How to Balance Your Dyslexic Kid's Needs With Your Own ft Aletha Solter, Ph.D.

How can parents and caregivers support themselves adequately while also supporting their kids? This can seem like a tough challenge a lot of the time. But stay tuned because we're going to talk to a parenting expert who's going to tell us how we can do it.

Hey, everyone. We're Sonja and Nick, and this is Dyslexia Journey, where we discuss topics to help you support the dyslexic child in your life. And today, we are happy to have another conversation with Dr. Aleka Solter. Great. I'm going to read Dr. Solter's bio really quickly, and then we'll jump into it. So, Dr. Aleka Solter is a Swiss-American developmental psychologist who is recognized internationally as an expert on attachment, trauma, and non-punitual discipline.

She studied with the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where she obtained a master's degree in human biology. She then earned a PhD in psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Solter is the author of six books, including The Aware Baby, which has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide, and, most recently, Healing a Traumatized Child, which just came out earlier this year. Her books have been translated into many languages.

She has written numerous articles for parents and professionals, and she has given talks and led workshops in 17 countries. In 1990, she founded the Aware Parenting Institute, which now has certified instructors in over 20 countries. And, also, she is my mother. So, Aleka, welcome to Dyslexia Journey for our second conversation. So, Aleka, welcome to Dyslexia Journey for our second conversation with Dyslexia Journey for our second conversation. Thank you. I look forward to talking with you again.

And so, today, we're going to focus on supporting parents themselves. And so, just as a first overall question, I'm wondering what your top tips are for how parents can support themselves while they're supporting each other. So, yeah, well, this is hard for many parents to, first of all, finding that balance, finding the balance between, you know, work, parenting, relationships, leisure activities, keeping physically fit. We just all have so many things on our plates, I think.

And just looking for that balance is one top tip. And then finding a listener. We all need someone to listen to us. So, I mean, if, you know, with a partner, if you can listen to each other at the end of the day, just taking, like, 10 minutes each to listen to you. You know, I'll tell you about my day while you tell me about your day to offload what's, you know, what's on top emotionally.

That can be really helpful. Because, you know, it's hard to really give children the attention they need when we are not getting that attention ourselves. I think support groups can help, you know, with, you know, with parents of dyslexic children, I really recommend get connection through the internet, either a real support group or a virtual support group. Watching podcasts like this one can really help getting information, but they're getting that support, talking with other parents who have, who are dealing with similar issues, similar struggles.

And then finally, if we want to go a little bit deeper into our own, you know, psyches, we can find ways to explore our own childhood. That can always help, either just journaling or talking friends with a partner or therapy, seeing a therapist. Because the more we can, you know, heal from our own childhood, the better we'll be, the easier we'll be to be the kind of parents we want to be.

Because very often our childhood traumas, unresolved childhood traumas can really interfere with parenting and make it more difficult than it has to be. So those are some of the top tips I have for parents. I think those are important tips. You talked a little bit about everything that's on, that's on your plate as a parent. So how, how can a parent, how can a parent simultaneously, simultaneously balance those of her own needs with those of their child without making their child feel bad or guilty?

Yeah, well, that's a hard, hard thing to balance because, okay, so if we, if we meet our own needs at the expense of our children, they're going to feel neglected or unloved. You know, that's, you know, that's, you know, we don't want to do that. But on the other hand, if we meet our children's needs at the expense of our own needs, we're going to feel resentful. The main problem with that is that we're going to start to feel resentful.

And that will, our children, children will sense that resentment and that will begin to erode the parent-child connection. So that's true for any relationship, you know, to balance, to not self-sacrifice. And I think, you know, conscientious parents often do fall into the self-sacrificing trap.

And it's, it's, it's a hard one to find that balance. So everyone's needs need to be met, obviously, but how to do that, it's a challenge. I mean, with younger kids, we could, you know, find, instead of, you know, just leaving kids, expecting them to play alone for hours and hours and hours, we could maybe find someone else to be with them, just finding, getting support, finding other people, creating a tribe, a neighborhood, friends, whatever.

