Mom's Healthy Fitness

Meet the CEO – A little bit about me and my family

It is important to me that I connect with the clients I help every day in my virtual health, fitness and coaching business. I know I say all the right things, preach only those activities that promote a healthy and fit lifestyle, and I sure do come across as someone who has endless energy and confidence.

But truth be told, I am a work in progress – just like you.

I don’t pretend to be something I’m not, which is why I am sharing this with you in this blog post. It’s important that you know the real me. I’m a wife and proud momma of three beautiful children and I struggle to keep up at times with game schedules, keeping the house tidy, running a business, taking care of myself and putting a healthy meal on the table each night for my family. I don’t always eat the best, and as much as I love to get up and workout, I absolutely despise my alarm clock some days.

I’ve battled depression, anxiety and Lord knows what else along the way. But I’ve always been a firm believer in five guiding principles – faith, family, fitness, fashion and fun. If I can impart those same principles to my amazing clients and help them lead a better life, then I am living a fulfilled life.

My family has been blessed enough to be featured in several articles over the last few years. We’ve used each article as a platform to help other families in unique ways. Below is an article that ran in the September 2016 issue of Lantana Living Magazine.

In the article, we talk about making time for what’s most important – family. Too many families out there don’t know how to make time, but it’s as simple as using a calendar!

Please read the article below.

The Nelsons: Making Time For What’s Most Important

Brett and Karma Nelson are as busy as they’ve ever been in their professional lives – Brett the owner of a  growing family law office in Flower Mound and Karma a successful health and fitness coach. So to say their calendars fill up quickly would be an understatement.

But this happily-married couple from Lantana will undoubtedly find a way to carve out quality time together, whether that be a quick night away for just the two of them, or a family dinner with their three children.

The Nelsons make time for what’s most important, which in this day and age feels like everything.

“Here’s the thing, we are all busy,” said Brett, who owns Nelson Law Group, P.C. “Our businesses are growing and our activities are increasing, but you can’t lose sight of the relationships that are important. In my practice, I see far too many people focus too much attention on everything but their marriage and families. If you don’t make these relationships a priority, you will have trouble in these areas.”

This is the season to send our children off to school, and while that is an exciting time, it can also be exhausting. After all, you’re re-acclimating your easy-going summer lives to packing wholesome lunches before the sun comes up, homework, constant adjustments to work schedules to compensate for the kids’ extracurricular activities, and of course, the dreaded early-morning drop off lines at school.

On top of all that, we have to find ways to keep growing our businesses in this fast-paced life.

Everyone here at Lantana Living felt Brett and Karma Nelson were the perfect September cover story because, well, they are in the middle of all that. They each juggle extremely popular and growing businesses while committing themselves to being the best possible spouse and parent they can be.

They’ve become known for offering quality advice on everything from marriage to faith and family. They insist they don’t have all the answers, but trust us when we say they typically come pretty close.

It begins, as the Nelsons tell us, with a calendar.

At least once each month, Brett and Karma sit down and compare their respective calendars. And we’re not talking about skimming the surface of proper scheduling, either. We’re talking about a total deep dive.

This includes cross checking Brett’s schedule to see which days he needs to be in court with the various things that Karma has going on, which can include training seminar trips or late coaching calls for her virtual health, fitness, and coaching business.

They’ll carve out time for a date night, and to make it all run as smooth as possible, Brett and Karma will get their children involved by divvying up responsibilities around the house. Speaking of the kids, the couple gets even more calculated and intentional with school and extracurricular activities. Those can actually be a beast in and of themselves.

They have three children, all in different schools and all with different responsibilities. Their daughter Lucy, 14, is a freshman at Guyer and needs someone to take her to school each day. She practices four and sometimes five times  per week with the Thundercats competitive cheer team  at Cheer Athletics in Plano.

Pierce, 12, is in the sixth grade at Harpool Middle School and is starting his first season of tackle football with the Lantana Wildcats. He also takes guitar lessons. Peyton, 9, is a third-grader and plays just about every sport, including football, baseball and basketball. He also takes drum lessons.

To keep up with it all and still have the wherewithal to adjust on the fly, the Nelsons chart everything from schedules to chores, church obligations, and other responsibilities. Everything has its place in the calendar, and it’s organized.

They’re very intentional, they’re extremely calculating, and they are almost always on top of their game.

