Meet the Family – June 2020

Hello! My name is Yulee Shin, and I am a mom of an 8-year-old boy, Hayden, who has the brightest smile. Hayden is a very inquisitive child who has always loved music and dance. He is a visual learner and has great spatial intelligence – he has an excellent memory on details of places and things wherever he goes. He enjoys physical education and music classes, and teachers call him ‘Happy Hayden’ because he always shares his smiles with others.

At home, he loves listening to nursery rhymes and watching kids music videos on YouTube, and he can memorize these songs and music very quickly. We also listen to music on the radio in our car rides, and it always amazes me how quickly he can sing along to songs that he’s never heard before.

Hayden is very active and easily distracted, so it’s hard for him to sit in one place for a long period of time. One of our biggest concerns is that his short attention span might progress to ADHD. Fortunately, he is making improvements and his attention span is expanding. It is frustrating for us because we don’t know how much longer we would have to maintain his progress to reach the point where he can learn without big obstacles at school. We are always looking for ways to help him improve his attention span and to help him focus better.

We were unsure of what we needed to do for Hayden when he was first diagnosed, which then we learned about CIDA. We are always grateful that CIDA provides diverse and useful information for parents and runs various programs to help children with disabilities. It would be great if CIDA offered a program where kids like Hayden who have a difficult time making friends, can play and learn with other friends of their age. Thank you.