EP123: How To Help Your Child With Learning Challenges

Interview with Marc Hoffman / Advocate for Children with ADHD

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

In second grade, Marc Hoffman's teacher told him he wouldn't amount to anything. It crushed him but his parents and brothers rallied behind him. He ended up going to Williams College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the U.S., and becoming a widely respected advocate for kids with ADHD and other learning challenges. Today he helps parents and kids thrive - often showing them how to push back against reluctant school districts. Listen to what you can do.

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Transcript

00;00;05;19 - 00;00;24;11
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host. Also, our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the Company of Dads.

00;00;24;12 - 00;00;50;01
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including dad of the week. We have monthly meetups. We have a resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. So sign up today at the company of des.com backslash. The dad. Today our guest is Marc Hoffman, an educational entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and national advocate for people with ADHD and learning differences.

00;00;50;04 - 00;01;14;14
Paul Sullivan
He founded the Hoffman Educational Group, an organization that offers customized one on one academic coaching, tutoring, and educational advocacy services for students and their families. He's also the founder and president of Strong Start Early Care and Education. Marc is forging new pathways into establishing inquiry based education for young children. He's a father of one young, a little boy, and he.

00;01;14;14 - 00;01;22;29
Paul Sullivan
But he comes at this through personal story that is life affirming. Welcome, Marc, to the Company of Dads podcast.

00;01;23;01 - 00;01;28;02
Marc Hoffman
Paul, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to, catch up with you today.

00;01;28;05 - 00;01;47;27
Paul Sullivan
You know, you graduated from Williams College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States, but that might have surprised some of your elementary school teachers. Tell a story about your early school years and and how things changed, over the course of your educational career?

00;01;47;29 - 00;02;29;27
Marc Hoffman
Sure. So in first grade, I was at Roxbury School in Stamford, Connecticut, and, my father happened to be, when, say, friends. But he knew the principal pretty well, and I was really struggling. I just did not want to go to school. The, disconnect between, what my parents thought of me intellectually and what I was, you know, struggling with in school where, you know, around first grade, the expectations in terms of literacy and learning how to read is, much more of, importance.

00;02;29;29 - 00;02;50;18
Marc Hoffman
And I just was not able to learn how to read. And this is more than 40 years ago in the awareness and understanding of neurodiversity, specifically dyslexia. There wasn't a lot of information about it. My mom was a teacher at the time. You know, when I was struggling in first grade, she was a stay at home mom.

00;02;50;18 - 00;03;28;03
Marc Hoffman
But, they knew that I was intelligent, especially verbally. So my father and the principal, we had a discussion, and there was two options. I would be put in a resource room, a pull out model with a wide variety of, different cognitive profiles. It could be a child who is intellectually disabled or someone with my profile who's dyslexic with, areas of IQ that are, above average.

00;03;28;05 - 00;03;51;17
Marc Hoffman
There was a school in Darien, Connecticut, the Plum Field School, and the principal said, if you can get him in there, this would be a wonderful experience for him. And so long and short of it, you know, in first grade and then moving into second grade, I spent about probably three months in second grade, and I just I was a second grade dropout.

00;03;51;19 - 00;04;16;05
Marc Hoffman
I just stopped going to school. My mom would, like, take me to the zoo. I, I had a stomach ache every single day. And it was because of Mrs. Love. That's not her real name. And she is long passed away. She would absolutely roll over in her grave if she knew. I graduated from Williams College and then got a master's degree and have multiple businesses.

00;04;16;08 - 00;04;51;00
Marc Hoffman
She was vicious in terms of making me feel inadequate. And calling me out, during a spelling bee or, incredibly mean in terms of seeing this little boy who was trying and it absolutely annihilated my self-esteem. I felt so dumb going to Plum Field, which is the equiv. It's very similar to sort of like a Southport School, which is an excellent school.

00;04;51;02 - 00;05;24;24
Marc Hoffman
And, I did my time there for three years and I regained my, my, my self-esteem. I learned to read. I, built up a confidence to be able to transition to a more mainstream school. So, unfortunately. And it's not my parents fault or all. My father's passed away, but my mom is still alive. They're not diagnosed dyslexics, but they certainly, but I'm going to diagnose some dyslexic.

