Give the pre-made pancake mix a break with this fast and made-from-scratch buttermilk pancake recipe that even the most pancake-challenged parents can easily make. Get the little ones in on the fun by letting them help pour the ingredients into the bowl and sprinkle fresh blueberries into the batter. The whole family will be digging into these yummy cakes within 20 minutes. If you want to get fancy, check out our round-up of creative pancakes, and pass the maple syrup!
Buttermilk Pancake Recipe: Ingredients
1 ½ cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cup buttermilk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions:
1. Get ready by taking out all of your ingredients and placing a griddle or large pan over medium-low heat. You’ll need 2 large bowls, measuring cups, measuring spoons, a whisk, and a large spoon.
2. In bowl number one, pour and mix all your dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt).
3. In bowl number two, pour and mix all your wet ingredients together (buttermilk, eggs, canola oil, vanilla) and whisk.
4. Pour bowl number two (wet ingredients) into bowl number one (dry ingredients) and mix gently with a large spoon.
5. Butter the griddle or pan and spoon pancake batter onto the pan in little circles. You can even experiment with making shapes (mickey mouse is a popular choice).
6. Cook each side until golden (you’ll see bubbles begin to form when it’s time to flip). Top with butter and maple syrup and enjoy.
Did you run out of food coloring? Are you unhappy with your crust? Do you not have the right tools? It’s no problem with these great baking hacks
It’s that most wonderful time of the year: holiday cookie time! This year, don’t dread it, own it with these Christmas baking hacks to salvage any quandary. From a baking powder substitution and what to do if you don’t have a rolling pin to what to use in place of eggs or butter, we’ve got the goods on making goodies.
1. Holiday baking often calls for some pepperminty goodness, but who keeps peppermint syrup on hand for once-a-year baking? (No, Schnapps doesn’t count). Use an abundant ingredient: peppermint candies. Just put them in a Ziploc bag and smash them to bits. A great stress reliever!
2. Use tongs to make an even crimping pattern along the edge of your pie crust.
3. No rolling pin? Try this rolling pin hack: Use a wine bottle as a rolling pin (no, it doesn’t have to be full!).
4. Fill a wine bottle with ice (and cork well) to keep pie dough chill while rolling it out, great for when it's hot or humid.
5. Sub a little of your water for vodka and your pie crust somehow comes out flakier. And now you have an almost-full bottle of vodka on hand. Just sayin'...
6. Add a marshmallow to the top of your cupcakes five minutes before you take them out of the oven for a gooey, perfect topping—no frosting required.
7. If you run out of food coloring, use Jello to tint decorative icing.
8. Looking for a natural way to dye when baking? Check out these simple recipes for making natural food coloring yourself.
9. Fill an oral syringe with thin icing to get precise lines and letters when decorating.
10. If you do have piping tips, fill two piping bags or Ziplocks with different colored frosting. Don't overfill the bags; now put both bags into one tip, and you'll squeeze out a swirl of color.
11. Put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to give your bread a crisp, browned crust. You can also use a spray bottle with water; spritz the oven to create steam.
12. Substitute butter in your next boxed cake recipe for a super-rich and luscious cake. You can even just melt it to make sure it incorporates easily.
13. You can also sub avocado for butter if you want something dairy-free and heart-healthy. Use one avocado to one stick of butter ratio. And if you run out of butter (or avocado), you can use applesauce in its place.
14. When making pies, freeze your butter, and then grate it into your flour mixture, instead of trying to crumble it with your fork. This will help integrate it more evenly and keep the butter cool.
15. Soften your butter BEFORE you mix it into your cookie dough batter, and try using salted butter instead of sweet cream.
16. Use a set of visual measuring cups. Perfect for kids and parents who need to squint just to read the measurements, the shape tells the size! The innovative cups make cooking and baking fun and easy for everyone.
17. Soften butter in the microwave, but be careful. Use a low power level, like two, and put it in for no more than 10 seconds to avoid melted butter (vs. softened). If it's not soft enough, continue to microwave at five-second intervals until it is.
18. Soften too-hard butter by putting it between two pieces of waxed paper and whacking it hard with a rolling pin. Once it’s been smacked a bit, roll it out (still between the waxed paper). The kids will love helping with this one.
19. Another method for softening too-cold butter without microwaving it to a puddle: set it on top of the stove while the oven is preheating. It will gradually soften: this works great if you are baking a cake and want to use the butter for a no-fail frosting.
