Your Dyslexic Child: 3 Tips for Bad Moods After School

Hello, we're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey, the show where we cover topics related to supporting the dyslexic child in your life. And for today's topic, we're going to talk about what to do when your child comes home grumpy and complaining about school. So first, let's talk a little bit about why this might be. Sure. Yeah, this is a really important topic, and I think one that many people who have a child with dyslexia in their life can certainly relate to.

So first, I think we can all agree that school can be and often is stressful for any child. But I think there are particular aspects of having dyslexia that make school a potentially difficult experience that causes our children with dyslexia to often come home feeling upset, sad, angry, grumpy, a range of emotions that are potentially, as parents or caregivers or people who care about these dyslexic children, it's hard for us to deal with. It's hard to see your child upset.

And sometimes it's not easy if they're grumpy. Yes, exactly. Because they might be grumpy with you. Exactly. And so let's talk a little bit about why school might be particularly grumpiness-inducing for children with dyslexia. Right. Because like we said, obviously, like all children are going to have bad days at school or just difficulties in general that can happen, all kinds of reasons from social to learning things. It's just maybe more likely that it will happen more often also.

And if you think about it, there's partly just a logical connection, right? School is about learning, and we're talking about something that's a learning disability and a learning challenge. And so every day is going to have a little bit more of that. I think that one way to think about it is that it's sort of extra emotionally draining and taxing to be faced with this kind of challenge that you're working on every day.

Mm-hmm. And also, if you're someone who has dyslexia, you're often going to feel singled out at school. So whether that's because you're supposed to be reading something, everyone's supposed to be reading something to themselves, and the rest of the class finishes and you're only half done, you're going to feel singled out even if nobody says anything, or if you get pulled out for remedial instruction, obviously, you're going to feel singled out, or maybe you'll get called out.

I mean, children can sometimes be mean and make fun of each other. The teacher might call you out, hopefully not in a mean way, but it happens. And sometimes teachers might forget that. That's happened to our daughter before. Teachers, especially if they have many, many students they're dealing with, totally understandable. They might forget temporarily that they're calling them to read or something that is part of their accommodations, and then they have to remind them.

So even if they feel pretty good about the whole thing and pretty relaxed about it, it's just sort of this extra thing that can make you put on the spot. So however different kids are going to feel differently about that, depending on their personalities and all kinds of reasons, but for everybody, there's at least a little bit of that at the moment of being put on the spot. And so even if there's not one sort of hugely traumatic event during the day, there are almost certainly going to be minor incidents where your child or the child who has dyslexia is going to be reminded that they have dyslexia, reminded that they're different from other children, and that's hard emotionally.

Right. And so another thing that's sort of related is that they may be having, I'm thinking with the teachers particularly, they may have more interactions just in general with teachers, right, and like have more times when they need to be more assertive. And all of that, again, it depends a lot on personality, but it can be challenging for kids to just have to do that. And some of them might be negative interactions because it could be, I mean, I know for myself that I don't always understand everything that's part of the learning challenge that our daughter has.

And so sometimes I might make an assumption that, oh, she's zoning out or something, and it's really like something totally different. And so teachers, of course, are doing this all the time, too, even when we know there's a learning challenge also because it's sort of hard to know what's going on sometimes. So there can be some negative ones, there can be just purely needing to interact more. And I think any time we have more interactions, there's always that potential that it was a little stressful, again, depending a lot in personality, but to some extent for anyone.

And this pressure also, like you mentioned, to be always really on. And if you're not on, there's always the risk of getting called out for zoning out or whatever, which I think people, including myself, have a hard time recognizing that. You know, sort of how on people with dyslexia have to be and then sort of making assumptions about what they're doing when they're not totally on. Right, which kind of loops back to the fact that it's pretty emotionally draining.

So it's kind of like you're either on and having to extra focus even more than everyone else, or if you're off, then you might get called out for it. Right. So should we move on to a couple of ideas for how to approach this if your kid's coming home grumpy or complaining about school? Yeah, so we have three tips to kind of think about as you're going through this experience with the child.