00;05;24;27 - 00;05;52;27
Marc Hoffman
So, you know, a big part of the, experience with dyslexia is the genetics of it. There's a ton of good research that, it's within a family system. And I was one of the lucky ones, though, because they were able to pull it together. It was a financial sacrifice to get me to a school that allowed me to regain my my self-confidence.

00;05;52;27 - 00;06;14;27
Marc Hoffman
They always knew I was intelligent. They never saw school early on as a measurement of intelligence. And, I'm so blessed to be able to have parents that, kept things in perspective and were able to, you know, get me what I needed.

00;06;14;29 - 00;06;37;23
Paul Sullivan
You know, let's thank you for sharing that. I want to talk about parents, and you talk about how both your parents that have had this sense of of what was going on, and they work to to ask questions and, you know, find the right school for you. But, you know, often it seems like parents, you know, miss some of these signs, and there's kids who don't have parents who are advocating for them are struggling.

00;06;37;24 - 00;06;43;01
Paul Sullivan
What are the key signs that parents should look out for.

00;06;43;04 - 00;07;08;07
Marc Hoffman
On a child? Yeah. Yeah. On a very basic level. A two year a kid in second grade should want to go to school. Like, you know, they're very they're still very authentic in terms of the enjoyment of learning. And, and I'm talking about, like, it's a pervasive daily issue that the kid is just, like, not wanting to engage the learning process.

00;07;08;09 - 00;07;35;17
Marc Hoffman
And then also like being a respectful advocate and engaging the teacher who's really the person who's going to be able to answer the questions about the child. You should be able to, get a sense of there being a disconnect and kind of peel away the layers. But at the end of the day, a young child, they tell you this story.

00;07;35;19 - 00;07;58;09
Marc Hoffman
You know, they're going to have good and bad days. You know, they're going to wake up one morning and just not feel like going to school. But when it starts to affect their mental health and their lack of enthusiasm for school at that age, not saying that they're dyslexic, ADHD, or have some other learning issue, but that's a red flag.

00;07;58;11 - 00;08;22;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, when you and I were kids, you know, that the idea that it, you know, diagnosed with ADHD, it just wasn't all that common. Kids were seen as being disruptive. In school or not paying attention or, you know, girls were seen as being overly chatty. Now, at least where we are in the northeast, where I have this conversation, there's a lot more awareness around it.

00;08;22;06 - 00;08;27;22
Paul Sullivan
What do you chart that? You know that change, too. You know, was there a moment where people just became.

00;08;27;25 - 00;08;28;07
Marc Hoffman
More.

00;08;28;07 - 00;08;35;20
Paul Sullivan
Aware of ADHD and what they could do to sort of identify it and help their children?

00;08;35;22 - 00;09;09;07
Marc Hoffman
Yeah, for sure. I think there's much better science behind it. I think there's much better. Dikes, dikes, dikes. Knocked to, there's my dyslexia. I'm trying to say the word diagnostic. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there's there's there's much more awareness. In my experience, the, ADHD profile, in many cases, not all from a young age, you're seeing some of the symptoms.

00;09;09;09 - 00;09;11;23
Paul Sullivan
And what and what are the symptoms for for the less.

00;09;11;23 - 00;09;41;28
Marc Hoffman
You kind of it would it would depend on the the type of ADHD. But, you know, the sort of one that, I've noticed a lot is the hyperactivity, the, very impulsive behavior, an inability to kind of like, sit still and then and it's a little bit counter intuitive. But you often hear that that child who I'm describing could get hyper focused.

00;09;42;00 - 00;10;12;14
Marc Hoffman
They can engage in something that's of interest to them. And there could be a fire in the background, God forbid. And they're still going to be just, like, enthralled. So there's a level of regulation that, needs to be dealt with where if something is mundane or boring, it's very difficult in many situations for a clinical profile such as ADHD, to sustain their attention.