20. Bring cold eggs to room temperature by placing them in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 minutes.
21. Use the other part of an eggshell to remove any errant bits of shell. Miraculously, this works and is way faster than struggling with a spoon or your fingers.
22. Baking for someone with an egg allergy? Use a flax egg. Simply measure one tablespoon of flaxseed meal (that’s flax seeds you put in the blender or you can buy already blended) to two tablespoons warm water for each “egg.” Mix it and let it sit for five minutes. The consistency will be similar to an egg. Or, opt for this egg alternative from Bob’s Red Mill.
23. If you want your chocolate chip cookies to have a more caramel flavor, sub out ½ cup of white sugar with additional brown sugar. If you want them with a more sugar-cookie-like taste, leave out all the brown sugar and use only white (most recipes call for some of each).
24. Use a muffin tin to make sure your cookies turn out uniform in size.
25. Easiest cookie ever? Hershey’s Kiss in pretzel circle, melt on parchment paper covered cookie sheet in oven until just soft. Boom. Next level: Use Rolos instead.
30. If you’ve “sorta” burned your cookies, use a box grater to shave off the darkest parts.
31. Also, measure out your cookie dough with an ice cream scoop, then chill them on the pan for a bit before baking (you can even freeze them, which means you can do this all ahead of time, bake the cookies the morning of and you get a better cookie). If you can’t afford the time (or space), just chill the bowl of dough for 20 minutes in the freezer before you start to scoop.
32. Store your cookies (or what's left of them) in an air-tight container with an apple wedge to keep the cookies moist.
37. Keep your brown sugar from going rock-hard by storing it in an air-tight container. Toss in a piece of bread to keep it moist.
38. If it's too late and your brown sugar is already hard, microwave it for 30 seconds in a bowl covered with a wet paper towel or place it in the oven to soften for about 15 minutes.
39. Does your recipe call for powdered sugar, but you are out? Use a spice grinder or food processor and pulverize white granulated sugar until it’s powder.
40. Slice your cheesecake with dental floss (but not the minty kind).
41. Hate dealing with metal sheet pans and cookie tins? Use a silicone baking mold instead. We love Silpat molds—there's no need to ever grease the molds or use liners, and your goodies bake to perfection (though depending on your oven, you may want to add a couple of minutes to the cooking time).
42. Need a baking powder substitution? The following are equal to 1 tsp. of baking powder:
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda + 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar.
1/2 cup plain yogurt + 1 tsp. baking soda. Mix dry ingredients first before adding yogurt to dry ingredients (Reduce the amount of water or other liquids.).
Have you ever looked at your adorable baby and been so overwhelmed by the cuteness that you just want to give those chipmunk cheeks a good squeeze? Apparently there’s a name for that: cute aggression—and it’s how science answers the question, “Why do we want to pinch babies?”
The phenomenon of humans’ need to pinch cute things was first established in a 2015 Yale study, which defined “cute aggression” as the urge to squeeze, crush or bite cute things without any desire to cause harm. A study published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience then looked at how cute aggression affects brain activity and behavior.
The purpose of the study, which involved 54 adults ages 18 and 40 years old, was to build an understanding of the neural reaction behind cute aggression in the first place. Researchers measured subjects’ neural responses to different stimuli, including a varying range of cute human and animal babies. The study concluded that there is a significant connection between cute aggression and neural mechanisms of both emotional salience and reward processing.
“Essentially, for people who tend to experience the feeling of ‘not being able to take how cute something is,’ cute aggression happens,” Stavropoulos said. “Our study seems to underscore the idea that cute aggression is the brain’s way of ‘bringing us back down’ by mediating our feelings of being overwhelmed.”
The research links this response to evolutionary adaptation. It’s like a natural mechanism to mediate the experience of being overwhelmed by positive feelings. This ensures that caretakers don’t get so overwhelmed by the cuteness that they become unable to care for their infants.
“For example, if you find yourself incapacitated by how cute a baby is—so much so that you simply can’t take care of it—that baby is going to starve,” Stavropoulos said. “Cute aggression may serve as a tempering mechanism that allows us to function and actually take care of something we might first perceive as overwhelmingly cute.”
Playing with your food can be plenty of fun and it can entice reluctant eaters to try new things. Cooking games are a creative way to involve your budding chefs in meal prep, encourage their developing palates and even teach them some essential life skills. Bring your appetites and try out our picks for the best cooking games that make food fun.
