is the family. The fabric that is the family is woven together, built, and reinforced by the threads of our ongoing connection and interactions as a family. This connection needs to be reinforced and built upon on a regular basis. Sadly, for many, the connection between family members often only consists of short calls or text messages. The need for real connection is perhaps greater today than ever before, as we all shift though the bombardment of media that on a daily basis questions and even attacks many of the basic tenets that have formed the foundations of our beliefs.

Speak with most any adult about their close family times and recollections growing up and they will often speak of family meals, particularly meals with the extended family.

Speak with seniors and you will discover that past family meals are memories that last when others have long faded away. You will also discover that if such family meals are now available with children, grandchildren, and extended family that these events don’t just keep them connected to family, but to themselves.

Our sense of self, our identity, who we are and continue to be is woven into the fabric of the family.

The family meal is the foundation upon which our family is built and upon which we learn to know and maintain ourselves.

What’s for dinner?

Family Conversations App

If you’re looking for questions to get the conversation started, we built something for that: Family Conversations

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 35 No. 3 , 2022 ©NACD

The post The Most Important Meal of the Day is Not Breakfast, It’s the Meal(s) the Family Has Together appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

What is the difference between a parent or a caregiver trying to push a child to take a developmental step and a child being driven to take that step? For all children it is very significant; but for the developmentally challenged child it can literally be the difference between success and failure.

If you observe the changes that take place in a child as they gain more and more functional mobility, be it a child who is developing typically or a child with challenges, the associated global changes are hard to miss. The child being able to initially move and crawl on their bellies and get to something is a major step in independence. When they can move faster and better and can creep on their hands and knees, they take another leap, as they do when they start walking. At each of these stages, the child’s level of awareness and the degree to which they are present and are taking in more information takes a major leap forward. The added input their brains receive, along with the associated neurodevelopment, results in improved processing, cognition, language, and more. However, another often missed but related and important piece to this process is the effect of independence.

I have observed that independence results in an increase in initiation.

One of the toughest challenges for the parent of a child with developmental issues is trying to get them to do something that requires work, time, and perseverance when the child couldn’t care less and lacks the perception that they are actually participants and can initiate and do something. Some of these initial steps can be maddening for parents. It’s not surprising that many parents of developmentally challenged children often feel like Sisyphus, from Greek mythology, who was forced to keep pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it keep rolling back down. These first steps are so difficult because a child who lacks independence, who has limited ability to interact or play with a toy, feed themselves, speak or initiate much beyond getting a reaction from a parent with a smile or a scream, does not perceive that they can initiate or produce change, or simply, just do something new or different. At every stage of a child’s development, the more independent and empowered they are, the more they strive to move forward on their own, as do most typical children to varying degrees.

It amazing how apparently minor acts of independence can produce global change. As an example, it has been interesting and enlightening to observe the impact of self-feeding on independence and initiation. Many parents of children with developmental issues see feeding as a process by which you get food from a bowl into a child’s stomach as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This often means feeding the child pureed foods that do not require chewing and using a rather large spoon so the food can get shoveled in as quickly as possible, leaving time for what are perceived to be important things. Comparing children who are very developmentally similar who are encouraged and taught to eat independently as soon as possible to those who are fed is often dramatic relative to their overall development going forward. If you think about independence, being able to feed oneself is as foundational as it gets.

One of the things about working with a lot of whole children is that it permits you to see correlations and associations. I understand parents, and I get it that some are not making the connection and giving their children the opportunity to learn to finger feed because they don’t want to deal with their child painting themselves and the kitchen while learning how to do it, or to deal with their discovery that a spoon can function as a catapult, permitting them to launch food even farther*. But where many parents see a disaster, I see initiation. The more a child does independently, the more they become aware of themselves, their surroundings, and their ability to impact their lives, to change things and do new things, to move forward, to initiate.

I have a little grandson who I have loved observing as he moved from crawling, to creeping, to walking, and watching his world change. Crawling permitted him go, to explore, no longer dependent on someone bringing the world to him. Faster, more efficient mobility, creeping, opened up more territory and the ability to start getting up into a kneel to reach and interact with things at a higher level; then pulling to stand permitted access to more of his world, which quickly transformed into walking and reaching higher places and getting around faster and freeing his hands to move and carry things. Each new step in his independence opened up more of the world and taught him that he could change it, which taught him he could initiate doing more and more himself. The more empowered he was, the faster and faster he developed. At sixteen months of age, I watch in amazement as he moves around a room, exploring and discovering that “This does that and that” and “Oh, I can make it do that too.” “I can initiate,” “I can change and impact my world.” He just sees challenges, not limitations. Independence produces initiation, and initiation produces more and faster development.

Coaches often talk about trying to instill an “I can do” attitude. The truth is, the more you can do, the more you instinctively know and believe you can do.

For a child with developmental issues, this correlation between independence, initiation, and global advancement is ongoing and as significant for the teen or young adult as it was for the infant.

Independence and initiation develop through the basics, such as moving, feeding oneself, and independence in dressing and toileting, into the ability to get themselves food and drink, to the understanding that language is a means to get what you want and need, as well as communicate feelings and thoughts, which have the power to influence and produce change. But it certainly doesn’t stop there. Some of the first questions I ask parents about their children relate to independence in self-help skills and chores. The independence that comes from doing chores without prompts**, from owning chores, doing your job without someone standing over you and prompting you, translates into self-confidence and initiation. Being independent and responsible for chores generalizes into all aspects of the child’s development, education, and maturity.

Parents, don’t put independence at the bottom of your list, put it at the top.

Independence fosters initiative, and initiative is a key to development.

* There is also a huge range of other benefits from a child learning to feed themselves, ranging from foundational oral motor development needed for speech, to focus and visual convergence, to digestion, just to name a few.

