We’ve seen examples of “old-fashioned” bullying since the TV made its appearance in the American household; the mean boy shoving the weaker child on the playground, or the rich girl making fun of the orphan dressed in rags. But modern bullying often takes the form of less obvious taunting, exclusion, or uses multimedia to spread photos, videos, and gossip like wildfire.

Why are kids with learning struggles common targets?
While the victim of bullying in a 1950s TV show might eventually see a happy ending, today’s victims of bullying often endure years of depression, anxiety, fear, or humiliation.
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In particular, an all-too-common victim scenario is that of the struggling student. These children – already coping with low self-esteem, decreased confidence, shame, anxiety, and sometimes, parental disappointment – can easily get caught in an endless cycle: They’re bullied because their low self-esteem (and perhaps poor performance in school) makes them easy targets, and their fear of being bullied can cause them to avoid school, participate less in class, lose interest in academic achievement, or develop an inability to concentrate. It’s a case of “being kicked while you’re down.”
In addition, according to Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center, children with disabilities were two to three times more likely to be bullied than their nondisabled peers. One study even found that 60 percent of students with disabilities reported being bullied regularly (vs. only 25 percent of all students).

How do you know if your child is being bullied?
Your child may be too embarrassed or scared to involve you (or another person of authority). They may not want you to find out about the photo that’s been posted on the internet or the rumor (true or untrue) that’s been circulating around school. They may fear how you’ll react or that you’ll make things worse by confronting or reporting the bully.
Barring no direct request for help, here are some signs and symptoms to look for:

• making excuses to avoid school
• decreased appetite or sudden binging
• unexplained injuries or ripped clothing
• returning from school without belongings
• difficulty sleeping
• avoiding being alone
• increased time alone
• appears depressed or anxious
• marked change in grades

​What can parents do to help?
Your approach can be three-pronged: end the bullying, address the learning disabilities, and build your child’s confidence.

1. Initiate a conversation with your child. Try to listen more than you talk, then work together to find a solution that helps your child feel empowered. Don’t assume your child wants you to talk to the parents of the bully (or the bully).
2. Monitor your child’s activities – especially online. There’s a fine line between snooping and monitoring, and parents need to decide for themselves where that is.
3. Enroll your child in cognitive skills training. Cognitive training can target and train weak skills that are behind learning struggles. One form of cognitive training is personal brain training, which uses immediate feedback, intensity, and loading, among other features, to target and train core brain skills. Effective brain training customizes programs based on the results of an initial cognitive skills assessment and uses exercises founded on years of clinical and scientific research.

1. Teach your children to be more assertive. A bully’s goal is generally to provoke a reaction from their victim. Teaching a child to remain composed, firm, and assertive can be enough to deflate a bully’s interest.

Self-defense classes or martial arts are also great for building confidence.

1. Report the bullying to the school. This will be tricky if your child is worried that “tattling” will only make the bullying worse. But schools are getting better about implementing zero-tolerance policies to work against creating a culture of fear. Getting the school involved validates your child’s fears and demonstrates your support.

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Brain Myth #2:
You only use 10 percent of your brain.
Fact:
Truth is, you use your entire brain. Our brains are constantly working, a simple task of reading would require far more than 10% keeping in mind the involuntary tasks such are digestion, breathing, and regulating your body’s temperature.  So, we use virtually all of our brain every day.
Brain Myth #3:
Brain damage cannot be reversed.
Fact:
Even though brain cells killed by injury can’t be revived, the brain is adaptable and can repair or compensate for certain losses, by reshaping circuits to take over functions of damaged areas, and even generating new cells to replace some tissue.
Brain Myth #4:
Video games can make you smarter.
Fact:
Research suggests that the extensive use of smartphones and computers has resulted in a shortened attention span, prevented memory from developing, decreased creativity and even promoted violence.
Brain Myth #5:
Gender affects IQ and men are usually smarter.
 
Fact:
Intelligence is fairly similar between the two genders. According to various studies, women equaled men in IQ scores.
 
So now you know that nothing is impossible, and that there is always time to learn new things and develop your kids’ or your cognitive skills with a little bit of training and practice.

Teens and social media are a modern-day love story – mostly inseparable, and with plenty of ups, downs and drama. Social media is still relatively new, and there’s still a lot to learn. The more we can understand about social media and its effect on teens, the more we can help them manage it in ways that will enrich them and see them flourish into the happy, healthy adults they are all capable of being. 
In a groundbreaking study, published in the journal Psychological Science, teenagers had their brains scanned while they used social media. Thanks to some brilliant technology, and social media’s almost magical way of having teens be still for a while, there were some remarkable findings.

How to interpret what teachers say during parent’s meeting?
 
Parent-teacher meetings carry many messages you might not be aware of. Some of these comments a teacher, or several teachers, may make about your child’s performance at school need to be translated to understand what the core issues are that your child is facing. when these issues are not taken seriously, your child may have difficulties in the coming school years,  while when addressed at any early stage, these  can be avoided easily
First Phrase:
We often hear the sentence, “Your child is smart, but if he could only focus a bit more,” or “Your child is very smart, he just does not fully apply himself.” These sentences usually indicate that your child has many strong cognitive skills, but might be lacking in one or two, making him act in certain ways. These examples might indicate a weakness in attention and concentration. This, of course, can affect other activities and not just academics.
Second Phrase:
Let us go into more details. When a teacher says “your child is smart but takes a long time to finish a certain task”, or “is one of the last to finish the assigned classwork”. In this case, a weak skill might be behind such phrases. Some of these kids might be perfectionists, but, if it is a frequent occurrence then a cognitive weakness is on hand.  This might show that processing speed is an issue, that your child is not able to finish the assigned task in the indicated time and would usually cause long homework sessions at home too!
Second Phrase:
Sometimes, the phrase might result in some sort of confusion. For example, your child performs well in one test and does not in the one that follows. In this case, teachers say that his work level is fluctuating, and they tend to ask for higher levels of performance. This preference comes from the fact that, since the child managed to get a good result once, he can easily get good grades and at all times. In this case, the child might have different levels of cognitive skills, where some are high levels while others are low! This results in a variation of output depending on the skill used at that exact test.
Third Phrase:
Is your child not reading up to his grade level? This is usually related to a cognitive weakness in auditory processing, or phonemic awareness. This skill is what is needed from us to unglue, blend, segment and manipulate different sounds. Reading difficulties can be caused by many other weak skills including visual processing, attention, memory, and processing speed.
If these phrases are common during the school year, then your child might need to schedule an assessment to determine which skills are weak and what can be done to help train those skills!