As many of you know, NACD is all about family. We encourage and empower parents to work with their children. We encourage and empower siblings to help siblings. We also encourage families working together to change mindsets about what truly is possible with our children, regardless of labels they may have received. I am so thankful to be able to interact and assist parents that want to help their children be all that they can be. One of the places I travel to is Chicago, and we have some great families there. Over the past year, we have had quite a few families start NACD from Davenport, Iowa. They all attend the same church and know each other well. It was a domino-like effect—one family started with their three children, then over six months we had 3 more families with all their children start on their NACD journey.

While each child has their own individualized program, the parents communicate frequently and exchange ideas on how to create intensity and how to organize their days. Many of them have large families, and they homeschool all their children. As you can imagine, that takes good organizational skills and time management! I am so proud of these parents who in such a short amount of time—some with 4 kids on an NACD homeschool program—have created an NACD atmosphere full of positivity, discipline, frequent bursts of input with high intensity, and developing responsibility in their children. And did I forget to mention that one mom had a baby over the past four months and one is having one in December? Are they teaching all their children all the subjects that would happen each day in the public school setting? No. They are teaching smarter. They are building the neurological foundation. They are accelerating processing. They are building up responsibility so that the children actively assist in keeping up the house (inside and out) and help with the younger children. They are hitting reading and math and are working to incorporate passions and interests that the children love to learn about. There are certain activities they can do as a family, and there are certain activities that have to be done 1:1. Some of these parents are also learning how to parent more effectively, understanding what behaviors are and are not appropriate. As a community they help each other in raising their children. When I met these families during evaluations in October, I saw really happy kids. I saw kids who were more mature, had higher levels in processing, and were going up grade levels in academics. I saw kids who really liked learning and were developing interests in building, cooking, money, and fitness. I saw children who were developing positive self-esteems and confidence. They are truly loved, not just by their parents, but also by their community—not to mention me!

Parents—it truly does take community in helping raise our children and to support us in the implementation of NACD programs. I know many of you reading this don’t feel like you have that sense of community. That is why we have created the NACD forum for all things NACD. The NACD forum is on the portal—the website you visit to upload your videos or to review your child’s program. If you log in, then on the top right is the heading “Forum.” If you click on that and hit “view,” you will see all the different categories. If you click on a heading, such as “Health and Nutrition,” you will see different threads about that topic. Feel free to post questions, comments, and suggestions on that particular thread of interest. This is meant to be a positive place for community! Give ideas on how you build intensity or share fun videos of your child accomplishing something new. Have a good app your child likes? Post it and why! As staff, we will post frequently and provide our feedback.

NACD Families can access the NACD Forum in the top-right corner of your Family Dashboard on the NACD Portal.

Please note:The NACD forum is not a place to market yourself or your business. It is not a place to share different program activities. Remember that each program we design is specific to YOUR child. If something on your child’s program needs an adjustment, please contact your coach. NACD reserves the right to take posts off the forum if they are negative and not relevant to helping build a positive community.

We are excited to have this for you and hope you will enjoy it!

NACD Newsletter, November 2018 ©NACD

The post A Sense of Community: Impacting Children in Davenport appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

by Bob Doman

At the end of September in Brasov, Romania, one of our parents, Endre Csato, organized the second of his annual conferences, Galeria Terapiilor. The conference was for Romanian families who have children with disabilities and professionals involved in providing services to these children. I was honored to present the keynote speech via Skype last year. This year one of our great NACD mothers, Raluca Manea, spoke to the group.

A number of our families and some NACD supporters from around the country came to the conference to help educate fellow parents and professionals about the potential of their children and to offer hope.

I have been very heartened by our Romanian families. These folks work diligently to help their own children by doing a great job implementing their programs. They also do very well in communicating with us on a regular basis, even though creating an email in English can be a rather daunting task for many of them. But perhaps what is most meaningful for me is that even though most of these families have children with very significant issues and heavy programs, they deeply care about all of the children who are not being helped. It is quite obvious from what they all do that they feel an obligation and responsibility to spread the hope that is NACD to other families throughout the country.

