Do you think  you can help my child?  Again and again I hear this question and each time I tremble anew and wonder if i can. Do I know the answer to that question?  I know that the solution will not come from any textbook and so where do I find the answers?  By learning to be a hunter.  by looking and listening very carefully.The answers are there in the room,in the body of the child. The body has the secret and I have to wait, watch every move, listen to every word and try to interpret the language of the being before me.

D is in the last year at school and somehow managed to negotiate the system with very little reading and writing.  He has had endless help and tutoring but remained dependent on others for these basic skills.

And there he was that one morning…a beautiful human being.  If I could see auras I would have seen something magnificent, I am sure.  I could only sense the strength of this young man, his large presence and the energy surrounding him

He sat on the chair telling me about himself and the way he manages his schoolwork, without any feeling that he was less that any one else.  i could imagine all the girls in his class wanting to read and write for him.  He didn’t sit still for one minute and I was amazed to hear that he was on Ritalin.

“So how are you when you don’t  take Ritalin?” I asked.

“I am actually two people – one with Ritalin and a different one, without.  I have friends that like me with and others that like me without, but I am willing to come next week without, if you like so you can meet the other me?”

I was curious to see what his body would tell me without Ritalin.  In my head I was panning to teach him reading through moving the page.  Thinking that perhaps if the words would move, then the body would be still.  I checked  basic skills – he was reading at a grade two level and was fascinated how one can actually manage so well in this world without the ability to read.  He goes to an arts school and is a talented artist.

The next week he came without Ritalin.  We first did brain gym – physical exercises to get his right and left hemispheres working together and also to relax his body .  He sat on the chair, there was no movement, he was very quiet and calm.  I put a book in front of him and noticed that the shadows on the page, coming through the windows from the sun, disturbed him.  “Let’s change places,” I suggested.

“good idea, the sunlight really disturbs me!”  He stood by my side of the table and then asked:

“Should I stand up and read or sit down?”

My immediate inner reaction was to say “of course sit down!’  but then, I thought to myself that that was a strange question – no one has ever asked that before.  So perhaps if he was asking such a question he was also giving me the answer.

“Stand and see what happens?”

His reading amazed me  – and as always when this happens, I find myself looking for a tissue to wipe the tears away.

When he stopped  I  quietly asked “how do you feel?’

“I actually read for the first time in my life.  Only now I understand what real reading is!”

I understood that his reading was connected to the angle of his eyes – his eyes seemed to click in unison with his brain when he looked at a book only at a certain angle .

Now was detective time.  I asked him endless question.  He said that he had discovered that if he really needed to read something for himself he would lie on his back and put the book on his stomach and find a certain spot which made things clearer for him…the same angle as standing at the table.  Wow!!  so where do answers come from?  from listening, from being open to doing things differently?

Now of course the big question was how to get D reading while sitting.  We started on a series of eye exercises, rubbing acupuncture points and it took quite a few sessions before those eyes started working together and clicking into the brain while reading sitting down The big thing was of course for D to notice when his reading falters and to stop and do exercises.  The responsibility was now on him…not on the Ritalin, not on an assessment to say that  he cannot read and someone else should do it for him,but to find what he needs to do so that he can read fluently.

D was now reading.  One cannot say that he is ‘a reader’ and that he automatically will take a book in his hand and read at every opportunity.  Reading still translates in his mind as work and he has to remind himself that this is no longer so, that if he wants to he can.

The next part of his story was when he decided that even though it was his last year at school he would really like to get himself off the Ritalin.  Ad so we tried different combinations of omega-3 supplements together with Australian flower remedies.

He managed to get rid of his Ritalin need and said that not one teacher noticed that he wasn’t taking it…before teachers would immediately notice when he had forgotten his pill.  His remark was “I now feel myself – i am no longer two people – I am one person and that is me!”

One of the most exciting moments for him was when he was called up for pre-army recruitment and had to deal with pages of questions.  He was ecstatic that he wasn’t the last one to hand in his papers and even more so when he was accepted to a very elite unit.

And so the answers come sometimes just by chance.  This time it came from a ray of sunshine falling on the page and may that ray follow D all his life and show him the way.