Lisa Rappaport, PARENTING DYSLEXIA: A Comprehensive Guide to Helping Kids Develop Confidence, Combat Shame, and Achieve Their True Potential
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Lisa Rappaport is the author of Parenting Dyslexia, a comprehensive guide to helping kids
[0:49]develop confidence, combat shame, and achieve their true potential.
[0:53]Lisa is a licensed psychologist and private practice in Manhattan.
[0:56]She has extensive training and experience in treating children and adults with dyslexia and
[1:01]attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
[1:03]In addition to her private practice, Dr. Rappaport is also on the faculty at the Rose
[1:07]F. Kennedy Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at the Children's Hospital
[1:12]at Montefiore, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
[1:15]She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
[1:18]Welcome, Lisa.
[1:19]I'm so, so excited to welcome you on my show to talk about Parenting Dyslexia, a comprehensive
[1:25]guide to helping kids develop confidence, combat shame, and achieve their true potential.
[1:30]Okay.
[1:31]Thank you for having me.
[1:33]So this is so special because we are parents at the same school.
[1:38]And how many years ago did we take a walk and you took for what was it called?
[1:43]Safety Patrol.
[1:44]And you were talking about maybe doing a book.
[1:47]When was that?
[1:48]Like, wasn't that when I found out I was pregnant?
[1:50]Wasn't that like 10 years ago?
[1:51]I was going to say it was 10 years ago.
[1:53]Oh my gosh.
[1:54]Yeah.
[1:55]Because I feel like on the walk, I like pulled over and found out from the doctor that
[1:59]I was officially pregnant or something like that.
[2:01]I don't know.
[2:02]Anyway.
[2:03]And I have a 10-year-old.
[2:04]So this I feel like just so excited for you that it has come to be.
[2:09]And just, I'm over the moon.
[2:11]Okay.
[2:12]Tell everybody about the book and why what's happened in the 10 years that has led this
[2:16]book to come into the world.
[2:19]So the book was actually first conceived right after I had graduates, right after I finished
[2:24]graduate school.
[2:26]Because I'm dyslexic and I really suffered through high school.
[2:30]I almost lumped out of high school.
[2:31]I was on academic probation.
[2:34]And after I finally graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, which was a long road,
[2:40]and then got my PhD, I realized I had a story.
[2:43]So I wrote a memoir, but then I stuck it away because I got my dream job at Montefiore
[2:48]and Einstein and I didn't want anyone to know I was dyslexic.
[2:51]And then after many, many years, I realized that I really have an interesting lens
[2:57]because I work with dyslexic children.
[3:00]I have a child with a learning issue, not dyslexic, but other issues.
[3:04]And I am dyslexic.
[3:05]And so I really wanted to help parents and during the pandemic, one of my friends encouraged
[3:10]me to really write the book and she actually became my writing partner.
[3:15]And that's how it came to be.
[3:17]Well, I was surprised in your introduction because even though we talked about your own dyslexia
[3:22]and whatever, I didn't realize quite how I want to say derailed, but it wasn't derailed.
[3:28]But even just how you and your mother even was so fed up and it was just like, oh, just
[3:33]drop out of school already.
[3:34]I can't take this.
[3:35]And I joke about it and you joke about it a little bit, but it does become, it can become
[3:41]such a point of conflict within families when something is going awry.
[3:46]There's no clear path now of dyslexia is much more commonly diagnosed and back then it
[3:51]was not.
[3:52]But still, you speak to that all upfront and share with us like that can have been easy
[3:57]that you watched your friends to go off one way and you went off another way in terms
[4:02]of like ability and what that does to your own self-esteem when it actually is just the
[4:07]different way of your brain working.
[4:08]Like can you take us back to your own experience of that?
[4:12]So yes, the shame I would call shame started when I was six and I couldn't articulate
[4:19]it, but I knew I was different and my mom was called into school immediately.
[4:23]So I was diagnosed at a very young age, but no one knew how to help me.
