I agree with the previous posts about the nature of the conference. So far, it does seem to be a bit removed from the struggles so many families have. Perhaps the name "bright and quirky" should tell us something. Quirky seems to describe a more mild version of the differently wired kid. And, the finance hurdle has not really been addressed. I remember one of the talks, maybe yesterday, maybe the host, referring to how she was able to farm out to specialists all the remediation (dyslexia tutoring, occupational therapists, other therapists, test prep etc), and just focus on expanding the strength interests herself. That is not where most parents find themselves. They are often completely reliant on the schools, even for testing, and even if they can get adequate remediation from the schools, there is usually quite a bit of cost involved in nurturing these specific talents. So both sides of the equation cost money, and those who don't have much of it are the vast majority of the population. The Barry Prizant session did get into alternative placements by the school system (I think he specializes in autism so that is a more practiced route for school systems now), but that isn't much help for the 2E child who is just showing up as an average B/C student because their strengths and weaknesses are masking one another. I did like the bit where he talked about defining what supports your child needs, exactly and explicitly, how much and by whom, and then having the conversation as to whether the school can provide that. But again, parents have to know themselves, or be able to pay for a psychologist who knows, in order to present that to the schools. The video of the strength days was a fascinating clip, but I really want to know what they do with that information. That's the nitty gritty that I don't think has been addressed. In our case, we have a pretty skilled and helpful school team and my DD has a number of classroom accommodations that are helpful, but that results in her staying afloat reasonably well in mid level high school courses. There is really no discussion of meeting her intellectual strengths. The high school just isn't set up that way. Advanced classes seem to be just more and faster, not different. I struggle with the idea that she might be more engaged in a class where there are other students more engaged with the material, but that she might also fall behind in trying to keep up with the volume of written output (this is my dyslexic/dysgraphic kid). But, what specifically would it look like in a classroom to nurture her strengths? I don't know the answer to that. And, I do think it's hard not to worry about the impact of not playing the game. Again, money is such an issue here. We have just gone through the college application process with our oldest, and grades matter tremendously when it comes to financing a college education. There are tons of great colleges where a student with mediocre grades can go and mature an get a great education. But, you have to be able to afford to pay. Merit aid at public universities is doled out almost exclusively by the student's stats. And, FAFSA expects us to pay 50% of our take home income. When you have average grades and a limited budget your college choices are very limited if you want to avoid a mountain of debt.

Yes this!

Yeah, I was thinking you had to be 2E to figure out how to watch, lol. Register with your email, and then they will send you an email link to watch.

Thanks for posting this. I watched day 1 this morning. I agree with Peter Pan that most of it was introductory. Dan Siegel really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. I thought the neurodiversity one was the best of the day. I especially appreciated the part where she talked about the recommendations you get from a neuropsych evaluation, and how they almost always are focused on the deficit side of the equation (ie, we need to focus just as much energy on accommodating the strengths of these kids). I never thought too much about this while my kids were homeschooled, but the two oldest have gone on to private and public high schools and not being able to focus on strengths is one of my greatest frustrations with the school experience. That is definitely a benefit of homeschooling. Looking forward to watching day 2

I was not trying to jump on anyone. My point was just to clarify that the loss of phonics education had nothing to do with NCLB. I am sorry you took offense. I think the discussion about the use of phonics transcends the various debates around the common core and NCLB.

Not important. It was a different paragraph, that is all. I appreciate the clarification.

It's ok. It just wasn't clear to me. Not worth getting upset over.

Sorry, that wasn't clear. If so, you are lucky

I don't know where you are/were, but I don't think all students received phonics instruction pre NCLB. I received phonics instruction as a kid in the 70s, but only because I was at a Catholic school for first and second grade, and even there it was combined with Dick and Jane. It has to be 100 years since most kids received any systematic phonics instruction.

The American Public Media documentary is a good place to start for public school teachers https://www.apmreports.org/story/2017/09/11/hard-to-read The follow-up documentary focuses specifically on the science of teaching reading and how teachers are taught, so really good for teachers to listen to https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read Further reading here https://www.apmreports.org/story/2017/09/11/further-reading-hard-to-read Maine ( I am assuming you are in Maine, so forgive me if I am wrong) passed a law in 2015 defining dyslexia, requiring dyslexia screening and the appointment of a dyslexia coordinator. No funding provided, of course, but it's a start and specifically uses the term dyslexia to refer to a host of reading difficulties.

I totally agree, but sadly I don't think that is the unfairness issue that is motivating most parental complaints. I wish it was. I do think the motivation matters because unfortunately too many parents are concerned about competitive advantage. I think how we think about the goals of sport really does impact how we see the question of fairness. For example, approximately equal playing time for all is also a fairness issue. But, I expect there are vastly different interpretations about what fairness means in that context depending on how you construe the goal of sport.

