Learning disabilities and Expats

If you are one of my readers you probably noticed all the mistakes I make when I'm writing. There's a reason for it. It's called dyslexia. I am dyslexic. I can't tell left from right, forget about north, south east and west. When I read I skip the articles and most of the times, if one of the sentences doesn't make sense I have to read it again to understand it. Welcome to the dyslexic life.


Dyslexia is only one among lots of other learning disabilities, and when I was young it was one of the few that had a name. Now we have lots of different spectrum of autism, of ADHD and other disabilities.


I was diagnosed because my uncle is a pediatric neurologist. And back then, I'm talking about 30 years ago, there was not much of a treatment, so I was my uncle's guinea pig.  At the same time of my diagnostic, my mom have had a brain aneurism. After 32 days in coma, she woke up with very limited memory. So my uncle made us play the memory game together all the time. I can't tell you to turn left or right if we're driving together, but I have a great sense of direction because I can memorize where things are. And this good memory is what got me thru high school and law school. Dyslexic people can learn everything other people learn, only in a different way.


Why am I telling you all this? It is because if you're moving overseas with a child with learning disabilities you need to learn how and where to get help. We can overcome our issues, but we need help and understanding.


If you're in Sao Paulo, Albert Einstein Hospital has a great diagnostic center to help you find out exactly what the problem is. The Graded School is very good for kids with disabilities. Any kind of disability - learning or physical. They have an Optimal Learning Center to help children with learning issues - reading, math. The OLC has improved on the past couple of years. There's also help outside the school. You can work with Dr. Wendy Smith. She has a PHD in Education and applies different methods on the treatments of kids, usually it starts with an intervention. She's amazing! She's not cheap, but her work is worth every penny. You will see a quick improvement on your child's learning within a couple of weeks. 


I still haven't explored much of this issue in Mexico. I know ASF has a Service for Academic Success -SAS - but from what I know they prefer holding the kids back a year rather than working with the learning disabilities. This would never be an option to me, given that their curriculum is already behind the curriculum of schools in the US. When I asked questions about SAS they told me that they don't have enough teachers there to care for all the children in need. Plus they charge parents extra for this service. At the Graded it is free. One of my husband's co-workers has a child with ADHD enrolled at ASF. I know he is extremely frustrated with the school. So frustrated he decided to move back to the US. He doesn't feel like the school was being fair to them and to their child. It was not giving them enough support to find a solution. What they were proposing was for them to pay an aid to stay with the child during the school hours. The child is already enrolled on SAS. This child is still in one of the early kindergarten years. It is not the kind of support I would expect from an american school overseas. ASF also refused to give a spot to another expat whose child has dyslexia. Maybe this is one of the reasons why they're not fully accredited - but who knows? They won't tell the real reason. I would love to know the real reason. 


As you can tell, this cause is dear to my heart. 


Just wanted to give you something to consider...

Being an Expat Husband

Well, talk about a difficult situation. It is not easy to be the wife of an expat but it is even harder to be the husband of an expat. I have a good friend in this situation and I know how things changed for him.


First it was the decision to give up advancing his career for an undetermined period of time to advance his wife's. They worked for the same company, in different departments, but the company could not find him a job overseas. Not only he had to give up his career, he also had to give up his role as bread-earner. It is harder than it seems to make a decision like this. The first difficult decision lead him to become a stay at home dad. 


This leads us to the second difficult decision, which was to become a hands on dad. It was a huge change for him, going from being the fun dad to becoming the disciplinary one. He had to learn how to organize the children's lives and routines. Not an easy task. And adding to this, take care of the house. And be the driver. Do the grocery shopping. Schedule play dates. This list goes on and on.


The third difficulty was to make friends. The easiest place to make friends is at the kids school, but if you're the only guy hanging out there it is not easy. Lots of people will look down on you and wonder what kind of man you are. There were so many people asking questions about my friend, that it was ridiculous. People were easy to judge without knowing the whole story. They assumed he was a sugar daddy, which couldn't be further from the truth. People assumed lots of other things. It took a year for people to understand what was going on and embrace the situation.


The fourth challenge was to start making friends with other woman. Your wife can, may, will get jealous. And so will the friends' husbands. It did not happen in our case because we were part of a big group. Six couples, to be precise. The great thing about our group was that all the husbands and all the wives were friends. And so were the kids. And since we were so close we all knew that there was nothing going on, that some lines would not -and did not - get crossed. This was key. But it is so hard to happen this way.


My husband says he would love for me to get an expat job so he could be a stay at home dad. He says it would be a great thing to take a sabbatical. We have another friend who thinks it is emasculating. I, personally, think it is very empowering to a man. Giving up control is no easy task, specially for men. So I think it takes a man with a great personality to do it. Kudos to all the guys out there in this situation. I have a great deal of respect for you.

Enjoying Mexico City

I have to admit that now, that I don't have the pressure of moving to Mexico City and find a school for the kids, I am enjoying Mexico City a lot!


We just spent a couple of weeks there and had a great time. Yes, as you can tell the internet there is still a problem. The management from the flat "fixed" the problem and now we do have internet connection. In the bathroom. Only in the bathroom! My husband is trying to work on it and buy a router or something that he can plug a USB cable in so next time I'm there I'll have internet connection in the rest of our 1 bedroom flat. But it's ok. Knowing that I can come home and not have to deal with it on a daily basis makes me happy and able to enjoy my time there.


I took the kids to the Chapultepec park and we had a great time. Ciudad de los Ninos is also a big hit. A few day trips to the ruins and to a friend's house. We visited the Virgen de Guadalupe Church. We had the best time! And the food... Now that my husband knows the city a little bit better, he took us to some good local restaurants for real mexican food. My new favorite restaurant is Villa Maria, in Polancos. Not only the food is great but the margaritas are out of this world. It is close to our flat, so I can walk there, and the atmosphere is nice. Some days they even have the mariachis playing. And the staff is so nice to the kids! 


I am still avoiding to drive in Mexico City as much as I can. And so is my husband. Polancos is working out for us. We only have to drive to go to the supermarket or the mall, and we have a driver to take us there. For everything else we walk. The driver doesn't really like it, but hey...


I think I can live this crazy life for another year. It's not easy, but now I am feeling like I'm getting the best of both worlds.  Then we'll see what will happen next!