Being Patient With Your Late Blooming Child

Our culture seems to be in such a hurry. We live in a world of fast cars and fast food and, unfortunately, seem to want our children to speed along as well. However, not all kids are willing or able to learn according to our timelines.

Many perfectly normal children seem to need more time in learning to read, write, or do math. What they don’t need is parents and teachers worrying about them or sending them off to after school catch-up courses. Mostly what they require is massive doses of patience and support. You wouldn’t get angry at a plant for not growing fast enough, so why do the same thing with your late blooming child?

If you find that your child isn’t progressing along with his peers, don’t push the panic button. Give yourself a period of time during which you will make a commitment to yourself not to be overly concerned about your child’s academic progress. Take as much as an extra year or two, during which time you’ll nurture his growth in other ways.

Sometimes, all a child needs is that extra growing time to bloom in his own way.

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is an award-winning author and speaker with twenty-eight years of teaching experience from the primary through the doctoral level, and over one million copies of his books in print on issues related to learning and human development. He is the author of nine books including Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, In Their Own Way, Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius, 7 Kinds of Smart, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the Classroom, and Awakening Genius in the Classroom. His books have been translated into sixteen languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew, Danish, and Russian.