When it comes to school or homework, have you ever thought or been told that your teen is lazy or unmotivated?  Or that they just don’t care?  In my over 35 years in education, I have yet to see a truly lazy or unmotivated student.  


Students will do well when they can.  When they cannot, there is something getting in their way.  Think of it like a roadblock - it’s generally removable, but first it has to be recognized.


Here are five signs that your child or teen is struggling and needs help to remove to roadblocks to confident, efficient, independent learning:

1. Homework takes far longer than expected
2. Exhausted after school
3. Easily distracted during homework
4. Needs excessive help / Performs well with help but poorly on tests
5. Avoids, resists, or anxious about school or homework

Here are some things every parent should know about their struggling learner:

1. When you struggle with listening or reading, it will affect your attention.  Loss of attention is often a symptom of a learning challenge, but may not be the real issue.

1. It takes excessive energy, motivation, and attention to compensate for a learning challenge.  It is almost impossible to maintain this level of mental focus indefinitely, causing students to become fatigued, tune-out, or have inconsistent performance.

1. Laziness, and lack of effort are NOT the reason smart students struggle in school.

1. Because they are often quite bright, students may be able to compensate just well enough to make it look like they can do the work better than they actually can.  This is confusing to parents and teachers, as kids seem to get it one day and not the next.

1. Contrary to popular belief, most learning and attention challenges do not have to be permanent.  The neuroscience research in the last 30 years has shown us that through intensive and targeted brain training, the brain can literally re-wire to process information more effectively.  

This kind of training is not the job of the schools and not the focus of traditional tutoring, but our experience with thousands of struggling students has shown us that by identifying and developing the weak underlying learning / processing skills needed to support efficient learning, most learning and attention challenges, including learning disabilities and dyslexia can be corrected.


Key Underlying Skills for Ease in Learning
The skills needed for learning can be placed on a continuum - imagine a ladder - with academic and school subjects up at the top.  Building up to and supporting those skills are whole sets of underlying skills (such as memory, attention, auditory and visual processing) that need to be in place - like the rungs on a ladder.  When the underlying skills are weak, it can cause you to have to work harder and longer than expected and it will most likely affect your attention.


Cognitive Learning Therapy Addresses the Root of the Challenge
If we want to permanently change a learning challenge, we have to identify the lagging underlying skills that are not supporting the student well enough and develop them through intensive and targeted brain training.  In our experience over the last 35 years, we have found that through this kind of cognitive learning therapy, most learning and attention challenges, including dyslexia can change permanently.


What to Do
Call 877-774-0444 or visit StowellCenter.com to speak with a Stowell Learning Center consultant about your child.  




Jill Stowell, M.S.
Author:  At Wit’s End A Parent’s Guide to Ending the Struggle Tears, and Turmoil of Learning Disabilities
Founder and Executive Director – Stowell Learning Centers

