Posted by Joshua C. Doyle, M.Ed. on Fri, Sep 11, 2009
When is the last time someone had anything even remotely positive to say about homework? Everyone has or has had it. No one really likes it, but we have all needed to do it. 
The debate continues as to whether homework really helps a student with academics or is better levied as a vehicle for teaching time management and responsibility. Who knows? That's for another day. One thing I can report from my vantage point is that there is seemingly a strong correlation between parental over-involvement in homework and parent-child acrimony.
If I were king for a day, I would rule that parents CANNOT exert too much muscle in assisting with homework - that goes for the process and discipline as well as the homework content itself. Let me be clear... I see no problem if children occasionally ask their parent(s) specific questions about their homework, but that prompt needs to come from them. And, periodic participation is one thing; letting homework dominate evening or weekend routines is a recipe for disaster.
One thing to realize is that the most well-intentioned, patient, and competent parents can prove to be the worst homework helpers for their children. Parents obviously want their children to do well, but oftentimes helping them in the wrong ways can manifest in enablement. Sooner or later, with a new source of friction, bickering and fighting between parents and children over homework can drive their relationship in a toxic direction.
Did you ever imagine that your relationship with your child would be in turmoil over something as trivial as long division? Life is way too short and precious to let something like that come between you and the child you love... But, like many other sources of angst, if left unaddressed, every day can become a struggle. Homework sessions essentially become Epic War Battles and end like Greek Tragedies.
When you are insistent on helping your child with their homework, take some time and consider if you are really part of the solution or are actually part of creating a bigger problem.
Please feel welcome to share your reactions...
Posted by Joshua C. Doyle, M.Ed. on Thu, Jun 11, 2009
During my years directing Admissions at a boarding school for adolescents with Learning Differences (LD), I received hundreds of frantic calls from parents whose children had just been diagnosed with LD and were looking for an immediate school placement. Yet, as I started to ask more questions, I often found that a good portion of these children also presented with clinical levels of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and behavioral problems.
It was with a heavy heart that I had to tell the parents of these students that, although the school that I represented was designed to assist adolescents with LD, but due to their child's additional emotional/behavioral issues, I could not offer admission.
These parents would immediately respond...
"You don't understand, Mr. Doyle!!!! The Psychologists told us that our child's situation is a direct result from the frustration suffered from not getting the help needed to deal with their LD. If we get our child into your school, they will get the help that they need and everything will be fine."
Knowing the raw emotions behind their pleas, it would have been of no help to engage them in a spirited debate. I had to stay firm and explain that we, as a school, would be doing a disservice to their family if we enrolled their child because we did not have the expertise, nor the appropriate resources, to address all of their child's needs. Despite my best efforts, the phone calls often ended with tearful, enraged, defeated-feeling parents.
Countless studies have shown that individuals with LD are at an elevated risk for substance abuse, depression, and delinquency in comparison with their non-LD peers. In more cases than not, many of these LD individuals in crisis did not know they had LD until they were backed into some corner.
When a student acknowledges the existence of LD, it can bring to light a lot of the frustrations experienced over the years. Unfortunately, this new realization cannot turn back the clock and immediately provide relief from other coexisting issues. The emotional/behavioral problems have migrated to the forefront one way or another and now need to become the primary focus of treatment.
Private boarding and day schools for students with LD offer a supportive and nurturing environment that can often help a "fragile" child or adolescent to remain emotionally and behavioral intact. However, this nature and intensity of support and nurturance is not enough to address emergent emotional/behavioral issues. In most of these types of cases, LD Boarding and Day schools for adolescents with co-morbid issues are often not appropriate settings.
Therapeutic Boarding Schools and Residential Treatment Centers can often make academic accommodations for students with LD. However, these accommodations are often not nearly as effective as the academic programming in LD school settings. In some cases, students who attend these therapeutic settings can later attend a specialized school in order to then address the underlying LD issues, but by then they have typically lost a lot of opportunity in the developmental cycle.
So, where does this leave you as a concerned parent? Damned if you do, damned if you don't? Fear not, there are steps you can take; they just need to be more deliberate, more calculated at this stage. You don't have much room for error.
Some Suggestions:
1. If at all possible, do not wait to intervene. Time is not on your side. There are resources you should access whether or not you are planning on changing schools. All research studies show that the earlier the intervention, the better. LD issues do NOT go away on their own.
2. Evaluate or re-evaluate your child ASAP, so you can distill the extent of the emotional/behavioral issues that have manifested alongside the LD. You will need to have a testing practitioner (neuropsychologist/psychologist) administer specific assessments that probe for emotional/behavioral issues.
3. Stop blaming one set of issues on the other. The bottom line is that both exist and need to be addressed as soon as possible.
4. If you are even considering changing schools, make sure you open your scope to those that can work effectively within both issues - the LD and emotional/behavioral struggles. BUT, you also want to keep the balance in check so as to avoid the "catchall" options that claim to treat anything and everything. There are some wonderfully targeted options that achieve the right balance for you.
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Fri, Apr 17, 2009
In our YouTube debut, Education Financing Consultant, Nina Flood, and I discuss how EnCompass Education provides education planning solutions for companies and their employees.