I wish to personally thank parents Endre Csato, Raluca Manea, Angela and Paul Hlatca, Raluca Busuioc, Florina and Georghe Bolchis and our great advocates and supporters, Teodora Pop and Justinian Milosav. You folks are the best!

I’m honored to be able to know each and every one of you and to have the privilege of helping you help your children.

Let’s continue to work together to provide a better future for your children and to also give hope and tools to many more families.

NACD Newsletter, October 2018 ©NACD

The post News from NACD Romania: A Message for Us All appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

We love hearing from our past and present families. It’s always tough for us when we graduate a child, seeing them move on, full of expectation and hope, and hopefully armed with a solid foundation. We always appreciate hearing from the families and learning how they fared.

We just received this note from Charles Smith and Marilyng Perez Montero regarding their daughter Ilaria. I recall meeting Ilaria and her family for the first time. Ilaria was a very sweet, quiet, well-mannered 10-year-old who lacked confidence and who came to us with a combination of processing issues, academic problems, and physical strength and coordination challenges. She was very anxious to do what she needed to do to better herself, and her parents were obviously dedicated to doing all they could do to make it happen.

Ilaria’s family was very organized and hit her program running and started seeing changes almost immediately. The family kept in close contact with me through their coach, Marta Palmes, and worked not only hard, but smart. The plan from the beginning was to keep Ilaria home and do NACD homeschool, get her “pieces” put together, and then to have her go back to school. Ilaria was with us for less than 18 months, but we were delighted to see her transform into a confident and capable young lady in that relatively short period.

When Charles, Ilaria’s dad, asked me if I thought Ilaria was able to handle going back to school, I told him that I felt she was; but when he told me where he wanted her to go, I was a bit concerned. He wasn’t going to just send her to school, he wanted her to go to a very challenging, tough academic school. I should not have worried. I will let Dad’s words speak for how she has done.

Congratulations, Team Smith!

—Bob Doman

Dear Marta [at NACD],

I am writing to inform you of our daughter Ilaria’s achievement of a 4.0 GPS her first year in middle school and being recognized as a recipient of the President’s Education Awards Program—all this less than six months after graduating from the NACD program. It is a momentous achievement and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you and Bob Doman for all the efforts you have contributed on behalf of Marilyng, myself and Ilaria.

Your support during the design and implementation of Ilaria’s NACD program has been nothing short of overwhelming. Needless to say, without your and Bob’s expertise, input and encouragement, Marilyn and I would never have been able to achieve success in carrying out the program with Ilaria.

As you may recall, we were introduced to Bob Doman and NACD in the Summer of 2016. I was doing some research online for organizations that could assist our 10-year-old daughter, Ilaria, whom had been officially diagnosed as having a “learning disorder”. Ilaria was falling behind in mathematics as well as English and was lacking in physical strength and coordination.

We had tried a number of different private companies and public resources but did not feel any were right for Ilaria’s circumstances. Some were very expensive, and others did not provide the personalized attention we felt was necessary. Fortunately, I came across Bob’s name along with NACD when I was reading reviews by a client of one of the private companies we were meeting with. That day changed our lives!

After watching the online videos of Bob explaining how a child’s brain develops and why it is important to use teaching methods that take into account, we made contact with NACD. My wife and I were very excited to work with Bob and create a personalized development program for Ilaria.

We started implementation of the program in July 2016 and found that your input and weekly support was invaluable. In addition to your encouragement and support you greatly assisted us with the practical implementation of the program. I can distinctly remember your suggestion of creating an excel spreadsheet to keep track of and monitor the daily activities and progress of the program. This helped us tremendously.

Ilaria made steady progress throughout the remainder of 2016 and through the first half of 2017. In august of 2017, she started 6^th grade at a new middle school considered to be one of the most academically challenging schools in Florida. By the end of the first semester in December, she had achieved the honor roll during both quarters and finished with a 3.6 GPA. It was at that time, during her December evaluation with Bob, that he informed her she had successfully graduated from the NACD program.

The NACD program along with the support from yourself and Bob changed our lives and gave Ilaria the confidence to believe in herself and achieve her goals of making the honor roll in her first year of middle school. Thank you very much!

NACD Newsletter, October 2018 ©NACD

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