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Welcome to Siena's blog, your source for helpful, cutting-edge resources tailored to teachers, parents, and other advocates in the learning differences community. We are dedicated to providing a wealth of curated knowledge spanning various topics, ranging from dyslexia advocacy and awareness to classroom teaching strategies, heritage month profiles, and social and emotional health.
Support and Self-Care Over the Holidays
December 05, 2024
As we approach the holiday season, you may be feeling lots of emotions— excitement, gratitude, relief, anxiety, frazzle, overwhelm…sometimes all of these at once.
Rest assured: this is very normal.
I want to take this opportunity to share some tips and reminders for supporting both your families and yourselves—all year round but especially during the holiday season. Ultimately, I hope that you enjoy your time with those you care about, and I also encourage you to take time for yourself.
Parents Supporting Themselves
Holidays can be especially overstimulating for everyone; the impact on our neurodiverse population is more severe. This can require additional emotional support for families during what is also a fun and family-centric time.
During such an engaging and active time of year, remember that boundaries, self-care, and overall mindfulness are very important. Siena’s counseling office often shares holiday mental health tips with families, including:
- Schedule downtime: Holidays can very easily end up overscheduled with no time to relax, so reserve a few nights for your family (or just yourself!) to do whatever self-care works best.
- Eat, sleep, and hydrate: During the holidays, our routines are interrupted, and basic needs sometimes aren’t met. Help your family—and yourself—by prioritizing physical self-care.
- Get outside: Spending time outdoors can have major mental health benefits, such as lower stress, better mood, and increased empathy and cooperation. Make time to take daily walks.
- Acknowledge loss: For many people, the “happy holidays” come along with feelings of grief and anger. Maybe it’s the first holiday after a loved one’s passing, or there are traditions that highlight strained family relationships. Remind your children that their feelings are normal.
- Set everyone up for success: Plan ahead for (or avoid) situations that typically don’t go well for your family. Don’t be afraid to remove yourself or your kids when boundaries aren’t respected. Children especially may need your support to know it’s okay to leave a tense situation.
Parents needing extra support can see these Child Mind Resources with a laundry list of articles to refer to, including ones about traveling with children and taking the stress out of holiday gatherings.
Overall, the holidays are a great opportunity to gather with loved ones and engage in community traditions, which can also highlight neurodiverse students’ strengths, creativity, and energy.
Parents Supporting Neurodiverse Children
The needs of neurodiverse students was the central focus of Siena Forest Glen’s annual elementary and middle school performance. This fall the students performed an original adaptation of Fifty-Four Things Wrong with Gwendolyn Rogers, based on the novel by Caela Carter. Fifty-Four Things follows a girl who reads her confidential IEP report listing the emotional and personality traits that define who she is, including Lazy, Picky Eater, Talks Too Much, and many other things supposedly “wrong” with Gwendolyn.
By the end of Fifty-Four Things, though, everyone realizes Gwendolyn’s many strengths and energetic curiosity about the world around her. The story's major theme is how teachers and parents can meet neurodiverse children where they are and work with their differences and their diverse strengths. This resonated strongly with students, staff, and parents in the Siena community and matches how we support our students and embrace their strong qualities.
With ADHD diagnoses for children ages 3-17 rising, it’s especially urgent for parents and teachers to have shared knowledge about how to understand neurodiverse students like Gwendolyn. Among other available resources, these books are helpful guides in understanding neurodiversity and learning differences:
- Conquer Negative Thinking for Teens — Dr. Mary Karapetian and Alvord Anne McGrath
- Detox Your Thoughts — Andrea Bonior, PhD
- Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking — Tamar Chansky, PhD
- How to Get Unstuck from the Negative Muck — Lake Sullivan, PhD
- Raising a Kid Who Can — Catherine McCarthy, Heather Tedesco, and Jennifer Weaver
- The Dyslexic Advantage — Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide
See also How Schools Can Support Neurodiverse Students from the Child Mind Institute.
The CDC regularly updates data and statistics on ADHD that affect students at home and in school. In the DC area, for example, The Chesapeake Center and Kingsbury Wellness offer testing and therapeutic services for families.
Additional Self-Care Resources
For additional information to navigate students’ social–emotional health, see posts about learning differences and confidence, online and offline boundaries for teens, and social media in our Social and Emotional Health section.
The Siena School, a national leader in dyslexia education, serves bright, college-bound students with language-based learning differences on campuses in Silver Spring, MD (grades 3-4 and 5-12) and Oakton, VA (grades 3-12).
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Social and Emotional Health
Making the Most of Parent-Teacher Conferences
November 12, 2024
Advice for Parent-Teacher Conferences
Conferences are incredibly important to develop a communicative relationship with your child’s teachers. Remember that the goal of each conference is to help your child be successful in and out of the classroom. Conferences are a powerful occasion for meaningful communication with your child’s teachers to review students' assessments to date and answer questions about the rest of the year.
You may only have 10 minutes with each teacher, so being on time and well prepared for the conference is vital. Be sure to ask lots of good questions, encourage your student at home, and remember that you are an important part of the educational equation to help your child get the most out of their educational experience.
Let Siena help you get the most out of conferences with your child’s teacher with these tips and questions:
Prioritizing
Try and prioritize topics to address with each teacher before you go to the conference, since time is so limited. We recommend writing down a list of questions to go over during the conference. To think of some questions, talk with your child before the conference. Explain that this meeting is to help them and to not worry about the conference. Ask your child:
- What are your strongest and weakest subjects?
- What subjects do you like the most and least?
