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Introduction
1. What are the dangers that lurk when we pressure a child to be “well rounded”?
2. Is there such a thing as a “specialized mind”?
3. Do you think Caleb was a boy whose mind was specialized? If so, in what way(s) was it specialized?
4. Should kids be required to do things they’re not “wired” for? If they have to engage in such activities, how can parents protect them from out and out humiliation and a loss of self-esteem?
5. Why is it important to demystify kids like Carson who are experiencing a lot of frustration and failure in school?
6. Do you think every child needs demystification? If so, why?
The Ways of Learning
1. This chapter provides examples of neurodevelopmental functions and dysfunctions. Are there others that are not mentioned in the book?
2. When there is more than one child in a family, would you expect to see them have very similar neurodevelopmental profiles?
3. Do you think it is common for a parent to have a neurodevelopmental profile similar to one of his or her kids?
4. Can you think of examples of this from your own family?
5. Explain how could a neurodevelopmental profile work well at a particular grade level in school and then fare poorly at a later grade level.
6. How might a neurodevelopmental profile that created problems for a child at one or more early grade levels turn out to work very well at a later grade level?
7. One the basis of day-to-day observations at home, how can a parent have some idea of how a child is functioning in each of the eight-neurodevelopmental systems?
8. Can you cite some examples of home observations that might be a tip-off to strengths or weaknesses in a neurodevelopmental system, such as motor function or sequential ordering?
9. Figure 2-2 shows the many influences that can shape a person’s neurodevelopmental profile. Can you think of examples from your own life that illustrate how one or more of these influences impacted on your own profile?
10. Can you think of any examples of how certain influences have affected any of your own children’s profiles?
11. What do think are the most important aspects of family life that can either contribute to optimal neurodevelopmental functioning or else interfere?
12. How can parents go about detecting their children’s strengths?
Conducting a Mind - Our Attention Control System
1. What might be some indications that your child is having problems controlling mental energy?
2. What can parents do to improve a child's sleep patterns?
3. How can parents work on enhancing a child's mental effort, his or her ability to mobilize mental effort?
4. What are some activities a parent can try as a way of strengthening a child's saliency determination?What are the advantages and the disadvantages of being a distractible person?
5. How could you help a kid who is excellent at seeing the big picture but has trouble dealing with details?
6. How would you help him in reading? What about writing? How about math?
7. What about helping someone who is terrific with details but keeps missing the bigger picture?
8. How can you tell if a kid processes information too passively?
9. What are some things you can do about it?
10. What kinds of things would you see at home when a child seldom previews before she does or says things? What would you do to help her?
11. How can parents and schools encourage kids to self-monitor?
12. What measures can parents take to slow kids down so that they are not too impulsive in their actions and in their decision-making?
13. It has been said that you can’t completely “erase” a trait of attentional dysfunction, but that you can channel it in the right direction. What could we do to make distractibility, insatiability, and/or daydreaming into potential assets?
Remembering to Learn and Learning to Remember – Our Memory System
1. What are some of the major drains on a child’s memory in school? of home life?
2. What are some differences between the memory requirements of school and the memory components of a career?
3. What signs and symptoms might make a parent suspect his or her child is having problems meeting the memory demands of school?
4. What are some aspects of day-to-day home life that demand short-term memory? What about active working memory? How about long-term memory?
5. What would be signs that a child is lacking in automatization? What can parents do to improve automatization?
6. In what ways can memory problems cause a student to seem disorganized? What can we do to help with this?
7. What are some good techniques parents can use to help their kids study for a test in social studies? In math?
8. Do you think schools place too much or too little stress on memory?
The Ways With Words - Our Language System
1. What are the varied roles of language in school? What are the roles of language outside of school?
2. Which subject areas in school demand the greatest language abilities? In which courses is language less relevant - and why?
3. What would make a parent suspect that a child is experiencing difficulty with language?
4. How does language affect writing skill? How does it impact on reading?
5. What are some things parents can do to foster strong language development during elementary/lower school? How about during middle school? What about high school?
6. What aspects of the culture in which kids now are growing up may actually get in the way of language development? How can parents minimize such negative impacts on language growth?
7. How can we encourage kids to elaborate?
8. How can we decide when and whether a child should be exposed to a second language?
9. If a student is having problems meeting the language demands, how can/should she compensate?
10. Are there any risks to having language abilities that are too strong?
Making Arrangements - Our Spatial and Sequential Ordering Systems
1. What are some day-to-day activities that entail sequential ordering? that call for spatial ordering?
2. What are some things kids need to do or learn in school that require heavy-duty sequencing and/or sequential memory?
3. Describe some signs and symptoms that might suggest a child is weak at sequential ordering.
4. Describe some signs and symptoms that might suggest a child is weak at spatial ordering.
5. Which do you think is more important in school: sequencing or spatial effectiveness? What about in adult life?
Mind Over Muscle - Our Motor System
1. What would be some early signs that a child is lacking confidence in his/her motor system?
2. If a child has difficulty interpreting information "out in space," what would be some sports he would find frustrating?
