By Understood
.
.
For Daymond John, the importance of early identification is part of his personal story.
Growing up, Daymond had a thinking difference that he was unaware of. It wasn’t until later in life that Daymond realized and learned about his own learning difference.
Hear from him as he describes how he wishes his mother had a tool like Take N.O.T.E. to help her notice signs of his learning difference early on. #LetsTakeNOTE
Learn more about Take N.O.T.E. at u.org/djtake-note
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
When I was growing up,
00:01
I had a learning and thinking difference
00:03
that I was not aware of.
00:12
Understood has developed a new tool.
00:15
And it’s a step-by-step tool called Take N.O.T.E.
00:17
If you see your child is struggling
00:19
with how to process information
00:21
or they may be learning and thinking a little different,
00:25
you may be able to now identify it,
00:28
have a conversation about it,
00:30
and also seek other professionals
00:31
that will help you with this.
00:32
I really wish when I was growing up
00:34
that my mother had access to a tool
00:36
such as Take N.O.T.E. to help identify
00:39
and figure out what was going on with me as a child.
00:41
My mother was the first to learn or to realize
00:45
and recognize that I had a learning and thinking difference.
00:49
Instead of making it feel like it was an assignment,
00:51
she would say Daymond, you know
00:52
because I have to work two jobs
00:53
and I have to get out of here,
00:55
and I have to wash the dishes and I have to cook,
00:56
I just need to know what’s going on in the world.
00:58
And my mother would make me read her the New York Times.
01:02
And I felt like I was helping my mother.
01:05
It was frustrating when you feel that you are not as good
01:12
as everybody else, or you don’t understand why they get it
01:15
and you feel inferior to people.
01:18
You try, and try, and try again.
01:19
You think that maybe you’re not trying enough.
01:29
Growing up in a marginalized,
01:31
in a black community, where my mother wanted me to go
01:34
to a more advanced school, the guidance counselor said
01:36
that I would never make it because I could barely read.
01:39
He didn’t know that I was really good
01:41
at math and science, but he didn’t care
01:42
because, you know I came from a marginalized community
01:45
that was underserved.
01:46
And then of course, growing up where other kids
01:48
can make fun of you.
01:51
People or teachers may not believe in you.
01:55
A lot of times, parents are not professional teachers
01:58
and they don’t have the patience that a teacher would have.
02:00
So my mother would often work with me
02:02
and sometimes my father would
02:03
and after parents having a hard day’s work
02:06
and they don’t really know that their child is
02:09
you know, they process information in a different way
02:11
when my father would go over my homework with me.
02:14
After three months of me not being able to spell the word
02:17
‘because’, or even spell my middle name,
02:20
or messing up the same exact words all the time,
02:24
you know, there wasn’t a diagnosis that I had dyslexia
02:28
and I was just processing information in different ways.
02:30
So he’d be extremely, extremely frustrated.
02:33
And I’d be afraid of doing homework.
02:42
It wasn’t until I was an adult
02:43
where I started to have the self-discovery
02:46
that I had these challenges.
02:48
We went from beepers that almost show my age
02:50
where it was just numbers
02:51
and the beepers to actually these things
02:53
called a two-way pagers
02:54
where we started to actually send people information
02:57
and emails out.
02:58
And often my friends would say,
03:01
what are you talking about?
03:02
I started to look into what dyslexia was
03:05
and I realized that all the symptoms,
03:08
many of the symptoms that people had, who were dyslexic,
03:12
I had the same, and I realized that I have dyslexia.
—
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
This post was previously published on YouTube.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Screenshot from video
