Over the past several weeks, I have shared the many benefits of reading to children. From building strong relationships that are important for children’s health to playing a role in early language development and building skills for school readiness —reading to children is incredibly important.
Reading that it can feel like a promise. But that’s not what happened in my home. I read and I read to my kids — they still required speech therapy and reading support in school. Did that mean it didn’t work for my kids? Or perhaps, was it something else I did wrong? It’s hard not to ask those questions as a parent when our kids face challenges. But after years of parenting, this article reflects how I have started to process and makes sense of it.
Since before my kids were born, I have read to them. In fact, my husband can attest to this with a video he took of me reading a book to our dog one evening — my belly at least six months pregnant with our first. Each subsequent pregnancy, I sat reading to my belly and my toddler(s).
Our house is full of books. In fact, in one of my prior articles, I even discussed how I prioritize tidy book cases over dresser drawers, placing a greater emphasis on my children’s ability to choose a good book over a pair of pants. Trips to the library were part of our everyday for years, interrupted by a global pandemic that brought story times to our playroom and dining room.
Following the guidance of a pediatrician I looked up to, who once told me parents should read at least five books a day to their kids, each and every day I strived for five.
And yet, my children have faced challenges with reading comprehension and speech. One of my children needed reading support in school and another one required over a year of support from a speech therapist. The last one is just starting to put sounds together so I’m not yet sure the path he will follow.
As a pediatrician, I know its common for kids to require support for their speech, but as a parent it was still hard to come to terms with, especially in the beginning. As a mom, I am not immune to feeling sad when my children struggle. Seeing my kids unable to exude confidence while reading and speaking was hard. The tantrums that unfolded when my toddler couldn’t communicate his needs at a time he was learning to be more independent, left me feeling sometimes overwhelmed and other times utterly powerless. He wanted to communicate his needs, I was trying so hard to understand him, yet often, we couldn’t connect.
I wondered what could I have done better? Should I have read to them more? Should I have encouraged more questions while we read? Or was it the rare nights that I skipped a few pages of a long story when I was bone tired that played a role? These questions would circle my brain.
After six years of parenting, my personal opinion is that it was probably none of that. I read to my kids and the time we have spent reading has been incredibly beneficial for all of us. I know that reading to our kids is important even when it doesn’t always yield the results we expect. I didn’t expect my kids to need reading and language support after years of reading to them but it doesn’t mean that reading to my kids wasn’t valuable for them. Quite the opposite actually, I often wonder if reading to them helped protect them from struggling more than they did. And yet, I will never really know because parenting isn’t a series of equations. We can’t just add a few books together and get a result, parenting and our children’s lives are far more complex than that.
I also know that those moments we spent reading were important for so many other reasons beyond language development and school readiness. Those moments were calming, they built routines, and they provided us time together that nurtured our relationships with one another. It is for all of these reasons that despite my children requiring reading and speech support that I still prioritized writing articles to all of you about reading to children as my first official theme for my blog. Reading to our kids is so powerful. Those moments I couldn’t understand my son, replaced by moments sitting together reading a book and connecting over the story.
And after six years of parenting, as my children have faced real struggles, just like any other kids, I have learned to see those struggles as a piece of their life that I need to support rather than a reflection of my parenting. It’s easier to say than believe, especially because often the support they might need, requires me to make changes in my parenting style. But I think that’s what parenting is. As a parent, I am continuously learning about my children and what their specific needs are, all while adapting my parenting style in order to reflect new guidance and incorporate strategies and solutions based on my children’s needs.
One of my greatest strengths as a parent, I think, has been admitting I don’t have it all figured out — not even close. I am continuously learning from the world around me — friends, family, pediatricians, specialists, nutritionists, speech and physical therapists, psychologists, teachers, and list goes on and on. By remaining humble, I am continuously searching for the resources my kids need to thrive. And because I see myself as continuously learning about my kids and what they need, I have been able to shift my mindset from feeling significant mom guilt when my kids face challenges to strictly focusing on my children and what they need. I’m actually not supposed to have all of this parenting stuff figured out. As my kids grow, I am constantly learning about what they need all while new information and resources for parenting and how to raise healthy kids is churned out. Just this month, new developmental guidelines came out in an effort to better identify kids who need more developmental support. Parenting styles often change based on our children’s needs, our families needs, and new guidance, and I think appropriately so. I didn’t expect my kids to need support with reading and speech, but they did. So we move forward with strategies, solutions, and support based on what they need to thrive.