“When you run a big family like we do, you have to stay on top of it or else it could break down into total chaos,” Karma said with a laugh. “Even if it’s just once a month, you have to prioritize. There’s been times where I haven’t been on top of it, and all it does is stress me out, which stresses the kids out because then they don’t know what’s going on, either. I try to prep the night before and go over the next day’s activities so everyone knows what to expect.”

Karma added, “But trust me, there are constant adjustments to our calendars.”

Is it really as simple as using a calendar? Productivity experts say absolutely. When done effectively, using a calendar helps you avoid taking on more than you can handle, add contingency time for the unexpected, have enough time for family and friends, exercise and hobbies, and achieve a good work-life balance.

For Brett, it’s that work-life balance that is the most important piece.

Sure, Nelson Law Group – which focuses on everything from family law to personal injury, civil litigation, estate planning, and small business legal needs – is a big part of Brett’s life. There were times in the past, he said where he would get up at 3:30 a.m. and stay at work all day – oftentimes not coming home until after 8 p.m. It can be easy to get caught up in chasing the mighty dollar, but all that did was put pressure and strain on his family.

“In the past, I would have been quick to get angry, say, ‘I don’t have time for this,’ and just rush off to what I felt was more important at work,” Brett said. “But this family is important.”

With a renewed mindset, he’s found he can put his family and God first while still making his clients happy.

Karma has had a similar mindset shift. Through partnering with BeachBody to start her own business, she has the opportunity to help busy mothers everywhere who need that extra push to realize their fitness goals and potential for a healthier lifestyle.

Karma, as you probably guessed by now, is a busy momma as well. She realizes all mothers need that extra push. You would think it all comes naturally for someone as fit as Karma, but like everyone else, it takes work and dedication. But she continues to find ways to always be there for her children first.

Perhaps that’s the biggest reason why she remains so successful.

The Nelsons have been married for 15 years, and as Brett puts it, Karma is the most attentive mother and caring wife he could ever hope to have.

“You have to honor that time with your family,” Karma said. “We cherish our two nights per week that everyone can sit down and eat dinner together.”

And it all circles back to scheduling.
“When you plan in advance, the expectations are clear for everyone – even us as parents,” Brett said. “There’s no stress on the relationship because everyone knows where everyone is supposed to be, what they are doing and when they can be in the mix to chip in. You have to be intentional, organized, disciplined, you have to have fun, you have to laugh, and you have to prioritize all of it. Everyone I’ve talked to has said that if you don’t do that in your daily life, you won’t do it at work.”
Karma and Brett juggle careers with the typical trials and tribulations that go along with any marriage. That’s quite a load, and it’s not hard to see why their calendar fills up so quickly. But they are committed to one another, and insist on beginning and ending each day with family time.

It’s the sort of balance every family could stand to have more of.

“I feel like I’ve been running my business all my life, and the principles I followed that provided me with a good career are equally applicable when it comes to my family,” Brett said. “It’s a lot of work, and our calendars fill up fast. But Karma and I are blessed to have the family we have.”

If you would like to read more great advice from my family, please visit the following links:

http://www.lantanaliving.com/brett-nelson-is-conscious-of-his-role-as-business-owner-husband-and-father/

The post Meet the CEO appeared first on Karma Nelson Fitness .

Source: Faith Family

 short on time and still want to feed your family a healthy meal? Yep, that’s the story of my life! With 3 active kiddos and running a full time health & fitness coaching business, I make it a priority to cook healthy meals! However, I’m all about easy! This Easy One Pot Crockpot Spaghetti Squash is literally the easiest meal I’ve ever made!

With as little as 3 ingredients, you can have a delicious & easy One Pot Crockpot Spaghetti Squash meal for dinner. It can either go in the crockpot or pop it in the oven when short on time.

Ingredients:

• Spaghetti squash
• Spaghetti sauce
• Turkey meatballs (I typically make my own, but to save time, I found these delicious frozen gems at target)
• Additional items if you want more flavor: 1T Italian herbs plus 1T minced garlic.

Directions:

• Cut the spaghetti squash in half then remove the inside seeds.
• Place face down in 1/2 the sauce.
• Put frozen meatballs & remained of sauce in & stir.
• Add additional seasonings if desired.
• Cook in crockpot on low for 5 hours or on high for 3 hours. Or bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes.