** One of the more difficult things to overcome in a child with developmental issues is prompt dependency. Being taught that someone needs to prompt you to do every step teaches dependency, not independence, and kills initiation.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 34 No.2, 2021 ©NACD

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The post Independence and the Developmentally Challenged Child appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Toddler Issues a Chore Challenge

August 2017
Ogden, Utah

Twelve-month-old Arielle is challenging other children to raise the bar and get to work.

Today’s children are doing fewer chores than ever before, and as a result we should not be shocked to realize that many teens and young adults have missed some very important lessons.

Responsibility

Having specific jobs that the child owns is a fundamental building block to learning how to be responsible.

Service

Learning to do things that don’t appear to directly help you is vitally important. Those children who learn to contribute and help others or the family are generally not going to be those who grow up feeling entitled. Doing things for the family helps connect the child to the family and helps provide some needed perspective. Self-centered children can lead to self-absorbed teens and adults.

Independence

The more children learn how to take care of themselves, their homes, and their families, the more independent they feel and become. Children who learn independence develop confidence and initiate doing more and more themselves, while those who are dependent fear and often fail to move themselves forward.

Highly Capable

Learning how to take care of your living space, your room, and your home not only teaches independence, but also teaches an appreciation for clean, organized, and pleasant surroundings. Learning how to do your laundry, prepare your own nutritious food, take care of the yard, and even learning how to fix and repair things around the house all lead to confident, highly capable adults. These apparently simple skills help develop the perception and the capability that permits you to take on challenges, confront problems, and address them.

Work Ethic

Many teens and adults sadly never develop a strong work ethic. A good work ethic is exemplified by the basics, including reliability, dedication, productivity, cooperation, and strength of character.

I hear many parents today say that their children do not have time for chores, their day is full of schoolwork, sports, music, dance lessons, etc. If your children don’t have time for chores and all of the vital lessons that come with it, I suggest you reevaluate what they are gaining from the sports and the “lessons” and think about the real basic lessons they are missing

A few years back I had the opportunity to participate in a meeting with five couples. These five couples were part of an organization of young presidents of companies. They invited me to the meeting because they were having a discussion about how they were “screwing up their children.” The couples had children ranging in age from about 10 into their 20s. As I began the discussion, we started talking about the lives of these company presidents. We all quickly learned that four of the five men had grown up in pretty typical middle class families and had chores from early ages and had jobs through high school and college. In addition, the four went to state colleges and excelled in life because of hard work, a good understanding of who they were, and a strong work ethic. All of the couples realized that their present standard of living had not helped, but had hindered their children’s development. The families were able to afford to hire help to clean their houses, take care of the lawn, and even help with food preparation. The couples had mistakenly thought that freeing their children from chores and giving them more time for sports and various lessons was providing them with an advantage. What was learned through the discussion was that the families were universally disappointed in their children’s basic characters, sense of responsibility, and their lack of a strong work ethic. They had been at a loss to understand how their children, having been given “every advantage,” were not developing into the adults they had hoped and worked for.

The meeting with these couples was very enlightening. You don’t need to be the president of a company and wealthy to make the same mistakes as these couples. As I was leaving the meeting that night, I made a discovery. Four of the five men were presidents of companies and one was not. In fact, despite having graduated from Harvard, the fifth was unemployed. His wife was the president of a company.

Building the Foundation

Here are a few helpful guidelines to help you get your children heading down the road to more chores and a better character.