[4:27]And so my mom, even though I had tutors, none of them were really helping me.
[4:31]My mom just out of instinct and some education in that area helped me straight through
[4:36]school.
[4:38]As you said, there were certain parts of school where it really became derailed.
[4:42]In ninth grade, I switched schools.
[4:44]I was a new kid and my biology teacher would give us a test every Friday and every Monday
[4:50]she would hand them back in grade order and I got my test back last and I couldn't make
[4:57]friends at the school because I think I was just known as the stupid one and so I wound
[5:02]up leaving the school a year later and going back to my old school.
[5:06]And in my old school, then I was doing okay, but then junior year, it was junior year,
[5:12]which is hard for everybody.
[5:14]I had tutors in three different subjects.
[5:16]I was failing chemistry.
[5:17]I wasn't doing well in Spanish too or trigonometry and I was studying for the SAT.
[5:23]And my dean called me into the office to tell me that I was being put on academic probation
[5:28]and she said to me, are you stupid or not trying?
[5:30]I need to know what it is.
[5:33]And that was the weekend after so many years of really hitting school, that was the
[5:38]pivotal moment.
[5:39]I had been fighting with my mom for years because I hated school, but that was the weekend
[5:43]that totally derailed our lives.
[5:45]And at that point, my mom was so exasperated with me because I was so hysterical and angry.
[5:50]I was quite angry that she said she couldn't take it anymore.
[5:53]There were days she would drive me to school and then I would leave when I went to the
[5:59]other schools.
[6:00]So that was it.
[6:02]I spent that weekend with a very, very good friend of mine who was older than I was and
[6:06]we went through my options and I knew I could quit.
[6:10]My mom said quit.
[6:11]I was 16.
[6:12]We thought about it and then we came up together with the idea that really I had already
[6:17]hit rock bottom.
[6:18]I had nowhere else to go.
[6:19]I might as well just go back to school and try and keep trying.
[6:23]And you know, I limped through 11th grade.
[6:26]I graduated 43 out of 46 in my graduating class.
[6:30]My dean made sure to let me know that.
[6:33]And so it was not pretty.
[6:34]It was hard.
[6:35]It was not an easy road.
[6:36]But then how did you end up getting your PhD?
[6:40]I mean, the plot twist here is like knocking my feet out from under me.
[6:46]So my school was a very academic small school.
[6:50]So I had some good skills that I didn't realize I had because the school was so, so
[6:54]difficult and high pressured.
[6:56]I went to college.
[6:57]I really struggled emotionally in college.
[6:59]I did not like the school.
[7:01]I went to it was a party school because that's where my dean sent me.
[7:04]And I felt like I had just worked so hard to get that high school degree.
[7:08]I did not want to be around people that did not take academics seriously.
[7:12]I was so misunderstood.
[7:14]She thought it was a partier, but I really wasn't.
[7:16]I really did care.
[7:17]And I actually ironically really enjoyed reading.
[7:20]I just couldn't read that quickly.
[7:22]So my mom did read me my homework, basically through 11th grade.
[7:26]But I always read for pleasure very slowly on my own.
[7:30]And so I came back to New York after six weeks in my college.
[7:34]I had nowhere to go.
[7:35]I took classes non matriculated and I got really good grades because college was easier for
[7:43]me than high school was for a multitude of reasons.
[7:45]I could take what I wanted.
[7:46]I could take it at the pace that I wanted to and I did extremely well and I transferred
[7:51]to University of Pennsylvania.
[7:53]And I did better at Penn than I did in high school.
[7:56]I did find it easier than high school.
[7:58]Your brain is a dyslexic, develops more slowly.
[8:01]And so by college my brain was ready to learn some of the things that it wasn't ready
[8:06]to learn when I was younger and I was becoming a better reader in college.
[8:10]And then I eventually applied for a master's program because I didn't think I could do
[8:13]the PhD program because of statistics.
[8:16]And then when I was doing extremely well in the master's program I applied for the
[8:19]PhD.
[8:20]So it was a very long road.
