Dear Mr. Dad: There’s something going on with our nine-year old son, but it’s hard to describe. We know that he’s very smart—he reads at a high-school level, does the most amazing math calculations in his head, and is a wonderful artist. But only at home. At school, his grades are horrible, he gets in trouble a lot, is often called an underachiever, and has been diagnosed with ADHD and other learning disabilities. I always thought that being gifted and having learning disabilities were mutually exclusive. Is it possible for someone to have both?

A: The quick answer is an enthusiastic Yes! In fact, your son sounds like what some people are now calling “twice-exceptional.” And one of the biggest risks he faces is that he won’t get the attention he needs for either of his exceptional sides. Twice exceptional (2e) kids often fall through the cracks, say Diane Kennedy and Rebecca Banks, authors of Bright Not Broken: Gifted Kids, ADHD, and Autism.

According to Banks and Kennedy, a 2e kid’s disabilities may make people overlook his giftedness by getting the adults in his life to focus more on his shortcomings than his talents—in other words, to see him as a problem that needs to be fixed. At the same time, his intellectual gifts can mask his disabilities, meaning that he won’t get the help he needs to fully achieve his potential.

At the root of the problem are the words we use to describe children like your son: deficit, disorder, disability. But nearly 20 years ago, educational psychologist Bonnie Cramond did a comparison of the ways people describe the behavior of children who might be labeled as having a disability with those who might be labeled as highly creative. Aside from the words, there wasn’t much difference. For example, the ADD child is “impulsive,” while a creative child is “spontaneous.” An ADD child would be “hyperactive,” but the creative one would be “high energy.” One child is “inattentive,” while the other is “a creative thinker.” One is “oppositional,” the other is “questioning authority.” One is “unable to finish projects,” the other is “able to switch gears quickly” or “always looking for new challenges.” One “daydreams,” the other “is lost in thought.”

So what can you do? To start with, remember the old expression: “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” People in special education tend to focus on disabilities. People who work with gifted kids, focus on gifts. You need to find someone who will look at your son from all angles, someone who can encourage him to develop his talents, while helping him work on minimizing the negative effects—if any—of his “disabilities” on his life.

I’m saying “minimize the effects” because your son doesn’t necessarily need to be “cured”—he may just need to find activities (and later, a career) that make use of his gifts. Kids with Asperger’s, for example, often excel in math and science and might be happy as adults in engineering, physics, and accounting. Kids with ADD often do well in music, art, and sports and can be quite successful as emergency-room doctors, inventors, salespeople, or air traffic controllers.

It’s also very important that you and your spouse educate yourselves about different ways of thinking about learning disabilities and gifts. In addition to Kennedy’s and Banks’ book, I recommend The Power of Neurodiversity: Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain, by Thomas Armstrong. I’ve interviewed all of these authors on my radio show, “Positive Parenting.” You can listen to podcasts at mrdad.com/radio.

Dear Mr. Dad: A few months ago you answered a question from a reader whose teenager was refusing to do chores. My situation is similar, except that it’s my husband who won’t lift a finger. We both work full time, but when I come home, I usually start making dinner and getting the kids going on their homework. When my husband comes home, he plops himself down in the living room and reads the newspaper or watches TV. Fortunately, the kids set the table and clean up after meals, because my husband disappears right after dinner and goes off to check his email while I put in a load of laundry. I’m worried that my children—one boy, one girl—are going to get the wrong idea about gender roles and what a marriage is supposed to be like. How can I curb my DH’s laziness?

A: My initial thought is that a cattle prod would be an excellent investment. But that wouldn’t clear up your children’s confusion about marriage and division of labor issues.

You didn’t say anything about whether you and your husband have talked about this, but either way, that’s a critical second step. Your first step is to put together a comprehensive list of everything you, your husband, and your kids are doing for the family and how long each task takes. If he has a longer commute, puts in more hours, and spends the weekends fixing things around the house and paying bills, you might discover that he’s not quite as big a slacker as he seems to be.