1. Little children like 12-month-old Arielle can be helpers; and the sooner they learn, the better. For young children helping is fun, as is learning. Little children almost universally love learning most anything if it is done in a positive manner. Look for opportunities to let them help. View each of these circumstances as an opportunity for your child.
2. Helping is great, but it is only the very first step; and by two or three years of age, you want to have taught your child how to do tasks all by themselves. There are many things these little people can do if you teach them how and if you provide the right tools and use the right methods.
3. Reverse chaining: Reverse chaining is a great way to teach new skills. A close cousin to chores is self-help skills. Self-help skills include all of those things that permit you to take care of your basic needs, including things like dressing, undressing, toileting, bathing, self-feeding, brushing teeth, etc. As important as these self-help skills are, they should not be confused with chores, but in many way these first steps help start the foundation of independence and self-reliance. Reverse chaining is a great way to teach many multiple step tasks. Typically, if you are trying to teach a multiple step task, you start by teaching the first step and progress from there. There are a number of disadvantages to this approach. With first step forward instruction, the child just starts a task; they don’t finish it. Often after they have completed their piece, they tune out the rest of the steps. With first step forward instruction, the child tends to become prompt-dependent, meaning that they do a step and wait for a verbal or physical prompt to do the next step. And finally, the reward of doing a task is in the completion of the task, not doing the first steps of a task. First step forward teaching lacks the foundation of motivation that moves progress forward. With reverse chaining you start by completing a task up to the very last piece, and then you teach the child how to do just this last piece that completes the task. Then you complete all of the steps up to the next to last and teach that; and then the child is able to do the last two steps and again complete the task. As a simple example, let’s look at teaching a child to take off a sock. With the first step forward approach, you would start by teaching the child how to put their fingers between the sock and their leg, followed by step two, which is trying to them pull the sock down. The child would then typically mentally disengage while you completed the task. With reverse changing you would start by pulling the sock down so it is hanging off their toe, and their job is simply to pull it off their toe—it’s easy and the task is complete. Step two is to go through all of the steps until the sock is half-way or more down their foot. The child can easily accomplish this step and complete the task. Completing the task is much more rewarding than starting the task. It also teaches the child that they can, in fact, take their sock off. Proceed with pulling the sock down so it is just off the heel, then just over the heel, then a bit above the heel, and then up the leg. Reverse chaining can be used with virtually any task that requires learning a number of steps.
4. If you are sharing a job, you are still just helping. The goal is for the child to own the chore. A common mistake in homes where parents are consciously trying to teach their children to be responsible for chores is to share or rotate chores. Parents generally do this in an attempt to be fair and avoid arguments between children as to who has the toughest job. Probably the most common situation involves mealtime. The sharing of the task goes from one child washing, the other dries, one sets the table, another clears the table, one does the dishes this week, the other next week. The problem with this approach is that no one owns the job. The more you can delineate responsibilities and provide ownership, the better. Owning a job means that you are responsible for that job. If you own it then you can take satisfaction in that job being done well, consistently, and in a timely fashion.
5. Do not underestimate what you children can do. Most children, by the time they have reached the developmental level of a ten-year-old, can do most any cleaning or organizing task within the home, as well as most cooking and outside tasks, with the possible exception of using some power tools. If the mother of two or more children over ten is still doing a lot of the housework and cooking, they are probably depriving their children of important opportunities.
6. The proper tools can make a big difference. Most fairly young children could vacuum a house or mop or clean a floor if they had the proper tools. Your six-year-old might not be able to lug around a big vacuum cleaner, but they probably could use a lightweight battery operated vacuum. Brooms and dustpans aren’t really terribly efficient for anyone, let alone a child; but there are little electric dust busters, Swiffers, etc. that work reasonably well. One way to compensate for a child’s inability to do an expert job that satisfies mom’s critical eye is to compensate with time and frequency. You might vacuum your house once or twice a week; a child could do it many times a week. You can also have them learn to use a timer so that they are spending sufficient time to get the task accomplished well. And remember to use reverse chaining to help teach them how to do the job properly in the first place.
7. One of the most common errors in getting children to do chores is setting them up to fail. The more ambiguous the time requirement for the completion of a chore, the more likely it will not be accomplished without intervention. The best/easiest chores are daily chores that occur at a very specific time. If a chore is a weekly chore, it needs to be attached to a very specific time or as part of a chain of events. Scheduling chores around specific time-related events should help tremendously. Look at the child’s day and identify the events that occur at fairly exact times, such as meals, going to school, or soccer practice. Use these events as the foundation for scheduling chores. Think about a list of chores before or immediately after breakfast or dinner as places to start. Speaking of places to start, one of the very basic things that teaches responsibility, self-reliance, and maturity is getting oneself up in the morning. Try to have a specific time your child needs to get up, and once that time is established, your child should have an alarm clock that starts their day. If your child doesn’t get up when the alarm goes off, be creative and come up with some responses that will teach them to do it—quickly.
8. There is a question as to whether to directly reward/pay children for doing their chores. Some families choose to use a token economy system in which the child receives a token, check, or star for every chore that is completed, and then the tokens are exchanged for money or special privileges. Many families find that this approach works. I honestly do not prefer the token system because it basically implies that the child is doing something extra or special that should be rewarded beyond just a verbal acknowledgment. I would generally prefer to see the child receive a set allowance that is essentially an acknowledgment that they are a contributing member of the family, and then some form of natural consequence for not completing their chores. It may be necessary to start with a reward system to get things started, but if you do, try to phase out the system as soon as possible. I do think that providing a list of things that children can do above and beyond their chores, such as washing and waxing dad’s car, is appropriate, along with a specific dollar amount to be earned.
9. One of the realities of developing, orchestrating, and teaching your child how to do chores properly involves looking for and providing the opportunities and scheduling. We could lump these pieces under the general term of management. Management is a reality of running a home or raising children. A vital role of management is oversight. I have spent the majority of my adult life traveling around the country and the world meeting with families. All of this travel involves more hotels and restaurants than I would care to recall. Staying in all of these hotels and eating at all of these restaurants makes the role of management incredibly relevant and obvious. When you observe people at the hotel desk who don’t know what they are doing or who get your reservations confused, or poorly prepared food that is late and cold at a restaurant, it is an issue with training, oversight, and management. Do not expect your children to function in their jobs without oversight and management; it isn’t going to happen. If most adults can’t function without it, don’t expect your children to. Ultimately, with proper oversight and management, your children will learn how to be responsible, how to pay attention to detail, and how to complete tasks well without supervision. But until they have been taught, don’t expect a miracle.
10. If you have a child who is mentally and physically capable of doing chores and you cannot find time in their day for these tasks, you should re-evaluate priorities. The lessons learned from doing chores, such as becoming responsible, learning to serve, being unselfish, independent, highly capably, and developing all of the aspects of a good work ethic, are vital to building a personal foundation for your child that will serve them well throughout their lives. The role of chores in the development of typical children is vital, however all of the benefits of chores are magnified for those with special needs. One of the greatest issues for those with developmental issues is dependency. The greater the issues the more dependent the individual. It is important to try to find appropriate chores commensurate with the abilities of the individual and taking the time to find the proper tools and offer the proper training is so that they can contribute and learn all of the associated lessons.

Many parents neglect to realize that one of our jobs as parents is to raise our children to be functional adults, responsible, competent members of society, and perhaps parents themselves, who will need all the tools they can get to help the next generation succeed. There are far too many big children out there who believe they are adults.

Potential is a refection of opportunity. Let’s provide our children with all of the opportunities we can to build their personal foundations.

 —Bob Doman

P.S. In the spirit of full disclosure, Arielle, the Big Helper, is my granddaughter, daughter of my son, Laird, and his lovely wife, Sadie. I have issued the challenge in her name. The videos were shot the week of her first birthday. She is a beautiful and, of course, smart little girl whose proud grandfather is going to have to exercise a great deal of self-restraint not to spoil.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 8, 2019 ©NACD

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Today’s spotlight is on a fine young man who I have known since 1996. Yes, that is correct, 1996. I have been with NACD long enough now to have several adults that I have seen since they were infants, Nicolas Cooke being one of them. When I think of individuals that I have the greatest amount of admiration for, Nicolas is certainly on that list. Born with Down syndrome, Nicolas has been seeing us since he was an infant. Over the years I have been so proud of how he shines. Nicolas has developed into a wise, responsible, hardworking, strong young man of excellent character.