[8:23]That's amazing.
[8:24]I can't believe you didn't give up.
[8:26]I mean the fact that you were going to drop out of school at 16 and the fact that so many
[8:30]people actually do drop out of school at 16 and this is such a really like an epidemic
[8:35]of misunderstanding and you know not having the tools and your book in part is giving people
[8:40]the tools that they lack or that they could use to help their kids.
[8:44]But you were so close, like this is like the sliding doors of your life.
[8:48]You could have had a totally different life and with all that negativity, I know you personally.
[8:55]And so this all comes as such a shock to me.
[8:58]You would never know.
[8:59]I mean that you have gone through all, I mean I guess you never know about anybody.
[9:03]But you just wouldn't know.
[9:06]You wouldn't think all of this that you had been just essentially bullied by the administration
[9:12]and made to feel so terrible.
[9:15]You know I think that everyone always asks me what's the gift of dyslexia?
[9:21]And I remember I was on a panel and I panicked because I didn't know what the gift of dyslexia
[9:26]was.
[9:27]And my real answer at that point which was about 30 years ago was what gift?
[9:31]I don't find this as a gift.
[9:32]But I have to say the gift is resilience and grit because that's what dyslexics learn
[9:39]and they learn to fail at a very young age and pivot.
[9:44]And I do know how to fail very well.
[9:47]I am definitely willing to take a risk because I know if I fail I will find another way.
[9:53]And I think that's the real gift and that's what I'm trying to win part to these little
[9:57]children in this book and to...
[10:00]Teenagers is that there's another way you can pivot, but don't give up and have resilience and
[10:06]Also for parents to find up an area that builds self-esteem for their children
[10:12]Because I did not have that my mom was amazing in many ways
[10:15]But never plugged me into anything. I was good at because she was so focused on getting me through school and
[10:21]I never found anything any talents. So I think finding your child's talent is really important
[10:27]My gosh, is your mom like still with us? Yes, my mom
[10:33]And thrilled
[10:36]She's the reason I know how to read
[10:38]Oh my gosh, and how did this whole how did this affect your relationship with her?
[10:44]I mean, they're it caused so much strife between the two of you and obviously she's your biggest fan
[10:49]But like how does it how did it affect how do it has your relationship now?
[10:53]So we were best friends
[10:56]It was really interesting. I I saved the book
[10:58]I couldn't fight with her or be angry with her for too long because I would come home from school
[11:04]I might be angry at her, but then 20 minutes later
[11:06]I had to sit down and work with her because she was the only one that could help me and
[11:11]You know in that we would talk for breaks. We would talk about stuff because we spent so many hours together
[11:16]She created the rule the reason my writing part of her is so interested in writing the book with me is because she wanted to learn more about our
[11:23]family dynamic
[11:24]because I had a sister who was two years younger and
[11:28]Basically perfect. She was good at everything
[11:30]She was reading better than I was by the time she was four and I was six and
[11:36]She was better at math and then she tutored me in high school because she was ahead of me in Spanish and in math
[11:42]You know, and so my mom and dad were really good at making sure there was no competition in our family and everybody helped each other
[11:50]So we were actually a very tight knit family and we're we are to this day. My sister lives three blocks from me
[11:56]We sent our kids to the same school. We have a house to doors down from each other in Connecticut
[12:01]We're really close. We've raised our children very closely because there is just no competition amongst anyone in our household
[12:10]Everybody helps everybody and that's the message too that I try to give in the book. That is so nice. Oh my gosh
[12:17]well
[12:18]So somebody's taking up this picking up this book. They're at the end of their rope
[12:22]They need help. They don't know what what to do
[12:24]What are some of the things they can expect to get out of this book?
