Schuyler is growing up so quickly, and while I know that's something that every parent feels, I'm not sure they all feel it with quite the fear that I do. Well, perhaps they do at that. In just a few weeks, Schuyler will turn eleven, although just typing that word feels wrong under my fingers. Eleven? That's impossible. Babies aren't eleven. Don't be stupid.
Becoming the young woman that she is to be one day means letting go of the little girl she has been, and that's difficult, for Schuyler and, I suppose, for me as well. Lately it seems like there's been too much change, too many pieces of a childhood to put away at one time, too many grownup truths to face at once. Some of those truths are especially hard for me, the ones about myself and my own shortcomings in particular. It hasn't been an easy time lately.
The day after Thanksgiving, and on my birthday even, Schuyler received a rude awakening into a part of adulthood that has been particularly troubling during my own life. Out of nowhere, she suddenly began to cry, and hard. She indicated that a tooth was bothering her, and pointed to a part of her mouth where one of her baby teeth had been signaling its intent to jump ship for some time. But when I looked in her mouth, I instantly identified the problem, not with the baby tooth but rather with the permanent molar behind it. My stomach tightened when I saw it.
About half the tooth was missing. I was looking at the tissue inside the tooth.
So it was that after a night of Tylenol and lots of tears and Orajel, Schuyler experienced her very first root canal. I have to say, she was a total champ about it. There were some tears, but nothing hysterical. I sat next to her while she had it done, holding her hand the whole time, and while I don't think she had a great time, she was surprisingly resilient about the whole thing. We even had some fun laughing and taking pictures as one side of her face stopped working. But yeah, a ten year-old getting an emergency root canal. There have been a lot of little-girl-growing-up experiences we've been bracing ourselves for. This one caught us completely by surprise.
That surprise has been reverberating, too. Even with dental insurance, the crown is going to cost us a lot, and we were still trying to figure out how to get caught up as it was. That tooth is going to make for some changes around here, that much is clear. In the short term, we're going to become a one car family for a while. I simply can't make payments on my stupidly excessive car and still purchase The World's Fanciest Tooth. So we face some new realities, ones that plenty of families face, and I'm sure we'll get through it okay.
There's a hard truth to face. I'm not providing for my daughter the way I should. I have a good job, one that I'm frankly lucky to have, but I don't make enough money and I don't see any prospects for making more any time soon. We've been living an existence where one bad medical emergency (like, say, an emergency root canal) could torpedo us. It was only a matter of time, I guess.
Anyway, we'll make it, because that's what people do when things get tough. But the whole thing has amplified that nagging feeling I have. No, I'm going to just say it. It's not a feeling, it's a fact, one that I've stated on a number of occasions.
I'm failing Schuyler. I don't fail her for lack of trying; I like to imagine that there aren't many fathers who try harder than I do. But trying isn't succeeding, and the sinking feeling that I'm just not doing well enough for her has been threatening to overwhelm me. I don't see it as a result of depression. I see it as my ability to recognize an ugly fact. I don't feel like a very good father these days. I don't even feel like an adequate one.
Schuyler's been having issues at school, and I just don't know how to help her. She continues to fall behind her classmates, and it breaks my heart. Tomorrow she has a test in her mainstream class, a science test on matter, and we've been trying to study for it with her. But it is just so far beyond her. Last night, I sat down with her and went over the material, and while she understood solids and liquids and gases, the movement of particles and the basics of mass and volume, all of the rest of it, she just couldn't get a handle on it.
It was frustrating, for us both. As I keenly felt my own inability to teach her, at the same time I could see the look in her eyes. It was that sad, frustrated expression that she gets when she becomes aware, all over again, that she has troubles that her classmates do not, that she is broken in ways that sometimes manifest themselves at unexpected times.
I asked her if she understood any of it. She hesitated before admitting that no, she really didn't. And then I did something that I am deeply ashamed of, and yet given the same moment in time to do over again, I would probably do again. I gave up. I told her to do her best, and I put the materials away. I know it was exactly the wrong thing to do, but her frustration and my own failure were too much for either of us to process. It's not normally how I respond, but I don't know, it had just become too much. A day later, it still feels like too much. And while I know it was really hard for her, I think what I really mean is that it had become too much for ME. I'm deeply ashamed to admit that, but it's absolutely true.