And I changed my parenting strategies. I learned from their therapists and teachers things I didn’t know about speech development and reading comprehension. I used some of those strategies they taught me at home to support my boys and to do things differently with their youngest sibling. Because my parenting is about supporting my kids and their needs, seeing their challenges and seeking resources to guide all of us through those challenges. My parenting isn’t about whether I’m good on my own, my parenting is about knowing it doesn’t have to be just me figuring this out.
That’s not to say that I don’t still feel mom guilt from time to time when my kids struggle. But after six years of parenting, I have learned to give myself one night of wallowing. One night where I can’t sleep because I’m worried about my kids and some new challenge that has come up. I allow myself one day to send my mind down the rabbit hole of — what should I do? What should I have done differently before? How are we going to figure this out? And what does this mean for my child long-term?
I allow myself one day to feel all of the emotions. And then I move on and I work towards a solution. Whether it’s milestones they aren’t meeting, or trouble with sleep, eating, or behavior — I allow myself that one day to feel all of the emotions and then I stop. Because I know that what my children need are someone advocating for them and searching for the resources they need — and that person needs to be well rested.
I truly believe that every child requires support in some area over their lifetime. Some need additional support with behavior, others with eating habits. Some parents work with their kids on promoting better sleep and social interactions. Some will need speech therapy, physical therapy, or occupational therapy. Many kids will excel in one area of academics while working tirelessly towards another and feeling like they can never get it right. Every child is going to have challenges, struggles, and need support at some point. Some challenges are perhaps more obvious, nonetheless, every child is very likely going to have some kind of challenges that require support. The sooner those challenges are recognized, the sooner that child receives the support they need, and the sooner parents are taught the strategies unique to raising their children healthy and thriving, the sooner that whole family thrives. The sooner our communities thrive.
I think as a society, we need to start shifting our mindset and our terminology from a child has a speech problem or delay to a child needs support for their speech. That’s really what it is. And in reframing it that way and explaining why the support is necessary, I think may help parents who might not want that help, to be more accepting of that kind of support.
A child who has a speech “delay” or behavioral “problem” or “issue,” is better equipped from the start when we refer to it as needing more behavioral or speech support. The key being that using the word “support” instead of “issue” or “problem” suggests that a child needs support from other people in their life to help them through that challenge. When we suggest a challenge is a “problem,” “issue,” or “delay” it comes often with the unintended connotation that it is the child and/or the parent’s problem to fix it, which can also allow feelings of blame and guilt to unnecessarily, creep in. However, a child that needs behavioral support, speech support, or feeding support is a child, is a parent, is a family, that needs appropriate resources and strategies that can help that child to thrive. That support can come from professionals who work with children and who also equip those children’s parents, extended family, and community members with the skills they need to provide better support for the challenges children face. We need to look at it as requiring support, not as problems and issues.
Reflecting on my writing this weekend, I was reminded of someone who had a very important impact on me and my perception of the incredible impact others, beyond my husband and myself, have on my children’s growth and development. This person taught my son his ABC’s, while simultaneously, teaching me not to lower my expectations of others when it comes to asking for support for my kids. This person taught me how to ask for help and showed me how the support from others can be instrumental in helping my child work through challenges. This person reinforced, it really does take a village.
Often when children receive therapies, such as speech therapy, these treatments do not offer immediate results. It is not a therapy that offers a cure after ten days. It is a process that requires patience, diligence, and often immense effort on the part of parents and particularly, the young child. It requires an environment where the people surrounding that child are patient, an environment that extends far beyond just their home life. It requires safe spaces where a child can explore, struggle a bit as they word hard, and then be given the support to continue to progress. In the case of speech therapy, children need to be given the opportunity to be heard and to be understood, the time to speak. They also need to be granted grace and compassion when they face moments of frustration that can overwhelm them, moments when they may respond with meltdowns or completely shutting down.
