As kindergarten enrollment approaches, many parents find themselves asking the same question: "Is my child really ready?" While it's natural to focus on whether your child knows their letters and numbers, kindergarten readiness involves much more than academic skills.

When four-year-old Marcus covers his ears and melts down in the grocery store, it's not a behavioral problem. When his sister Emma seeks out tight hugs and crashes into furniture throughout the day, she's not being destructive. Both children are autistic, and their behaviors reflect the profound ways that sensory processing differences affect how they experience and navigate the world.

Many parents of children with ADHD find themselves puzzled by a common contradiction: their child can't sit still for homework or follow simple instructions, yet they'll spend hours completely absorbed in building elaborate Lego creations, playing video games, or researching their latest obsession. This isn't defiance or selective listening. It's one of the most misunderstood aspects of ADHD: the paradox of hyperfocus versus distraction.

When one mother first heard the school psychologist say her eight-year-old son had a "learning disability," her heart sank. But when a private evaluator later described her son as having "learning differences" and spoke about his unique cognitive profile with both challenges and remarkable strengths, everything shifted. Same child, same academic struggles, but suddenly there was hope and possibility.

Helping kids build resilience—the ability to bounce back after hard days, keep trying when things feel tough, and believe in their own potential—is one of the most important things we can do.

Dyslexia—one of the most common learning differences that affects reading— is a brain-based learning difference that affects the way a person processes language, impacting skills related to reading, writing, and spelling.