00;10;12;16 - 00;10;37;05
Marc Hoffman
But then on the flip side, they could if it's something they're engaged with. And that's why you see many super successful ADHD people in professional endeavors where, you know, the nice thing about, the nice thing about your professional life is you can you can ultimately find your niche. I say this all the time to kids and parents.

00;10;37;07 - 00;10;59;14
Marc Hoffman
School is a very generalized experience that you're expected to do really well in everything, which is fine. There's some people who do well in everything in school. The real world. You could be really good at one thing and just kill it. School, school. You need to be a generalist. Those are the people who are the most academic. They become the valedictorian.

00;10;59;14 - 00;11;14;15
Marc Hoffman
They get many of the rewards, and I'm happy for them. But like, I mean so many, so many entrepreneurs who were C students and and they employ a lot of A's students.

00;11;14;18 - 00;11;35;18
Paul Sullivan
So, you know, as, as a father of daughters, you know, one of them has ADHD, some learning differences. You know, I love those stories of success, like any parent would. But I also know from the research that there's a flip side to this that, you know, in schools, you know, we're talking about children who are fortunate enough to have parents who are aware of this and advocate for them.

00;11;35;18 - 00;11;53;23
Paul Sullivan
But there's a flip side of this. When the schools and the teachers fail those kids and they don't get the help. Talk about sort of, you know, what happened then and why this is so essential for, you know, if the parents miss it for for teachers in schools to, to try to step in.

00;11;53;25 - 00;12;23;08
Marc Hoffman
Yeah. And I'll preface what I'm about to say, particularly public school educators, the ones that I know they really want to help kids. They're doing the work that they do because, they're, you know, motivated to, you know, have a positive effect on, a child's life. So their intentions are good. You know, like any profession, you have some that are a little bit apathetic.

00;12;23;10 - 00;12;58;07
Marc Hoffman
But in terms of the structural systems in, in some public schools, some of it's just a question of resources and how they can allocate them for a quote unquote, special ed population, which is a huge umbrella in a public school system. You know, you have a range of, different, profiles. And by law, a public school system, rightfully so, needs to provide, an appropriate education.

00;12;58;07 - 00;13;21;23
Marc Hoffman
And then it's a question of kind of getting them to allocate the resources towards your kid. In many cases, you know, and I this is completely anecdotal. But in New Canaan, they and I know we have a connection in New Canaan, mutually, that they, they want to make it work with the profiles that we're, we're talking about.

00;13;21;23 - 00;14;01;07
Marc Hoffman
So kind of, professionally, the profile of your, daughter, your middle daughter or myself growing up or some of my, family members who are younger, they would be considered mild to moderate in terms of their learning challenges. And, because their issues are quote unquote, not as acute as some other children. You know, it might not be as pressing an issue to the public school, not not saying that they don't care and they want to help that child.

00;14;01;07 - 00;14;28;25
Marc Hoffman
So that parent needs to advocate. And, I'm not recommending walking in with your attorney. I'm recommending building a relationship, asking questions, trying to, you know, help the school understand the profile. But that being said, you have legal rights as a parent. So, like, like many systems, it's about resources.

00;14;28;27 - 00;14;35;13
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. It's a great point, though, because, you know, what's mild to, a school system is, is major to.

00;14;35;14 - 00;14;35;20
Marc Hoffman
Of.

00;14;35;20 - 00;14;58;06
Paul Sullivan
Course, a family. And when you think of giving, you know, parents, you know, tips particularly, let's assume that maybe one of those parents and both parents may have dyslexia or ADHD, him or herself, because you talked earlier about this sort of, you know, hereditary component, genetic component of this. What are some of the things that you would tell those parents that that they could do?

00;14;58;06 - 00;15;03;24
Paul Sullivan
If they could, you could knock off, you know, three, three things to sort of start off as a good starting point.

