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Yesterday, I was sitting with a group of mothers who were discussing achievements of their kids. In academics, some kids were overachievers and some were not performing as their mothers wanted them to. They were complaining about how expensive tuition doesn’t pay off in their case. Some of them think that a certain company of friends might be influencing their kid’s personality.

Just to be a part of the conversation, I asked them how old their kids are and their replies made my world crash because they were mothers of three to five years old kids. Yes, we are like this nowadays; judging our toddlers, and blaming it on schools and their grooming of our toddler – without knowing what other influences might b hindering his or her performance.

Nowadays, as soon as our children are born, most of us start running around with brochures of top-notch schools in our hands, and to get them in school as soon as possible without knowing their true potential. So, how could your child be problematic? A genius must be academically soaring high and we assume our child would be a genius and the problems he is facing at such a young age of 3 or 4 must be because of other children.

Internationally, many scholars and school systems have agreed upon one thing which is – a child should not be in school before the age of 4-5 five and should be enrolled in kindergarten. But here in Pakistan, many schools won’t even give you admission in their schools after the age of three.

When the parents are questioned, their answers consist of lame excuses and blame it on the school teachers and other students.  But the point is, it’s the same school you make sure your child would go for Taleem o Tarbiyat, and now they are failing to do so. In most of the situations, the fault lies within us (not like the fault in our stars). We have sent our child at such a young age as I have mentioned above without knowing their true potentials.

We, I mean parents, must be educated about learning the problems because environmental, financial and behavioral problems must be sorted out before labeling. I must mention some Hollywood movies we might have seen but not from this point of view. Most famous one is Forrest Gump, a story of a boy who has learning differences from our normal standards of a bright kid. Then there is Einstein who had delayed speech and then we have Taarey Zameen Par.

Then there comes a list of Hollywood celebrities who have these disabilities. To motivate yourself or kids, Harry Potter (Daniel Redcliff ) has dyspraxia. Move to sports, Michael Phelps (a swimmer who won gold medals in 2017 Olympic) had ADHD. Even founder of IKEA (dream of every woman on this planet) has learning differences.

Learning disabilities can’t be seen nor be felt by a layman.  In some cases, kids with learning differences get bullied for what they are and teachers rather enjoy all this drama. I have a request for all mothers to study psychology to learn more about their kids. This ability is neurological. It can interfere with basic skills of learning, reading, and writing. Not just this, but it can also affect a person beyond academics. And according to research, kids with learning disabilities are often intelligent.

I, myself, have struggled all my life with Dyscalculia (sounds cool, right?). I never knew how to solve algebra and have no idea what theorems are but still, I managed to do my M.S. One wise woman (obviously my teacher) once told me in Pakistan Academia, that a mild retard can pass B.A. and as the time passed, I realized how true she was.