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There are various warning signs of anorexia that indicate that your teen might be at risk for developing this life-threatening eating disorder. Learn how to spot the warning signs of anorexia early to give your child the best chance at recovery.
Warning Signs for Your Teen that They Might be at Risk for Developing Anorexia Nervosa
Teens are particularly at risk for developing eating disorders. Being aware of the various warning signs of anorexia can help you prepare for the possibility of helping your teen recover from this life-threatening disorder.
Puberty and the teen years are a risky time in general for young adults. Their bodies are changing, their brains are still developing, they’re hyper-concerned with how their peers perceive them, and their mental health is more vulnerable and fragile. Peer pressure is also a concern, as your child might engage in risky behavior due to the social concerns they may have about fitting in. Considering all of these factors, it’s no wonder why many teens experience their first mental illness during these early teen years. 
Additionally, many teens are hyper-aware of their bodies and acutely aware of their budding sexuality. Their physicality becomes extremely important, especially if they experience appearance-based bullying. Kids can be cruel, and when you acknowledge this within the context of diet culture, many children begin to believe that they must change their bodies to conform to the societal ideal in order to be accepted. For some, this combination of physical expectations and mental health pressure can develop into disordered eating or even a full-blown eating disorder.
As a parent, this can be a particularly demanding and stressful time. Not only are you dealing with the mood swings that come along with the teen years, but you are also balancing giving your teen more autonomy and independence while they are still developing their critical thinking skills. Though you want to give your teen the opportunity to become their own person—the exploration of identity is critical at this point in a child’s development—you may also be concerned that giving they too much leeway could open an opportunity for them to make a poor decision that might put them in danger.
In general, being an overbearing parent is not well-tolerated by teens, and research shows us that overbearing parenting styles can contribute to your teen developing high levels of anxiety and depression. That being said, keeping an eye out for some warning signs is always a good idea. There are certain behaviors that indicate that there might be something to be concerned about in regards to developing anorexia. 
Some warning signs that your teen might be at risk for developing anorexia include:
Rapid weight loss, especially for teens who are not historically in smaller bodies
If your teen is suddenly losing a significant amount of weight, especially if they have historically been in a larger body, there might be some potential concerns. Historically, when kids in larger bodies lose any amount of weight, we as a society praise them. A child’s personal doctor may even encourage weight loss.
Despite the missteps the medical community has made regarding eating disorder treatment, we now know that anorexia can occur in bodies of all sizes. We also know that children who start out in larger bodies are often less likely to get the treatment that they need because of preconceived notions regarding weight and health. If your child is rapidly losing weight, pay attention. It does not automatically mean that they are engaging in eating-disordered behaviors, but it could be the first piece of the puzzle.
More intense food requirements, including adopting a restrictive diet of some kind
Because we live in diet culture, there are often new fad diets or popular dietary patterns that take center stage. Depending on what the most trendy diet is at the moment, your teen might be drawn towards a vegan diet, a gluten-free diet, a keto diet, and more. While some of these dietary patterns are not inherently disordered, they often act as a smokescreen for restrictive eating.
For other children, there might be existing pickiness with their eating. If this picky eating becomes more intense, or your teen becomes even more highly agitated when their eating preferences are unable to be accommodated, this might be a sign that their behavior with food is becoming more disordered and rigid.
Increased concern and dissatisfaction with what their bodies look like
Teens are often preoccupied with their bodies for various reasons, including the intense body changes and hormonal shifts that they experience during this time period. Peer pressure and diet culture help to make this preoccupation even more profound. If your teen becomes so distressed by their body that they are experiencing extreme anxiety, including avoiding social situations because of their shame regarding their body, this might be a sign that they are struggling with more-than-typical body preoccupation.
What to do as a Parent if Your Child is Displaying these Anorexia Warning Signs
None of these warning signs, by themselves, indicate that your child is developing anorexia. But together, and in conjunction with genetic predisposition and other temperamental characteristics such as perfectionism, these warning signs can be a cause for concern.
If you are worried that your teen might be struggling with an eating disorder like anorexia, know that the sooner they get the treatment, the better their treatment outcome. Your teen does not have to suffer in silence or struggle with disordered eating their whole lives. They can access treatment, engage with recovery, and become well-adjusted young adults with bright futures.
About the Author
Ashley M. Seruya is a social work student, virtual assistant, and content creator specializing in eating disorder recovery, Health at Every Size, and weight stigma. Learn more about her work at ashleymseruya.com or on her Instagram at @fatpositivetherapy.
Link to original blog post: https://centerfordiscovery.com/blog/warning-signs-your-teen-might-be-struggling-with-anorexia/
Enjoy these other Center for Discovery blog posts:
Top Body Positive Inspiring Social Media Accounts
Five Statistics of Anorexia Nervosa and It’s Consequences
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Connecting or not Connecting...this is the question!

Prior to the COVID pandemic,  new research came out on Loneliness.  It showed  how prevalent it is, with a 40% increase from the 1980s and…who knows how much more since we have been in quarantine.  The data states that people who suffer from loneliness appear to have shorter lifespans comparing their mortality rate to be equivalent to the mortality rate of smoking 15 cigarettes a day and greater than the mortality impact of obesity and sedentary living.  This information leads to many implications that would be helpful to us as both adults and parents of tweens, teens and young adults…we are all struggling.

