“Roses are beautiful, but they have thorns”
My little sister is 17 years younger than me. Yeah, I could literally be her mom.
I was away at college when she was born, studying abroad in London. The first time I met her was at our grandfather’s funeral when she was just a month old—this tiny little thing being passed around by relatives.
Back then, I thought babies were annoying. But she was drawn to me from day one.
When I was studying in the UK and broke my ankle, she and my mom came to visit. Because of jet lag, she’d wake up super early, but instead of crying and waking everyone up, this 6-year-old would quietly go to my dorm kitchen and start cleaning. Six years old.
During her visits when she was 8 or 9, I’d take her and other kids around London in my car. Kids being kids, they’d get loud and restless, so I’d point to random things—a blue bird, a red car, a streetlight—and have them take turns making up stories.
The other kids would say a sentence or two and run out of steam. But my sister? Her stories were always the most imaginative and logical. She’d weave these incredible tales that made perfect sense.
But the moment I mentioned studying or homework, her face would just… fall.
The struggle was real
In elementary school, her grades sucked. My parents, having her so late in life, had this “eh, if she’s not book-smart, whatever” attitude. They figured one academic kid in the family (me) was enough.
But here’s the thing—my sister was incredibly hardworking. She cared so much about what others thought and was terrified of not finishing assignments or disappointing teachers.
From first grade, she’d study until 10 PM every night. When I was in first grade, I was probably done with homework in 30 minutes and off playing. She spent hours every single day, getting tutoring, doing extra work.
Before starting school, she was this confident little kid. She’d march into my mom’s office announcing, “The CEO is here! The CEO is here!”
But once school started? She became quiet, withdrawn. That spark was just… gone.
I could see it in her face—this constant blank expression, like the life had been drained out of her. When I’d try to compliment her on other things she was good at, she’d just respond with, “Well, my grades still suck.”
It broke my heart because I knew she was smart. This wasn’t an intelligence problem—something else was going on.
The lightbulb moment
During my sophomore year, I was taking developmental psychology, and one of my professors was this big-name researcher in dyslexia. So when I came home and my mom asked me to help my sister with English, I started paying attention.
I made her a simple chart: He/She/It and their corresponding pronouns. Explained it a million times. She. Could. Not. Remember.
What/Where/When questions? She’d never know which was which. Words starting with “th”? Complete confusion.
Writing the alphabet, she’d write everything backwards—mirror image. And I realized: that’s literally how she sees letters.
The Chinese was trickier to spot because she wasn’t writing mirror characters, but the problems were there. If I asked her to make a sentence with “beautiful,” she could say out loud: “The rose is stunning, red as fire, but it has thorns—you have to be careful.”
But when she had to write it down? “Roses are beautiful, but they have thorns.” That’s it.
This led to barely passing grades, usually bottom three in her class. For big exams, she’d kill herself studying and manage 70-80%, but then forget everything immediately after. She was memorizing through pure force, not actually learning.
She could recite texts perfectly from memory, but if I pointed to a random sentence, she had to guess what it said based on memorization. A word she’d learned in one lesson? Completely unrecognizable on the next page.
Math problems were painful to watch. She’d copy a problem and miss a term. I’d say “check it again,” and she’d look at it five times and still not see the error. This wasn’t carelessness—this was something neurological.
But my parents? They refused to see any problem. They were in that “we’d rather make our kid work 100 times harder than admit she needs help” camp.
Fighting the system
When she was in second grade, I literally went to her school and had it out with her teacher.
She’d been trying to memorize the English alphabet for a year and still couldn’t do it. The teacher’s brilliant solution? Call her up in front of the class to recite it and humiliate her when she couldn’t.
I told him, “Look, I think my sister has dyslexia. Could you maybe not put her on the spot like this?”
His response? “What reading disorder? I studied psychology and I’ve never heard of dyslexia.”
I lost it. “What kind of fake-ass school did you go to that you don’t know what dyslexia is?!”
I made my mom go to the principal. My demands were simple: Don’t make her do homework she can’t complete, don’t announce her grades publicly, and don’t call on her in class to embarrass her.
Basic stuff, right? The school couldn’t help much, but they could at least stop traumatizing her.
Eventually, the teacher stopped reading grades aloud. But teachers have a million ways to punish kids—my mom later found out my sister had been moved to the seat that got hit with chalk dust all day.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Years later, she casually mentioned being hit with books and called “stupid” by teachers. But she’d rationalize it: “At least I didn’t get it as bad as some kids.”
The breaking point
By middle school, the pressure was unbearable. After a year of struggling in a “good” school, my sister wrote a suicide note that my mom found.
She wrote that she couldn’t do anything right and didn’t see the point of living.
That’s when my parents finally realized this was serious.
I was living in Beijing by then, starting my own business. Bringing her to live with me was a no-brainer—what’s one more person at the dinner table?
