In This Episode:
Welcome to Episode 102 of Dyslexia Devoted and today we’re talking about why the support of animals to help kids with the stress of learning differences.
Shownotes: parnelloeducation.com/episode102
This Episode's Topics:
- Animals to calm kids down
- Reading to Animals
- Benefits of Animals
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Connect with Lisa Parnello:
Speaker 1
00:04
Hello and welcome to Dyslexia Devoted, the podcast dedicated to building awareness, understanding, and strategies to help those with dyslexia. I'm your host, Lisa Parnello, dyslexia therapist and founder of Parnello Education Services. Join me as we dive into today's episode of Dyslexia Devoted.
Speaker 2
00:23
Hello and welcome to episode 102 of Dyslexia Devoted. A little secret, I'm not actually here while you're listening to this. I'm taking a vacation.
Speaker 2
00:33
I work way too long of days only because I'm a sucker for adorable children, which means I get to take very nice vacations when I do finally take a break because those breaks are few and far between and I didn't take a spring break so that I could take a nicer break ahead of summer program starting. So this week's episode number 102 is all about animals, as in comfort animals and therapy animals. For today's episode I was really inspired by the fact that I taught a golden retriever last week and I got the cutest picture ever. So if you are not on the dyslexia devoted email list, you are seriously missing out.
Speaker 2
01:09
It is going to go out in the next newsletter, the adorable picture of me teaching a golden retriever and no, you cannot actually see a child anywhere in this picture, but I love it. So that was my inspiration for this week's episode. Hop on that email list, parnelloeducation.com forward slash email, or like right where you're listening it's in the show notes so where you can just click on it and sign up to get the newsletter every Thursday. And I absolutely was cracking up laughing at the cutest picture of the puppy.
Speaker 2
01:37
And it made me think about how important animals are to kids with learning differences. Let's begin with a slightly different story about my friend Anne. My friend Anne diagnoses kids with learning differences. She does all of the formal evaluations for the school I used to work at.
Speaker 2
01:53
Actually not for the school, the company. I don't know how you word it. Anyway, she either way is the person administering all the testing that stresses kids out as they are finding out if they have a learning difference or not or what their learning difference is, if they know that it's something but just don't know what. And it's not really the most pleasant experience for kids because they have to test to the point of failure essentially is how you figure out where the kid's knowledge starts and ends.
Speaker 2
02:17
And so for many, many years, she brought her dog Tavish, who was a black lab who I loved dearly. And I just love that when Ann would get to work in the morning, my classroom and then my office when I moved out of classrooms into a different role for the director position was always right near the front door. So when Tavish would come into the building, he wouldn't have his leash on yet because there weren't any kids around. It was just us adults really early in the morning.
Speaker 2
02:44
And he would come trotting into my classroom and come say hello. Or eventually he would come trotting into my office when I wasn't in the classroom and come say hello. And it just brought me so much joy to my day. But even bigger is it brought joy to kids' days.
Speaker 2
02:56
So when kids were testing, it really helped calm them down and they would be able to go pet the dog in between sessions of doing the testing part, obviously with parent permission for the dog to be there. And it just made them so much happier. And then we would sometimes have kids have really emotional days. And I would say, hey, Anne, can you bring Tavish by?
Speaker 2
03:16
Or hey, Anne, can I bring a kid upstairs to give Tavish a quick hug? Because the power of animals is a really powerful thing. Kids really connect with animals and it just changes their energy. And there's actually been scientific studies about how great animals are for people in general and their health and how many benefits we get from being around animals.
Speaker 2
03:37
Everything from little kids having less allergies when they've been around dogs and stuff when they've been kids to generally changing like heart rates when people have heart troubles, it brings down their stress and their heart rate and things like that. So there's all these wonderful things from animals. And I think we undervalue it sometimes because I've seen just how powerful it can be for the kids who really need it. And the other thing I would love would be when Anne would help kids who were scared of dogs, she would also help them learn how to not be so scared of them, which was also a really great thing to take away a fear that a kid had.
