Maybe if we called it emotional dyslexia or something...

T.K. lost his cool today at the child care centre in the fitness club; he desperately wanted a turn on the Wii, and he ran out of patience and threw the remote he was holding. Not AT anyone, but one doesn't throw stuff, and one NEVER throws stuff in a crowded room, and one particularly doesn't throw EXPENSIVE stuff that belongs to someone else. As usual, things escalated when he was put into time-out; many of his large-scale meltdowns are the results of his reaction to being scolded for some smaller-scale infraction, and no, I still can't say precisely why this is the case. It's just one of his things.

So. I got paged and we went for a walk outside while he cooled off. (I had to drag him outside, initially. He was still too tied up in freakout mode.) Took about ten, fifteen minutes to pass off. Longer than usual. I knew he was pretty much done when he crawled into my lap.

"Mom, I think we should call that phone number."

"What phone number?"

"The one on TV. The one for if you have a disabled child."

"Do I have a disabled child?"

"Me. I can't cool down as fast as other kids. And I break easier."

Hm. Not bad, kiddo. I have worked with 40-year-olds with less self-awareness, whether I agree to call it a "disability" or not. Some days I want to. Not in the, "It's not my fault, I have a disability," sense. More like a developmental delay, or a learning problem, the way Ross Greene has framed it. (Dr. Ross Greene, developer of the Collaborative Problem Solving approach to challenging kids, totally rocks. More on him later. But if you can't wait until then, go check out his resource-rich website at http://www.livesinthebalance.org/.)

I'm on the School Council, and I've listened to all the initiatives that go on for kids who don't acquire skills the same way the other kids do. Do you have dyslexia or other reading challenges? We have literacy coaching for kids to help you catch up. Do you struggle with graphomotor tasks? No problem, we have Handwriting Without Tears and printing camp to get you more comfortable and more fluent. Are you having a hard time mastering the foundations of numeracy? It's okay, there's math boosters and individual coaching. Do you have trouble controlling your emotions and developing social skills equivalent to your peers'? Go sit in the timeout chair, and if that doesn't give you the skills, off to the principal's office with you.

Time was, it was thought that people who struggled with basic literacy and numeracy were stupid, lazy or both. Now we know better. They are intelligent, motivated, and just need some extra help along the way, because the standard ways of learning the skills don't work for them.

Ross Greene hopes that in thirty years we'll have dropped the moral stigmas associated with poor self-regulation and challenging behaviour, and get down to brass tacks with figuring out how to teach the skills in the way that kid can learn them. And that means TEACHING them. Not just rewarding success and punishing failure. Think back to when you learned to drive. Did the teacher sit in the passenger seat with a big stick and a bag of Smarties, and whack you when you made a mistake, and dole out a Smartie when you did it right? No, they talked ahead of time about the challenge you were facing, then talked you through it. Practiced it until it worked well. Treated you like someone who WANTED to learn.

T.K. eventually went inside, apologized, and while I showered he got his turn, then promptly handed off to the next kid in line without a moment's hesitation. That's my boy. I hope they remember that part, when they're telling the meltdown story later.