Some of the most significant problems she's having are social, and they reflect on just how hard it has been and continues to be for her to let go of her childhood behaviors. Schuyler is a very loving little girl, and probably due to her nonverbal beginnings, she is very physically demonstrative as well. I always used to dread the day when her enthusiastic physicality would cease to be cute to the rest of the world, and I think that day is probably here. She is putting off her classmates, she touches them and hugs them and gets in their business until they feel smothered, and they push her away. Her teachers talk to her about it, probably daily, and we re-enforce the message as best as we can, but it's hard to convey that she can be that loving little girl at home, but not so much at school, where she will soon, very very soon, leave the protective shelter of elementary school for the Mad Max gladiator ring of middle school.
Schuyler is having to learn to leave a good, right part of herself behind, and it's hard for her. She needs to harden, she needs to put up some walls, and I am failing miserably at teaching her how. It's funny, too, because I certainly have no difficulty in putting up those walls for myself.
But I'm not her. I'm not good like her. I don't have the faith in a mean world that she has, a faith that she has somehow hung onto and nurtured her whole life, in spite of the many opportunities she's had to learn otherwise. She looks at the world and sees friends and sisters, and that doesn't change even as the people around her disappoint her time and time again. I don't know how to teach her to see people differently. I don't know how to take a thing about her that feels like an absolute good and squash it into a box.
I don't know how to teach her to let go of that.
32 comments:
As usual I think you are too hard on yourself. Maybe in some ways it helps me because my children, including my 6 yr. old daughter with intell. disabilities, are all adopted. Often I feel like "Lord, I don't know if I am cut out to be a good mom for her!!" But I can honestly say before me she had no mom for quite a few years and even at my worst I provide a lot of consistency and love compared to no mom!!
This actually does apply to you too. So many parents of typical kids, let alone kids with SNs, are not involved and don't fight for their kids, attend concerts, go to P/T meetings, etc. Sure you feel inadequate at times, but really you and Julie are doing a darn good job!!
Anyway, thanks for sharing, as always. I can totally relate to your concerns about Schuyler's physical demonstrative-ness (?) as my Holly is much the same and doesn't know a stranger. Scary in today's world!!
Carrie T. - mom to 4 from Korea
PS - ok, I read back through this and it sounds like I am saying "hey, you and I may not be perfect parents, but we could be worse!" ARGH!! That isn't really what I mean, but I guess I mean we are trying our best. We have successes and failures, but we keep getting up and trying. Kudos to us!
I can so identify with this post for both of my kids for some or all of the same reasons. My son, acting childish a whole year older than his classmates and struggling to hold on at modified work, and my girl who acts the same as she did when she was 5, which was 4 years ago.
I understand. I understand. I fear that hard way your girl and my kids will have to learn.
I am sorry that you are dealing with these emotions and thoughts -- I can definitely emphasize but feel powerless to convey to you that there will be moments to come when you will realize that you are NOT failing your daughter. I'm not sure how and why these moments come, but they do. The weight will lift --
I know my suggestion will sound exhausting, but I think that maybe you could approach it differently - instead of building a wall, try to get the school to help you build Schuyler's community. Recently there was an article in the Atlantic about the first first child diagnosed with autism. What struck me is that the reporter was continually warned by the man's community that they were looking out for him, implying of course, that the reporter might not be. Schuyler needs that kind of community, one that claims responsibility for her.
My daughter's school was doing "Roots of Empathy" in the effort to instill empathy in 5th graders. I think it was worth doing. I think it made the kids think more about how they interacted with people. How many of Schuyler's classmates know what the monster is and the ways that it makes life tough for Schuyler? Do they know how to be friends with Schuyler? Are there social cues that Schuyler could learn that might help her communicate better?
I think for something like this to work, you need the support of counselors and teachers as well as Schuyler herself. There is the exhausting part, coordinating that.
I'm reading this and I sound preachy, and I don't mean to be. But I have seen what a good teaching staff can do to influence the social life of kids, and it can be powerful. I hope you can figure something out that works for Schuyler.
I wonder, if you feel you are failing, how do you define success? If it's financial security in an economy that punishes everyone not born into the upper class, it seems like you're taking an awful lot of blame for something I'm not sure is within your control.
If you define success as loving your child unconditionally, doing the best job you can, being honest with yourself, and inspiring a whole lot of other people with your writing, then I think you're doing a pretty good job.
I read a beautiful post the other day that sums this up much better than I can; it's worth a read:
http://kwomblescountering.blogspot.com/2010/11/wherein-lies-value-perspective.html
She's only 11!
