Another turn in the road....

I grew up reading. I seriously can't remember a time when I couldn't read. It was my world. I was Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown etc....books that kept my imagination going and filled in what was probably a pretty ordinary suburbia life as a child. A perfect day to me is curling up and reading for hours upon hours. This is not so for two of my children. Both my oldest and our youngest are dyslexic. Both have high IQ's but ask them to spell words or read a novel and it can be pure torture. Alex has gone through years of tutoring. He developed early survival skills and still uses them to this day. He is doing great in school and even likes English now. Our middle child Sam, just needed reading help for one year and he loves to read books. He's a solid B student and manages to keep up and organized where his school work is concerned. Our youngest Gracie is a whole different ball game. Not only is she dyslexic she's also ADD. Now we are going to have her diagnosed on November 9th., but I, her teachers, and her tutor are pretty certain she has both. They often go hand in hand. Sweet, loving, and precocious child, she resembles trying to keep a bird from flying when you work with her. The focus is short, tasks are often unfinished and if they are completed often messy. She is frustrated with her own attemps at learning, and as a mother your heart breaks. How do you let them know how smart, and special, and wonderfully made they are when they can't keep up with most of the kids in the class. Alex was almost 13 when he was diagnosed so the term Dyslexic was a relief to him because then he knew he wasn't stupid, he just needed to learn differently than others. He shows strong skills in both math and foreign language, two areas that can really be tough for dyslexic people. Grace is a bit all over the place. So today I sigh. As a parent I want to give her every opportunity to succeed. She is being tutored twice a week, and has been since she was in kindergarten. I had my suspicions that ADD was lurking around the corner but today as I spoke with her tutor those suspicions became a reality. Now what? How do you give them the best shot that you can? I checked out two books on ADD at the library and the tutor will send items home for us to work on so we can enforce what she is learning at school. Her road will be long, every grade will have to be earned. While friends of hers will sail on buy she will paddle against the current most of her life. This realization would have set me back, back to denial with another drink. The beauty of my program is that I have choices today. I chose to not have my daughter labeled. I chose to raise her strong and confident. To work beside and with her to overcome learning disabilities in order to make her realize that you do not need to be a victim to your circumstances. She will be strong, she will appreciate, and according to God's plan she will grow into the exact person that he has planned her to be....and that makes me happy.....