I have personal experience with this and I remember as my son made progress in speech therapy, as I began to understand more of what he said, as I waited for him to speak, many others still could not understand him. They did not wait for him to speak.
People that my son interacted with would stand over him, ask him a question and as he responded, they would often look to me and say the phrase that unintentionally, broke my heart every single time. They would say, “I can’t understand him.”
I would see my child peer up at me, deflated. And as his mom, I was disheartened every single time. Just as he was learning to communicate in our society, so much around him changed and suddenly, he was afforded many less opportunities to speak to other people. Even when opportunities presented themselves, this big world full of change was also difficult for him to communicate his needs in. Time after time with these interactions, I could see it was wearing him down. I could see him struggling to find the desire to talk, knowing that people would probably not understand him. We now faced struggles in both his speech and his confidence.
I began jumping in to translate even though I knew what he needed was the time and space to answer. But, I also knew those words that seemed to flow so easily from the mouths of people who surrounded him, would shake his confidence. As his mom, I didn’t want to answer for him, but I also wanted to protect him. I knew the more times he felt unsuccessful, the less times he would provide an answer.
But then I met someone who changed my approach. I asked someone who he interacted with frequently, whether or not she could understand him. She responded with this powerful statement — “It is my job to understand him.”
This person didn’t qualify it by saying it was her job to try, she provided a declaration that it was her job to understand him. Her approach was not I can’t, it was I will. She elaborated explaining to me exactly how she approached my son when he talked to her, which included looking at him as he spoke, getting down to his eye level, and kindly, asking him to repeat himself, when necessary.
This person in his life, within the village that surrounded us, provided the support I needed as his mom to ask more of the other people around us. The way she approached communicating with my son, touched my heart instead of breaking it. It filled me with hope, instead of defeat, and helped me to realize that what my son needed was more people around him to take that approach.
From then on, I stopped answering for my son. I waited patiently for him to answer questions people asked of him. If I wasn’t sure what he said, I would get down to his eye level and softly model to others how to approach him by gently asking him to repeat himself. I would no longer feel defeated and I wouldn’t let him either. It wasn’t just my job to understand him or the speech therapist’s job to give him the tools to progress, it was the responsibility of everyone he interacted with to offer an environment where he, as a child, felt supported answering questions. Because that environment matters, because we have a greater impact on the lives of people around us than we think, including the children we interact with.
I often think about the people in a child’s life, in a parent’s life and the support that goes along with that. The person who gets down to a child’s eye level to listen, who asks a parent how can I better support your child as they are working through this challenge, how can I be part of the solution? That kind of person is gold and yet I actually believe, that kind of person exists in most people. They just might not realize the incredible impact they can have on a child’s life, they may not know that they can be part of the support a child and family needs. We live in a society that values independence but our lives are forever interdependent. It does not surprise me the literature that is pouring out right now about the role of strong relationships in our health.
A few weeks ago, my oldest son completed his reading program and my four year old is being discharged from his speech therapy program this week. To me, this means that for now, they no longer require additional support but that I am careful to watch for signs that need more in the future. And for now, I am incredibly grateful to the people who recognized the support my kids needed, including myself. Together, we gave them the tools they needed to thrive. I was willing to learn and their providers were willing to teach me the skills I needed in order to support my kids and teach family and friends around them how to support them as well. Those professionals coordinating my children’s care have without a doubt, given our family far more than lessons on reading and speech. And I am sincerely grateful for the role they played in my children’s lives.
My kids have not always met their developmental milestones and despite reading to them, they still needed support. But over the years, I’ve learned to see those moments when they face challenges as opportunities to provide them with the resources they need to thrive and to advocate for the support they need to do so.
And you can bet, today, we are still going to read, read, read.