Once the squash is tender it’s done. Set the spaghetti squash on a cutting board to cool for a few minutes. I burned my finger tips trying to scrape too soon. Ouch! Simply scrape & place in a bowl. It gets kind of messy but it’s worth it!  

Pair with a salad if you want & you are done! Super easy!  

A few girlfriends & I do a meal swap once per month with Easy One Pot Crockpot Meals. This was super easy to prep. Give it a try with a few friends. There are 5 of us, so I make the same One Pot Crockpot meal, x 5. One for my family then 4 to swap. It’s so great to have different meals & way less prep work! 

  
Please share this post if you found it enjoyable!

The post Easy One Pot Crockpot Spaghetti Squash appeared first on Karma Nelson Fitness .

Source: Faith Family

Ok, this is not one of those, cut out candy and lose weight posts I normally write!  It is one all about a favorite family tradition of ours that brings the family together for good old fashioned fun in the kitchen.  Making holiday candy has been a Christmas tradition in my husbands family for several generations.  When my mother in law suggested we make homemade candy with our children, I was thrilled to start this tradition!  She told me there were many Christmas candy recipes also know as, rock candy, but her recipe was easy.  I like easy!

Over the years, I have found that homemade candy is messy!  So, if you are a neat freak, get over that for the day of candy making.  Not to worry, it all cleans up!  The first year, Grandma was a little rusty for not making it in a while, so the process was SLOW.  However, with my go, go, go multitask personality, we found having two pots or batches of candy going helps be more productive.

 Let’s begin with the Homemade Holiday Candy Recipe, then I will go over each step and how to make it go more smoothly.  It take all hands on deck, the more the better to help with kids if you will have them help.

Homemade Holiday Candy Recipe:

STEP 1 

 2-3 bags of powdered sugar.  Pat down several (4-5) cookie sheets or flat pans with 1/4″ powdered sugar.  This will be where you pour the candy into thin strips of candy.  DO NOT pour into one large pan of holiday candy or you will not be able to break it up.

• 3 3/4 C Sugar
• 1 1/4 C Karo
• 1 C water 

STEP 2

 

Combine above ingredients in large sauce pan, on medium high and heat to 300 degrees stirring occasionally.  This is VERY important.  If you cook over 300 degrees the sugar and syrup can turn dark and your color of candy will not look bright and colorful.  Most candy thermometers will indicate “hard crack stage” on it at 300 degrees.  Cooking the ingredients usually takes about 30 minutes per batch, depending on your stove. Once you get to about 280 degrees, the last part goes very quickly so you need to have someone else get the color & flavor ready to stir in.

• 1 Tea (one dram) candy flavoring oil
• Food coloring 

STEP 3

Remove from heat quickly then add the desired flavoring and food coloring to desired shade.  Blend quickly and then pour over prepared pans in ribbons.  Grandma did not have any fancy molds in her days, so we simply pour into ribbons, but I think I will try some fun molds soon.)  This step is extremely hot and will burn so be very careful.  I highly recommend wearing hot pads over hands to protect when pouring and keep others out of the way.  After it cools, about 5-10 minutes or so, break into bite size pieces.  The powdered sugar gently coats the candy so it doesn’t stick and looks so pretty on it as well.  Put each flavor into a separate bowl.  I usually pull out all my big mixing bowls and tupperware tubs to store all the flavors.  Our favorite is cinnamon, which we color red, peppermint, which we color light green (only a few drops will do), orange, cherry, grape and any other flavor they have on hand.  TIP: Go easy on the dark colors as those tend to get very dark.  Once our purple looked black and was not very appealing to eat.  I store all the leftover powdered sugar in gallon baggies for next year.

STEP 4

Once your Homemade Holiday Candy session is complete, it is great to take 1-2 handfuls of each flavor, then mix into a cute little jar or bag for homemade holiday gifts.  Be sure to include the “Christmas Candy Recipe” with a note from your family.  All of our family and friends have come to love this homemade candy recipe.  Not to mention the kids LOVE the process.  Needless to say, the floor is usually covered in white dusting of powdered sugar, lots of sampling of candy is done and many laughs are had in our family tradition.  I hope you have fun and enjoy this easy Christmas candy recipe as much as  our family does.  Note: the homemade candy shelf life is approximately 6 months.(I will update pictures after Thanksgiving)

The post Homemade Holiday Candy Recipe appeared first on Karma Nelson Fitness .