- Is there anything specific you’d like me to ask your teacher?
Asking and Listening
During each conference, listen carefully to what the teacher says. Write down key information you’d like to remember or questions you want to ask at the end of the conference. If you don’t understand something the teacher is talking about, like an educational term or an explanation of a school policy, don’t be afraid to ask for clarification.
It is important to understand what your child’s teacher is telling you. If there is a problem that needs addressing, ask your teacher to work with you to create an action plan that may be implemented in the classroom and at home. Here are some questions you may ask each teacher:
- What is an important goal for [child’s name] in your class? How have you communicated this to them?
- If there was one tool or strategy you wished [child’s name] used, what would it be? What can be done in class and at home to encourage this tool and/or strategy?
- What should we do to support you at home?
You may also ask teachers what authentic assessments they are providing in their classrooms. Authentic assessments are assignments that give students multiple ways to demonstrate proficiency and real world applications for their skills apart from traditional tests and quizzes.
Talking with Your Child
Following the conference, discuss what you learned with your child by emphasizing positive points and being direct about problems. Make sure to follow through with what was discussed during the conferences at home, especially if an action plan was created.
Here are some questions you could ask your child after meeting with their teachers:
- How often do you feel in control of your own learning? How can I help you better feel in control?
- Do you feel organized at school and at home? If not, how can I help you?
- Is there anything you wish we would know about how you’re doing in school? Can we talk about ways to help?
Siena Blog and Resources
For additional relevant information from The Siena School blog, see our Parents and Community category, as well as previous posts about tech detoxing for teens in school and common language in LD education.
The Siena School, a national leader in dyslexia education, serves bright, college-bound students with language-based learning differences on campuses in Silver Spring, MD (grades 3-4 and 5-12) and Oakton, VA (grades 3-12).
Posted in
Parents and Community
No Cap: Tech Detox Works
September 27, 2024
It's lunch time. All around the school, groups of high schoolers sit, lunch bags scattered about, chatting and making jokes. A gaggle of seniors sit at a picnic table by the carpool line, half on the benches, half on the table itself, their raucous laughter loud enough to hear inside. A group of juniors sit on the steps outside the building, food laid out and music playing from a laptop. In the gym, students from all grades shout and shoot baskets, sneaking sips of water and bites of lunches in between plays.
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Meanwhile, in the school’s common area, a hodgepodge collection of high schoolers from various grades crowd around a table with a couple of teachers, a hilariously intense game of Taboo under way.
"Potato!" a high schooler shouts.
Ordinarily, this might seem a bit unusual, but this school year is different.
What brought about this wholesome series of images? Yondrs.
New High School Cell Phone Policy
This year, The Siena School launched a new cell phone usage policy that extended our existing policy for middle school up to the high school.
Students in grades 9 through 11 are now required to Yondr their cell phones and other smart devices (Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch, etc.) from 8:30am to 3:10pm. Seniors are exempt from this policy as they work to self-monitor their tech usage in preparation for college and beyond.
As Head of School Katie Douglas shared in a communication to families at the start of the school year, "As there is not yet enough research to inform the impact of cell phone and social media access for young people at a crucial stage in their development, we are going to take a more proactive approach in our school policy."
The new cell phone policy has already made a noticeable difference this year.
Students and the New Cell Phone Policy
Unsurprisingly, this change was initially met with many complaints. Students objected to this separation from media they were accustomed to consuming during breaks. They insisted that leaving the phone in their pocket was sufficient. On the more serious side, they worried over their ability to contact family and friends in the event of an emergency.
Advisors, faculty, staff, and administrators provided reassurance and alternatives. Students can socialize face-to-face during breaks. They can still participate in TikTok dances; they simply can't record or scroll through TikTok itself during the school day. Regular daily contact with family can be handled through the Front Office, so students can reach their families when needed.
We're about a month into the school year now, and the vast majority of concerns have subsided. That said, not everyone is convinced.
"There are some days where I really need my phone during 8th period," one student shares. "I pick up my siblings and I have to coordinate times."
Another student nods: "I've always used my phone for reminders," he says. "Setting reminders on my computer is not the same."
Some students are noticing the culture shift, though, especially during study halls and lunch. Several students have gone outside to the playground during lunch for some fresh air and activity.
"Before, I would be on social media [during study hall]," “Not having my phone [...] has allowed me to finish my homework before I go home.”
And, for this 11th grader, waiting in the hallway for class to start: "I don't even bring my phone to school. It feels better."
Moreover, several Siena teachers and staff members have noticed students being more present when interacting. “They’re actually talking to each other and engaging in conversations,” said a high school teacher. “It’s refreshing to see.”
Research on Cell Phone and Social Media Use in Teens
Although the lasting effects of social media and frequent cell phone use on teens is ongoing, some recent research suggests benefits of such limits, for example:
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (May 2023), Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health
- Washington Post (August 2024), Cellphone Bans Spread in Schools Amid Growing Mental Health Worries
- New York Times (August 2024), Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones
- MoCo 360 (August 2024), Cell-Phone Restriction Pilot Program, Mandatory IDs Among New MCPS Safety Measures
Siena Blog and Resources
Want to know more about lunch games? Here's a list of the ones offered during High School lunch:
For additional relevant information from The Siena School blog, see our Parents and Community category, as well as previous posts about Mental Health Awareness for teens and the benefits of early intervention for LD students.
The Siena School, a national leader in dyslexia education, serves bright, college-bound students with language-based learning differences on campuses in Silver Spring, MD (grades 3-4 and 5-12) and Oakton, VA (grades 3-12).
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