Once you have your list in hand, it’s discussion time. Even assuming that the two of you put in exactly the same amount of time (including all chores), there’s still a problem: He apparently decided on his own that whatever he’s doing is enough and that you should do everything else. That may be fair in his mind—and if you count up the hours he may technically be right—but it’s obviously not working for you. The two of you need to discuss a better way to divvy up the workload. Suggest that you switch chores for a few weeks—you write the checks and take care of the leaky toilets and he does the shopping, meal prep, and laundry. This kind of role reversal tends to make people a lot more appreciative of what others are doing.

If, however, you’re doing a lot more than your husband is, you’ll need to have a different kind of discussion. Start by telling him that you’re just not able to do everything by yourself and that you really need his help. (show him the list, but stay far away from words like “lazy” and “slothful.”) If you’re lucky, he’ll say, “I had no idea, honey. I’m ashamed and I’ll change my ways right now.” Don’t hold your breath.

Unfortunately appealing to people’s sense of fairness doesn’t always produce the desired results—or it may produce them for a while until things start backsliding. If you find yourself in this spot, you’ll want to be a bit more aggressive. One thing you can do is start preparing meals that your husband really doesn’t like. If he complains, hand him a cookbook and print out a Google map of the nearest grocery store. But the most effective approach of all is a good old-fashioned strike. A few days of having to do his own laundry and eating nothing but canned tuna, and he’ll be a new man—or at least a skinnier, dirtier one.

Dear Mr. Dad: My kids, 9 and 11, spend a fair amount of time with electronic games but my husband and I insist that they spend an equal amount of time reading. They both play outdoor sports (one does soccer, the other baseball), but no matter what we do, we just can’t get them to hang around outside and have fun by themselves. Got any suggestions?

A: What you’re describing sounds like a case of Nature Deficit Disorder—a phrase coined by Richard Louv in his book, “Last Child in the Woods.” Louv says that there are significant psychological, physical, and cognitive costs to not spending adequate time in nature.

Although Louv’s phrase sounds a little alarmist—after all, the last thing parents need to worry about is yet another disorder—there’s a growing body of research that supports the idea. For example, Americans are about 25 percent less likely to visit National and State Parks than we were just 25 years ago. Our children spend less time playing outside—and a lot more playing inside—than we did at their age. They’re what one researcher calls “the backseat generation,” much less likely than we were to walk or bike to school because they’re getting driven everywhere.

When kids finally do get to play outside, they don’t get nearly the same amount of freedom to explore as we did, and playtime (including organized sports) is so highly structured and there are so many rules that all the fun of running around and exploring is sucked out.

The situation is aggravated by elementary schools—and there are plenty—that have reduced or eliminated recesses. And just a few years ago, a number of environmental groups were outraged when the publisher of the “Oxford Junior Dictionary” got rid of a number of nature-related words, such as beaver, dandelion, heron, acorn, clover, otter, and blackberry. New words have been added, though, including broadband, blog, MP3 player, voicemail, and Blackberry (with a capital B).

The good news is that play in nature—particularly unstructured play—benefits children in a variety of ways, including improving problem solving skills, increasing focus and creativity, bolstering self-discipline, reducing stress and aggressive behavior, and even increasing IQ.

So how do you get your kids outside? There are a ton of options.

• Do some research. The Children & Nature Network has compiled a huge (and growing) list of organizations, campaigns, and programs. The list (at childrenandnature.org/movement/info) will help you connect with resources in your community. Other groups, such as the Sierra Club (sierraclub.org/youth) and National Wildlife Federation (nwf.org/Kids) have programs aimed at children.
• Do some reading. There are lots of places to get suggestions for outdoor activities to do with your kids. Two recent books that I really like are “Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors,” by David Sobel and “It’s a Jungle out There! 52 Nature Adventures for City Kids,” by Jennifer Ward.
• Set a good example. Looking up from your computer to tell your kids to get out and play isn’t going to work. So put some air in your bike tires, dust off your skateboard, buy some bug repellant, get your sleeping bags and tent cleaned, put new batteries in your flashlights, and start making plans. Ease into it. Start with a five-mile bike ride or a two-hour hike before you jump into overnighters. The object is to get everyone interested in and excited by spending time outside. You may get some pushback from the kids early on, but once they get their hands dirty, they’ll love it.

