“I hate to write!”

“I don't have any ideas!”

Have you ever heard your kids say those things? There can be many reasons why your child struggles with writing, including:

Poor eye-hand coordination
Fear of not expressing himself well or making errors
Frustration
Laziness
Lack of using visualization skills for creativity
And more…

If there are eye-hand difficulties, then a developmental optometrist or occupational therapist may be able to assist your child. See the difference vision therapy can have on a child with eye-hand problems:

Some kids won’t start writing because they are overwhelmed by too many ideas at once. They don’t know how to organize their ideas or use a traditional outline. One of the best ways I’ve found to get through this obstacle is to have your child use a mind mapping strategy to organize his ideas. A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. It is a great way to take notes, problem solve, and organize thoughts.

Think of the mind map as a tree. The trunk represents the main idea. The branches are the main subdivisions of facts about the main idea. For example, these branches may be representing characters, the setting or the location of the story. The leaves provide further detail about each category. If there are roots, they could represent references and research.

Here are some writing tips to move through your writer’s block:

Fear and criticism often create writing blocks—brainstorm! Visualize!
Start with short stories.
Don’t worry about spelling and punctuation as you write. Edit it later.
Audiotape yourself telling the story, listen to it, create your picture, and then write from your picture.
If you get stuck in the progression of the story, gently remind yourself to review your pictures to see what comes next.
Encourage young writers to use their own words that create pictures in their mind—this is when writing really starts to flow!
Visualize yourself successfully completing the task.
Start to flow! Be silly and have fun!

Feel free to send questions, comments or insights on your journey of transformation.