Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning disability that manifests primarily as a difficulty with written language, particularly with reading and spelling. It is separate and distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as a non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading instruction. Evidence also suggests that dyslexia results from differences in how the brain processes written and/or spoken language. Although dyslexia is thought to be the result of a neurological difference, it is not an intellectual disability. Dyslexia has been diagnosed in people of all levels of intelligence (Wikipedia definition).

I was watching the movie ‘Taare Zameen Par’, I have watched this movie earlier also but did not give it a thought but when I watched it again yesterday realized that we would have actually been amongst people who were dyslexic but never realized their problem instead made fun of them. The movie actually reminded me of a schoolmate named Shabeen who was also very silent, would just nit talk to anyone not that she was dumb but she never did. None of us were ready to be her friend.

Her hand writing was so bad most of her alphabets were off the line, crooked in direction and always looked a mirror image of the alphabets specially the number 7, alphabet S and so on. Just imagine what all she would have gone through and I thank Amir Khan that he was able to portray it so beautifully in his movie to an Indian audience who mostly neglect their child even if they were dyslexic just because they did not know about a disease called this.

But at least now every parent who has watched the movie will give it a second thought about consulting a Doctor regarding a problem their child is facing. Not that every child who is bad at studies are dyslexic but at least there might be a few of them who need attention and might get it. Just give it a thought what if your child is facing the same problem and you don’t realize it and just keep on blaming others and your child for not performing good at studies.

Can you even imagine what a child goes through when not given attention or so to say right kind of attention? Just imagine what all the child would be going through when he/she cannot even tell the difficulty that they are facing to their parents. Think about their state of mind when they are not able to explain what is wrong with them and the situation where the whole world around them is blaming them for acting weird and just acting lazy towards studies. We tend to punish our children by slapping them and worse send them to boarding as in the case of the movie. But that is not the solution for the problem, it may worsen the case and we will the one to blame for.

Why should it always be about studies only? Your kid might be good at other things and even excel in them but we just want our children to be another racer in this world to compete. What are we competing for and why? Is it even worth it? In the race which has no end we are ready to sacrifice our child’s happiness for a stupid goal that we have set for them? Why don’t we let kids be the way they are and try helping them toexplore their talent and trying encouraging them to go with it and you will see that your kid is happy and one day will find a way to earn a living out of that itself? Isn’t happiness of our child more important to us than anything else? Then all we need to do is help our kids explore the brilliance and talent within them.