Talking to your child about psychoactive drugs is crucial, preferably before they are exposed to drugs or people who use them.

• As a parent, what you say matters.

• Check with the school to see what your child is being taught about drugs.

• Having the drug conversation can be difficult, but using the checklist provided will make it easier and more successful.

This chapter focuses specifically on types of emotional coping techniques that students with dyslexia may want to employ to help with overcoming negative emotion in association with their studies. Admittedly, whilst many cognitive techniques presented up to this point in the book, do help to alleviate negative emotion such as anxiety, particularly through use of organisation, preparation, and rehearsal, dyslexic learners need additional methods to supplement these techniques as ways to help them to cope more effectively emotionally. As such, this chapter presents a range of productive emotional coping methods, as used by dyslexic learners that readers may want to consider as mechanisms for helping to deal with negative emotion. These include developing metacognition by identifying anxiety triggers, using cognitive restructuring to alter the inner critic, talking to someone; planning and using strategies; implementing breaks; participating in exercise; seeking comfort; and using mental resilience, such as persistence and determination.

Chapter 7 discusses how trust can emerge in the general citizenry. Engaging with Danielle Allen’s iteration of “political friendship” and its critics, this chapter argues that a division of labour between the practices of “talking” and “shouting back” among the underprivileged, the oppressed, and their allies can counteract the social domination problem. Shouting back (aggressive civic disruption) makes it harder for the privileged and the dominant to claim ignorance about the persistence of injustices, while talking can promote trust between the underprivileged, the oppressed, and their allies on the one hand and “unwitting oppressors” and “softer complicit oppressors” on the other hand. Distinguishing among forms of talking, this chapter shows that the practice and revision of good manners should be the primary vehicle to cultivate trust. In addition, this chapter argues that allies should strive to “listen well” – to afford the underprivileged and the oppressed a sense of recognition when such recognition is all too rare, and to discourage unwitting oppressors and softer complicit oppressors from aligning politically with “harder complicit oppressors” and “proud oppressors.”