What your child is telling you when he says “I hate reading.”

"Often when kids say 'Reading is boring', 'I don't like reading,' they really mean 'I'm afraid I'm not good at reading.' 

Sometimes, behind this screen of 'I don't like,' 'I don't want,' is this idea that some people are good at something, some aren't, and maybe I'm not good at it. And if we teach kids that skills like reading are things that you become better at over time by doing it even it seems hard, THAT can make a really big difference. 

In general, we should teach them, hard things don't mean you're not good at something. Hard is how you get better at them. In general, we should teach them easy tasks: boring, waste of time. Hard tasks: that's when you're growing these connections in your brain and getting smarter."