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Home > Portable Practical Pediatrics > Doc Smo’s Very Personal 2019 Holiday Message (Pedcast)
Podcast: Portable Practical Pediatrics
Episode:

Doc Smo’s Very Personal 2019 Holiday Message (Pedcast)
Category: Kids & family
Duration: 00:10:17
Publish Date: 2019-12-15 07:51:20
Description: Photo from Pixabay Images   Every child has talents. Some you might not see today...but they are there, rest assured. One of the many jobs you have as a parent, is to recognize those interests and talents and maximize your child's chance of capitalizing on them. In today's pedcast, I am going to get very personal and show you how this worked out in my life, with the hopes that my story may be helpful to your family. Musical Introduction The Doc Smo Story -The Elementary Years I was born into a middle class family, being the third of four children. I was the only boy however, which definitely worked to my disadvantage in my early years as you are about to see.  I also had the poor fortune of being born late in the calendar year and starting first grade at four years of age. Another strike against my success. My two sisters were excellent students and made getting great grades look easy. Of course, each year, when I encountered many of the same teachers as my sisters, I would get the comment, "Oh, you are Peggy and Sally's brother". Well, I learned to recognize what that comment really meant- we will expect big things from you academically. You have big shoes to fill. Unfortunately, my feet were much smaller than theirs as I quickly found out. My elementary years were filled with academic angst. I passed each year with acceptable grades but with many struggles. My reading was particularly troublesome and some of my worst memories of school were reading aloud in front of the class, a practice that was very in vogue during my childhood. I think the teachers thought that if they humiliated me enough, my reading would improve. Unfortunately, this strategy didn't work for me. It just gave me great anxiety about public reading and speaking. I am sure that in today's world, I would have had a diagnosis like dyslexia or a reading disorder- but not in the 1950's. All it got me then was daily humiliation. In addition to having difficulty reading, I recall a lot of talk about my fidgeting and having trouble sitting still. My father seemed to be particularly troubled by this fidgety trait of mine, to the point that he offered me $5.00 if I could sit totally still for one minute without moving. Five dollars! That's the equivalent of $45 in today's world. Sadly, I never got that $5.00. No, my elementary story sounds a lot like a child who would carry a diagnosis of ADHD and a reading disorder in today's world. Doc Smo Story-The Middle School and High School Years But that was elementary school. I started off middle school grouped with the lowest achieving students, section 1 out of a total of 14. Rock bottom. But something happened during the summer of my 7th grade. I discovered that my house was full of interesting books and my reading was getting good enough that I could actually read and understand them.  Thanks goodness my parents bought books! James Mitchener, Kurt Vonnegut, and Phillip Roth started to become my friends. My math skills had always been good but now when I hit the 8th grade, my reading skills were starting to catch-up. By ninth grade, I was actually taking English classes with the big dogs, the brainiacs in my school. By the time I finished high school, I was taking many of the advanced classes, especially in the sciences. I had achieved a lot of catching-up but I was by no means, at the top of the class. I still wasn't my sisters, but I was closing in. Doc Smo-The College Years Then came the transition to college. I'll never forget my high school counselor talking about my college choice, advising me not to go to Duke University even though I had been admitted. He bluntly told me I would fail. The reality was that I had probably been admitted because I had been the captain of my high school tennis team and we had been state champions during my tenure.  I had a lot of grit on the court and a wonderful backhand.  Fortunately, I chose to ignore my college counselor's advice and matriculate with al...
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