I think the reason we are now all so concerned with "fairness" is that sports has lost its focus on cooperation, getting along with others, working together to achieve a goal, exercise, building skills etc and has become focused on individual success. It has become a means to the end of climbing the achievement ladder rather than an end in itself. Parents want their kid to succeed because, as one person said "scholarships do matter." The problem with that focus is it makes it a zero sum game. There are only so many spots at the top (scholarships or college admittances) so my kid's success means someone else's failure. That focus has infected scholastic sports and rec sports all the way down to the peewee level. There are national championships and rankings for early elementary kids for heaven's sake. Discussions about safety and what will provide the best experience for all the kids are great, and that's where these conversations should take place. As Bluegoat said, the game should be rewarding for all as much as possible, and who has a competitive advantage should be only a minor, mostly irrelevant concern.

Perhaps less focus on winning and competition is what should be done. Scholastic and recreational sports were originally instituted in the US to teach values such as cooperation and hard work (you know, teamwork and sportsmanship), not to enable the academic/athletic/financial fortunes of a talented few. Forget scholarships and winning and getting into elite colleges, and let sports be for all the kids. Everyone plays, everyone deals with the circumstances of a diverse group of kids, and parents stay home!!

Oh, and lots of parents make assumptions about age based on size. Assumptions are just that. You don't know how many times I have heard parents on the sidelines complain that "there is no way that kid is" 8 or 9 or 10 or fill in the blank. And, in elementary school, size is not typically an asset. The smaller kids are usually quicker, faster, more agile. The really big kids tend to be awkward and clumsy. You can't tell much about athletic ability in boys especially until after puberty. So parents need to just relax and leagues need to just play everybody, equally. The purpose is fun, exercise, learning.

Age won't solve that. My kid is one of the younger kids and a foot or more taller. That's just bad behavior, coaching, management.

I'll probably get the bad parenting award here, but after years of struggling, punishing, rewarding, decluttering, trying systems etc.... I finally decided that I just hated the mess and it was my problem. So every morning when DD15 goes to school I go into her room and spend 5 minutes. I make the bed, toss the clothes in the hamper, do a quick pick up and take the dishes downstairs. This way I can leave the door to her room open during the day, which makes it less musty smelling, and enjoy the beautiful quilts I have made spread across the bed. It's totally for me. DD has enough on her plate with her dyslexia and anxiety and depression I just decided that I wasn't going to fight this anymore. The surprising up side is now, on the weekends, I can ask her to do a quick clean-up and make her bed and it doesn't overwhelm her. She can do it in 5 minutes too. Baby steps I guess.....

I would be more generous in your thinking. I have a son who is 10 years old, 5'6" tall and over 150lbs. He is not a great athlete, heck he isn't even a good athlete. Where should he play? I am sure it is not easy to be the kid who is held back in school.

I have been reading this thread with interest and sadness. I have three dyslexic kids and they all have striking low and processing speeds and unusually low scores on rapid naming. My oldest daughter had to be tested twice by the neuropsych because she had such a low speed score that the test thought it must be a mistake. So, I live in this universe too. But, it is just sad to me that anyone would have to ask if there is a place in the world for these slow thinkers. When did we get to the point that we value speed over all else. I get that speed has it's place, but there is such depth and creativity of thinking in these kids. I have come to understand that they are using their brains differently to process language (the Dehaene book is really good here) and that that really does take more time, but it also gives them access to parts of the brain that neurotypical readers just don't have, and that is the source of their originality and creativity. I used to explain it to my kids as the difference between crossing the ocean on the Concord or on an boat. Yes, one is faster, but you see a whole different world on the boat. I refuse to accept that there is only room in the world for a three hour ocean crossing. My middle DD15 sounds a lot like your DS. I thought for a while that she was not dyslexic. But. she could never learn to spell, and by middle school her spelling was still dismal, her grammar and mechanics dismal (even though she could tell you all the rules from years of trying all the programs you also tried), and her handwriting was deteriorating as she tried to compose increasingly difficult sentences and paragraphs. When I had her tested a couple of years ago I specifically asked for testing on the writing portion because that is where she struggled most and we just made the decision that enough time had been spent on remediation and it was time to focus on accommodation. She is now in public high school and types absolutely everything. Typing does help, but she still needs extra time. But at least with typing she can write with the kind of language she would use if she were dictating. When she hand writes it's like she cannot even compose at the same level. She writes short simple sentences just to get almost illegible words on paper. As I see it, this is undoubtedly a language processing difference. While she and her siblings have slow processing speeds, they all also play classical guitar and are able to sight read music. Even my oldest, who has the most bizarrely slow processing speed, was a ballet dancer and while she had difficulty when she was younger, often just a half a beat or less behind the music on new choreography, by the time she was a teen she was able to dance and play guitar without any evidence of her slow processing speed. It is also not really just a motor function issue. My middle DD, the dysgraphic one, is also an artist, so it's clear that some things are able to get from her creative brain onto the paper without difficulty. The best description my dysgraphic DD has given of her experience is that when she writes it is like she has an idea but as that idea is traveling to the paper it passes a beautiful flower garden and it slows down to wander through the garden, sometimes stopping to smell the flowers or look at a caterpillar before continuing on to the paper. She says it takes tremendous energy and focus (like putting her head down and putting on blinders) to pass by without stopping and when she does she can't keep all her previous thoughts intact. This causes her great anxiety because there is such a premium placed on speed, but the only way to mentally hold and process all her thoughts at the same time is to not rush them (it's probably worth pointing out here that while many dyslexic kids have working memory issues she tested at the 99.9 percentile for working memory, so that is not the problem here either). Personally, I have learned so much about dyslexia over the past decade. This a a fascinating field of study with a ton of new, interesting research (some of Fumiko Hoeft's research into 2e dyslexic kids is remarkable, as well as Dehaene's research and the Eides etc). It has been helpful for me to stop thinking about these things as deficiencies. Your DS has a brain that works differently from his brother's. That's a good thing. Think carefully about what you mean when you worry about what it will take for him to be "successful." It's easy for the world to define success as going to MIT. I think that is short sighted. Even going to MIT is a chimera unless you have a more robust understanding of success than mere achievement (MacArthur genius award winning paleontologist Jack Horner flunked out of college six times before he was able to finish - read about him. Read about MIT professor Catherine Drennan. Change the way you think about these apparent difficulties. Your son seems remarkably clear headed about his own thinking process. Listen to him. He is not less than his brother).