Speaker 2
04:15
Even if they were scared of dogs, we used Tavish in a different way so that the kids will learn how to not be terrified of dogs if they'd had a bad experience. And then when the whole world shut down, Tavish sadly was not at school all the time anymore. And then I started seeing kids with their animals at home. And it was 1 of those things that during teaching Zoom school it was a nightmare because we like, look at my bunny, look at my puppy, when you're like trying to teach an entire classroom of kids on Zoom how to read.
Speaker 2
04:45
It was a nightmare. But with that said, when I'm working one-on-one with a kid on Zoom, I actually kind of love when they bring their animals. Now I should really hate it. I should be annoyed with them.
Speaker 2
04:57
I should tell them it's a distraction and they should go put their animal away and this is learning time. But you know why I don't? Because sometimes that animal is what that kid needs to keep sitting in that chair doing what's hard for them. I started seeing it many years ago, long before COVID shut everything down and we were on Zoom all the time.
Speaker 2
05:13
There was this 1 little girl I would teach at her house who had dyslexia and struggled and struggled for so many years that she easily got frustrated for a long time until we got her past it. And then as she got older, she would be really good and regulated most of the time, but every once in a while when things got really bad, I'd be tutoring at her house because it was before I owned my office. And she would go, I need the cat. And she would take off and go find the cat wherever it was hiding and bring it to the couch where she was sitting and cuddle with the cat.
Speaker 2
05:42
And she's like, OK, we can keep going now. Because the cat is what regulated her. It made her feel like she had that comfort and that support and that cuddling that she needed to keep doing the hard thing. And then I saw it even more on Zoom when I had kids who needed tutoring during COVID times and we couldn't be in person.
Speaker 2
06:02
And there were a couple of kids who really did not do all that great on Zoom. I would say 90% of my kids did way better than I ever would have expected. And if you haven't experienced it, one-on-one Zoom tutoring is very different than Zoom school because I feel like people are like traumatized by the idea that having tutoring on Zoom is terrible because Zoom classrooms were terrible, but it's actually completely different. The energy is so different.
Speaker 2
06:28
It's just one-on-one. Nobody else is staring at you. You don't have to be embarrassed if you say something wrong because it's just you and the tutor. Anyway, there were a couple kids who their pets are actually what helped them calm down when they weren't the kind of kid that did very well on Zoom.
Speaker 2
06:41
So if they can cuddle and play with their cat, they were able to stay where they're supposed to be. Which brings me to today where I still have a couple kids on Zoom, partly because some of them just plain love being on Zoom. I've got a couple older kids who are, no joke, 2 miles away. They could totally come in the office, but they just like the convenience of us logging in on zoom so they can like eat their dinner while we work together or whatever.
Speaker 2
07:02
I don't care. As long as you're working, I don't care where you are. And then I also have kids out on the East Coast. I'm on the West Coast out in California and I have multiple out in New England so therefore we cannot be in person.
Speaker 2
07:14
And There is 1 little 1 who I absolutely adore, who each week now I get to teach her and her adorable little puppy, who might be the most patient puppy I've ever seen in the universe. I believe it's a golden retriever. And he is the cutest thing. And he just sits there in her lap and she sits there through the entire lesson pushing through, not freaking out when things get hard, not running away and hiding under a bed, which definitely happened many, many, many times.
Speaker 2
07:45
Ever since this puppy came home, she has managed to make it through every single session. So therefore, sometimes I can see the puppy more than I can see the girl, but she's doing what I ask her to do. She's getting everything done. She's not so stressed out that when she makes a mistake, she cuddles her puppy and keeps on going.
Speaker 2
08:04
And that is a miracle worker. So while most tutors would be very annoyed by this dog that is like constantly stopping and interrupting when she wants to readjust how it's sitting on her lap and whatnots, I don't care. Do you know why I don't care? Because a happy child learns.
Speaker 2
08:20
A child who's stressed out and shutting down and hiding under a bed does not learn. A kiddo who is able to find a way to regulate herself and stay put in her seat, continuing to learn, not freaking out when there's something going wrong, being able to persevere, that is a kid who learns. Animals have a pretty strong effect on kids, in a very positive way most of the time. And it's 1 of the things that I actually love to see.
