Rearing an Alpha Child

Posted by noemi in Education, Parents & Children | 11 comments

M, my second daughter proudly showed us her grades for the last semester. She seemed happy and proud of herself, with good reason. Before you think that I am bragging about my daughter’s grades, I have a point to make. Let me tell you that once upon a time, this ignorant mother thought M was learning disabled or a slow child. Looking at her grades of flat one (1 is the highest, 3 is the lowest yet passing grade, while 5 is failing in the State University), I kick myself for my mistakes yet marvel at M’s determimation and confidence in overcoming her childhood challenges. My husband and I were both graduates of the same university but not once did we garner flat one grades in a semester. See, I compared M to L during the early growing years. L as a precocious little girl was talking in straight sentences just after she turned one year old, sight-reading at the age of 2 years and 3 months, writing her first story called “The Virus” and playing the piano at 4 years old and so much more. Not only that, L was the ideal well-behaved child who easily understood logical explanations which made her less prone to tantrums.

M is only a year and few months younger than L yet I saw marked differences in their learning development. M stuttered in her speech, had no interest in reading and just wanted to be with her sister. She seemed frustrated often and cried a lot. When I wanted to read a bedtime story to her, she balked and took the book away from me. “I want to read it myself”. I became worried that M had no interest in learning so I thought of sending her to nursery school at the age of 4 at the Miriam Child Study Center. She blossomed in that school but M still had speech problems and often confused left from right. Though she had made some progress with her basic reading, she didn’t do well in phonetics or writing. I didn’t want to pressure her anymore or compare her development with L . I thought maybe M was just slow. I shrugged at her below average grades.

At the time M turned 6 and about to enter first grade, I accidentally discovered “Unicorns are Real”:A Right Brained Approach to Learning” by Barbara Meister Vitale at a book sale. Scanning the book, the following sentences placed me on alert mode:

Within the last few years, some have called these children Alpha children, right-brained and creatively different. Recent research on the development and specialization of the brain has opened new doors to understanding how some children learn…..

Could M be predominantly right brained? I bought the book and immediately played a little game with M by going through the checklist. Out of the 26 characteristics displayed by right-hemispheric children, I observed 15 from M. The book says that there is no way to know whether a child has a dominant right or left hemisphere. The purpose of the screening is to give an idea of a child’s hemispheric preference for learning so that you can more accurately develop strategies for teaching that child or for helping him deal with his environment. I read through the sixty-five practical, easy-to-follow lessons to develop the much ignored right-brain tendencies of children. I won’t go through all the fun activities but let me just mention a few activities that brought sparkle to M’s eyes .

!. Haptic activities- writing on the child’s back, writing in the air and counting numbers by body movements I taught M the basics of Math using hopping and jumping.
2. Whole-word approach- M could not understand phonetics. It didn’t make sense. Whole words made sense. I wrote a word and told her what it meant and she understood it.
3. Flashlight tracking- I used the flashlight to write shapes, letters, numbers on the ceiling which forces the child to visualize the symbol that was drawn and activate the haptic system with the arm movement.

There are a lot more that we did that summer just before she entered first grade from letter and number recognition to body awareness and verbal expression. Little did I know that the 1994 summer was M’s turning point. A few months before M received her first grading report card, I held a 7th birthday party for M. Naturally the parents went along with their child. A mother approached me and gushed “My daughter told me so much about M. She is so smart. You must be a proud mother”.

I was “huh? really? I don’t think so. You must have mistaken me for another mother.” Then the mother got her child “Isn’t M the smartest in your class?”

I found out that M did top her class after I received her report card. The teacher must have seen my baffled expression. I laughed and heaved a sigh of relief “I am so happy because I always thought M was slow. I was worried that M would feel inferior to L.”

Today, M still cannot write that legibly. Her penmanship is alright yet she feels it needs improvement. She mixes up numbers (56 could be 65). She studies by getting up from her chair and moving around the room. She cannot sit still while studying. Colorful decors fill her notes. Though M doesn’t stutter anymore, at times she tends to jumble words when she’s tired. I may never know how M overcame her early learning difficulties.

Was it the brief summer activity that spurred her development? Was it the confidence she gained because she found a pathway to learning? Maybe I caught her preference for right brained thinking patterns just before she reached her 7th birthday. Was it the recognition from M “You mean I’m not really dumb!” after I told her that she might be predominantly right-brained? I may never know but I am proud of her.

Don’t commit the same mistake I made. If your child is slow or learning disabled, maybe he or she is a right-brained , visual learner in an educational system designed for left-brained , auditory learners. If your child has difficulty understanding new concepts, seems confused or disinterested, the problem maybe the method of teaching rather the the student. You should know that unicorns are real.