Nicolas has done very well in developing physical excellence and participated in his first triathlon at age eight. Nicolas’s mom, Linda, is a swim coach, and knowing the importance of physical exercise, she had Nicolas swimming at an early age. I remember the two of us reminiscing that he went from crawling, creeping, and walking right into a child who could compete alongside typical peers in a triathlon. Today, at age 24, Nicolas is involved in bodybuilding and martial arts and has been featured in a piece by a local gym where he works out.

Nicolas is very active in his community and his church. He has participated in a theater group and is a favorite within the children’s ministry, where he dresses up like Shaggy Dog and teaches children about God. At church Nicolas not only works in the children’s ministry, but he is also on the worship team and can be caught from time to time playing his guitar. One of Nicolas’s additional stomping grounds is at a local horse barn where he works part time. Linda says that Nicolas is on quite a few “speed dials” when it comes to needing help with various projects. Each morning, while Mom works and coaches, Nicolas is very diligent in his responsibilities, cooking, cleaning the home and pool and focusing on his education. Nicolas also assists in caring for his invalid father who suffers from a debilitating, degenerative neurological disorder. Being the youngest of nine children, Nicolas now has eight nieces and nephews that he loves to read to, play with, and supervise.

Linda knew that working on appropriate behavior and manners and teaching him to have a strong work ethic were crucial in helping him to be a highly capable adult. She and I can look back on his “stubborn years,” being thankful that she always kept firm boundaries in preparing him to be an individual that other people would seek spending time with.

In talking one day with Linda, she commented on the fact that Nicolas can clean her house better than anyone she could ever hire. His attention to detail and making sure each and every job is well done is a real asset. At the time Mom said, “I bet he could even be hired out and do a better job than any other cleaning company,” and then her eyes lit up. At the next evaluation I was pleased to hear that Nicolas already had a few clients.

It is a pleasure to work with so many wonderful families through NACD; and I am so blessed to be able to follow a number of our NACD kids and watch them become such fabulous adults. Nicolas is a man who makes each and every life he touches that much better.

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, February 2020 ©NACD

Read the full article about Nicolas here: https://www.easttexasmatters.com/news/local-news/adaptive-athletes-shine-at-east-texas-gym/

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Back in May we introduced you to Coco Manole, the incredible little boy who was developing really fantastic processing abilities. This little brain injured/cerebral palsy four-year-old had developed astonishing digit spans of 10 forward and 9 reverse, which is absolutely phenomenal. Very few adults have short term and working memory at this level. Well, that was then and this is now. He was just getting started.

Just for the sake of perspective, shortly after starting program in July of 2016, Coco was just learning to process very simple one-step directions, such as “touch your nose” and was unable to follow a two-step direction. He was also only was able to say three words and understood no English.

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Video: One Step Directions

Coco today, not yet even having reached his fifth birthday, is doing much better. Coco’s improved processing has helped him in every aspect of his development. Developing motor skills for a brain injured/cerebral palsy child, from creeping on the hands and knees, to manipulating the hands to pick up food to feed oneself is much easier when they can take direction and think through and mentally manage all of the little pieces required to start learning and performing these apparently simple functions. The difference in developing motor skills in a child with good cognitive abilities vs. one with lower cognitive function is no different than trying to teach quantum mechanics to an individual with strong working memory compared to one without.

Coco is now amazing all of us with his extraordinary processing abilities. His forward digit span is now an amazing 16! His auditory reverse is now an unimaginable 13, and after just a couple of months since starting on visual digit spans, his visual digit span is already a 13!

Video: Auditory Forward 16

Video: Auditory Reverse 13

Video: Visual Digit Span 13

I hope that everyone will be inspired by little Coco. Although the majority of his day and program is dedicated to developing his motor function, we are certainly not ignoring his academic/intellectual development. Coco reads close to 500 words in Romania and English and enjoys reading books in spite of his visual issues, which we are addressing and improving as well. He understands addition and subtraction and identifies and labels literally thousands of items in some detail and is very conversational. In July when I met with the family in London for Coco’s evaluation, I had the privilege of having dinner with the family. Coco was not only totally tuned into our conversations, but was a polite active participant who could have served as a model for some college students I know. He is also perhaps the sweetest and most compassionate child you will ever meet and is doing great as a big brother to his little sister, Ellen.

I firmly believe that we all have the potential to function at incredible levels and our ability to fulfill this potential is only limited by our vision, our commitment, and our knowledge.

Lack of function is not a prognosis of what can be.

Congratulations, team Manole! You are an inspiration for us all.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 7, 2019 ©NACD

The post Coco the Wonder Boy – Part 2A appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

First the Vision, Then the Plan, and Then the Implementation

Most real successes begin with a vision, a vision that defines what we want to achieve. One would hope that we are all directed by and driven by a vision of what can be for us as individuals, for our children, and even for our communities, our nation, and the world. Having a vision, a direction, and hopefully a map to help us realize that vision, followed by conscientious implementation of the plan, determines the ultimate outcome.

For many, if not most, parents who have children with developmental issues, the world tends to make it extremely difficult to create an optimistic vision of what can be. Read virtually any psychological report on any child and you discover nothing more than an almost endless list of labeled “diseases,” issues, and problems, a disaster described in minute detail in ten thousand words, that ends without anything concrete that is going to make a difference. It’s difficult for virtually any parent who listens to the experts to believe there is any real hope, let alone a real plan to achieve anything close to an optimistic outcome. Make the diagnosis, attach the label, follow the “plan,” create no vision, and accept the outcome. Forget that your child has never existed before, that you who lives and works with your child every day have never existed before, and that your child’s future cannot nor should not be dictated by historic failures with “similar” children.

