Dyslexia confidence boosting ideas

[Reastie]

Dd is dyslexic and is really struggling with self esteem. I’d like get her to realise dyslexia has positives too, and understand herself more and build her self confidence and self esteem. I’ve been Googling lots of ideas about positive sides of dyslexia etc but I’m looking for specific ideas of things we can do together that she can see she has strengths that means some things she can beat me at (she’s v competitive) because of her ability to do things I can’t so well (as a non dyslexic) and struggling with issues because of the way she’s taught in school and her issues with spelling etc isn’t the be all and end all and doesn’t mean she isn’t clever.

I wondered if anyone knows of any resources or ideas to help me with this mission as I’ve just been aimlessly googling for an hour and feel like I have no idea where to start with it!

My DD8 has dyslexia, she's very creative. I'm trying to build on that so im getting her a sewing machine so she can design and create her own barbie dresses. I try to talk to her about the things she can do, and empathise those. She's also very funny, and I make sure to tell her often

Thanks learningtobehappier

I am a dyslexic adult and i have found huge strength in my memory of event, using photos as prompts. It might be nice to look though photos together and share memories, she will remember details that you will not. Lots of positive praise.

Not too lose your daughters competitive streak but depending on her age she won't always beat you at things. You must know your own weaknesses (my mums was swimming).

Lots of positive praise for practical things built my confidence. So my mum would ask me to put the oven on, put a chicken on, boil potatoes etc, then at the end say well done you have cooked a roast. I had not realised the steps I was taking was making a roast but I did it.

Montessori approaches I think would work will with me if I was a child again.

Sleep is still really important, my husband can tell by my texting and speech if I have not slept well for a week.

I love being dyslexic and I approach problems in a completely different way at home and at work. I see it as a gift. I will never spell receive correctly without help but I am a great person to have in a team, to get a job done.

I feel for you as my DS is very dyslexic and has really struggled at points. What are DDs specific strengths? My DS is a super lateral thinker, so very good at connecting random information and at manipulating visual information in his mind's eye - so lots of design and 3D stuff. I think talking about this specifically really helped him to understand what his brain was doing and why some things were easy for him and some super hard. in terms of games/competitions, he's great at Dingbats, general knowledge and anything where you have to work out how things fit together - speed assembly of lego models? Games where you have to remember layouts may be good - chess, stratego? He's a little older now but it worked to give him lots of responsibility for practical things early on - he was assembling flat pack furniture from quite young and he'll now do simple electronics repairs and the like. I agree with the creativity, we have always given him quite a lot of latitude with tools and the like and sometimes there's a fine line between creatively inspired and a total mess but he's now quite into things like leatherwork and woodwork and jewellery design.

If it's any consolation DS having failed most of his SATS has done much, much better in secondary and is far happier now that he can use tech and reasoning and knowledge start to count for more.

Jamie Oliver has written some nice things about his dyslexic strengths.

How old is she

Mud she’s 9.

These are great points to think about and do, thank you. I’ve been chatting to her about dyslexia and strengths and that’s actually helping in itself just to understand and realise there are things she is naturally good at that she didn’t realise before and I think it’s helping her confidence.