00;15;03;27 - 00;15;47;07
Marc Hoffman
So first and foremost, we do not punish your child to the extent where you're taking away what they really enjoy. So, you know, if they just have stopped doing their homework and they, you know, love, baseball or even video games or whatever, it might be like, they need something to feel agency to feel competency. So, you know, intuitively, you might think, you know, there should be a consequence for not turning in homework or you know, whatever it might be for 14 days in a row.

00;15;47;08 - 00;16;18;29
Marc Hoffman
But, the, taking away of what they enjoy and feel good about, I think is, is a bad move. There's nothing wrong with expectations. You definitely need to have expectations and standards, but there's other ways to have consequences. And then the other, very important way to parent a child who's dealing with what we're talking about. And I take this from my experience.

00;16;19;02 - 00;16;54;02
Marc Hoffman
When we think about growth mindset, raise the process, not the outcome. And I really firmly believe that that helps develop resiliency. And when I look back at, you know, my successes and people that I admire, they're not always the most talented person in the room, but they're the most resilient. You need to have talent. But to me, what's more important is the grind to be able to kind of, like, work harder than the next person.

00;16;54;05 - 00;17;21;24
Marc Hoffman
And you can you can help cultivate that at a young age. So praise the process. Yeah. Not the outcome. And then third would be, Don't make it, like, taboo or like it needs to be a part of your family culture. It needs to be embraced. That was definitely a big part of our family system.

00;17;21;24 - 00;17;46;12
Marc Hoffman
You know, I just struggled pronouncing that that word, and we would talk about it, or that would be Mark. We know Mark's language. We can speak Mark. And so, humor, humor was a big part of the experience, not making fun of the child, but just laughing about it and being able to kind of, make the experience as light as possible.

00;17;46;17 - 00;17;54;01
Marc Hoffman
There's a lot of pressure on kids to perform. And, you know, laughter is really powerful.

00;17;54;03 - 00;18;16;08
Paul Sullivan
You know, we talked about the school as a system and what, you know, parents can do to advocate within that system. But of course, families are our systems as well. So if you're in a family, multiple children, I know you're one of three brothers, you know, multiple children, and, you know, one child has ADHD or has another, you know, learning difference.

00;18;16;12 - 00;18;51;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. As parents, we've always we've all heard our kids say, you know, why does why does so-and-so get that? That's not fair. Or, you know, you're you're spending more time, with him or her over me or the flip side, you know, of, you know, sometimes the kid is a little more excitable, a little more disruptive. How do you, advise parents to sort of, you know, work within their family system for, for the best outcome, not just for the child who has ADHD or the learning difference, but for all those other siblings, so that, you know, resentment doesn't build up.

00;18;51;19 - 00;18;59;07
Paul Sullivan
Like, why did she always get that? Or why did he always, you know, why do you say this to him and not to me? What advice do you give there?

00;18;59;10 - 00;19;27;27
Marc Hoffman
We are the guru on that, so you should really answer that question. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about that, whether it's now or offline. But, so I think it's sort of, you know, helping develop empathy and, it's and, and he'll, he'll get a, he'll get a laugh out of this. My younger brother John was a very talented student in school.

00;19;27;27 - 00;20;02;05
Marc Hoffman
Came, easier for him. He was he's a bright guy. And, you know, my older brother, Mitch, you know, he was a very successful entrepreneur. And has a Rolodex that's larger than anyone I know. In, in, we both were, quote unquote, not natural students, or at least in many sort of learning contexts. Growing up, it was not easy for us.

00;20;02;07 - 00;20;32;20
Marc Hoffman
So but my parents never, never compared us to each other. It was never sort of, you know, your your, your brother did this or, you know, you can't do that. So I think, I think if I reflect back on because that's really my only reference when it comes to that, because I only have, you know, a soon to be four year old who I'm pretty confident got mom's brains, who was a really good student.

00;20;32;23 - 00;21;17;27
Marc Hoffman
I don't know if he's headed towards the the sort of profile that we're talking about, is, you know, never comparing one sibling to the other. And also, I would say this as they're developmentally able to. So maybe early teens that, that that sibling who's, you know, not dealing with maybe some of the challenges on the same level is to make them a part of the movement, make them aware of what what is going on by, you know, involving them in the school community that the child who's getting additional services is going to or, just making them a part of that culture.