Limited or pessimistic visions of what can be are by no means limited to the special needs community. Virtually our entire educational system ignores the very tenants of neuroplasticity and the ability to build processing power—short term memory, working memory, executive function, and neurological/cognitive efficiency. The educational system functions like a NASCAR racing team given a stock engine who does nothing to actually build the horsepower of that engine, yet feels they are doing their job if they just run their car around the track. They certainly would consistently finish last, except for the fact that they would have been laughed off the track. But “education” continues to almost universally ignore the science and attempts to pour information into children’s brains without doing anything to really develop the brain. The reality is that it’s easier to increase a child’s horsepower than it is a Ford’s.

Realizing that it’s difficult for any parent to create and maintain a vision that is strong enough to sustain daily adherence to a plan and provide the strength of intention to keep moving forward, it’s fortunate that we have families like the Manoles to show us what can be. In a previous newsletter you read about Razvan and Christiana Manole, who had a vision for what they could be and how through dedicated use of our Simply Smarter program dramatically developed their processing skills. Their newfound processing skills helped them formulate a new vision and implement a drastic plan for their son Cosmin, aka Coco. This family, realizing the limited opportunities and prejudices that existed in their ancestral country of Romania toward children with developmental problems, formulated a new bold vision and moved to Ireland, a new country with a new language.

The Manole’s vision and plan for Coco is being realized. Razvan’s story and Coco’s video should be an inspiration for parents of children with disabilities and typical children alike.

Where any of us ultimately functions is not predetermined by what we were born with, but by the stimulation and opportunities that are afforded to us. Those opportunities are in large part dictated by the vision. Limit the vision, limit the perception of what can be, and we limit our expectations, the opportunities, and our futures.

Create a new vision of what could be, what should be, and what will be.

If you watch the video accompanying the following article and are not inspired, please watch it again.

Note: For those new to NACD who may not be aware of processing, short-term and working memory, forward digit spans are a simple measurement of short-term memory and reverse digit spans of working memory, which is now appropriately being called the new IQ. Forward digit spans for a typical four year old are 3-4 digits and reverse 2 digits. A typical adult has forward digit spans that are about a 7 on average and 5 reverse. These processing skills determine how much you take in of what you see and hear and the complexity of your ability to think- your cognitive function. It is very important.

Coco the Wonder Boy – Raising the Bar

by Razvan Manole

I would like to share a little story with you, hoping to encourage you or motivate you a little bit!

At this point, Coco processes 10 digits on auditory and visual forward and 9 reverse. I’m sure everyone in NACD knows what that means and how great this accomplishment is. How is it possible that a child with brain damage, at four and a half years old, has gotten this far? The answer is NACD and a lot of work.

Before we started the program, in 2016, Cosmin was more of a body at almost two years of age. He could process zero. After two weeks of the program, he could follow one step directions. That was at the end of July. In November he could process 3-4 directions. From there we focused on mobility and tactility as well as fine motor skills and vision. NACD works with the whole child so as these various functions and pieces are ready to improve, we work to improve them.

Probably like many of you, I have all kinds of questions like, “When will he walk, or when will he speak? When he will go to school alone? Can he do that?”

My biggest concern is about mobility. I have to work so hard for something most kids have without any effort and no one at all even appreciates it! In the desire to understand what is happening in my child’s head, I studied and studied all that is related to the brain. Last year I discovered a brain researcher’s story and it really helped me understand my son’s situation. After having had a stroke, this scientist practically lost all of her processing and became a body, processing zero. While she sat on a couch without moving, salivating and not understanding anything that was happening around her, she was happy and did not care. After reading the book she wrote, I realized that our children do not have our desires or our passions, our ideals and our goals. They don’t function with our goals or desire achievements that we want for them. This is all because they do not think with complexity until their processing is higher.

Then I said, “There is no point for me to want my son to walk if he does not want it! And how is it possible for him to want that? It’s not something that he had and lost. He never walked and does not feel the lack of walking, as I do not feel the lack of artistic skating. I’m not skating, I have no passion for that. I do not want to skate. Do you think I have a chance to become a skater?” And then I realized I should teach him to love to walk, to teach him what it means to walk, and what benefits he would have to be able to move independently. To understand my plan for him, he needed to be very smart. Last year, I believe it was in February, I started to be aggressive with the cognitive part of the program. From 4-5 auditory forward, we have reached 8 and 6-7 reverse. Now he is so aware. He understands what I am requesting of him, speaks Romanian and English, socializes, does not have tantrums. He is grateful, happy all the time. Walking is not easy to accomplish. There are many steps, but with much work and patience, we will get there too.

Probably you are not far away from us and you are struck by the distrust of family, friends, specialists, neighbors. No one has ever seen potential in my child except for NACD and us, his parents. It’s hard to keep a clear vision when you have unbelieving people around you. That’s why I wanted to write to you today! Keep your trust. My baby was just a body 3 years ago that could process zero. Slowly, together with Mr. Bob and Ms. Ellen, we woke him up and raised him way over the children of his age. If Coco can do it, all the children can! Trust yourself and your children! Good luck!

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 5, 2019 ©NACD

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Perhaps the only thing that feels better for us at NACD than having parents who really get it is seeing the results of them having gotten it.

It’s an incredible honor and privilege to be in a position to help change lives, and it’s so much fun and very fulfilling when we can see the results. You are about to read a mother’s story, sharing about the things she implemented and about being able to enjoy the fruits of her labor. You will be reading about Aidia Brennan, who is on her way to realizing her dreams. In Aidia’s case her dreams largely revolved around her love of singing. As I look at how Aidia is proceeding on her journey and reaching toward her dreams, it reminds me of one of my other “kids,” Jennifer Lindsay.

