Family trait? My son with dyslexia, ODD and ADHD

"Mum, I'm going to read to you?

Am I hearing this correctly? My super dyslexic son with whom I struggle every day to practise reading, spelling and flashing is going to read to me by himself?

?Oh darling please, I say. Because I too love to be read to. Even as a child, I used to sit close to my grandfather?s soft belly and listen to his warm voice reading out a Grimm fairy tale. Insane stories he made of them. Of course, I knew he added his own things to the stories but I didn't care. I could blissfully dream away on them.

My son picks up a book about knights. Because the Middle Ages are his preference. Every bit of information he hears or sees about them he absorbs like a sponge. The same with animals, and predators at that. He crawls against me and flips open the book and starts a wonderful story. I listen and enjoy. A beautiful story with all the trimmings. My amazement increases hand over hand. Is this my son? Who cries out daily, "Maham! I can't do it! My brain is playing games with me. Every letter I want to read keeps running away!?

?Ready!? he concludes the story.

?Wonderful, boy. Thank you," I say.

?Now I don't have to read tonight, huh? I've already read now.?

?After this super story, you have reading-free tonight,' I say proudly.

He jumps off the sofa, gives me a kiss, hugs the dog, screams, "Mum! There's a great tit in our birdhouse!" knocks on the windows and runs upstairs screaming.

?I'm going to play with the Playmobil knights!?

Also this is my son, 100% ADHD.

Astonished, I am left. Have I just been read to in a special way? Could he have suddenly seen the light? Has he found a way to get his brain to stop playing those games? I grab the book and look at the story.

Oh yes, broadly speaking, he just read me this story but I can't find that dragon in it, nor that huge castle with torches. The valiant knight has no squire and the king did not have anyone beheaded. Actually, the story he read out is nicer than the one in the book.

I smile, thinking of my grandfather.... Family trait?

Liesbeth

Owner of visual thinking coach LIES, teacher and mother of a son with ADHD/ODD and dyslexia