Just, just, we need other adults. You know, the, the saying, every child, we need a village to raise a child is just so true. So finding other people. And then, well, with older children, if we want to, you know, we need, we can start setting boundaries as children get older. We can say, look, I'm available to help you with homework until 9 p.m., which I used to say. And, you know, after that, you're on your own.

But I need time to myself after 9 p.m., so it's okay to say that. It's okay to set boundaries. Yeah, it's especially hard for, well, I think it's hard for all parents, but especially for parents of a dyslexic child because they often need that additional academic support at home. So in addition to the, everything that you do as a parent around taking care of them and nourishing their support, there's also, they often just need more help with reading, like homework and stuff like that.

And so it, it goes to them to maybe burn us out a little bit. And so it's, it's, I think, I really like how you said this. It's especially important not to get to the point where you're going to be done for every parent. Yeah, yeah, to really focus on, you know, if we're starting to feel resentful, that's a clue that we're self-sacrificing.

And so to look for a solution then, it's really easy to get sucked into that of, okay, my child needs my support. I'm qualified to help them with homework, you know, I'll skip, I'll skip my exercise this evening, I'll skip, I'll skip, you know, the movie I was going to watch, it's more important to help them with homework. Well, you know, maybe once in a while that makes sense to do, but in the long run, it can start to be, you know, interfering with, with our relationship with our children.

Yeah, that's really helpful to remember, I think, and keep in mind, try to think of the big picture too. And then maybe go to other solutions if you would. All right, so shifting focus slightly here, so mostly what we're doing is directly interacting with our children, but then sometimes there's other people you need to interact with too around some of these issues. So I'm wondering if you have any tips for, especially maybe talking with, with, with a teacher, like, let's just give a concrete example.

So let's say the kid's having meltdowns at school or something like that, or any other cases too, like, what, what are some tips for working with other adults like teachers? Yeah, I think, I think, I think working with teachers, it's always helpful to begin by appreciating the teacher. I think that could never hurt, it's, teachers really need recognition and support and appreciation. Even though we might go there feeling critical, it's, it's important to say, you know, point out some of the things that they're doing well.

Really appreciate that, you know, you're giving my, my child these accommodations or whatever. But if a child is, like, having meltdowns at school, there is a reason for that. And there may be things happening at school that can be changed. I think that's important to, to, to talk about that with a teacher. Just to say, you know, I, you know, my child's been having, having meltdowns at school. People can, you know, would you be willing to explore with me, take a look at some of the sources of stress that might be happening at school.

You know, if the parents suspect that that's, that's happening. And, you know, teachers welcome help and support and information. They, they need information. You, you know, parents know their children better than anyone else, really. And parents, I think teachers can, can, you can, will welcome information if it's given respectfully. You know, you could, my, say, I'm, my child is, I noticed my child is very sensitive to noise. And is, is there some way that she could be allowed to, to take her test in a quieter area?

Or just, just little tips like that, that you suspect might be causing stress. I think, I think parents, yeah, I think teachers will welcome those kinds of suggestions. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's a tricky balance, I mean, as, as parents, we, there's some, as parents of, of, children with learning disabilities, we sometimes have to, I guess, advocate for them, to make sure that they're, being respected, right? But, it's, it's hard sometimes to, to do that, you know, in a, collaborative manner.

Or, we feel sometimes tempted, I think, to, approach things more from that, demand or more for having these stance, I guess. But I think that's never, never really helpful, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it, it becomes an adversarial stance. It, it's really not parents' job to tell teachers how to teach. They've been through teacher training, they know how to teach. It's, but it is important for parents to give information about their specific child's needs, okay?

and, what, what they know about their own child, if it's done in a supportive way, and appreciative way, supportive... Yeah. It's probably a good idea if someone's, if you're feeling not in that kind of a state to, process that first before talking to them. Yes. You can come at, come at, at a collaborative way. Yeah. If you, if you're not in that state, find someone to listen to you first, basically. That's, that's the, that's the guideline.

or just write, the letter that you wish you could send your teacher and then tear it up, you know, that kind of thing. and then, and then get, get it off your chest and then go in a calmer frame of mind, hopefully, to the, the meeting with the teacher. I want to go back to, the, we were talking a little bit earlier, we were talking a little bit about, about resentment. Maybe getting to the point of resenting your kid.