Source: Faith Family

Holidays are a time for celebrating and sharing with family and fun. Our hearts are full and yet sometimes heavy during this festive time of year. The innocence of every child is priceless yet the struggles can be life-long. Our hope is to bring the magic of Christmas to children here, in our backyard, which often face challenges beyond their years. A small gift goes a long ways in the hearts of a child!

Our family is partnering with a two local ministries to help give back.  It’s a great way to tech children to give back & pay it forward at the same time.  The two ways my family is helping this year:

1. Toy Drive. Mission Moms, is a local group of moms who’s mission is to teach. serve. act. And to ultimately to help the families here, in our backyard!  November is a canned food drive and donating hundred of meals to family in need for a Thanksgiving meal.  December is a community wide toy drive where all schools, businesses and neighborhoods are invited to participate and help share the joy of Christmas with a Toy Drive.
2. Turkey Trot.  Turkey Trot is a fun way to get active with your family and give back at the same time.  The community event is hosted by a missions group that will use the proceed to help a family in need at Christmas.  Before the fest, why not support family fitness in a run/ walk Turkey Trot.  That way there will not be any guilt after eating that delicious pie!  Plus any chance I can get my kiddos active and create a love for fitness is a bonus!

Looking for ways to get involved in your community?  Here are ways to give back locally:

• Contact your local elementary school and ask the counselor what the immediate need is?  Sometimes children need coats, school supplies or winter clothes.  Other times, like during the holiday season, they need assistance with food and gifts.
• Get involved with a church and partner with some of their ministries to help give back either locally or nationally through missions they support.
• Become an angel!  Either pick up a tag from an angel tree usually located in high traffic stores, schools or churches during the holidays.  Or my absolute favorite way to be an angel is to set a budget with your family to give cash to an unexpected family.  We set our budget, then took each kiddo into Walmart.  We said to look around and pray about it before hand and that the Holy Spirt would lead us to the right family that is in need.  Then BAM, we would simply say “hello, we would like to bless you and your family with this money.  Jesus loves you.”  Then poof, we were off!
• Get creative.  Not every act of giving needs to be with money.  One year we didn’t have the funds to give back, so I made a few meals and delivered them to families that needed a warm meal and kind gesture during a tough season.  It’s always DOUBLE amazing when kids can get involved to see, feel and experience serving.

 

If you are local and want to join us in the Lantana Turkey Trot, please register here: 

The post Ways to Give Back Locally During the Holidays appeared first on Karma Nelson Fitness .

Source: Faith Family

Hi I’m Karma and I have Dyslexia!  I was not diagnosed until I was in high school and, at that time, the treatment I received was a color tinted piece of plastic to put over my reading material.  As a result, I had to figure out ways to read, learn and otherwise get through my schooling.  Fast forward 20 years, I now have 3 wonderfully made children of my own and learned the hard way that Dyslexia is genetic; Pierce our second child has been diagnosis with Dyslexia.

I want to share my journey with having a child that is dyslexic in the 21st century and let you know what I have learned about the diagnosis and the treatments available.  While I am NO expert on dyslexia, I have lived with the condition and have watched my son struggle with learning,  I hope this inspires you, or someone you know, to take an active role in getting help for a child you know.  My son Pierce is 11 years old and in the 5th grade.  We did not just wake up one day and realize he had dyslexia, it was a several year journey, with many  frustrations along the way.  Just like most moms, I am super busy and had to have faith. Getting mad or frustrated doesn’t help anyone, so instead, I have faith and keep looking for answers to help my child.

It took several years of “signs,” lots of frustration, and not knowing where to go or what to do.  Pierce is very smart boy, speaks intelligently with a big vocabulary and has carried on adult conversations since he was very young.  We are in a great public school system, yet they didn’t recognize it until I made several requests to do testing.  One thing I will say is that if you see signs of dyslexia or learning disability in your kiddo, push for testing SOONER THAN LATER!

In Kindergarden Pierce was extremely frustrated with reading and would get anxiety when it was time to “read for 15 min to a parent.” Of course at this point he was still printing his A, B, C’s but we did notice his handwriting was messy and  he did not like to write at all.   By 1st grade the reading anxiety got worse and his handwriting was not legible.  In fact, it looked more like his little brothers writing from pre-k.  Finally in 2nd grade with continued frustrations with reading, handwriting, of understanding what was really at the root, we requested our first “testing.”