[12:28]And that will help improve their lives and their relationships with their kids and their kids ability to really function in the world
[12:34]So I think the one key thing is to
[12:38]Be really honest with your kids about areas where you have failed or
[12:43]That you don't excel in I think parents like to look perfect sometimes to their children or be the the ones that know everything and
[12:49]I think one way to really help your child if they're struggling is to say this is an area
[12:54]Where I struggled and explain to them maybe where you had a failure
[12:58]So you're a real person to them and it's not as embarrassing or mortifying if a child is coming home with a
[13:05]Great, they're not proud of if they know that you've had your own struggles
[13:09]So I think that's a really important part of the book and also to bring the humor to everything
[13:14]You know because nothing is that big of a deal especially when we're dealing with school
[13:19]It's going to get better. It's not forever
[13:22]So when your child is in the throes about this and that's my mom used to say that to me
[13:26]I didn't believe her but just that you know, you're not good at reading today
[13:31]This book but tomorrow you might be better at reading a different kind of book or even with math
[13:37]You know eventually I grew up and I was like, you know what?
[13:41]I bet I could do trigonometry now if I was just top differently my brain is different
[13:45]So it's just about that little point in time and I think if parents can say that to a child then it helps with the shame in the anger and that will help the relationship
[13:55]There are also some
[13:57]Strategies just about helping your child organize themselves which will just the real hands-on strategies that I think will just help your child's
[14:04]They be better and easier time management stuff like that. I mean time management is something we can all use
[14:10]Health with I feel like we're all in the you know moment of overwhelm and no matter what we're doing
[14:15]It just feels like time constantly is getting away from us. What's something that can help kids and grown-ups?
[14:21]Academically or social emotionally. I meant even from a time management perspective. Oh my management
[14:26]I think just really you know writing things down
[14:30]You know not on a phone but taking a piece of paper and making a list and saying this is what I have to do
[14:36]This is how long I think it will take and then pat it because it always takes longer than you think and
[14:42]Building in breaks so that it's just little pieces to bite off. So it's not overwhelming
[14:47]Interesting. I know there are some schools that sort of specialize in language-based
[14:53]learning
[14:54]Differences and all of that. How do you feel do kids need to go to those types of schools?
[14:58]Is it the first choice?
[15:00]What can they do in their own school if they don't have access to a school like that?
[15:03]How can they advocate for themselves with their own educators?
[15:07]So if those schools are available, I think they're amazing
[15:10]My my life would have been different if those schools existed when I was little I
[15:16]Think that would be the first point of contact
[15:19]But if a lot of people can't afford those schools, they're not cheap
[15:22]I think partnering with your school is really important if you get your child tested either through the school or privately a
[15:29]Lot of parents are afraid to share the evaluation with the school
[15:33]Because they think the school will take it out on the child or won't think the child is smart
[15:38]But it's really important to partner with the school to get the child the accommodations they need and that they have the right to have
[15:45]Is dyslexia something that you can this is a stupid question out grow
[15:50]Like could you be diagnosed with dyslexia?
[15:52]But then as you said your brain is constantly changing and you can do things that you couldn't do before
[15:57]Are you still technically dyslexic?
[16:00]So the interesting part of dyslexia is when you do neuropsych testing I?
[16:06]I had a patient he went to Harvard business school
[16:09]He was very accomplished he was in his 60s
[16:11]He came to me because he was frustrated. They couldn't read learned his sixth language as fast as in wife and
[16:17]But the truth is he could read and write
[16:21]Obviously graduate school level he read better than I did, but when we did the neuropsych testing
[16:27]He still had deficits. He could not sound words out. He couldn't do phonetic encoding. He could not
[16:33]Sequence the days of the week or the alphabet. So yes, you're always dyslexic. It just you may compensate and
[16:39]You may have skills that you didn't have but there will be other areas where you will have a deficit at some you know
[16:45]You can't hide it all it's always going to be there in some form are there
[16:49]Sort of careers or trajectories that you've seen that people who are dyslexic
[16:55]thrive in
[16:57]Everybody's different a lot of dyslexics go into the entertainment field or creative fields
[17:02]When I was doing research for the book I found out that dyslexics tend to be I think they said architects or something that made no sense to me
[17:09]Because I'm not good spatially at all. So I think everybody is different
[17:15]You know, there are some and dyslexia is really it affects
[17:19]Everybody differently some people are good at certain things that I'm not good at even known dyslexic
[17:24]I'm good at certain things that other dyslexics aren't so it really depends
[17:28]But definitely the entertainment field, but there will be a lot of scientists. We have you know surgeons who are dyslexic
[17:35]So it's open to every field. We can do any are you in like dyslexia?