A new book was published in April of this year called “Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World” by Dr. Vivek Murthy,  Former US Surgeon General.  I had the privilege of hearing him speak at a conference called Wisdom 2.0 on March 5th, 2020 in San Francisco, one week before quarantine.  He explored how loneliness is a key factor in many mental and physical illnesses.

There are many contributing factors to Loneliness and today we will look at 3 of them with a few solutions. They are: 1.One’s Perceptions, 2.Interaction with Technology and 3.COVID.

One’s perceptions are key.  Does one perceive having enough connections?  Are those connections meaningful?  Is there a desire for certain people or types of relationships and is that desire or need not being met…from a family member or special friends? Our society states that success is based on work rather than deep emotional connection in relationships. We know that value not to be the case. A remarkable study led by Naomi Eisenberger, an associate professor of social psychology at UCLA, found that feeling excluded, triggered activity in some of the same regions of the brain that register physical pain.  This can be a real or even perceived exclusion.

This takes us to the 2nd contributing factor, which is one’s interaction with technology.  Technology can either connect or isolate. People might see themselves as excluded through social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram…for example, when a picture shows a group getting together and others can then see that they weren’t included.  This can be painful and cause someone to feel lonely or left out.  People who feel lonely may see that they have 500 “friends” but don’t feel like they have a real connection, a real friend.  Someone whom they can call up if they’re sick and need a meal delivered.  According to Dr. Delaney Ruston in her 2016 documentary “Screenagers” she says teens spend 6.5 hours a day on screens and in 2019 when her documentary “Screenagers Next Chapter” came out, experts at Common Sense Media reported the screen time to have increased to 9 hours per day.  With so much time on screens, no wonder we feel lonely.  And then there is the quality of time with others…are we texting and emailing?  Or are we calling people?  Are we present?  Or distracted and multi-tasking while connecting?  Often these are not satisfying connections…and speaking about satisfying connections…

The last factor, which is COVID puts the idea of connection into a whole other arena.  We are mandated to “socially isolate”.  This term and forced condition of life can present strong feelings of separation and loneliness.  We aren’t able to have personal, one on one, satisfying connections with friends and outside family members, no hugs or touches which is an important factor when it comes to connection and squelching feelings of loneliness.  
So given these real and perceived daily factors,  they may feel the scope and value of their lives are shrinking. Here are some ways to help them expand, rebuild, find purpose and most importantly form meaningful connections.  

In regards to how one perceives their life, focus can be given to prioritize how they want to live their lives, who they want to spend their virtual time and energy with, how they can connect with others in meaningful ways and what they want to do with their time.  This is where we can discuss healthy choices like exercise, meditation, nutrition, social skills to connect with others and creating schedules of when to achieve these goals, which I have found to be especially useful with tweens and teens.

Technology, just 12 months ago was of big concern. Now it’s the lifeline to friends, family, work, education, therapy, social interactions  and so much more.  The way screens are designed, the brain finds many apps and interactions highly stimulating and potentially addicting so there needs to be a balance.  

There are many lectures and classes, Virtual Meetups, meetings on Zoom, Book clubs and so much more. But also due to screen fatigue and dependence on electronics, Cooper Anderson and Jon Kabat Zin, in an interview, shared that meditation can be a wonderful break from devices and good for our mental health … and physical health as well.

Finally, some positive options during COVID and social distancing can be intentional personal development…spending more time in nature, trying new things, implementing art and home projects (thanks to YouTube and Pinterest) and doing community service.  There are food banks that offer drive thru pick up, like West Valley Food Pantry or making calls to the elderly with an organization called Uplifting Today.  This can facilitate a sense of purpose and connections.

Let’s help our loved ones’ physical and emotional health, by sharing with them the importance of connection and the liabilities of loneliness and disconnection.  This is crucial now more than ever before.  We could be adding years to one’s life by guiding them to connect…REALLY CONNECT! 

​by Stephanie Bien, LMFT, LPCC