Look, I applaud you for your honesty and introspective abilities but any parent who doesn't think they are failing their child on some level is either too dumb to realize or doesn't even try.
It's a path isn't it? Or do you purport to know the ending already? Does it matter? The path is what's important.
Question: how is it that you think to be able to teach her to put up walls? When her very being is about lacking those walls? I don't know your daughter of course, but this seems putting the focus in the wrong place.
From following your blog I surmise (everyone is entitled to an opinion, no?) that she will always have certain social issues. While you will work to see how you can attenuate behaviour to minimize stress to your daughter, she will be different no matter what, no?
How does that equate to you failing? Feeling guilty are we?
You said letting the studies go was the wrong thing to do, I disagree.
My daughter struggles at school, gets frustrated, very frustrated, yet pulls out A's. Because she has this drive, it comes from her: but if she has no inclination to study, like my oldest son, then I would say to her at least try. Choosing the approach that suits the child.
Isn't it about trying? Or is it about getting results? Your priority in this matter is what determines to some extent her level of frustration.
Working harder, may lead to more frustration, perhaps there is a need to ease up on the reigns, "I'm just saying".
I learned the painful lesson that the world didn't want my affection even earlier than that -- it was taught, if not assimilated until later, from the start of grade 1 with rejection from my peers. Eventually, years later, I was able to make friends my own age, and able to express that affection again and have it received and even returned in kind. I hope that Schuyler will never entirely lose her tendency to be outgoing and affectionate, until she comes out the other side of the most awkward age for social growth, and is able to find a community of like-hearted individuals who can appreciate it.
One bad medical emergency torpedoed us last month. I feel for you...
Rob & Julie,
I haven’t written since you moved to your present location, but I have been a faithful reader of the blog and book. Many of the teacher candidates in the College of Education where I teach have read your book and blog ---- we love the video of Schuyler ordering lunch at the Purple Cow.
I will echo the comments above. Parenting a child with any disability is difficult on many days, but sprinkled with moments of joy and happiness. Building a community for her will help with all of the transitions that come to us throughout our lives. I worked for 25 years as a transition specialist in a public school before I moved to teaching at a university. One idea you need to embrace (my professional opinion, based on my professional experience) is that you do not need to be the only source of Schuyler’s strength. You do not need to know everything or be everything --- that is part of the letting go process. There are others out there to help you and Schuyler. Below are two national organizations that have local clubs that can be a huge help to all three of you; even if you have to start the local organization yourself --- with much help and support from the national group. But I bet you will find other parents and caring folks in TX to help you.
One organization that is available to help you and Schuyler is Best Buddies. You can get more information @ http://www.bestbuddiestexas.org/site/c.hhKSIXPBIqE/b.1381361/k.3E53/WE_ARE_BEST_BUDDIES8482.htm I have been involved with this organization in my state and they are a first-class group founded by one of JFK’s nephews (name escapes at the moment).
In addition, you might ask the middle school special education teachers about forming a “Circle of Friends”. More information available @ http://www.circleofriends.org .
These groups will help with social skills and lots of activities involving all kinds of kids. They can help Schuyler grow and live in ways that parents simply cannot do and would not do for a typically developing child.
As always, wishing all of you the best ---- and Happy Holidays.
I don't think you're failing Schuyler; it's more a case of the world failing her. You've been her advocate from day one. The fact that her school is not doing its best to help her isn't your fault.
A good education shouldn't come with a high price tag but it does. Schuyler could probably benefit from a committed private school with small class sizes ad teachers who insist that the students treat each other with understanding ad respect. Such places exist; my two sons graduated from such a school and my daughter, now 16, still goes there. It is a wonderful place but, unfortunately, the tuition is almost $20,000 a year.
One ray of hope is that such schools offer scholarships. You might look into that..
The same goes for summer camp. Schuyler would probably LOVE to go to camp and meet friends who "got" her.
There are a lot of options out there and I know you'll keep fighting for Schuyler. I hope you're able to get her out of that school before she becomes discouraged and miserable.
I could never pretend to know more than the surface details of your lives, but as a distant interwebs stranger, I do think you are being too hard on yourself.
Particularly with the schoolwork: you've written before about the difficulty of acknowledging that Schuyler's academic success might not be as good as you hope. Of course you want to keep your expectations high, but realistically, you could also cause her to suffer if you pushed her too hard to learn something she is having trouble to absorb. I think you acted in that moment to walk that fine line.