I enrolled her in an international school with actual dyslexia support. But first, I had to educate the teachers. Instead of just talking, I showed them videos simulating what dyslexia looks like—how a ‘d’ becomes a ‘b’, how letters flip and reorganize themselves before the brain can process a simple sentence.
Once the teachers got it, everything changed.
The Chinese teacher let her type her essays instead of handwriting them. Since typing doesn’t rely on letter shapes but on sounds, she could write fluently for the first time. The teacher was amazed—this was completely different from her usual work.
For the first time, my sister felt confident expressing herself in Chinese. That confidence carried her so far that when she took IB classes, she chose the hardest level of Chinese literature. Honestly, I could read those texts and not understand half of what they were talking about.
She didn’t get the highest grade in that class, but she didn’t care. She genuinely loved literature and storytelling, and she was willing to sacrifice getting into a better university to pursue what she was passionate about.
The real breakthrough
The international school environment was perfect for her. No one cared if you just met the basic requirements—that got you a 6. If you wanted higher scores, you had to do extra research and go above and beyond.
This was perfect for my sister, who was naturally self-disciplined. Except for Chinese and one or two other subjects, she consistently scored 7s or higher. The older she got, the better her grades became.
She finally had space to show what she was really capable of. People with dyslexia often have incredible creativity, and sometimes I’d just be blown away by her ideas.
Give her a few simple circles, and she’d explain how different parts represented gender inequality, while others symbolized various philosophical concepts. Stuff I never would have thought of in a million years.
For market research projects, she’d think about user needs on a completely different level. Like when they had to design an automatic feeder for stray cats, she traced the root cause of why cats die in winter—they don’t have access to flowing water, which they prefer over stagnant water.
Starting from that insight, her team designed a system with filtration and electric heating, then upgraded to solar power to be more sustainable.
At this school, she was obviously much happier and more outgoing. I finally relaxed.
Later, we had her IQ tested. 139. For context, Mensa membership requires 148. When she found out, she was thrilled—I think it was the first time she truly believed in herself.
Watching her at school events, seeing her laugh and joke around with friends, completely carefree—it was like seeing a different person from that withdrawn kid she used to be.
The plot twist
Just when things were going great with my sister, I had my own daughter. And wouldn’t you know it—she started showing similar signs of dyslexia.
Having been through this before, I was on high alert. When she was 5 or 6, I took her to get evaluated in the UK. When the diagnosis came back, I thought, “Are you kidding me? This is happening to my family AGAIN?”
But this time, I knew what to do.
I sat my daughter down and explained: “You’re different from other kids—you have dyslexia. But you’re also really smart. You just need different methods to learn.”
My ex-husband and I are both pretty academic, and before the diagnosis, I was planning to push her academically. But once we knew? Immediate pivot.
“Okay, dyslexia means we’re not taking the traditional route. We’re going to the most chill international school we can find.”
We started intervention when she was 6. Some of the methods are actually fun—like listening to a sentence and jumping on numbered floor tiles to match the number of words. For a little kid, it’s basically playing games.
She gets positive feedback constantly, loves the process, and doesn’t resist learning at all.
The bigger picture
Intervention isn’t a quick fix—it takes time. This year, her teacher mapped out all the challenges, including confusing consonant combinations in English. The plan calls for 680 minutes of targeted training per week.
But here’s the frustrating part: China doesn’t have comprehensive intervention systems, especially for Chinese characters. I don’t want my daughter to lose connection to her own culture because she can’t read Chinese.
There’s a professor at Beijing Normal University working on Chinese-specific methods, starting with pictographic characters since the shape-meaning connection is easier for dyslexic kids.
I’ve started sharing our journey on social media, hoping to help other families. I run a parent support group with about 100 people. When I recommend a website or book, parents try the methods and often see improvement within a month.
Sometimes I get kicked out of other parenting groups for sharing “academic stuff.” But I’m not selling anything—the methods are just there, and some people refuse to look. Some even choose to medicate their kids, which does absolutely nothing for dyslexia.
ADHD kids disrupt class, so teachers and parents notice quickly. Dyslexia is invisible, often hidden by anxiety. Many schools are dangerously labeling learning difficulties as “lazy and stupid,” which can lead to bullying.
But here’s what people don’t realize: dyslexic kids often become artists and entrepreneurs. They’re naturally more sensitive and intuitive than others.
I believe every child has the potential to be brilliant. It just takes enough patience and love from their family.
The takeaway
If your child struggles with reading and writing, don’t assume they’re not trying hard enough. Imagine if your kid was nearsighted, and instead of getting glasses, you kept telling them to “look harder” and “be more careful.”
That’s basically what we do to dyslexic kids when we don’t provide intervention and support.
These kids need their “glasses”—they need different methods, not more pressure.
Trust me, with the right support, they can achieve just as much as any other kid. Sometimes even more.
This story is based on interviews with Roy, a cognitive neuroscience graduate student living in Beijing, who advocates for dyslexia awareness and intervention.