Dear Mr. Dad: My toddler used to eat pretty much everything. But recently she’s become incredibly. It’s gotten so bad that I can’t get her to eat anything but mac and cheese, noodles, and rice. Is there anything I can do to get her back to a healthier diet?

A: What you’re describing is a completely normal phase for kids. And every parent has had plenty of experience with toddlers’ dramatic pronouncements about what they will or won’t eat. Let’s face it, ice cream and cake taste better than broccoli and if you didn’t know that you needed a more balanced diet, you’d probably eat nothing but dessert.

The good news is that somehow or other, most kids end up getting enough of whatever it is they need to run around like maniacs all day long. But that doesn’t mean you should let her eat nothing but the white food group. Your daughter is old enough to understand that we all need a variety of foods—fruits, veggies, protein, and yes, an occasional cookie. At the very least, she needs to develop healthy eating habits now so she can carry them with her as she grows.

Here are some ways to help her get a more balanced diet:

• Give her plenty of choices, but no Yes or No possibilities. Offering beans or peas is better than asking whether or not she wants beans.
• If you’re feeling adventurous, next time you’re at the grocery store, have her pick a fruit or veggie no one in the family has had before.
• If there’s a food she despises, like broccoli, don’t push it. Instead, choose a nutritious replacement, like creamed spinach (but you’ll probably have to call it something else than spinach).
• Kids love to dunk, so include ranch dressing for carrots, melted cheese for green beans, yogurt or peanut butter for fruit. But make sure she isn’t just licking off the dip.
• Juice contains a lot of sugar so stick with mostly water or milk. When you do serve juice, (and we all do), make sure it’s 100 percent and dilute it by adding half water.
• Insist that she tries two bites of everything—even new foods. This could be a battle at first, but if she learns it’s a firm rule, she’ll eventually get used to the idea.
• Little kids tend to prefer crunchy things. Most of the time when they reject a food it’s because of the texture, not the taste.
• If possible, visit a farm so your daughter can see where produce comes from. That might make it more interesting, especially if she can pick her own.
• It’s easy to blend healthy ingredients into a smoothie—plus it’s something your daughter can help with. Throw in fruit (fresh or frozen), yogurt, ice and perhaps a little tufu or protein powder.
• Get her involved in other food prep tasks. Baking muffins is great fun. And it gives you a chance to demonstrate that something can be delicious even if it contains carrots or zucchini.
• Swap your regular pasta and noodles for whole wheat. The cheese and tomato sauces will cover up the difference in taste. You can slip all sorts of other nutritious things into tomato sauce and most kids will down plenty of fruit if it’s in their oatmeal or cereal.
• Your daughter is watching and will eat what you do, so set a good example. And take some comfort in the fact that kids get more adventurous with age.

Dear Mr. Dad: My son loves his pacifier, but he’s almost three and my wife says it’s time for him to give it up. But when I try to take it away he doesn’t sleep and cries hysterically. What’s wrong with a pacifier?

A: The day-to-day life of a toddler can be a lot more stressful than we realize. New activities all the time, constant field trips and errands, new friends, a transition to preschool—and then someone comes along and tries to take away the one thing in life he can always count on: the binky. It sounds like your son’s pacifiers have become “transitional objects”—something (as opposed to some person) he uses to soothe himself and relieve stress. If so, it might be wise to let him keep using it until he develops other coping mechanisms.

Besides relieving a child’s stress and giving him a sense of comfort and security, there are other benefits associated with pacifier use. One of the biggest is that pacifier use seems to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The connection is so strong that the American Academy of Pediatrics actually endorses pacifier use. According to the AAP, most children break the pacifier habit on their own between ages 2 and 4. In addition, some parents (and researchers) believe that taking away the pacifier too soon may forcethe child to find a different comfort measure, like sucking her thumb or shirt sleeves, pulling her own hair, or carrying around a blankie.