When I founded this new educational consulting program, I intended to transform our profession by bringing educational consultants into the corporate setting... little did I know that it would also impact the world of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs).
It's admittedly a bit lengthy, coming in just under the ten-minute YouTube limit. However, I think it articulates key aspects behind the vision for this new delivery of educational consulting services.
Please share your reactions by leaving a comment - I'd love to hear what you think as I am about to embark on the speaker circuit. Thanks in advance!
Posted by Adam R. Goldberg, M.Ed. on Sun, Mar 01, 2009
Two years ago, a well known CEO sat in my office crying like a baby. His son struggled with learning, emotional, and behavioral issues. Earlier that morning I had read in The Wall Street Journal about a large corporate acquisition he was supposedly orchestrating across the country.
I knew better. The rest of the world didn't realize that he was taking hours, days, and even weeks away from his highly visible work in order to explore critical education options for his son... "family first!" he insisted.
I figured he couldn't be alone. If you multiply that case by the millions, not just at the top of the corporate food chain, but across every department, at every level, you're looking at a HUGE issue with employee motivation and productivity. I had to act.
After conducting a year of market research, formulating the business plan, lining up three rounds of venture funding, and building a cutting-edge content management platform, I recently launched a spin-off education venture called EnCompass Education.
In our first season of operations, we have already begun working with companies in the life sciences, travel & leisure, and financial sectors, among others.
So far, so good. We are genuinely helping leading companies increase employee retention. Now one might ask, "Why is employee retention an issue while everyone is laying off in this economy?" We've actually found that in times like these, the only employees that can afford to move are the good ones... the ones you NEED to keep and therefore the ones you need to keep happy as an "employer of choice."
So what's on everyone's minds right now in the workplace? Without question, the impact of the education crisis on personal finance. We are specifically providing a ‘bailout' of our own kind by helping corporate employees:
- Optimize college funding while credit markets are in a funk
- Secure special education services against a backdrop of mind-boggling budget cuts
- Maximize tuition reimbursement for continuing education when most of the $ is usually wasted
- Prioritize key education resources during the early years of public and private education
If we can continue to provide a unique solution for addressing key employee turnover through EnCompass Education, we will have done our part to change the face of educational consulting in a period of unprecedented uncertainty.
If you feel that EnCompass might be a great addition to your company's employee rewards or work/life programming and that that you could individually benefit from your company's investment, please contact me directly.
Posted by Joshua C. Doyle, M.Ed. on Wed, Feb 18, 2009
In an ever-changing educational environment, students and families are more often than ever considering options for special education schools to help address learning and attention issues. But what do you need to know about specialized day and boarding private schools from an admissions standpoint? As a former admissions director in LD schools and now as an educational consultant, I spend considerable time demystifying the admissions process for parents and professionals making decisions in the face of student struggles.
The following are my top tips for navigating the admissions process for special education schools:
1) Assessment: It is vital that, before embarking on a search, your child has received updated cognitive and achievement testing. Most schools will not consider a student unless the testing has been performed in the past 2-3 years. In more cases than not, a school will require the submission of a full Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC- IV).
2) Research: The admissions process for you and your child can prove to be overwhelming and emotionally exhausting. Nevertheless, it is important that you all do a significant amount of research on the schools before applying. All special education schools cater to different students in varying ways and it is up to you to understand the realm of possibilities.
A few key questions for initial admissions inquiries:
-To which other schools are your applicants most likely to apply as well?
-What types of teaching methodologies and technologies does your school use?
-Are organizational and study skills taught as core curricular disciplines or treated as peripheral?
3) Retention of Students: It is important to know how many students decided not to return to their school. If the number is higher than 10%, ask why that percentage of students didn't return.
Examples of questions to ask about retention:
-What has been your retention rate for students over the past 3 years?
-factoring out economic variables, why was the retention rate low relative to other schools?
-How many students have transitioned back into a more traditional school environment?
-How many students have been dismissed in the past 2 years? For what reasons?
4) Outcomes Studies: Ask a school if they have performed outcome studies on their students' progress. Many special education schools have done clinical studies that will give specific data on the reading gains their students have made since they have been attending the school. Note that anecdotal information is not a good substitute for hard data. Also, find out where students go, on a percentage basis, when they graduate from the school. How many move on to a four-year college? A two-year college? Take time off? Jump right into industry?
5) Special Education Schools vs. Traditional Prep Schools / Private Schools: In order to meet enrollment goals, many traditional schools are choosing to admit students with learning differences these days. It is very tempting for families to consider these schools because they have a more traditional private school setting and culture. However, not all of these schools have the expertise and/or proven methodologies "in-house" to academically assist these students. It is important to be cautious and ask detailed questions when considering traditional private schools for your child with specialized needs if the school does not have a proven history of working effectively with this sub-population.
A few questions that can open up a discussion about supports for your child:
-Are the teachers trained in special education and what credentials do they carry?
-Is my child going to be pulled out of class or an after school activity to receive help?
-Will my child have to go to a resource room to get additional support?
6) Always ask the school for at least 3 parent references and, in doing so, make sure each has had their child attend the school for at least one full academic year. It may also be helpful to request parent references that are from the same geographical area in order to be able to control comparisons in relating to local school decisions, requirements, etc.