Signs of dyslexia: {SEE:  20 Things to know about a Person With Dyslexia.}

• Dyslexia can affect spoken language, written language and language comprehension.

• Dyslexics have trouble breaking down unfamiliar words into letter-sound segments. As a result, reading is slow and filled with errors.

• Dyslexics require extra time and effort to process language information.

• Dyslexics often need to be taught to look at words linearly, left-to-right.

• Dyslexics have difficulty in learning (and remembering) the names of letters.

• Dyslexics often fail to understand that words come apart; for example, that “batboy” can be pulled apart into “bat” and “boy” and, later on, that the word “bat” can be broken down still further and sounded out as ‘b’ ‘aaa’ ‘t’

• Dyslexics often have a difficult time learning to associate letters with sounds, such as being unable to connect the letter b with the /b/ sound.

• Dyslexics will sometimes make reading errors that show no connection to the sounds of the letters; for example, the word “big” is read as “goat.”

• Dyslexics often struggle to read small “sight” words such as “that,” “an,” “in.”

• Dyslexics often substitute words with the same meaning for words in the text they can’t pronounce, such as “car” for “automobile.”

• Dyslexics often omit parts of words when reading.

• Dyslexics often have difficulty remembering dates, names, telephone numbers, and random lists.

• Dyslexics often have an extreme difficulty learning a foreign language.

Thank the Lord!  They finally diagnosed Pierce with dyslexia {end of 2nd grade} and started him in the school program.  In school they pull him from class 4 days a week, 30 minutes per day to help him work through the “kits”.  In our regularEenglish language, we understand the “ck, st and sh” type of spelling rules but for dyslexic children, spelling and mixing up of letters is a brain thing… not a “smart or not smart” thing.  This occurred all of 3rd & 4th grade.

Fast forward to 4th grade, our biggest year with finding a solution.  In December we were referred to an amazing Neuropsychology Dr who performed an extensive evaluation to better help us understand Pierces deficits and how to help him.  It was eye opening to say the least.  We discovered he was extremely smart and is in the top 95% in IQ.  However, we identified hi deficits with attention, reading comprehension, decoding text, memory  processing deficit and handwriting along with a lot of other big name things that I can’t remember.

We were referred to an Occupational Therapist to help him master and retrain his brain to be a more confident student, to an eye dr to do eye therapy and also to a psychologist to discuss the next step with his ADD. By May I swallowed my “all natural” ego and got over the fact that my son has a neurological brain deficits and attention deficits that distract from his learning ability that normal kids have.  I am happy to say that he is on the lowest dose of medicine and it is working like a champ!  He even says, “I feel like my brain is not in the clouds anymore.”

 

Meanwhile at school, this was the hardest year emotionally for Pierce I have ever seen in any of my children.  His spirit seemed to lack self confidence.  He has gained a little weight and kids were making fun of him at school for “being different” and even call him names like “Stupid” for going to his dyslexia program.  This just breaks my heart!

Nothing changed with teachers/ educators at school until I requested another 504 meeting to asses his development in the dyslexia program.  The specialist determined he had not retained any information from the past 2 years or had applied the “kits” that were taught due to his lack of focus… hence now we finally understand he has ADD.  Also, we discovered his 4th grade teacher had lost patience with him, stuck him in the back of the class and continued to “call him out/ Pierce pay attention” which is the worst thing possible you can do for this type of kiddo.  The group of educators were very helpful now that I shared the results from our outside testing, we had a better plan of action:

1. Move Pierce up to the front of the class with less distractions and better help from teacher(s).
2. Oral explanations/ directions on all assignments, tests and homework.
3. With the ADD medication, his attention is ON POINT to better absorb the dyslexia kits and pay attention in class.
4. Get speech testing. {with lack of understanding letter decoding, his letter pronunciation has suffered, so we will begin speech therapy soon.}
5. I insisted he go back and repeat the kits he didn’t learn or understand.