00;21;17;29 - 00;21;18;21
Marc Hoffman
Yeah.

00;21;18;23 - 00;21;34;24
Paul Sullivan
You know, I want to take this guy. I want to take it back to you a bit and talk a bit about your businesses. But but first I want to say, you know, you said you belong to one failed school. You go back fifth grade, you go back to, you know, a mainstream school, but the King school.

00;21;34;24 - 00;21;51;25
Paul Sullivan
Okay. You know, what were the the resources that that those years at the school gave you so that you could, be successful at the King School and then be successful later on at Williams College. And, of course, in life with with what you been doing.

00;21;51;28 - 00;22;27;05
Marc Hoffman
In Bloomfield was a safe place. Plainfield gave me allies. I mean, Bloomfield was a school for kids with language based learning issues and, you know, certainly many kids with ADHD. So you could, you know, be in a learning community with people who understood you. You didn't feel like the outsider. It's also, these, these schools were talking about, like, southpaw and Eagle Hill and Wayne were either amazing schools.

00;22;27;05 - 00;22;59;16
Marc Hoffman
Like, if a parent has the resources and they've been referred to these schools in the child's accepted in, they're kind of like going back and forth. Should I do it? It's ultimately their decision, but it's a game changer. Like if you just look at the economics of how these private schools run, you know, they're spending, a lot per child in the, in the main reason is the class sizes could be 3 or 4 kids.

00;22;59;18 - 00;23;32;27
Marc Hoffman
So it's very individualized with the goal of providing that foundation to then transitioning to a more mainstream learning environment. So, you know, then you, move on to a school like King, which at the time had a very unique program. The headmistress who says, who's, you know, one of my heroes, care a lot about neurodiversity.

00;23;32;27 - 00;24;07;00
Marc Hoffman
And they had a program that was not a pull out model. So many of the kids in this program had the opportunity to be in a mainstream learning environment, but in middle school and then in high school, still had, their learning needs met. King still cares a lot about that. But it's a difficult model to implement at a, a rigorous, independent private school in the area.

00;24;07;03 - 00;24;38;03
Marc Hoffman
So I was very blessed to be part of a program at King at the time. I'm not sure locally, and I could be wrong if there's one that exists in a in a similar way where it's not a pull out model compared to in the classroom, you were getting your needs met. And then it allowed me to play competitive athletics to be, you know, student body president and to have a normal kind of middle school high school experience.

00;24;38;06 - 00;25;07;03
Marc Hoffman
So I was super lucky, and it was because the headmistress was going to make sure it was going to happen. And, I was a workaholic, though, in high school. It is is, absolutely the truth. I failed every class my second semester in eighth grade at King. I just shut down. I just was dealing with a lot of insecurities and sort of.

00;25;07;03 - 00;25;31;27
Marc Hoffman
It was, one field definitely prepared me. But, you know, the executive functioning, it becomes a much more, important cognitive, skill in seventh and in particularly eighth grade. You know, you have you have a different teacher for every class. You have to manage your time. You have to know your books. And I just shut down.

00;25;31;27 - 00;26;02;03
Marc Hoffman
So, I remember my Latin teacher didn't even give me a grade, like she couldn't give me an F. There wasn't enough to give me an F, I just didn't do enough. So, so I was put on, like, triple probation, and they gave me a chance in ninth grade, and a switch just went off. I, felt confident about athletics in football, and I saw that as a way of helping me.

00;26;02;05 - 00;26;20;27
Marc Hoffman
I had a plan. I had a strategy to. I knew that I was not going to get an SAT score, and we could talk about how SATs and standardized tests are intellectually discriminatory. And you can quote me on that. But I knew that my SATs were not going to be what the colleges that I wanted to go to expected.

00;26;20;27 - 00;26;47;11
Marc Hoffman
But I did see a lot of high school athletes who were recruited, and it helped them get into a school that they might not have been able to get into. So I, I, I had a I had a plan, I had a strategy. I also starting in ninth grade is when I first, really at the time I didn't see it this way, but that's when I started to become an entrepreneur.

