I’m not a teacher, or even a mom who spends time with kids who aren’t mine, so my experience with what’s “normal” in elementary grades is a bit vague. My son, a 4th grader, has had certain struggles, but teachers have always been positive and optimistic, even as he has seemed to fall behind.
Now, with distance learning, I can see all the various ways he avoids doing what’s hard for him. He likes school — even Zoom school, amazingly. He participates. But if he can avoid anything that has to do with writing, he will. And it has me concerned.
Apparently, I’m not alone.
A recent survey, commissioned by Understood.org and YouGov, found that 69% of parents have become more aware of the challenges their child faces in school than before the pandemic, and more than a third have noticed changes in their child’s behavior. And that’s what prompted Understood to do something about it.
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“We began looking at Take N.O.T.E. about a year ago, pre-pandemic,” Morin says. It was a way to capture parents who suspected their child might be struggling, but didn’t yet have the words — like dysgraphia, or dyscalculia — to describe it. And in many ways, the tool is a reframing of the work Understood has been doing from the beginning. The pandemic just underscored how important this kind of tool can be right now.
“As a parent, what you know is the child you have in front of you,” Morin says. But most parents don’t know the early signs of reading trouble, or math trouble. “We’re not teachers — most of us at least.”
The tool is meant to empower parents to trust their instincts around potential learning or behavioral issues — whether or not, in the end, there’s a diagnosis.
“With behavioral and mental health issues and learning differences, there’s not a blood test, there’s not a throat swab, there’s no imaging,” says Dr. Nerissa Bauer, a behavioral pediatrician in Indianapolis and spokesperson for the AAP. “Kids react so much to what’s going on in their environment. Some kids are reacting to the stress of adjusting to a new normal, but we don’t want to miss the kids who have something else going on.”
She adds, “I tell my families that no question, no concern is not important. If you have a gut feeling, tell me about it. Trust your parental radar. You’re the one advocating for your child.”