Eat the Alphabet Challenge
Shahrzad Warkentin
Trying new foods can be a lot less intimidating when you tie it to something relatable, like the alphabet! This is an easy game that can stretch across an entire month. For example, start every day with a new letter of the alphabet, and challenge your kids to try a food that starts with that letter. It can be as easy as “D” for donut or up the ante with something a little more daring, like “D” for Dragonfruit. You can also add a scoring system to earn points for the most unique foods they can think up.
Superhero Kitchen
Shelby Taylor Brookings
Want to get your kids to eat spinach and earn cool mom points? Of course, you do! Bulk up like the Hulk and gain superhero strength after making a batch of "Hulk Bread" or spinach muffins, like this recipe from Super Healthy Kids. Have your superpowered chefs help you with baking this tasty treat, and then you can all pretend to have hulk strength when you eat it.
Measure and Guess Game
Shahrzad Warkentin
Cooking with kids can be fun and educational. Shake things up a bit by turning the measuring of ingredients into a guessing game. If you’re making blueberry muffins, for example, fill the measuring cup and then have your tiny chefs guess how many blueberries are in the cup. Whoever guesses the closest gets to eat the first muffin! You can play this game with all sorts of different recipes and ingredients.
Can you make bread in a bag? A great way to teach measuring and how to use fine motor muscles (kneading the bread!) is to have a cooking game challenge for kids. Our friends at Your Homebased Mom cleverly show the best way to do this. Shake, knead, bake and eat.
Cooking and counting go hand in hand and pretzels are easy to make. We love What We Do All Day's brilliant pretzel game using bread dough, salt, butter, a brush and a ruler. Besides practicing letters and numbers, little kitchen helpers can count out the dough pieces and measure the length of each rolled pretzel. We're sure these hot buttery treats will go fast!
Creative cooking! Meal prep takes on limitless possibilities in this free cooking game brainstormed by our friends over at Tinkerlab. Let your little chefs invent their own recipes. Discover, create, validate (with you), then make their dish. Experimenting encourages independent thinking and problem-solving skills in the kitchen. Even more, eating what they make will be easy as pie.
Hot chocolate banana muffins take on a whole new meaning with the read and make game cooked up by Growing Book by Book. First, you read the book If You Give a Moose a Muffin together, then cook up a fresh batch with the littles.
Sometimes the simplest cooking games are the most fun. Who can resist a colorful rainbow fruit parfait courtesy of our friends Mama.Pappa.Bubba. Let your kids pick out fresh fruit at your local farmer's market. Then it's time to peel and chop. Add a whipped cream cloud on top–yum!
It takes two! Making pizza becomes a free cooking game when you add in this genius idea from Fantastic Fun and Learning. You'll need pizza dough, sauce, cheese and toppings. Just put a string down the middle of the pizza and mirror your partner's topping placement. We're sure they'll chow down on their symmetrical creation.
Keep 'em guessing (and fully engaged) with this flavorful cooking game dreamed up by Create.Play.Travel. You'll need a muffin tin, food, paper and pen. Let your little one try the item (you can blindfold her too!) then say whether it's sweet, sour, spicy, salty or tangy. When cooking a meal have your kids decide the taste of the main ingredients.
Easy as one, two, three. Le Coin de Mel fosters independent cooking and following directions in this toddler cooking game. Mamma Mel whips up a simple recipe to describe step-by-step to her little chef to make vegan gluten-free chocolate muffins. Expect a mess and for the muffins to go quickly!
It's time for a cooking challenge! A fun and creative game to get kids cooking up a storm crafted by Life as Mom. You can play with two or more. Set out the ingredients to use in separate baskets. Then everyone shares pantry items to add flavor and taste. Put it all together, present it to the judge, and choose the best creation.
Chop, chop! Budding chefs can practice their fine motor skills by making this snack created by My Fussy Eater. Littles can peel the bananas, chop them up (with a kid knife), then roll them around in toppings like coconut, melted chocolate and rice Krispies. Have them rate each topping and pick a winner. The best part is eating with chopsticks.
If you are looking for something to help pass the time, this puzzle may be the answer. With 51,300 pieces, Kodak’s “World’s Largest Puzzle” is bound to keep your family busy for quite some time.
Measuring at 28.5 feet wide and a little over 6 feet tall, the puzzle depicts 27 different destinations from around the globe. Not only that, it’s packed with unique-shaped pieces to keep you on your toes.
Each of the 27 images are packaged in separate bags and are made of up of 1,900 pieces. Tackle each section individually and then piece them together to create this larger than life puzzle featuring sites such as the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower.
The puzzle is available on Amazon for a cool $600.