And I guess sort of the flip side of that is how do you, how do you deal as a parent with feelings of maybe not doing enough for your child? Oh. Because it feels, yeah, I think with all children, we feel like we could be doing more. We could be, you know, they, they always want to play. They always want, want us to spend more time with them or, or they need more help learning how to read it.

How to read it if they're dyslexic or something like that. so you, you know, it feels like you could be kind of endlessly helping them. so, how do we, how do we deal with feelings of, of, not doing enough? And then possibly also maybe some feelings of guilt in there, especially with, like, a dyslexic child of maybe not feeling like we didn't have them identified soon enough. not protecting them from the, maybe the, the, the problems that they had in school early on before this was identified.

I'm sorry, I think there's a lot of, perhaps a lot of feelings of dyslexic kids. Yeah, a lot of feelings come up for parents and, and this is true for all parents, whether their child has a challenge or not, like dyslexia, the, the feeling of not doing enough, again, for, for really involved, conscientious parents, like, like you are, both of you, it, it, those feelings can come up, not doing enough. I think it's, it, it helps to keep in mind that the most important thing is the, is connection, the connection with the child.

I mean, if parents have established a good connection and spend some time with the child and, and just being them there for them, everything else parents do, whether it's, it's getting their kids evaluated, whether it's talking to teachers, whether it's figuring out accommodations. Figuring out accommodations, whether it's helping endlessly with homework, everything else parents do will be that much more effective. Okay, if there's, if there's a, if there's a strong parent-child connection.

So, I would say to parents, just, just focus on the connection with the child. If everything else the parents are doing is, is kind of damaging that connection and the child is feeling pushed and prodded and maybe it's time to back off. Or, like we mentioned before, if the parents are starting to feel resentful, maybe it's time to back off and just do something fun together. So, that's one tip. But, you know, feeling that we're not doing enough, that can, that can have its root.

Again, it can have a root in our own childhood. we, maybe we were taught that we were never good enough or we're never doing enough. So, we can all also explore that. And it just happens to, this feeling is going to, we might have that same feeling at work. We might have had it when we were in school. So, we might, so we're not actually going to have that same feeling as parents because it's, it's, it's rooted in our, in some own, our own unresolved childhood issues.

So, that's another thing to look for. you mentioned guilt. So, guilt maybe that, parents might feel that they didn't, recognize their child's dyslexia soon enough. Or, they didn't, maybe, do anything about it soon enough. again, I think it's, it's very easy to feel guilty as parents. Especially if we, you know, get information about something we could have done when they were younger. that we didn't do. We think it's too late. for a lot of things, it's not too late.

But, guilt is an interesting feeling because it's, it's, it's sadness and regret combined with self-blame and anger at ourselves. And that's not healthy, really. It's not good for a relationship with our children because then we do things out of guilt, which is not as effective. so, we need to express that regret, that sadness. We might need to have a good cry, you know. Parents feel guilty about something they, they, they missed, you know, the first until the child is 12 and they finally realize, oh my gosh, my child is dyslexia.

And that's why they've been struggling at school. they might feel guilty, they might need to cry about that and have someone and talk about that and just have someone listen to them. but then also the self-blame to kind of divert that, it can help to, to find the rightful target, to understand, well, this is our culture. Our culture doesn't recognize dyslexia. Maybe the school should have identified them sooner. I mean, not to, not to start getting angry at teachers or anything, but just to, to deflect the blame away from ourselves and find the real reason for the fact that we didn't recognize it sooner.

It's not, when parents can begin to feel it's not their fault that can help guilt. So, I think what I like to tell parents, whether it's, you know, for, for any, anything involved in, in parenting, even though a lot of struggles that children have are not our fault. they're not, you know, we, they're, we, we're not the cause of, of, of their dyslexia. It's not our fault that we didn't recognize it sooner, but we can always be part of the solution.

