After pondering for a few days on how to start this article and thinking what comes out of the mouths of mums when their baby first enters the world, I thought I’d start with the actual words which came out of my mouth when my girls were born.

Now I suspect most mum’s would say something like “He is handsome” or “She is beautiful”, or perhaps “Hi, I am glad to meet you”? But the first thing I said was, “You are amazing and I am so proud of you”.

You see, even though as mums we go into labour, before this happens your baby has had to manoeuvre their way down into the birth canal. And if we take it some steps back our babies have under gone some pretty metamorphic stages growing from an egg into an amazing child… just as a butterfly does, from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Now I know a butterfly once lived as a caterpillar, but didn’t bubs’ live in your thoughts and heart before becoming a reality?

Actually… in my case I just found out I was pregnant. I went from thinking I had some sort of a bug to finding out I was carrying a little bug, called Ally-cat or Allison Belinda.

As Allison morphed into a little baby girl, I morphed into becoming a Mother. We learnt to fly together. And for me, I got to have that experience another two times with Alicia Leigh and Kymberley Maree.

But life didn’t stop there. I got to morph into being a Grandmother, which is a very different experience.

You don’t get to call the shots as a Grandma, just deliver them. Everything from how many lollies they can have to watching everything from the sidelines, yet still being deeply emotionally attached.

What I became in my morphing as a mother was being a teacher both of the silent kind and the expressive kind. Let me take you on a little journey and share with you from my heart not just my head.

You see I have 11 different learning issues, or what is known as a cohort of learning issues. I wasn’t diagnosed in school and the teachers were not as aware as now. Growing up, this made me appear dumb, lazy and disengaged but I was none of these. I was very intelligent; I have a very high IQ and a very high EQ (emotional quotient).

What I did have was the inability to learn by auditory instructions, dictation or work from black ink on a white worksheet. I had trouble writing information from the blackboard to my workbook; this would cause me to copy from my friends which caused me to always be accused of cheating, which I never did.

Not a lot was known about learning issues when I went to school and to tell you the truth, teachers, parents, doctors and the public as a whole are still trying to find and shine a light on learning issues and how best to teach and reach our kids and grandkids.

Learning issues are both trauma based and genetic based and affect boys and girls the same.

Boys are normally picked up and girls generally aren’t. This is because boys get disruptive and girls withdraw into themselves, and the help they need can take years to unravel.

What also happens is the kids learn fast in some areas yet fall way behind in other areas, like reading. They can see fast in 3d thinking and if information was given that way they would excel in their learning.

What I will do in these articles is unpack different learning styles for you to give your child a different way to look at the world. Hopefully you will gain insights into how to teach your children many different ways to look at and understand information from a 3d perspective and other points of view.

Let me simplify it for you…

A cup is just a cup until it becomes a coffee. We can drink it, smell it, taste it, enjoy it, share it and feel it’s warmth in our hands.  It can be a pick me up or a stress reliever.

Some kids need multiple layers to be able to learn, they are sensory learners.

Sometimes you have to turn it into a picture for a child to learn. It has to become real to them. Anything that is not real has a complete disconnect for them.

For example, I have dyscalculia (which is dyslexia for maths). I can add up just fine but times tables are a complete disconnect. When adding up you can see the numbers but in times you have to imagine the numbers. Now I have a vivid imagination… that just comes naturally with my dyslexia, but 5×5=25? I can only see two 5s not 5 fives! Even now I understand the principles but it is still a disconnect and my brain will not grasp this information because it cannot see it.

My GPS tells me to turn in 800 metres yet I have no idea of how far that is because I have no picture. If I have no picture, it’s a disconnect and I have missed many a turning.

If your child misses the turning don’t chastise them, they just may need to learn the information another way.

I discovered light poles are about 50m apart so I can count them. I have a visual image to work from.

Mums, you are your child’s first teacher, both silent and expressive. You are teaching them via your face every time you look in their eyes as you feed them. From your look of love they feel safe and grow in confidence in who they are as people.

When asked “What do you do?” people say “Oh I am just a Mum”. YOU ARE NEVER JUST ANYTHING… you are your child’s EVERYTHING!

Please share any thoughts in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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