My DD had a subscription for a while. The supplies are nice and they come with a little postcard that features an artist who uses some of the supplies in the box and an example of their work. So it's not a project, but it is an idea generator. She enjoyed the boxes and it gave her a chance to try out some supplies that she had never used before to see if she wanted to invest in them herself.

Same here. It is a bit sad to lose the magic part of the holiday. My youngest is 10 so he is the only one really excited about presents anymore. I have decided to look on the positive side. Our primary gift to the kids now is a ski trip with DH (the grandparents contribute to this every year). They and he go away for 4 or 5 days right before Christmas and I stay home with the dog(a super nice break for super introverted me). We each still get each other a small gift, and we open these gifts on Christmas (with 5 of us this is plenty). We also do a family secret santa in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It is really nice to have the kids just as involved in the gift giving as Mom and Dad. So overall, I like the change. Christmas has become quieter and more reflective for me, and it is more about each of the children thinking carefully about what would be wanted/needed/appreciated by their siblings. So I guess my suggestion would be to approach the inevitable change with purpose and try to mold your more young adult holiday into something that reflects your values and still feels special.

Hard to overstate the irony of this conversation popping up the week after Thanksgiving - which is essentially an entire national holiday centered around a ritualized meal 🙂

DH and I both voted in person this morning (no early voting in CT, something that needs to change). We vote in every election. It was embarrassing how quick and easy and efficient it is to vote in a wealthy, white CT town. At 9am there was no line and I was in and out in about 7 minutes. Kudos to all of you and all the folks nationwide who have to wait in lines in the rain for hours. There is no excuse for that. We can do better. And, I personally would like to see as many people as possible cast a vote, regardless of your demographic.

My DS 10 is dyslexic, so we are constantly on the hunt for books that are timeless stories interesting to many ages, but not overwhelming reads. Three books he recently gave "amazing book" ratings for are White Fur Flying, Patricia Maclachlan (I would recommend many of her books) The Hundred Dresses, Eleanor Estes The Cats of Roxville Station, Jean Craighead George

For your own feelings, I would highly recommend reading Ungifted, Intelligence Redefined, by Scott Barry Kaufman. He was a kid who did poorly on IQ tests and was in special ed throughout school and ended up with a PhD in cognitive psychology from Yale, and is one of the foremost experts in interpreting and understanding what "intelligence" means. He does a deep dive into IQ testing and learning disabilities and the meaning of giftedness and talent etc. I think it is a book all educators should read, but it really does hammer home the point that you cannot define a child by test results.

Yes, this sounds like our situation. The $25K-$30 is after big merit scholarships which cut the price more than 50% but are still double our EFC. It's daunting, but I guess we are fortunate enough to have savings to cover about half of that. I am also nervous about the extra 1-2 years. Her programs of interest are direct entry Masters or Doctorate in health sciences, so they are 5-6 year programs. The final 1-2 years could likely be even more expensive than the first 4.