You might want to read about Jennifer, another one of our home-educated NACD kids, see where she started, and hear her inspiring story. I am delighted to report on where she is today. Jennifer had a really rough beginning, but she developed many talents and created many opportunities for herself, from her work creating the new generation of GPS systems, to her concert violin, to her singing. Jennifer ultimately decided that her real passion was singing opera, and as she has done throughout her life, she applied her superior processing power, focus, will, and the power and influence of her wonderful parents, and has excelled in her chosen vocation. I’m am very happy and proud to announce that Jennifer Lindsay has signed a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company and will be performing in their upcoming production of the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess. I’m sure she will wow the audience, as she has during her performances around the country. Congratulations, Jen! My goal for our children is to help parents put together the pieces so that their children can function well—very well—but also to provide the children with the opportunity to discover their talents and passions and provide the means for their successful pursuit.

Just yesterday I did a Skype evaluation with Aliya, Aidia’s younger sister, who is doing great as a teen and is herself developing her neuro-developmental, educational, and personal pieces and is exploring and discovering her own talents and passions. Fortunately, Aidia was home in Canada for spring break from her college in England, and I had an opportunity to speak with her and catch up a bit.

Speaking with Aidia was a real delight; she is an amazing, mature, well-spoken, confident, respectful, and lovely young lady. Oh, and very talented as well! She really is the epitome of what we would all hope to see in our children as they pursue their goals and aspirations.

Liana and Gary Brennan, proud parents of Aidia and Aliya, congratulations!

Go team Brennan!

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NACD Instilling Independence
by Liana Brennan

NACD has been in our lives for years and in the past, I’ve said that our lives and children’s lives would be quite different without NACD! I appreciate the significance that NACD places on addressing the whole child and the child within the family. Our youngest daughter, Aliya, was first on the program when she was 4 years old and later, we brought our eldest daughter, Aidia, home from the public school and began a program with her in the sixth grade. We continued program and home educating Aidia until her graduation last May. Our NACD journey has been long and we’ve had some trying years but when the successes are achieved it makes it all worth it!

We are part of a large homeschool community with the same activities and opportunities afforded to them as the public schools. Our girls are able to participate in sports activities, yearbook committees, father-daughter dances, prom, and graduation. It is a large formal graduation and Aidia was selected to address the graduating class! One of the major points of her speech was to seize opportunities as they present themselves, embrace the unknown and break out of comfort zones. At this point she was already following her own advice. During her junior year, she began the university decision process and expressed her desire to study overseas.

This from a girl that dislikes change but realizes that in order to grow and succeed change is inevitable.

As parents it’s our responsibility and mission to raise children that are self-sufficient that will make a positive impact on society. As we sent off Aidia to university in England we prayed that we had equipped her with the needed life skills to thrive, not just survive. Thankfully she has adjusted well as she is living her dream! Technology has made it very easy for us to connect daily, either through FaceTime or text. Recently during one of our FaceTime sessions, Aidia thanked me for being strict and having her complete chores! I snickered because her interpretation of strict differs greatly from mine. I also wished I had a tape recorder handy to preserve her comment. Apparently, most of the other students are not self-sufficient which is causing them a multitude of stressors and health issues on top of the rigors of university. In November she shared that most the students had already depleted their student loan funds that were to sustain them through December. Huge contributing factors are the inability to cook or prepare meals, laundry and manage their personal finances. There are no meal plans in the United Kingdom like there are at most American Universities. They were eating out most nights and then with the realization that their funds were dwindling they begin to eat inexpensive fast food that was not sustaining them and they were falling ill. Aidia was cooking one night for one of the girls in an attempt to teach her some cooking skills. Aidia asked if her parents had not been interested or willing to teach her how to cook. The student shared her mother had attempted but she was more absorbed with her phone and her mother would get frustrated and end up preparing the whole meal. Aidia’s reply, “yeah, that wouldn’t fly in our home.” Aidia has the title of “mom” as she’s the one they turn to for life skills advice. Most days when we are on FaceTime there is a knock at her door with someone needing some assistance or advice.

During one of our FaceTime sessions Aidia said that she thought she would miss us more than she did and as I was recovering from her comment and from having the wind knocked out of me, thankfully she elaborated. She stated that she did miss us because we have fun; we enjoy each other’s company and our family game nights. A majority of the other students were homesick but not because they missed spending time with the family but for what their parents could and would do for them which is very sad.

We began instilling life skills and independence at a young age. When the girls were quite young, I designated two lower cabinets in the kitchen for plastic bowls, plates, cups and wooden tongs. Plus, all the snack and breakfast items that they could prepare themselves. I also kept a low stool in the kitchen to assist them in reaching the sink. I stored homemade granola in a small container with a flip-top lid and a scoop. It was much easier to handle than a large container. I kept the dairy-free milk and in a small container on the lower shelf in the refrigerator. This way they could prepare their breakfast themselves by placing a couple of scoops of granola in a bowl, wash up some blueberries and top it off with dairy-free milk. Using smaller containers made it easier to handle and if there was an “accident” there was a lot less clean up. I also placed items in the fridge on the lower shelves. To protect them from burns I purchased wooden tongs to use if they toasted some gluten-free bread. They were so happy they could make themselves breakfast and snacks and it promoted independence and confidence.

Both girls had “chores” on their programs. During an evaluation early on, Bob reviewed our chore chart and stated that their chores were a little “light” and we needed to increase their responsibility. I was excited that I had Bob’s encouragement to ramp up their chores. As they matured, we required more from them. It takes patience and a little extra time but the payoff is worth it. We have lots of memories and laughs as we recall eggs rolling off the counter (which happened more than once), or too much of an ingredient like salt or a spice as a recipe was miss read or the ingredient came out too fast, or an omission of an ingredient altogether! Some things that we included on their chore charts as they matured was preparing the family meal twice a week – planning – cooking and clean up, loading and unloading dishwasher, being responsible for their own laundry, feeding, walking and cleaning up after the dog, making their bed daily and maintaining their own room, cleaning bathrooms, dusting and vacuuming to name a few.