The holidays are a few months away but now is the perfect time to lock in the perfect gift for that hard-to-please relative. Thank to a genius idea, you need look no further than Whisps.
America’s best-selling cheese crisps company is sharing the must-have gift for cheeseaholics: a personalized cheese carving. Yes, you can let award-winning cheese carver, Sarah Kaufmann, whip up a custom cheese sculpture for the ultimate cheesy gift.
The Whisps Personalized Cheese Carving ($200) knows no bounds. All you have to do is upload a hi-res image of your fave pet, place, item or person and allow two weeks for Sarah to do her magic. When finished, it will measure approximately 6.75”x3”x2.5” and will last up to two weeks when refrigerated.
If you’d rather give out a more affordable gift for your fellow cheese lover, look to the Whisps Cheese Carving Gifts ($49.99). The smaller cheese carvings are about the size of an ornament and include a 90’s-inspired flip phone, mini cheese grater and a dollar bill. They also last up to two weeks in the fridge and are totally edible!
Both gift items will be available from Oct. 1 through Dec. 10 on whisps.com.
Who’s happier to ditch real school for summer fun, you or your minis? We’ve curated a list of tactile learning activities to keep the kiddos off screens and out of the summer slide. Read on for 15 creative learning ideas that’ll give those golden afternoons a little brain boost.
Story Cubes are a creative way to practice putting together stories, and your sidekicks won’t know that they’re learning. Roll the dice and use the results in a tall tale. These are a great way to pass the time on car trips. For the smallest fry, use three dice. For older scribes, use all nine and split the words up between the beginning, middle, and end of their stories.
Penpals! The kids can practice their fine motor skills while sending a little sunshine to a friend or relative. Or you can take the love up a notch and write to seniors in care homes. Contact your local senior residence, or check out one of these programs.
What’s better than learning to read with cookies? Nothing. Use this alphabet cookie cutter set to bake words in the ultimate tactile reading game. Spelling has never been more delicious.
How many words can your wordsmiths make with the sentence ‘Learning from home is fun?’ Take Anna Whiteley's idea a step further and create summer-themed sentences such as ‘Hot days are perfect for popsicles,’ and ‘Our family loves the beach.’
Get the crew reading and moving with one of our indoor/outdoor-friendly scavenger hunts. Early readers can use the pictures to puzzle out the words and avoid the summer slide. Veteran readers can solidify their spelling skills.
Activities to Promote Numeracy
Count the Beans
Teresa Douglas
Teaching math concepts is a snap when you use tactile learning aides like beans or grains of rice. Your minis will intuitively understand division if you swap the beans for candies and tell them to split the candies fairly.
Make Patterns
Teresa Douglas
Collect rocks, sticks, and other treasures from outside to make creative patterns. Your crew can learn to make patterns that repeat, grow, or spiral. The Artful Parent has beautiful photos for inspiration.
Take a math detective walk. Give your budding Sherlock a notepad and pencil and get outside. How many birds can your little spot? Pick different themes for each walk, or spend the week focused on just one.
Keep those measurement skills burning all summer long with the cookbook How Many Ways Can You Cut a Pie? If your crew prefers cookies, this three-ingredient oatmeal cookie is quick, easy, and healthy enough for breakfast!
Turn an ordinary deck of cards into a creative learning experience. We Are Teachers serves up math-tastic ideas for reviewing addition, subtraction and fraction concepts in spades.
Who’s bigger, your mini or a dolphin? Could you have a tiger over for tea? Would either fit in a chair? Whip out Wasecabiomes Animals of the world Measuring Tape and help your budding biologist find out!
Explore Science
Melissa Heckscher
Make some bouncy balls with ingredients you can find at the grocery store. The fine folks at The STEM Laboratory walk you through the activity and even explain the science behind it. Hint: You’ll never look at spaghetti the same way again.
Get Some Sun
Teresa Douglas
Practice the first step of the scientific method by measuring the amount of sunlight in a garden. This activity is a great excuse to get the kids outside. Every hour the littles mark whether the plants are in the shade, partial sun, or full sun. Give your scientist a clipboard for added pizzazz.
Engineer a Little Fun
Teresa Douglas
Introduce your engineer-in-training to Snap circuits, a tactile way to learn about electricity and closed circuits. As a bonus, your engineer will also learn to follow plans and problem solve.
Your little scientists will love learning about DNA through the magic of strawberries. Each strawberry cell has eight copies of DNA, which means you can see them without a microscope in this fun experiment. Slide over to Little Bins for Little Hands to see how it’s done.