All summer I was so proud of Pierce for his openness & dedication to learning new tools at therapy.  We discussed how this hard work going to OT would help reprogram his brain to help him become a more confident student in the future.  At therapy they work on specific areas and include: gross and fine motor coordination, visual-motor abilities, visual-perceptual skills, sensory processing, play skills, self-help skills and safety awareness.  He went twice a week, 3 hours per day for the summer program.  The metronome therapy seemed to make the biggest impact in rewiring his brain so far.

I feel he became more confident and accomplished and is ready to start 5th grade strong.  In school, he will repeat the last 2 kits in the school dyslexia program in hopes that now he is on ADD meds, he will absorb it!  Outside of school we spend about 6 hours a week driving to and from OT, having his sessions then doing special homework.  He will continue OT this twice a week but just 45 minutes per session now focusing on handwriting.  My prayer is that we can get his brain to click and get all things in order before middle school next year.  Teachers are way less likely to care about him when being shuffled from class to class, so I am taking ALL the necessary steps to help set him up for success now!  This is a HUGE emotional, physical and financial commitment, but as a faithful mom, I KNOW we are preparing Pierce for a more confident future.

Parents if your child seems to be struggling with difficulties in school, please look for help.  Clearly the school is the first step.  BUT it is up to you to request specific testing and ask for help.  They will NOT suggest it (which I wish they would have sooner) so please look for the signs of frustration, low confidence, spelling and handwriting issues along with trouble to pay attention and a number of other learning disabilities.

Solutions for Dyslexia:

• Research has proven that explicit, systematic phonics can actually help ‘rewire’ the brain and help dyslexic students learn to read.

• The use of the Orton-Gillingham approach can significantly compensate for the language learning and processing problems that arise from Dyslexia.

• Dyslexics score significantly higher on test when they are given additional time and given the test orally.

• Dyslexics do best when directions are two steps or fewer. They often get confused and frustrated with a long list of “to dos” or directions.

• The more important, consistent, frequent, multi-sensory, and emotionally reinforcing information is presented, the easier and more enduring language learning becomes for Dyslexics.

See Fun Facts About Dyslexia for LOTS more information and other resources: Understanding Dyslexia,  What Do You Do If You Suspect That Your Child Has A Learning Disability.

The post Signs of Dyslexia and our Journey appeared first on Karma Nelson Fitness .

Source: Faith Family

Over the past 2 years we have gone through a great deal of struggles, realization, testing, therapy, working with specialists, managing our son Pierce and his dyslexia.  When I say “I am the manager of Pierce” I mean it!  If you have a child with dyslexia, it is a full time job to 1. help encourage them to stay on task and do the things they need to do and 2. manage all the services they are or should be receiving.  Have you ever thought What is Dyslexia?  Do I have it?  Does my child have dyslexia?  What are symptoms of dyslexia?  What are signs of dyslexia?

Here are 20 Things to know about a Person With Dyslexia.  Being a faithful mom means doing the hard work to find the best solution for your child.  See more how we are managing life with a child of dyslexia and our journey HERE.  Through it all, I have found so many people just don’t realize the actual challenges kids face.  Please share!
1. They have lifestyle challenges.
Dyslexia is much more than just having difficulty reading, writing, and using numbers. They see the world in a completely different way, communicate differently, and have trouble organizing things.
Some people describe it as a lifestyle challenge, others as a lifestyle curse, because it affects almost all aspects of their lives.

2. They can seem weird.
Despite their high intelligence, and because they see so many different perspectives at once, they can appear incoherent in conversation. They can come out with strange ideas, and lack the ability to check if their thoughts are suitable for conversation. They can seem almost autistic because they’re often unaware of social rules.

3. They find details exhausting.
Because their brain is less efficient at processing letters and sounds, it has to work harder—much harder. So any time spent reading, using numbers, or focusing on details is really, really exhausting.

4. They function differently on different days.
Some days they seem to function better than others, and can appear to be improving. Other days, it’s like everything is getting worse. There’s no reason, and no pattern. It just is.

5. They are highly creative.
Their ability to view the world from all perspectives makes them highly creative. They can come up with wildly creative ideas, partly because they’re not constrained by the laws of physics, mathematical logic, or the impossible.

6. They see things that others don’t.
Like words moving on the page, or even off the page, and letters flipping about. You know how challenging it can be to read letters and numbers in captcha? Imagine reading a whole book like that. Or reading a book through a magnifying lens that a child is holding, and moving about.
They can even see the word cat more than 40 different ways.

