Q: My daughter is 10 years old. She had 3 febrile convulsions, before she turned 3. As a child she would easily get irritated especially in a crowd. This has changed now and she is able to make friends easily. However, at home she gets irritated very soon when she is with her older brother. She gets angry on little things and she beats and scratches herself. She does not have a good understanding of her studies as well. She does not seem to analyse the subjects. I am afraid for her and her studies. As I need to prepare her as she matures. She is a hard worker. How can I help her? The studies are getting tougher and I don't know how will she cope up with them? Right now they have promotions on weekly evaluations. She gets a C, B+ and A, but according to me where there is analytical work, she cannot cope. Please help.

A:The febrile convulsions are a thing of past thankfully. If you feel your child is not performing scholastically well, I would like to address 2 things: first, her ability to concentrate, easy distractibility, not able to sit still, inability to complete work without supervision, complaints from school regarding talking in the class, not taking down class work, forgetting her belongings etc. These symptoms indicate an attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADHD). Secondly, if you feel her verbal skills are better than her written skills and that she gets less marks than her potential; handwriting is bad, and there are spelling mistakes etc, then she needs to be assessed for a Learning disability. If any suspicion of the above is there then you should see a child psychologist. Lastly, you should encourage her, avoid stressing her to perform upto your expectations.