Finally, we can start traveling again! If you have a baby, you know how much gear you need to make your trip as smooth as possible—if you have a teething baby, you have an extra challenge. Well—challenge accepted because we have the perfect #MomHack for on-the-go families with cranky babies: Camilia Teething Drops! Read on for five reasons why these sore-gum soothing drops are going to be the best thing you’ve discovered all summer.
Camilia comes in pre-measured liquid doses, so you don’t need to stress about mixing or measuring. They’re so tiny they can even fit in your pocket, which makes them ideal on the go (hello, plane travel!). Just twist the plastic top and squeeze Camilia into your baby’s mouth and goodbye cranky pants!
2. Mess-Free (& Hygienic!)
The small amount of liquid in each dose is quickly absorbed so no sticky mess. Unlike other teething products, you don’t need to rub it on their gums using your finger or an applicator—just open the vial, squeeze the clear, tasteless liquid into the baby’s mouth, toss the plastic vial in recycling and done!
Nothing artificial—just what works to relieve painful gums, irritability, and minor digestive upsets sometimes associated with teething.* Camilia Teething Drops are made with plant-based active ingredients like chamomile for teething pain relief. And they’re free of benzocaine, preservatives, flavors and sugars.
Camilia has been soothing babies for 25 years and is a Mom’s Choice Awards winner and recipient of the Moms Meet seal of approval. Camilia Teething Liquid Doses are made by Boiron, world leader in homeopathic medicines, so you can rest assured these are the real deal.
The first twelve months after bringing home baby are a roller-coaster of milestones, mood swings and memories. Every parent who has been there and done that has a lot of could-haves, should-haves, and would-haves from baby’s first year—whether it’s sleep training, navigating teething or life-saving products. Keep reading to see our team’s top tips, which they share with every new parent:
This post is in partnership with Camilia Teething Drops, the mess-free, homeopathic drops that can relieve painful gums, irritability, and minor digestive upsets sometimes associated with teething. Camilia Teething Drops are made with plant-based active ingredients like chamomile and come in easy-to-use pre-measured doses—meaning they’re mess-free and so convenient for on-the-go families. Learn more about Camilia and save $2 on Camilia Teething Drops here!
“Get a couple of preemie outfits and diapers for the first couple of weeks—unless you expect a very large baby.” -Jennifer S.
“Relax. For what it’s worth, I feel like the baby can feel your anxiety. So whatever you are doing, relax and the baby will relax, too.” -Laurie M.
Partner
"Teething drops! We love Camilia. They’re individually packaged, pre-measured doses so super easy to take on the go and mess-free, because you never know when teething crankiness will set it. They work like a charm soothing sore gums and made with plant-based active ingredients! No yucky stuff that you have to worry about giving your baby—a must!" -Jamie A.
“Fun trick that not enough people know about: Onesies have those flaps on the shoulders because many are designed to be pulled down over baby all the way in case of a blowout for easier cleanup.” -Jennifer S.
“An app called The Wonder Weeks saved our sanity multiple times. It tells you how the baby’s brain is developing and what is normal in terms of behavior and fussiness. I recommend it to all our new mom friends now!” -Sarah S.
“Get out as much as you can. The “potted plant” stage where you can carry them around in their bucket car seat is so much easier than the toddler years in a lot of ways.” -Kate L.
“Download a book on a Kindle for those nights that you can’t put them down but you can’t sleep in the chair, either. Holding them while they sleep at 4 a.m. is sweeter when you’re reading Tina Fey’s latest. Master the blue nasal bulb, and it will serve you well for years to come. If you feel like you’re failing epically at keeping the baby’s schedule consistent, just try to be consistent with your own schedule (when you exercise, when you eat, when you try to shower, etc.); control what you can control. Take it easy on yourself. You’ll be fine.” –Shelley M.
“Run a load of laundry every day, if you’re able. Getting ahead of it is much easier than it piling up and… it’s less folding. Just grab a clean burp cloth.” -Julie G.
“You don’t need a million toys. A few classic items will suffice.” -Gabby C.
“Don’t kill yourself trying to master the DIY swaddle. Get one of those Miracle Blankets and Velcro the sucker in there!” –Mimi O.
“Take LOTS of videos. Babies change and grow so much: You’ll want video to remember facial expressions, those first laughs, cuddles with grandparents, all the little, special moments.” -Eva C.
