Although all of development is linked, we do look at different areas of development to guide us in diagnosis and treatment. The main categories are:

• physical (gross & fine motor)

• play/social-emotional

• cognition (thinking, including nonverbal visual-spatial)

• language (talking)

One of the things that happens with Orchid Kids is that they often have scattered skills. This means that some areas of development are tracking just fine and others are not.

Here’s what that can look like:

• Kiddo can kick a ball, run fast and jump over buildings in a single bound, but cannot hold a crayon or pencil to save his life.

• Kiddo can put together very complex puzzles (above age/developmental level) but has a hard time putting a simple sentence together

• Kiddo can talk, talk, talk at home but clams up entirely at school

• Kiddo can focus for hours on a video game, but struggles to complete a single math problem

• Kiddo can have a complex conversation about sportscars (or planets, or dinosaurs) but cannot tell you about their day at school.

On top of that, in some cases, kids are maybe not progressing through the developmental milestones in an expected way.

• Autistic kids sometimes learn to read before they speak

• For some conditions, kiddos will need to compensate for underlying structural or functional differences

• Some kiddos have high IQ’s but perform poorly at school

When a mismatch occurs, we will know it by the failure spiral it creates. And how do you recognize a failure spiral? By the key words and behaviors that your child uses. 

Here are some things you might hear:

“It’s boring”

“I don’t like it”

“I don’t want to” (over and over)

“Squirrel!” (as in – I’ll do just about anything else except this thing and keep you, adult, distracted as long as possible)

“I hate you”

Here’s what you might see in terms of behaviors:

Running away

Silliness

Crying

Stone face

Avoidance (of you, of tasks)

Anger / explosiveness

No one wants to do things they’re bad at. 

No one wants to fail.

We want to do well. 

We want to win. 

We want to be successful at something. 

Kids are not stupid. They will seek success at all costs.

Even if being successful means being really good at Being Bad.

And so, if we see kids “being bad”, that should spur us into action. Because “being bad” is a sure sign that the failure spiral has begun and a skills mismatch is probably at the root of it.

A failure spiral doesn’t just go away on its own, which is why  “wait and see” is a terrible approach for a struggling child.

They need help NOW.

They deserve to be able to learn the skills they need NOW.

So that they can thrive and become the wonderful human they are meant to be.

If you got stuck somewhere in the “why can’t my kid just pull it together” phase, reach out! You’re not alone. 

We begin to untangle a lot of this stuff in our Raising Orchid Kids groups, and a new cohort is forming now. You can find more information at www.raisingorchidkids.com 

xo G

TL;DR: if kids are behaving badly, there’s a reason, and it might be because there’s a skills mismatch. We talk about that and so much more in our Raising Orchid Kids classes, which start in July 2022. Visit www.raisingorchidkids.com to find out more.