Content area

Full text

Headnote

For families in which a child has a learning difference, broader social discourses about learning, schooling and achievement can so easily disrupt loving relationships. When difficulties are compounded, parents can lose touch with the knowledge they have of their children's skills. This paper proposes ways of assisting parents to reclaim their knowledge about what is special, unique and precious about their children. This paper was created from an interview with David Denborough, staff writer at Dulwich Centre Publications.

Keywords: learning difference, children's skills, narrative therapy

This paper is written from my perspective as the mother of a child with a learning difference and also my perspective as a therapist who is involved in counselling children with learning difficulties and their parents. In this work, I have witnessed on many occasions parents losing touch with their knowledge of what they treasure about their children's lives. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, and there are also ways of redressing this, of assisting us as parents to reclaim our knowledge of our children.

If a child experiences the world very differently from other children, if a child learns about life in ways that are out of the ordinary, then there is a good chance that somewhere along the way the relationship between child and parent will become strained. Much of this has to do with outside pressures including the discourse of educational success, and the role that parents are supposed to play within this.

Discourse of educational success

Within most countries, certainly here in Mexico, there is a considerable pressure on children to succeed in education. There is an understanding in many circles in Mexico, that without a successful education there is no future. This idea, this discourse, is always in the air. It is as if it is lurking around. Within this discourse, there is only one way to learn, only one form of learning, and this is the learning that leads to good marks and high scholarly achievement. All other forms of learning about life, all other aims, hopes and dreams about life, are accorded little or no value.

Role ofthe parent

Within this discourse of educational achievement, it is the role of the parent to do everything to help the child to achieve....

Show less