One of the hardest parts of parenting is balancing the strengths and weaknesses of your children. The goal is to help everyone appreciate what they do best while helping them work on areas where they need it. This is challenging in any family, when you add in a child with special needs it takes on an additional dimension. It is easy for their weaknesses to dominate our perception of them, which can impact the family dynamic and cause a lot of internal struggle for everyone.
I had a chance to talk to CJ's teacher last week, which was good overall. She loves having him in her class and was able to talk about all his good qualities. When I asked how he was doing, she said he has his good days and his not-so-good days but he does seem to be making progress. We talked about having him do a short three-week camp in June to cut down on the time away from the structure of the classroom and also did a double-check on whether he is as prepped as he can be for kindergarten. She agreed he is as long as we have the proper behavioral supports in place for him. I left feeling like he was going to be as ready as possible for his new school in September.
As I left, however, it was hard not to compare it mentally to parent-teacher conferences for AJ, in which we generally sit around and talk about everything he does well. There are situations like this every day that highlight our struggles with CJ compared to his brothers. We haven't really focused on potty-training TR because we are still working on it with CJ and it is frustrating as much as we try not to show it. Craig and I love sports and his brothers are off-the-charts on gross motor skills, so we have a house full of balls and baskets and goals. CJ loves this also but it is another area impacted by his disability so he gets upset when he can't keep up. I love having a house full of people and CJ struggles with groups larger than 3. It's starting to feel like our family life is designed purely to bring CJ's weaknesses into clear view.
We all have a vision of our children before they are born, what they will be like and what we will do with them. Loving that vision is easy, stepping back and recognizing who they really are and then loving that reality is trickier because it demands that we be willing to adjust our expectations and perhaps reach outside our comfort zone to do the things at which they excel. This is important not just for Craig and me, however, but also for his brothers who need to see him not simply as the source of problems or frustration, but as an individual with his own strengths.
And CJ does have some wonderful strengths. He is a sweet little boy, who loves to sit and read with us. He loves music and is constantly putting his life into song, creating original tunes and lyrics throughout the day. His artistic side is strong, he already takes great pictures, and he has an amazing imagination, making up wonderful stories for everyone. He is also quite dapper and puts together some great outfits.
The key is to stop waiting for CJ to fit into our vision of what he should be and start to let him create his own. So maybe some dance classes and his own microphone. Time with mom capturing some of his stories on paper would help to record them for posterity and give him a chance to work on his fine motor skills by illustrating them (or perhaps stickers if he's not up to drawing that day). There must be some program out there to let him do some fashion designing that is less girlie than the Barbie option.
Anything that lets us focus on CJ's strengths and the joy that they bring into our lives daily is a welcome step in the right direction. Now we just have to take it.
I had a chance to talk to CJ's teacher last week, which was good overall. She loves having him in her class and was able to talk about all his good qualities. When I asked how he was doing, she said he has his good days and his not-so-good days but he does seem to be making progress. We talked about having him do a short three-week camp in June to cut down on the time away from the structure of the classroom and also did a double-check on whether he is as prepped as he can be for kindergarten. She agreed he is as long as we have the proper behavioral supports in place for him. I left feeling like he was going to be as ready as possible for his new school in September.
As I left, however, it was hard not to compare it mentally to parent-teacher conferences for AJ, in which we generally sit around and talk about everything he does well. There are situations like this every day that highlight our struggles with CJ compared to his brothers. We haven't really focused on potty-training TR because we are still working on it with CJ and it is frustrating as much as we try not to show it. Craig and I love sports and his brothers are off-the-charts on gross motor skills, so we have a house full of balls and baskets and goals. CJ loves this also but it is another area impacted by his disability so he gets upset when he can't keep up. I love having a house full of people and CJ struggles with groups larger than 3. It's starting to feel like our family life is designed purely to bring CJ's weaknesses into clear view.
We all have a vision of our children before they are born, what they will be like and what we will do with them. Loving that vision is easy, stepping back and recognizing who they really are and then loving that reality is trickier because it demands that we be willing to adjust our expectations and perhaps reach outside our comfort zone to do the things at which they excel. This is important not just for Craig and me, however, but also for his brothers who need to see him not simply as the source of problems or frustration, but as an individual with his own strengths.
And CJ does have some wonderful strengths. He is a sweet little boy, who loves to sit and read with us. He loves music and is constantly putting his life into song, creating original tunes and lyrics throughout the day. His artistic side is strong, he already takes great pictures, and he has an amazing imagination, making up wonderful stories for everyone. He is also quite dapper and puts together some great outfits.
The key is to stop waiting for CJ to fit into our vision of what he should be and start to let him create his own. So maybe some dance classes and his own microphone. Time with mom capturing some of his stories on paper would help to record them for posterity and give him a chance to work on his fine motor skills by illustrating them (or perhaps stickers if he's not up to drawing that day). There must be some program out there to let him do some fashion designing that is less girlie than the Barbie option.
Anything that lets us focus on CJ's strengths and the joy that they bring into our lives daily is a welcome step in the right direction. Now we just have to take it.
I think you have singled out the single most important thing todo with a Special Needs child. Of course CJ will excell in reading--he has an off the chart Verbal. That includes many things that you have worked on and pointed out today. But there are many things out there that he can do-poetry, music, any of the arts. So we are not dealing with a broken boy, rather we are dealing with a Special creative reading boy. A
ReplyDeletetruth that can make things easier if you are able to remember it on those Bad Days.
Love Father John