“Breastfeeding guilt. Let it go, mama. Breastfeeding is harder for some moms than others; don’t compare yourself. Do it or don’t, and for as long or as little as works for you. Your baby will get the nourishment they need either way. Breastfeeding doesn’t make you more or less of a good mom. Be kind to yourself. You just birthed a human. You’re doing great and you got this.” -Jamie A.
“Remember: It’s just a phase. It’s actually unbelievable how consumed you are with whatever the latest issue is—feeding, nap schedules, rashes, etc. You feel like you’ll be stuck in that place forever. And then a few weeks later you aren’t and you’ve moved on to the next obsession. Take a deep breath and know that whatever it is, it will likely pass.” -Lauren D.
“Ruffles out! Diapers have ruffles around the legs. These are important for keeping the poop in. Ruffles out. Always.” –Jennifer S.
COVID-19 has revealed many failings, including the uneven distribution of responsibilities in the family unit, overall public health vulnerabilities in school populations, and the government itself. Education policymakers have shown a refusal (or outright inability) to modernize and evolve. However, one positive that could emerge from this wreckage is that parents have no choice but to take command of their children’s education as the de facto classroom has relocated to the kitchen table. Perhaps no area is more primed for innovation and disruption than K-12 education, particularly the one-in-five children who have learning differences.
Enacted in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Act establishes a substantive right to a “free appropriate public education” for eligible children with disabilities in the public school system, which includes special education and related services. The law requires that schools offer students individualized education programs that are reasonably calculated to result in progress. These individualized and specialized plans are supposed to be prepared by the child’s teachers, school officials, and parents in order to measure academic and functional goals for the child. But be forewarned, the individualized plans are far from a panacea. Instead, they are the first step in a Kafka-esque journey for families fighting for their educational betterment that they are entitled to by law.
Why is it then that so many inconsistently performing students are overlooked and unexamined? Schools and teachers deliberately by-design refuse to label certain learning conditions by what they actually are because they know that they will then be responsible for trying to remediate them. They recognize that they lack the resources, the expertise, and, frankly, the will to try to address these problems. As a result, these problems often go unaddressed for far longer than they should and cause far more emotional and academic damage than would be the case with early intervention. The burden of child advocate rests entirely on the parents to cajole, nag, and become a well-versed education policy expert in order to eke out a suitable education support plan that is legally-owed the student. Unsurprisingly, many IEP plans are anemic and devoid of real remediation.
Nine years ago, I distinctly remember meeting with my daughter’s first-grade public school teacher regarding her slight, but perceptible and growing, academic struggles relative to her peers. A no-nonsense veteran teacher leaned over and said in an unsettlingly hushed voice, “I think she may have a language issue.” I did not realize it then, but even that level of candor is verboten in the education world. It was not until several years later after various assessments and many thousands of dollars that we confirmed my daughter was exhibiting signs of a language-based learning disorder dyslexia.
Like similar learning disabilities, such as ADD and ADHD, dyslexia is known and unfamiliar at once, shrouded in misperceptions, and cloaked in mysterious-sounding euphemisms, like “processing issues.” Similar to other disabilities, it can wreak havoc on a young person’s life, affecting self-esteem both in and out of the classroom. For families of those with learning disorders, of course, there are also the economic costs of bringing one’s child to various specialists for examinations that do not come cheap. And those are the fortunate families who can afford to seek assistance. Many cannot.
This is where the parent advocates can make a huge difference, particularly in the current environment where almost all students will suffer from not receiving needed attention in the classroom setting. Of course, in the time of COVID, the burden may lie squarely with the parents to support their child’s learning differences and get up to speed. Online communities can be a great place to start. The National Association of Dyslexia, Understood.org and Child Mind Institute will arm you with a much-needed new vocabulary. But buyer beware: simply hiring “tutors” is not likely to close the widening knowledge gap. Evidence-based literacy programs, very particular teacher training, and certifications are necessary. Objective benchmarks must be employed to measure and gauge where your child is progressing.
COVID or not, our current education solutions for different learners are disgracefully two-tiered and malnourished. However, as society pivots, we have an opportunity to create break-the-mold solutions that leverage evidence-based programs and technology, along with the lessons of decades of failed public interventionist programs. It just so happens that this might be the perfect confluence of events to take these risks. Wouldn’t that be a teachable moment?
After struggling with her child's Dyslexia diagnosis in 2014, Jen partnered with her former tutor to address and repair material deficiencies in the specialized learning marketplace.Braintrust seeks to remove traditional barriers between pupil and teacher while offering academic transparency, metric-driven results, and accountability for everyone in a scalable product.