Their chores were their own responsibility and they needed to own them, and I did not want to hound or remind them daily. To remove myself from monitoring their chores I placed a chore chart for each girl in an acetate sleeve. Each chart was pushed pinned to a cork board on the kitchen wall with a dry erase marker (washable dry erase marker when younger). They passed the charts daily and it was up to them to check off the chores that were complete. They walked by the chart every time they entered and exited the kitchen so there was visual of what was complete and what still outstanding. If the chores were not complete there were consequences. At the beginning of the next week the acetate was wiped down and the new week began. This system worked wonderfully.

Aidia recently displayed her independence and willingness to jump all over the fear of the unknown and submit for a wonderful opportunity that produced a once in a lifetime experience! Aidia is pursuing a BA honors degree in Musical Theatre and has been inspired by Ramin Karimloo, a Musical Theatre performer, since she was eleven. Ramin has been performing on Broadway and West End for years and has portrayed Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, Jean Val Jean in Les Misérables and Anastasia to name a few. In July, he announced his UK tour. When not performing on Broadway or West End he travels with his band and performs songs from his musicals and other songs that he puts his own “spin” on. Aidia was so excited to hear that Ramin would be performing in Shrewsbury, England where is attending University! Right then and there she purchased a ticket. It didn’t concern her that she would be attending on her own, she was ecstatic that she would see him live! Unfortunately, she has not had the opportunity to see him perform live so this was a fantastic opportunity.

Aidia follows Ramin on social media and on Christmas day he posted that he would like to showcase local talent at the venues on his tour and if interested, and local to the venue, to submit media showcasing their talent. Aidia jumped on the opportunity and Christmas night she sent in various videos of her singing and playing guitar. When she headed back to Shrewsbury after Christmas early on the Jan 3^rd Aidia had not had a response so assumed she wasn’t selected. Upon landing on one of her layovers she checked her email and there was a personal email from Ramin informing her she was selected to open for him! We were so thrilled and excited for her! Ramin even introduced her!! Not many folks are able to say that they have met their inspiration let alone open for them! We were so proud of her and her performance.

Another way that NACD has impacted Aidia’s life is through the Simply Smarter program. Recently an industry leader came in to do a workshop with the students. One of the activities was a series of patterns. I may not have the activity exactly correct but the idea was that they were to stand in a circle and each student had a series of tasks to do simultaneously with the other students. They were to pass a ball to a certain student, speak a word or phrase, then walk to another student to pass the ball, speak another word and continue this pattern while everyone else was doing their own pattern. It was apparently quite chaotic and yet Aidia was able to remember her pattern and in some cases had to retrieve the ball from the student she was receiving it from because they were confused or forgot the pattern. At the end of the session the instructor inquired if Aidia had done this activity before because he had never had anyone complete the pattern successfully before and assumed she must be familiar with the activity. When she stated she had not he was amazed that she had managed to remember the patterns. Her response, “NACD’s Simply Smarter!” This was a great example of how higher processing can build memory assisting in academic and career growth. Aidia is often required to learn songs and dances in short periods of time. Higher processing will be a huge asset in her chosen field.

Through the years many of our days have been long and exhausting. On some of these days it would have been easy to allow the chores to slip, to address the laundry and cooking ourselves in order to shorten our day but at what expense? I can remember a particularly exhausting day when Aliya had pushed back and been defiant and argumentative. It was dinnertime and we had just completed program. Her father had just arrived home as Aliya began her chores. She proceeded to Swiffer the living room and saw her Dad on the sofa and stated, “I don’t know why I have to sweep when Dad is over there having the time of his life.” As you can imagine after a long day that remark just about sent me over the edge. After reprimanding her for her comment I explained that her situation was a result of the choices she made during the day, which meant she was now having to complete chores well into the evening. Thankfully these days are a thing of the past, but had we not persevered we would still be living these days. Currently, Aliya accomplishes her chores without complaint and enjoys meal preparation.

We recently relocated internationally and Aliya has adjusted well. She experienced some anxiety but with the tools she learned through NACD she has settled in fine. Aliya is meeting new people and is playing drums for her youth band at church. The church recently had a big event in which she played for the evening and afterward families sought her out to tell her what a great job she did and that they loved that she was a female drummer. She continues to take lessons and is progressing well. I believe that Simply Smarter has been a contributing factor to her progress.

We are so thankful to NACD and their desire to provide us with the instruction to allow our children to reach their full potential. As parents, we must be willing to let our children experience life but equip them with the tools to be independent and successful so they may pursue their dreams without any additional stressors.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 4, 2019 ©NACD

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Back in the ‘80s I traveled around the country, lecturing to parents and professionals. On many of these occasions I spoke to them about the importance of understanding and utilizing neuroplasticity, which with rare exception none of them had ever heard of. I also spoke about how the model of providing therapeutic intervention on a weekly or biweekly basis was contrary to what was needed to really utilize neuroplasticity. I also emphasized the importance of working with the whole child, understanding the whole child, and coordinating efforts based on the whole child.

 When I refer to the whole child I mean exactly that, not just “important” or “broken” pieces, not just what is obviously relevant to gross motor (physical therapy), fine motor (occupational therapy), speech (speech therapy), behavior (psychology), reading or math (education), or those pieces that are the specialty of everyone else from the neurologist to the ENT to the dentist.

Working with the whole child requires working closely with the parents, the people who know their whole child best, and gathering the information about the entire child. This includes their developmental and medical history, health, diet, sleep, self-help skills, sense of responsibility, chores, daycare, academic function and interests, schools, baby sitters or caregivers. Also important are the specifics regarding therapies and therapeutic approaches; interests, from playing with cause and effect toys to video games; activities, from church groups to horseback riding; sports, behavior at home and away, and their daily schedule. And then there are the specifics relative to how they see, hear, feel, and how they perceive what they should taste and smell; gross and fine motor function; how they swallow, drink, chew, articulate, and communicate, as well as all aspects of cognition which provides a global overview of where they are and should be functioning. Every piece is significant to the whole; and combined, the sum is greater than the collection of pieces. This defines what is referred to as the “gestalt.” If children are not viewed as whole and unique, they tend to be viewed as disassociated pieces and labels, not as unique individuals. This is only one of many significant pieces that underscore the importance of understanding the whole child.