00;26;47;13 - 00;27;23;04
Marc Hoffman
I learned how to develop allies in terms of helping people help me learn things that were difficult. I, if I think back, you know, at that age, this is 14 or 15 became a very, very skilled interpreter of people's behavior. And how can I not manipulation, but, you know, how can I align with them and get them to, help me learn?

00;27;23;07 - 00;27;52;27
Marc Hoffman
And, really, if you run a business and you are, you know, out there in the professional world, it's really what a lot of an entrepreneur does. They're putting people in places to be successful. They understand their strengths and weaknesses. And I'm, I'm digressing a little bit, but. And there's good data on this, the reason why there's so many dyslexic entrepreneurs, I don't know the latest data point, but I think it's north of 30%.

00;27;53;00 - 00;28;21;18
Marc Hoffman
They're comfortable with failure. They failed a lot. I failed a lot. So the idea of starting your own thing, it's not that intimidating. It's scary. It's really scary. But, you know, you're, you know, you're you're sort of able to manage that fear because you had a lot of experience with failure. The other big motivator for me is start my own businesses.

00;28;21;20 - 00;28;31;23
Marc Hoffman
I just could not have a real job like I with like, I love people I work with, I work well with people, but like it's my greatest fear.

00;28;31;25 - 00;28;48;22
Paul Sullivan
Well, let's use that to segue into this one amazing talk, Mark, who would kind of wrap it up here but segue into, you know, strong start, early care, and education. Several locations around Connecticut. But what do you do? How do you help the kids that, that, that come to you there?

00;28;48;24 - 00;29;18;14
Marc Hoffman
Yeah. So strong starts not a special ed school I just for kids 0 to 5. And so my little guy Harvey comes with me to the Shelton school. And, through a lot of different experience is, some of it just, circumstance, we, implement a project based learning curriculum, which I wish I had growing up.

00;29;18;16 - 00;29;46;15
Marc Hoffman
And essentially, you know, with project based learning, there has to be meaning to what the children are learning. So in many. Curriculums, for early childhood, it might be, scripted. So the teacher in this starts at about two, two and a half. The teacher would say, okay, we're going to learn about, you know, turkeys this week because it's November and we'll learn about it for five days.

00;29;46;15 - 00;30;15;02
Marc Hoffman
And then the new topics starts the following Monday. And the teacher has chosen the topic. Or the franchise does the same topic in 500 schools. So project based learning, which by the way, is not only for young kids. There's many private schools and I'm sure many public schools that use it. Essentially, the kids have to have like a shared experience and then that becomes their topic of study and it culminates in a project.

00;30;15;02 - 00;30;45;01
Marc Hoffman
So my son's topic of study right now is construction, because they noticed that there's a construction project next door. So they've been learning about construction for more than a month and a half, and it continues to sort of layer itself. And, I mean, the, the, the, the Shelton plans for my school are on the wall like they're, you know, learning about, construction.

00;30;45;01 - 00;31;11;13
Marc Hoffman
And then, it culminates typically with, like a professional in that world who comes in and talks to the kids is a funny story. One of the rooms was doing, like, ramps and, you know, motion. And they had a PhD physicist come in. She's a delightful woman, but she was talking to, like, these five year girls, you know, it's like.

00;31;11;15 - 00;31;40;29
Marc Hoffman
But. So I, the teacher who's wonderful, kind of like, older side and said, you know, let's try to dumb it down a little bit. So, but project based learning, my dream and my hope is it's the future of education. If you think about what these kids need to be prepared to do in the real world and what real, authentic learning is, I know we're tight on time, but technology, what a game changer.

00;31;41;02 - 00;32;06;02
Marc Hoffman
I don't even call it assistive technology. Now, for someone who's dyslexic, ADHD, because it's so integrated. You know, the technology got to be careful for sure with a young kid. But, you know, so ChatGPT, I'll tell you a quick story like two months ago, my mom, she's like, Mark, to get, like, a writing tutor, you know?