I also agree with another commenter that to blame yourself for a lack of economic success, in these troubled times, is taking on too much. Or, for that matter, the social issues that would agonize and challenge any parent.
This post reminds me of the saying that perfection is God's business. Not that I'm getting religious on you, but one doesn't have to believe in a god to accept that no human being is capable of perfection and that it is deeply stressful and impossible to expect that of ourselves. I know you've written in the past about being subject to depression and you've sound very deeply depressed in your recent posts. Given your situational stressors it would be ridiculous to expect happy smilies and exclamation points, but you are beginning to sound more "owned" by those feelings than in other past posts. I hope you manage to fight back against that dark tide.
I wish your family all the best.
I'm sorry you are struggling with the current feelings, Rob. I don't purport to know what it's like to be Schuyler's father any more than I think anyone else can truly know what it's like to be Nik's mother. But...I think it's especially "normal" for us all to have feelings of failing our children, broken or not, at varying points in our lives. I find this to be especially true for myself whenever we are a t some transitional point such as a new school or changes in expected patterns/behaviors. I also find that my physical health has so very much to do with my outlook and my ability to cope.
I hope, in the midst of all this tremendous stress and anxiety, that you can find a way to regain perspective and maybe look ahead at the inevitable changes coming Schuyler's way and find the ways in which you are a tremendous and vital support. Find the ways in which your role needs to shift as well.
No matter what, I wish you peace of mind and a renewed sense of accomplishment as the incredible person you are.
I wonder if Schuyler would understand the social stigma of being touchy-feely if she saw someone else being rejected for it, or if she observed the difference in physical demonstration among kids of different ages. Maybe some people-watching at the mall? Depending on her interest level and attention span, you could do a little experiment where you observed the amount of physical space between individuals when the individuals are very young, her age, and slightly older than her. Maybe it would help her to understand that people tend to go through a change in their demonstrativeness as they age, (and it's a real shame that it is that way.)
I've found parenting to be a really tough journey even with child who doesn't have any special needs. It's very easy to beat ourselves up and feel awful about failing. Parental guilt is very real.
But I feel like you do such a great job. You are so introspective about Schuyler and you are so involved with everything in her life.
Even so-called "normal" kids have a hard time growing up and get picked on for clothes or anything. I just read this great poem yesterday on Garrison Keiler's website:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/12/06
It broke my heart. We all want to protect our children from stuff like this but what can we do? It happens. They will have to develop their own means to deal with it. All we can do is love them and help them as much as we can.
The holidays are here - as much as it's supposed to be a special time of year for me it just always seems more stressful. Hopefully you can give yourself the gift of forgiving yourself. We are all imperfect people and imperfect parents. You are doing the best you can - that's all you can do.
I am not a parent, so I can't really relate to that part of your struggle, and I know there's nothing I can really do to help you, but reading this makes me wish that I could.
What I can tell you is that all you can do is the best you can, just as you told your daughter. You're doing a lot more than a lot of parents out there. I have a friend who is hosting some foster children and is a social worker by trade, and some of the things she tells me about the children she's met break my heart. The important thing is that you are there.
Growing up, my dad worked full time and didn't feel up to helping my sister and I with our homework, so that task fell to my mother. I never blamed my dad for not being the one to help me with that- he did other things that meant more to me, especially as a teenager- driving me to my friends' houses and picking me up from school. I know my parents struggled with money when I was a kid, and I knew it then. It was hard sometimes, but I never felt any sort of resentment toward my parents- I knew they were doing the best that they could.
The funny thing about the father-daughter bond- even though my mom was much more present in my childhood and did a lot more of the day to day parenting than my dad- there is no one on this earth that I respect more than my dad. I am 35 and married, and my dad has always been and always will be my hero. He's my hero because he is who he is, flaws and all. I love him for both his strengths and his weaknesses. If he were perfect, and if things would have been perfect when I was growing up, I probably would understand a lot less about people and life than I do now. (Not that it is possible to understand it all!)
So no matter what, and even though I don't know you or your family personally, I know that when your daughter is looking back on her childhood as an adult, you'll be a hero to her too. You are her hero now, too.
Hang in there.