7. They get overwhelmed by what they see.
They see so many possibilities that their thoughts can become garbled and distorted. It’s hard to sort through all that information and work out what’s important or appropriate. Without the ability to filter, this special gift becomes a tragic, confusing, disability.

8. They are more likely to have ADD.
People with dyslexia are more likely to have ADD. About 40% of people with dyslexia have ADD, and 60% of people with ADD have dyslexia.

9. They can experience thoughts as reality.
They can fully believe they’ve told you something, that they haven’t, or swear that you haven’t told them something that you have.
Often they express themselves in such a unique way that their message hasn’t come across coherently. And they may not realize that this aspect of their communication is part of their dyslexia.

10. They may not know they have dyslexia.
According to the Mayo Clinic, dyslexia can go undiagnosed for years, and may not be recognized until adulthood. This is one reason why it’s hard to calculate the number of people with dyslexia. And, unfortunately, people with undiagnosed dyslexia often label themselves as stupid or slow.

11. They think in pictures instead of words.
Not surprisingly, they tend to be highly visual, think in pictures, and utilize visual aids to help them plan and organize their lives. Rather than using self-talk, their thought processes are more subliminal. Most people with dyslexia are not even aware that they do this.

12. They will always have dyslexia.
They can learn to read and spell, but they will always have dyslexia. To make life easier, a font and a dictionary specifically for people with dyslexia are on the way.
The font is designed to avoid confusion, and add clarity, while the dictionary will favor meaning over alphabetical order.

13. They use their brain differently.
People with dyslexia don’t use their brain the same way that most of us do. Their brain underutilizes the left hemisphere—the area required for reading—and the bridge of tissue between the two sides of the brain (the corpus callosum) doesn’t function in the same way. So, their brain doesn’t always direct information to the correct place for processing.

14. They get it from their family.
Dyslexia is inherited, and most people with dyslexia have an aunt or uncle, or a parent or grandparent with dyslexia. Scientists have discovered that the DCD2 appears to be a dyslexia gene.

15. They often have low self-esteem.
People with dyslexia are just as intelligent as the rest of us. And they’re fully aware that other people can read and write much more easily than they can. So they feel stupid compared to other people.
As Albert Einstein said:
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree, it will live it’s whole life thinking it’s stupid.”

16. They have different symptoms.
Dyslexia is a tricky thing, because no two people have the exact same symptoms. Some lose things, or have poor organization skills. Some are slow at reading or have poor comprehension. Some may have difficulty organizing ideas to write, or have difficulty processing auditory information. Some also have difficulty sequencing the days of the week, or months of the year.

17. They are full of contradictions.
They may be highly aware of their environment, but appear lost. They may recognize, or read, a word on one page but be unable to recognize it on the next. Their brains are often very fast, but they appear slow, because they’re filtering through all the possibilities that they see.

18. They have great strengths.
People with dyslexia are often very good at reading people, and have great people skills. They usually have fantastic memories, and rely on them. They’re often good at spoken language, and frequently spatially talented (think architects, engineers, artist and craftspeople). They are highly intelligent, and intuitive, with vivid imaginations.

19. They can be incredibly successful.
People with dyslexia can be incredibly successful, often because of their dyslexia.
Famous people with dyslexia include entertainers like Whoopi Goldberg, Jay Leno, Henry Winkler, Danny Glover and Cher. As well as artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Tommy Hilfiger, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso.
Carole Grieder and Baruj Benacerraf utilized their dyslexia to become Nobel prize-winning scientists. People with dyslexia also go on to be writers and journalists like Scott Adams (of Dilbert), Agatha Christie, F Scott Fitzgerald, and Fannie Flagg (the author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café).

20. They can change the world.
People with dyslexia can, and have changed the world. People like George Washington, Richard Branson, Henry Ford and Stephen Spielberg have changed, and continue to change, the world we live in.
People with dyslexia are kind, creative, highly intelligent beings who are just as frustrated at their inabilities as you are. They just can’t take a break from the way their minds work.
Instead they rely on the people that love them to help them interpret the world, and to help them function in a world that’s not adjusted to their needs.
Yes, they can be frustrating to love at times, but they have incredible, unique, world-changing gifts.

With your help, maybe the person you you know with dyslexia can change the world too.

 

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Source: Faith Family