Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Parent Guide
Perseverance
Many persons with learning disabilities show great perseverance
and keep pursuing their chosen path despite difficulties. They often describe
themselves in such terms as "I am not a quitter," and "I
never give up." However, successful individuals demonstrate an additional
important ability -- knowing when to quit. Although they rarely give up
on a general goal, depending on the situation, they may change the way
they go about achieving it, thereby improving their chances for success.
In other words, after repeated failure, these individuals are able to
see and pursue alternative strategies for reaching their goal, or know
when the goal itself might have to be modified. Often they try several
strategies until they find one that works. One successful adult states,
"Once I have a failure, I can't just dwell on that failure and restrict
myself for the rest of my life. I'll do something else." In contrast,
unsuccessful individuals are typically not flexible and often appear to
"beat their heads against the wall," failing to recognize when
it is time to reevaluate their strategies, or the goal itself.
Successful persons with learning disabilities appear to
learn from their
hardships making statements such as "I have failed many times, but
I am
not a failure. I have learned to succeed from my failures." In addition,
successful people seem to agree that difficult situations are necessary for
learning. In comparison, unsuccessful individuals with learning disabilities are often overwhelmed by adversity, back away from challenges, and
give up much more easily and quickly than successful peers.
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