3. What athletic pursuits would be less reliant on such outer spatial processing?
4. Do you think every child should be required to participate in at least one team sport?
What are the pros and cons of such a policy?
5. What are some examples of day-to-day activities requiring effective fine motor function?
At what grade levels does fine motor ability play its greatest role in school?
6. What are some signs of graphomotor dysfunction?
7. Is it worth trying to change over a student's awkward pencil grip? How would you decide whether or not to do so? How might you go about doing it?
8. What accommodations might work in a student with graphomotor dysfunction?
9. How can we protect such a student from daily humiliation in school?
Some Peeks at a Mind's Peaks - Our Higher Thinking System
1. Do you think most students know what a concept is? What should we do to teach kids about forming concepts?
2. What might be some signs that a child is not forming concepts well in school?
3. What might be evidence that a child is poor at critical thinking?
4. What risks are involved in being a weak critical thinker?
5. What everyday experiences can be used by parents to help their kids develop strong critical thinking?
6. What subjects in school are most likely to demand rule-guided thinking?
7. How can parents help their kids develop a deeper understanding of rules and how they work, how they can be "bent," how they get violated?
8. Do you think every child ought to be creative in some way?
9. What are some traits of creative individuals? Can we cultivate these traits in our kids? If so, how?
10. Can you think of some areas in which some kids you know have excellent intuition? Can you think of some areas in which you have strong and accurate intuition?
Relating to Relating - Our Social Thinking System
1. What influences whether or not a child will experience social success with his or her peers?
2. What are the ingredients of friendship during childhood and adolescence? Do they change as children progress through their school years? If so, how?
3. What do kids have to do to manage their reputations well?
4. What does it mean to be "cool"?
5. Should every child try to be popular?
6. What if a child or teenager likes being "a loner"? Is that ever a problem? Explain.
7. What are the risks of being too socially successful? What can parents do to manage or even prevent that "problem"?
8. How can we help a student become more effective at "talking right" with others?
9. What can be done to help a child with weak social thinking who is being bullied in school? What measures can be taken to prevent such bullying?
10. How can parents help kids manage their social lives? What should they do? What shouldn't they do?
When a Mind Falls Behind
1. What are some early indications a parent might notice that suggest that a mind is falling behind?
2. What are some common ways kids react to their disappointing school performance?
3. What can parents do to see to it that a child with learning problems doesn't give up on himself/herself?
4. What are the advantages and the disadvantages of having a child tested to determine the nature of his or her learning problems?
5. What kind of questions should a parent ask the evaluator when a child is to have testing?
6. What should be contained in a good report written by someone who has evaluated a child?
7. How can you tell if a child has a special knack or affinity?
8. How can problems or serious stress in a child's family affect his or her school performance?
9. What can/should a parent do when a child's mind is falling behind, and the school seems not to understand or sympathize with what is occuring?
Getting a Mind Realigned
1. How can a parent determine if a child has been well demystified and really understands his own strengths and weaknesses?
2. How and when can parents provide "booster doses" of demystification, so that a child doesn't forget what he was told about himself?
3. How is it decided whether a child should have an accommodation for her learning problem or whether she should work at fixing it? Can she do both?
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of allowing a child to have more time on tests?
5. What are some examples of accommodations that can be very helpful to a struggling student?
6. What are some ways that schools can help kids strengthen their strengths?
7. Cite some examples of public humiliation that schools need to be guarding against or protecting kids from?
8. What can a parent do to help a kid who is experiencing public humiliation in school on a regular basis?
9. What are the pros and cons of using medication in a child with attention problems?
10. What are the pros and cons of getting services for a child that involve taking her out of the regular classroom, such as for tutoring or time in a learning center?
Raisin Brain'
1. How can a parent determine a child's strengths?
2. How can a parent detect a child's affinities?
3. What can parents do to strengthen a child's strengths?
4. How can parents enhance a child's intellectual life?
5. How can a parent control an interest that takes too much time and provides little benefit to the mind of a child (e.g., an addiction to computer games)?
6. What are some ways that parents unintentionally harm a child's self-esteem?
7. What can be done at home when one child achieves far more academic success than another?
How can you support the sibling who is struggling compared to his or her brother or sister?
8. In what ways can parents foster optimism about the future in the mind of a child who is having a difficult time in school?
9. How can a parent be helpful to the school in dealing with a child who is falling behind academically?
10. What should a parent do if she or he feels the school is not doing enough to help a child?
Schools for All Kinds of Minds
1. What would be the characteristics of an ideal teacher, one who could deal effectively with a mind at a time?
2. How can parents best advocate for their children in school?
3. What can a parent do to help a child who is enduring humiliation in school?
4. What can a parent do to assist the school in enabling kids to learn about learning while they are learning?
5. What are the different ways in which a school can evaluate a child's performance?
6. How can we minimize any negative effects of standardized tests given in school?
7. What can schools do to foster expertise and the development of the unique strengths of individual kids?
8. What are the barriers that seem to prevent schools from being supportive and kind to all kinds of minds?
9. What can parents be doing to break down these barriers?
10. What is "neurodevelopmental pluralism"? How can it be promoted in schools, in communities, and at home?
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