So, parents, I think it helps to remember parents can always be part of the solution, even though the solution doesn't, even though we don't start working on the solution until they're 10 or 12 years old. that's, that's, that's, I think that can help to, it can help to remember that. Following up on that, the final question about a very specific instance, I guess, of regret or, so let's say if you feel like you made a mistake as a parent, like you snapped at your kid cause you were overwhelmed or tired or something like that.

Like what's, you know, you're so hopeful and talking about, you know, what to do about things that even if they've already happened. So I'm curious about what you would say about that. What can a parent do if they feel like they made that kind of a mistake? So parents lose their patience and yell or just, you know, do really do so, you know, not the kind of parent they want to be.

That's hard. It's hard. But I think it does help to apologize to children. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean parents are weak. it, it just helps us say, gee, and I'm so sorry I lost my patience. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that. and then, and then it helps to listen to the child, you know, how did, how did you, you know, it doesn't hurt to say, how did, how did you feel when I yelled at you?

You know, and, just to kind of bring it out in the open, a young child, you know, might, might feel anger and might, you know, want to express anger. Might say, I hate you, you're mean, you were mean, you know, we can help them. We can, we can give them a pillow and say, okay, why don't you knock me down with this pillow and try to get them to laugh and just play a, what I call a power reversal game.

I mean, they can get their anger out playfully, so that's one thing we can help repair for repairing the relationship. I think to, like with older children, sometimes it can help to, and, and, and, and, and, you know, with, with, with couples too, it can be helpful to just kind of say, to step back and say, okay. We just had this argument, I yelled, I'm sorry, I apologize, can we re, can we re, can we re do that, can we go back, can you, some of you said earlier, and I'll try to answer differently this time, just kind of a playful suggestion to re, redo it, rewind and replay, which is a bit outdated, outdated analogy, but, to, to, to, as a way to repair.

And, I think though, if parents are frequently angry, frequently lose patience, there's, that's, to me, that's a clue for, for one of two things, either there's not enough support, there's not enough help, too much stress in the parent's life, or there's some unhealed, unresolved childhood trauma going on. So those are two things to look at.

Yeah, so I think as parents, we often feel, pressure to be perfect, to, you know, do everything right for our children. So I think, I think what you're saying is that if we, if we mess up, you know, we're not, we're not going to be perfect. And so, I guess when we mess up, that that's not, we, we, we, we haven't done irrevocable harm for our children by, by, losing our time for a woman, if that's repair.

Yeah, it feels that way, doesn't it, though? Sometimes it can feel that, oh my gosh, I've harmed my child, I've damaged my child's poor, fragile ego. and, and, you know, it's, it's, it's easy to get into that. But, relationships can be repaired. And that's true for adults. Between adults, it's true for parent-child relationships. It's true for, there's always a possibility of repair. And that's, I think it's important to remember that. It's going to happen.

And that, and then we're teaching children how to repair relationships. So, they're learning something valuable for life, aren't they? Let's go, let's go back, let's do, let's talk about it. How did you feel when I said that? We're teaching them how to repair, how to listen, how to reconnect. But those are valuable life skills. You know, it, it's, the goal, you know, many parents think, the goal is to avoid all conflicts.

I don't, I don't see it that way. The goal is to figure out how to resolve conflict in such a way that relationships can be repaired. That everyone's needs are met. That's the goal. We can't avoid conflicts. I mean, if you get two people in a room for, for more than five minutes, there's going to be some kind of conflict eventually. So, the same with parent and child. There's going to be conflicts.

There's going to be problems. There's going to be feelings. There's going to be anger. There's going to be irritation. So, it's how we deal with it, how we repair it, that's important. Yeah, I think that's a really helpful way. Yeah. So, on that helpful note, thank you so much for speaking with us. I think it's just wonderful to hear that kind of advice about all support and thinking proactively about it, but also about repair and go forward if something didn't go through.

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