The more issues a child has, typically the more pieces the child is broken up into, and the more people are involved in addressing those pieces individually, mostly in isolation.

Back very early in my career in the mid ‘70s, I was the Educational Director for the Center for Neurological Rehabilitation outside of Philadelphia. In many respects I was doing what our staff and I are still doing today, except with a much smaller toolbox, which is designing comprehensive targeted home-based programs for a wide range of children. Back then part of our team included neurologists and neurosurgeons, headed by the brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon Eugene Spitz M.D., who amongst other things was the developer of the shunt for hydrocephalic children. The structure back then was that the evaluators would each meet with our respective families and their child and conduct the evaluation so that we could create a profile/picture of the child. The profile was the foundation for creating their individualized program. The majority of the children would then go through a battery of tests that had been ordered by Dr. Spitz and his team, which were all carried out onsite and included everything from comprehensive blood work to CAT scans, EEGs, and cerebral blood flow studies. Following the testing Dr. Spitz would then meet with me and discuss the results of my evaluation and the testing that had been done. He would then call in the family so that he could make his recommendations, following which I would create their neurodevelopmental/educational program. This process was incredibly educational for me and for Dr. Spitz as well.

Being in a position not only to re-evaluate the children every 3-4 months as we did, but also to compare what I was seeing functionally to what Dr. Spitz saw with his testing, was invaluable. The tests and the EEGs were no longer these isolated pieces of data; they were part of a complete picture. One example of many of what turned out to be learning experiences for both Dr. Spitz and me was the observation I made that when kids were having dental issues, their EEGs were worse, often substantially worse, and that those kids who were prone to seizures often had more seizures. After observing this a few times, I very tentatively mentioned to Dr. Spitz that I was seeing this correlation. He listened to me, and he acknowledged that not only did it make sense, but he realized if it had not been for my knowledge of the broader issues, he would not have thought to ask the family about such issues. This piece of information affected how he adjusted medications and opened the door to our making other associations between health related issues-triggers and what he saw on EEGs and how the children were or were not medicated.

There are many examples of how a view of the whole child can have an impact on medical treatment. One of the more glaring issues that I have written about before is the effect of chronic middle ear fluid and its impact on the development of auditory processing and language. Another piece of this is that some speech therapists will make the recommendation to teach a child to sign, rather than working at getting the child to speak, not understanding the effect and ramifications of the child’s middle ear fluid, and not understanding that the child’s auditory and visual processing (short-term and working memory) determines their global level of function, not their chronological age

Well-meaning teachers generally perceive children with developmental issues as their chronological age, rather than where they are really functioning as reflected in processing ability and global neurological maturity. A six-year-old who is neurodevelopmentally three should not be expected to do the same work as their neuro-typical peers. If the educational input is not targeted to the developmental and educational level of the child, it is going to be ineffective at best. Inclusion is great, I fought for it for many decades; but if the instruction is not targeted to the individual, it really is only pretend education.

The group of people with their fingers in the pie that exists for most special needs children is presented as a team; but that is very rarely, if ever, true. A team implies a group working together in a coordinated fashion. Most therapists work in relative isolation from every other therapist who is working with the child. Each therapist establishes their own priorities, even though when viewed from the perspective of the whole child many of their “priorities” would not reach the level of even being significant. Some would define this as fine; however when viewing the total child, it is important that priorities be the whole child’s hierarchical priorities so that time, focus, and energy can be directed when and where it is needed most. There are only so many hours in the day, and we can only ask so much of a child in a day if we are going to maintain any respectable level of intensity. For a child with a developmental problem, we are always fighting time. They can ill afford to be directing minutes, if not hours, working ineffectively in the wrong direction.

Historically the educational, therapeutic, and medical treatment of children with developmental issues has become more and more compartmentalized. The net result is that vital information is often not shared between players, and the various people involved remain ignorant of significant correlative information. Furthermore, it is impossible to target, prioritize, and coordinate efforts and to raise and meet higher expectations without the direct involvement of parents and coordinated efforts focused around the whole, intact, total, and complete child.

Effectively and efficiently helping any child reach their potential requires targeted coordinated intervention that is not only mindful of the whole child, but that is led by an understanding of the gestalt. The child is more than just the sum of their pieces.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 32 No. 3, 2019 ©NACD

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Here in the United States we celebrate the 4^th of July 1776 as our Independence Day. When that independence was actually achieved is a subject of debate between historians. On July 4, 1776 we adopted a resolution declaring our independence from Great Britain and the king—a resolution that Great Britain scoffed at and rejected, rather like a parent of a delinquent child. The resulting Revolutionary War, a hard fought war between a ragtag army made up mostly of farmers and tradesman against the strongest military in the world, was not over and victory declared until 1783. Our first president, George Washington, was not elected until 1789, a full thirteen years after we had announced our intent to be an independent nation.

The concept of a Declaration of Independence is something we should examine as parents. Consider your children and give thought to committing not to a Declaration of Independence, but perhaps a Declaration for Independence, their independence. I suggest that we parents look at our children and create a goal that we will proactively work to achieve—that they will become independent, functioning, autonomous, happy, and contributing adults. Our jobs are not to create very large, dysfunctional old children, but functional adults. As such, perhaps as we here in the United States celebrate the day of our Declaration of Independence for our nation, we should look at our children and make a declaration for their independence and prepare to fight our own battles on their behalf, understanding that it could take many years for us to help them achieve their independence.

We need to make the commitment, maintain our focus, and achieve our goal. It’s the battles, the scars, and the sacrifices that help define us as parents. But the rewards are worth it all!

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 31 No. 7, 2018 ©NACD

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