So the first one is to not assume that it's going badly in school, if they're complaining about school. We can have a whole separate discussion sometimes about actually having a difficult interaction with a particular teacher that needs to be addressed, or like, does your child even need to go so far as to change schools? Is it working for them? So most of the time, it doesn't necessarily mean that your child is struggling in a way like that at school.

Right. Just sort of take a case scenario of it. So if someone, let's say your child comes home and they're complaining about an assignment, and it felt like something just they specifically had to do, I really hated this particular thing we had to do, or that kind of thing. Like, they might just want to be, they're just complaining about it essentially, right? They want to sort of let off steam about it potentially.

If it's something that's happening every day, that could be a different issue where maybe it's not quite the right thing for them. But I think that, I guess it sort of leads into our next step, which is to not feel like you necessarily have to do something about it and not necessarily fix it. Right. So I think tip number two is, as someone with, as people with dyslexic children in our lives, we often feel like we need, and we often do need to be an advocate for them in the wider world, with the schools, with their teachers, and so on.

But the tip in this case is that you don't always have to fix something. You don't always need to be the advocate. Sometimes your child is not asking you to fix things. Sometimes they just want you to listen to them. Right. And it's kind of that letting off steam, or just, again, just like as adults, how we sometimes just want someone to, you want an ear for someone to listen to. It can often be that kind of a situation where they just want to be able to complain to someone.

Right. And so going back to sort of what we were talking about at the beginning of this episode about how school can be so taxing emotionally for children, it can just be really helpful for them to have a sympathetic adult listen to them at the end of that day. Just like if you have a hard day at work, then it's really helpful to be able to complain to somebody about that. And you don't, you know, if you're complaining to your partner or to a friend about the problems that happened at work that day, you're clearly not expecting that person to whom you're complaining to fix those problems at your job, right?

Right. You just want someone to listen and be sympathetic. But less this is now feeling, you know, kind of like an obvious connection to you. Let's look a little bit back to the beginning, which is that, I mean, I know for myself, I can say that all I want. But when our daughter, especially because there have been challenges and all these big things that we've had to do, when she does start complaining, sometimes I get that little fluttering sensation of like, oh, no, where is this going?

Is this going to be a big problem? Do I need to do something? And like the wanting to fix it thing and the wondering about where it's going. So I think that makes it extra important, even though it might feel like it should be obvious, to try to remind ourselves about it. Yeah. I mean, I definitely, there are times when on the drive home from school, I'm mentally composing the emails of the teacher in my head already.

And really, I guess what we're trying to say is that that's not always necessary. There is a time and a place for that. I mean, definitely as an advocate for a dyslexic child, but that's not always the case. And especially as your immediate reaction, I think it's important to attempt to temper that a little bit and really just let your child feel heard first. And then if there's a need for action, you can do that at a later time.

Right. And so I think this all leads into the third tip, which is to remember that home is a safe haven for your child, really. I mean, part of the reason that they're going to be complaining, you know, and maybe grumpy with you, maybe because they've held it in at school all day. Like, you know, they are socialized to be polite with teachers and to polite to other people. And like, because they feel closer to you, that's where they feel like they can let a little more of it out.

And so trying to keep that in mind, even when it's difficult and not the most fun thing sometimes to deal with, it can be important that you're the safe haven. Right. Yeah. And keep in mind that it's really a compliment if your child is able to express those negative emotions with you. Yeah. I guess just to sort of sum up, I think we're saying to keep in mind that dyslexic children in particular have a lot of challenges each day at school.

And so they may be very likely to come home and, you know, grumpy or complaining and complaining about particular things at school, especially. And then I guess the tips sort of boil down to not panicking, trying not to panic and, you know, maybe keeping a mindful eye out for what's going on, but otherwise being that emotional support in St. Haven. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Thank you for listening and for watching and best of luck in your Dyslexia Journey.

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