Thinking Differently - by David Flink (Paperback)

About the Book

An innovative guide to help parents understand and accept learning disabilities in their children, offering tips and strategies for successfully advocating on their behalf and helping them become their own best advocates. Packed with essential insights and real-world applications indispensable for parents, educators, and other professional involved with children with learning disabilities.

Book Synopsis

An innovative, comprehensive parenting guide for learning disabilities--the first of its kind--to help parents understand and accept learning disabilities in their children, offering tips and strategies for successfully advocating on their behalf and helping them become their own best advocates.

In Thinking Differently, David Flink, the leader of Eye to Eye--a national mentoring program for students with learning and attention issues--enlarges our understanding of the learning process and offers powerful, innovative strategies for parenting, teaching, and getting special education support for the 20 percent of students with learning disabilities. An outstanding fighter who has helped thousands of children adapt to their specific learning issues, Flink understands the needs and experiences of these children first hand. He, too, has dyslexia and ADHD.

Focusing on how to arm students who think and learn differently with essential skills, including meta-cognition and self-advocacy, Flink offers real, hard advice on navigating the school system, providing the tools to address specific problems they face--from building self-esteem and reconstructing the learning environment, to getting proper diagnoses and discovering their inner gifts. With his easy, hands-on "Step-by-Step Launchpad to Empowerment," parents can take immediate steps to improve their children's lives.

Thinking Differently is a brilliant, compassionate work, packed with essential insights and real-world applications indispensable for parents, educators, and other professional involved with children with learning disabilities.

This essential resource provides a clear roadmap for helping your child thrive:

• ADHD and Dyslexia Resources: Gain firsthand insights from author David Flink, who draws on his own experiences with dyslexia and ADHD to offer strategies that work.
• Self-Advocacy Skills: Learn how to equip your child with the essential tools of meta-cognition, empowering them to ask for what they need to succeed.
• Building Self-Esteem: Discover practical, real-world applications for building your child's confidence, helping them discover their inner gifts, and reconstructing their learning environment.
• IEP and 504 Plans: Take immediate, concrete steps with the "Step-by-Step Launchpad to Empowerment" to get proper diagnoses and effectively partner with your child's school.

From the Back Cover

When parents are told their child has a learning disability, they need more information. Thinking Differently is just the resource to meet that need. David Flink, leader of Eye to Eye, a national mentoring program for children with learning differences, explains each learning disability in layman's terms to prepare parents to speak knowledgeably with teachers about their child's specific challenges.

Thinking Differently will not overwhelm parents with legal jargon, but it will guide them through what laws are on their side and what they can insist that schools provide for their child. With compassion and hope, Flink describes the importance of testing and diagnosis to equip parents with the tools they need to advocate authoritatively on their child's behalf and to seek the most effective accommodations--from technology to extra time and medication--to guarantee that their child succeeds in school and life.

In this eye-opening book, David Flink helps parents understand what their child is experiencing. He also emphasizes the importance of maintaining and building children's self-esteem, by helping them discover inner gifts and special talents and realize they are as smart as anyone--even if they think differently.

Review Quotes

"Impressive... inspiring." - Publishers Weekly

"Flink imparts clear insights and immediate solutions for parents, educators, and professionals working with children with learning disabilities." - Library Journal