Surround yourself with positivity and feel the glow!

I recently attended the Dyslexia Show ‘24 at Birmingham NEC. I went with my parent hat on but knew I would benefit from the professional developmental opportunities as an added bonus. It was a great couple of days full of positivity and neuro affirming practice. I really appreciated the messaging to parents on supporting their child to learn to own their neurodivergence, see their uniqueness as a positive and advocate for the reasonable adjustments and accommodations which would really enable them to shine.

Now, I am not naïve to the challenges this brings, with the education system being so stretched and not generally fit for purpose for neurodivergent thinkers, but without highlighting that small changes can have big positive impacts then nothing even has the potential to change.

During the 2 days I attended I heard from authentic and passionate individuals with experience of teaching and/or parenting dyslexic and otherwise neurodivergent thinkers and some of which  had that all important lived experience of having a neurodivergent thinking style. 

I felt energised hearing people speak of the strategies and tools available to support executive function (and enjoyed exploring these, ready to incorporate into my own practice and share with others.) There was recognition of poor fitting situations, the anxiety and trauma this can cause and suggestions about what to do differently.

I learned about the benefits of multi-sensory learning in a session using Randoms Safari Animals and balloon modelling! I was reminded about the stress response system and how stimulating the Vagus nerve can help with self regulation but overall I was surrounded by hundreds of people committed to loving their unique children/students and creating a world which allows them to grow up loving themselves.

I will caveat this post with also feeling exhausted and slightly trepidatious of how to take this new found energy and learning and implement it at home as a parent. That’s the tricky part. I have the ideas, I have the books, I have the motivation but where do I start and what do I try first! If you feel this way to then this is where we can work together. There often isn’t one clear answer, one simple thing to do. It might take some figuring out, a bit of experimentation and a bit of problem solving. If you think you might like to do this together then please do reach out.

Katy x