Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Parent Guide

Proactivity

My child... Participates in classroom and extra-curricular social activities Makes decisions and acts upon those decisions Understands the advantages/disadvantages of making certain decisions Recognizes when a decision needs to be made Knows how to evaluate decisions Takes responsibility for his/her actions Feels he/she has control over his/her world Is assertive and stands up for him/herself Is self-confident

There is life beyond school for children with learning disabilities. While learning to be proactive in educational pursuits is important, persons with learning disabilities also need to develop the attribute of proactivity for social, employment, interpersonal, familial, and recreational settings. With regard to each of these settings, children with learning disabilities need to learn to:

• Understand proactivity, its importance, and benefits;
• Make decisions, act upon those decisions, and evaluate their decisions;
• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of making certain decisions and take responsibility for their actions;
• Act as self-advocates and be assertive while engaging in the world;
• Develop the self-confidence to take risks and be flexible.

In order to foster proactivity, the following activities are recommended.

GENERAL ACTIVITIES FOR FOSTERING PROACTIVITY Introduce problem-solving vocabulary into your family discussions. Share your personal challenges and dilemmas and what strategies you have employed. Present your child with examples of people facing problems, and have your child discuss or role-play action-oriented strategies for resolving these difficulties. Have your child write down or discuss important decisions he or she has made, the strategies used to make the decisions, the results of those decisions, and whether or not the correct decision was made. Present your child with examples of people's behavior and the specific outcomes resulting from the behavior. Then discuss the extent to which the individual had control over his or her behaviors. Present your child with a number of "risky" scenarios and discuss the possible consequences of specific actions.

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