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Support Your Child’s Physical and Mental Health With These Dyslexia-Friendly Wellness Tips
Dyslexia may be a common learning disorder affecting up to 10 percent of the UK population, but that doesn’t mean your child won’t occasionally struggle with feelings of frustration and embarrassment. Anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem are all common among children, teens, and adults with dyslexia, which can result in social withdrawal, anticipatory anxiety, and physical symptoms such as stomach pains and headaches.
That said, children with dyslexia have many wonderful strengths — and supporting your child’s physical and mental well-being will help him or her to recognize these strengths and build lasting self-esteem. Dyslexia Services shares some practical wellness tips in the sections below, helping your child to succeed in school, college, and throughout their life.
Teach Your Child to Meditate
We hear a lot about the health benefits of meditation: reduced stress and anxiety, improved memory and attention span, and relief from chronic pain are just a few of them. But in addition to these health benefits, meditation — specifically mindfulness meditation — can be helpful for those with dyslexia. Mindful USC reported that mindfulness meditation helps to improve sustained attention and keep dyslexic readers on the lexical track, resulting in fewer reading errors and reduced stress, anxiety, and depression among those with dyslexia as well as ADHD.
To teach your child to meditate at home, there are a few activities you could try. First Discoverers shares a few kid-friendly mindfulness meditation techniques, including one that uses a texture bag and another that asks kids to describe their emotions. InsightTimer is another great resource for learning and practicing meditation with your kids, or you could search for mindfulness meditation exercises on YouTube.
Find the Right Therapist
Though many children with dyslexia also experience stress, anxiety, and depression, therapy can help with improving confidence in dyslexic kids and making their other dyslexia treatments much more effective. And while therapy isn’t used as a direct treatment for dyslexia, it can be used in conjunction with tutoring, speech-language therapy, and assistive technologies.
If you can afford therapy at this time, online therapy is an excellent way to support your dyslexic child’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Virtual mental health services are private, convenient, affordable, and secure, and complimentary consultations are usually offered so you can find the right fit for your child without having to drive around from one therapist’s office to the next.
As your child goes through different types of therapy and learns new strategies for managing their dyslexia, be sure to keep good records. Try scanning any printed notes or receipts as PDF files for easier storage. If you have several that should be filed together, like notes and instructional materials from the same doctor, use a PDF merge tool. You can click here for more info and to see how simple the process is. Just drop in the files you want combined and select Merge.
Make Time for Physical Exercise
Just as mindfulness meditation can be beneficial for children with dyslexia, so too can physical activity. A study presented through the National Library of Medicine showed that exercise improves the cognitive and motor skills of dyslexic learners, including working memory, phonology, and speech-language fluency. A few kid-friendly ways to reap these benefits of physical exercise include:
● Bouncing on an exercise ball.
● Using a balance board.
● Tossing bean bags.
● Jumping on a trampoline.
● Riding a stationary bike.
You can find home product reviews here for comparing indoor exercise bikes, trampolines, and other products that promote a healthy lifestyle. The reviews included here are unbiased, in-depth, and thoroughly researched by experts, helping to keep your family safe, healthy, and happy for years to come.
In Conclusion
Dyslexia is a lifelong learning disorder, but providing your child with the tools and strategies he or she needs to live a fulfilling life will help your child to overcome co-occurring conditions such as depression, anxiety, poor working memory, and attention issues. It’s important to address any mental or emotional issues your child may be dealing with, as doing so will boost your child’s confidence, improve his or her physical well-being, and make learning less of a struggle.
The more you can do to support your child today, the better equipped he or she will be to navigate life as a dyslexic adult. Dyslexia can be a gift, and there are so many ways for dyslexic children and adults to use their strengths to their advantage!
Tanya Lee
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