00;32;06;02 - 00;32;37;08
Marc Hoffman
Are you, like, take it writing classes and, for my work, communications, you know, writing. I have someone that will edit it, but not just for, like, emails and stuff or, you know, things like that. Not going to have someone edit it. But my mom was like, you're writing is just more concise and it's less wordy. My mom no, I'm at 47 years old.

00;32;37;08 - 00;33;33;12
Marc Hoffman
I'm not taking writing classes, and they're probably not going to remediate my brain at this point. I'm using ChatGPT, so I write what I, I write a draft, put it into the ChatGPT in within less than 10s. It's my thoughts, and it is an editor on steroids. And then in terms of what needs to be read to me on my iPhone, how it helps me stay organized, that has exploded since, you know, me being in high school or middle school in terms of the use of technology and how it bridges the gap for someone who, is neurodiverse, I, I think it's so powerful how it affects education is going to be

00;33;33;12 - 00;33;43;13
Marc Hoffman
really it's just sort of on a systemic level. How it affects learning should be really interesting. But, yeah. No, I'm, I'm a huge fan.

00;33;43;16 - 00;34;02;25
Paul Sullivan
Mark Hoffman, thank you for being my guest today. And the company, that podcast final question for you to parents listening. And they're like, oh boy, I wonder if my kid has dyslexia. I wonder if my kid has ADHD. What do I do? What would be the one piece of advice you give them as a takeaway? If they they suspect that that's why their their kids are struggling.

00;34;02;28 - 00;34;32;28
Marc Hoffman
So if you sense their social with dyslexia and we talked a little bit about the ADHD symptoms with dyslexia. Some of the, some of the big red flags and I'm generalizing. But if spelling is difficult right. Spelling is a challenge. And then also in some situations like being able to understand oral directions like step by step directions, you know, with a dyslexic profile.

00;34;32;28 - 00;35;01;09
Marc Hoffman
And then also, is there a family history and maybe not diagnosed, but was there sort of a grandfather who really struggled with reading or not the best student? So the genetic piece, dyslexia? It's sad. It should be easily flagged and diagnosed. It's it's objective in terms of, you know, all science should be objective. But that's that should not be difficult.

00;35;01;09 - 00;35;30;08
Marc Hoffman
So but it does in some cases require the parent to be thinking about it. There's two really good websites. So there's understood.org which is a powerful resource where, you know, in a very sort of discreet way, a parent, you know, have to disclose. You don't have to acknowledge anything you can go to there and sort of type in things that you're observing, and they might be able to kind of lead you to the right kind of information.

00;35;30;10 - 00;35;56;22
Marc Hoffman
And then, smart Kids with LD is a very powerful resource, on the board, on the board chair. And they are, just a good community of parents. They're helping provide resources. But in terms of like that first step, those are two excellent nonprofits and resources. The ADHD we talked a little bit about like there's there's a lot of there's different profiles.

00;35;56;22 - 00;36;30;03
Marc Hoffman
So it's the traditional or the one that I think is sort of known the most is the hyperactivity. But that that is not necessarily a symptom of a child who, you know, might have ADHD, inattentive or, you know, there's they're different, there's different, levels. But also like within the public school system, there's people who are very aware and they want to give you information when you're in many cases, you might have to ask, but start with like the teacher, the teacher, you know, has been around a lot of kids.

00;36;30;03 - 00;36;37;13
Marc Hoffman
They know sort of what is standing out. So it's a little bit of kind of like trying to put the pieces together.

00;36;37;16 - 00;36;42;14
Paul Sullivan
Mark Hoffman, thank you again for being my guest today on the Company Dads podcast. That was excellent.

00;36;42;17 - 00;36;44;12
Marc Hoffman
It's great. Thank you.

00;36;44;14 - 00;37;13;07
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the company on that podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company of dads, possible, Helder, Mira, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker hand is all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me on many of the things that we do here at The Company of Dads.

00;37;13;07 - 00;37;27;15
Paul Sullivan
It's a great team. And we're we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.