[17:41]Facebook groups and things like that like is there a support system for
[17:45]Even though you it wasn't there for you as a child as a grown-up now
[17:49]Do you find sort of acceptance and are there groups that you've joined that have been really beneficial that maybe the kids of today
[17:56]Can look forward to being a part of later? I?
[18:00]Am not personally on a lot of social media, but there are definitely groups on Facebook that offer parents support and I
[18:07]I discuss in the book that it's really important to find a community and they're out there
[18:11]And there's a lot of support out there and there are a lot of ideas on how to help each other and support each other for sure
[18:16]I think there's I think a lot of people here or at least I have heard how and in the book you talk about how
[18:24]The brain of a dyslexic
[18:27]Even though it's not linear like you have this superpower in other ways and part of it is like finding what that other superpower is
[18:33]Why is that I'm like dumb this down for me, you know? Who's not a scientist? But like what what?
[18:41]How does it work that
[18:43]Something's light up and some don't do you know like what is the answer? I think everybody has a superpower and
[18:51]I think that it's just what you develop when other areas are hard so
[18:57]You know, I didn't actually know what my superpower was and
[19:02]There was a chapter in the book that's not there anymore writing about what my family
[19:05]Everyone my family superpower was and then when one of my readers said to me what's yours
[19:10]And I said well, I don't have one
[19:12]So you know and and then they said well
[19:14]You're a connector and you're social and yes, that was growing up
[19:18]I just compensated by being extremely social because that's where I thrived and and so I think
[19:25]Everybody has a superpower. It's not just dyslexics. It's just that they have to pivot when they're younger and find it quicker
[19:31]I think but they don't always know they have it
[19:35]Amazing. Wow, this is great. Is there anything for parents who do not have a child who is dyslexic
[19:43]But want to help families that do or how can they let their kids help other kids who have dyslexia?
[19:49]Like everyone should be on the lookout
[19:51]I know it's really socially acceptable now, but just what can we all do to sort of bring you know, celebrate dyslexia and all its way
[20:00]is it's just another way to learn?
[20:02]I think just kindness because, you know,
[20:06]when a kid is struggling or if they misread a word,
[20:10]just having an understanding and not making fun of them
[20:14]or being really supportive is really important
[20:19]because as I said, my own daughter has learning differences
[20:22]and things that children say they don't mean to be mean
[20:24]but they don't even realize what they're saying.
[20:27]So I think really understanding that these children
[20:30]are not stupid, they're not less than they're just different
[20:35]and teaching that and teaching patients
[20:37]and helping each other.
[20:39]You know, if there's somebody who's struggling
[20:41]and doesn't understand, just explain it to them differently
[20:44]and know that they can learn it,
[20:46]they just need it to be explained in a different way
[20:50]more tangibly.
[20:51]I love that.
[20:52]Well, congratulations, Lisa.
[20:54]I'm so excited for you.
[20:55]Parenting dyslexia, Lisa and Jody Lyons,
[20:59]your coauthor, whatever.
[21:01]So happy for you.
[21:02]Thank you for writing this and not giving up.
[21:04]It's another example of you and your own resilience
[21:08]and I can't believe you don't think you have any superpowers
[21:10]because you so obviously do
[21:11]and I am holding one product for that in my hands right now.
[21:14]Thank you so much.
[21:15]Thank you.
[21:16]Thanks for coming on.
[21:17]Yay.
[21:20]I always said, thank you for listening
[21:22]to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[21:24]formerly momstone have time to read books.
[21:27]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
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[21:34]Thanks so much.
[21:35]Oh, and buy the books.