That said, there are plenty of folks who believe that pacifiers shouldn’t be used after a baby’s first birthday. There’s a lot of disagreement about this, but in fairness, here are some of their reasons:

• With a pacifier in his mouth, your son may talk less and may have problems with pronunciation. Taken to an extreme level, binky use could damage his tongue and lip muscles, which in turn could delay his language development and might even cause a lisp.
• For young babies, dependence on a pacifier for sleep means they’ll wake up and need your help finding it if the thing falls out of their mouth at night.
• Newborns may have trouble learning to breastfeed properly if they get a pacifier before breastfeeding is well established.
• Although no one can say exactly why, some studies link pacifiers to increased risk of ear infections.
• Prolonged pacifier use might cause buck teeth. This isn’t an issue for baby teeth—they move back into position after a few pacifier-free months—but it could be a problem with adult teeth, which typically appear around 4-6 years. The American Dental Association and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry discourage pacifiers after age four.

The best way to settle this is to ask your son’s pediatrician and dentist (if he’s doesn’t have one, he should). If you decide to give up the pacifier, here are some strategies to try:

• Give them away (tell your son he’s giving them to babies who need pacifiers, or have him leave them under his pillow for the pacifier fairy).
• Exchange them for a toy.
• Cold turkey—just throw them away (for example, after his 3rd birthday when he’s officially a “big boy”).
• Ease the transition away from the pacifier habit by offering a reward for achieving a specified number of pacifier-free days or for giving it up completely.
• Rely on peer pressure. Surround your son with other (pacifier-free) children and he may decide he doesn’t want to be the only “baby” using a pacifier.

Dear Mr. Dad: When I was single, I hated it when noisy kids were allowed to run around in restaurants and spoil everyone’s meals. Now that my wife and I have two children, ages 4 and 6, we’d like to occasionally go out to eat with them, but we’re worried that they’ll do something to embarrass us. How do we keep them in line while we (and everyone else in the restaurant) enjoy our time out?

A: One of the most amazing things about becoming a parent is that no matter how many loud-children-in-a-restaurant (or movie theater or opera house) horror stories we have, we tend to be immune to the noise our own kids make. But other people’s kids? Well, that’s a different story.

There are some hardliners out there who say young kids shouldn’t be allowed in places where adults come to enjoy some peace and quiet. For example, just last month, McDain's Restaurant in Monroeville, PA banned kids under six from its premises, saying they’re too loud and disruptive to adult diners.

Then there are more moderate voices—like mine—that argue that children should be welcome pretty much everywhere, as long as they’re well-behaved. Although the loud, screaming, unruly brats make the biggest impression, if you think about it, you can probably remember plenty of kids the same age who were downright angelic. So in my opinion, an outright ban isn’t fair to those kids or their parents.

At 4 and 6, your children are still young, but not too young to be taught good manners and respect towards others in public places where they’ll need to be quiet. If they can follow age-appropriate rules at home, chances are they’ll be able to follow them outside of the house as well.

Here are some guidelines for you:

• Pick carefully. Make sure the restaurant you’re considering has booster seats, kids’ menus, crayons, and other distractions. Places where you know lots of families go are a good choice. Restaurants that have crystal wineglasses and white linen tablecloths, or where people go for romantic meals or business meetings are not.
• If the restaurant doesn’t provide crayons, bring your own, along with coloring books or other small toys that will keep your kids (quietly) occupied.
• Before you take your children to a restaurant, tell them it’s a special treat and let them know that you expect them to sit quietly at the table, speak in a low voice, and not run around, scream, or throw food off their plates. But don’t belabor the point, otherwise it’ll sound like a list of suggestions.
• Let them choose their own meal from a children’s menu. If you order something they don’t like, they may spend the rest of your dinner complaining about it—loudly.
• Watch the clock. Expecting overtired kids to follow rules—especially in public—is a setup for disaster (and embarrassment).
• If, despite your best efforts, your children misbehave in a way that draws complaints (or dirty looks) from people around you or the restaurant staff, get your dinner to go, and leave. You can use this opportunity to tell your children that because they didn’t obey the rules, you have to leave and you won’t be taking them out again until they can prove to you that you can trust them to behave appropriately.

Most kids love to go, out so chances are that they’ll eventually learn how to behave so that your family—and everyone else around—can enjoy what they came for: a nice, quiet meal.