Speaker 2
08:46
And hello, I get to stare at cute adorable puppies every Tuesday so you know who doesn't love that? I love my doggie but he's not very much a puppy anymore. I have a gigantic German Shepherd and he's a beast and I love him to death and he's very cuddly but I don't get to bring him to work with me So this way I still get to see a puppy during my workday and it's pretty cute I've also seen a couple shelter programs that set it up So kids who are nervous to read out loud can read to the animals I know a lot of kids with dyslexia and learning differences or just plain kids who struggle in school don't really like to read aloud, they get kind of embarrassed. And 1 of the strategies I've seen that works really well is if you have them read to an animal, because they know the animal is not gonna judge them if they read something wrong.
Speaker 2
09:31
And there are a few shelters that I know will let kids go read books to dogs and other animals that are in the shelter. And it gives the animals some attention and some love, and it gets the kids to read some books and do things that they are otherwise a little bit more uncomfortable to do. And I know kids often like to read their books to their animals instead of reading to mom or dad. And they'll say, no, I don't want to read you.
Speaker 2
09:54
Okay. Well then go read the to the dog. And it's a lot less intimidating because a lot of times when kids don't want to read out loud, it's the embarrassment factor. And everybody knows that no matter what you do your dog will come trotting up to you and give you some love and cats depending on how friendly your cat is will trot up to you and give you some love too.
Speaker 2
10:12
I have a stray cat who lives in my front yard. I did not adopt him. He just showed up 1 day and never left. That comes and walks me to my front door from my car almost every day, like a little dog, which I think is hysterical, which might actually be why I love this cat because I'm very much a dog person.
Speaker 2
10:27
I'm not anti cats, but My mom's allergic and therefore there's never been any inside our house. But this 1 cat just loves us so much. And he just started hanging out at our house 1 day, about a year before I got my dog. And then when we got the dog, we weren't sure what was going to happen.
Speaker 2
10:43
And the cat never left. The kids love him. When I have neighbor kids come by and they will see like, where'd that cat come from? I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 2
10:51
He just showed up 1 day and never left. He's very good at catching random rats and mice so they don't come in my house. And he gives me lots of cuddles and loves to sit on my lap while I watch fireworks. Random fact, I live where there's a lot of fireworks, like professional ones, so it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2
11:05
I can sit on my porch and watch them. And the cat sits on my lap while I watch them too, and it's kind of funny. And there's just something to be said about having the affection of an animal that just makes you happier. And this is no small thing.
Speaker 2
11:19
When you are a kid who's stressed out about a lot of things and school's really hard all the time, a lot of times an animal is a great choice. I'm not saying everyone has to have animals, because, you know, sometimes adding 1 more bit of chaos to your life is probably not the best idea. But sometimes that extra little change can make a really big difference. So something to consider, or at least bring a child somewhere where there are animals, even if you don't keep them in your own house.
Speaker 2
11:43
And sometimes that can be a fun little way to perk up their moods and get them to do things they otherwise don't want to do like read books out loud. So to recap our day there are actual professional support dogs who go through animal training to become professional support dogs that can do things like open drawers and doors and all sorts of fun things. And there are also the compassionate animals that kids just gravitate to to feel better. And there is the way that we can use animals to get kids to do things they otherwise might be a little overly stressed out to do on their own and that extra comfort piece of having an animal by their side can make a really big difference.
Speaker 2
12:21
All right, I'm going to be enjoying the rest of my vacation so there's probably no podcast next week but you never know, maybe by the end of the week. We'll see how inspired I'm feeling. And there is a lot going on this June. I'm really excited to be participating in a few different educator events this month.
Speaker 2
12:38
So when I get back, there is the Tutor Success Academy and I'll be helping with some mentoring over there. I'm working on the Building Readers for Life conference, and so I've got a presentation coming for that. If you guys are participating in that conference, it's more of a virtual conference targeted toward educators. And there are probably a few other things coming down the line.
Speaker 2
12:59
It's been a busy, busy spring getting prepared for what seems to be a busy, busy summer. So it is all wonderful, good things, but in order to do all these good things, I'm going to need a break. So I'm going to enjoy the last few days of my vacation. I will see you when I get back And have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2
13:17
See you next time. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. If you want to learn even more about dyslexia, check out parnelloeducation.com forward slash courses. See you next time.