How can I adequately prepare my children for the unknown future when I can't even understand how to help them deal with the day-to-day crises? My son is a year away from graduating high school, and after years of trying to help him develop empathy for and understanding of others, he continues to live in his own little world, unable to discern the subtleties of body language or the nuance of humor, unable to form friendships outside the narrow focus of his own particular obsessions, and perpetually on the edge of an emotional breakdown. Was there failure on my part? I will believe it til the day I die - but in the meantime, I will provide him with a place where he always feels loved and appreciated for who he is. If the world does not accept and embrace him, he will always have a home with us.
I think this is just another face of Schuyler's monster. It's going to take some time, as it always has, to determine what she can do and what she can't, and work out what your goals should be as a family. As always, though, I think Schuyler has emotional reserves that you don't have. She may not be able to put up the same walls you live behind, but she is likely to find her own way of dealing with the emotional fallout of adolescence, something that comes from within her and can't be taught to her.
I think putting the studying aside is the right choice, sometimes. I think it's important for kids--particularly kids with challenges--to be allowed to suck at things, sometimes. My 2-yr-old son only has one hand, and sometimes he pushes himself to find creative ways to do things that normally take two hands, and sometimes he flips out and screams and throws things...I think those are both perfectly valid emotional responses, even though it's my job to keep pushing him to improve his motor skills. But sometimes he just needs me to say "it's ok, let's play with something easy, you're fine the way you are." I think that's what you did for Schuyler by setting the studying aside.
Also, something my Dad said to me a long time ago that helps a lot when I'm having money trouble: money is not morals. Being broke, or poor, is a logistical challenge, and a burden, but it's not a moral failure.
Rob, I'm sorry you're going through such a rough time. Your last sentence makes me so sad. The idea of having to squash the person she truly is into a little box, so she fits with everyone else. She shouldn't have to. No kid should. We shouldn't have to put up walls to survive the school experience, though I'm pretty sure most of us do. I mentioned homeschooling to you after a post you made at the beginning of the school year and I know you said it's not for you, but I'm mentioning it again. I'm coming from that perspective so I just can't help it. I'm not trying to be jerk. Even if you can't homeschool Schuyler, maybe you can find some people in that community with kids her age. My son is only two but I do know a few families that homeschool and my best friend since childhood was homeschooled as well and I really believe that kids are able to hold on to more of who they really are when they are allowed to just be. Conformity blows!
I think "just do the best you can" is excellent advise, because that's all you can ask of her--her best effort. If she's studied for the test to the point of frustration for both of you, a little positive support and a good night's sleep probably did her better than another 2 hrs of particles vs. whatever.
Go to theRSAorg channel on YouTube and watch the latest
Video by Ken Robinson on changing education paradigms
11 is a tough age with girls, no matter whether they deal with monsters or not. It is tougher with girls who miss social cues or are obviously "different." But girls generally are at their cruelest to other girls between 11 and 13 and it gets better if you can get them through those years.
As for the feeling of failure you feel at times, my children are grown and generally doing well and yet I have it from time to time. I have learned that parents often wonder if they are failing their children. I did so with my "normal" child and with my child with difficulties, just in different ways and at different times. It goes with the territory.
But perfection is not possible. It is not even necessary. I have no doubt that you enrich Schuyler's life and I have no doubt that Schuyler knows it.
I can understand how you feel. I feel it constantly---that I am not doing enough for Janey, that I am not a good advocate for her, that I don't have the money to get her the help she needs...Guilt is my constant companion. One thought that has helped me is that I think it's a fairly new thing that parents would be EXPECTED to somehow be able to help their challenged children as much as they are now. In the fairly recent past, I think parents would be expected to love their kids, but realize that they were to some extent who they were, and that we couldn't do everything for them. Now, the feeling often is that once you somehow end up with a disabled child, you should move mountains to completely maximize their lives in every way. I'm gradually starting to let go of that. Janey is never going to be "normal". It's unlikely she'll ever get a high school degree, or even learn to read, or live on her own. I can spend every minute of my life trying to make those unlikely things happen, or I can accept that they probably won't, and make her life as happy and as safe and as meaningful as I can. On my good days, I can accept that.
OK, time for the pep talk. This world we live in SUCKS (have better words for it but need to keep it PG). BUT, we can't do a "Bewitched", put our finger beside our nose, wiggle it and it's all better. Best we can do is sit there and go "now what do I do".
I am lucky, that out of 2 with special needs one (11) has gone from non-verbal mild autism to mild NLD = can stop losing sleep over it.
That leaves #2 (9), the one who will never be without care. The one who IMO is absolutely amazing in what he was never suppose to be able to learn or do and can.
Which is something you always need to remember... She wasn't suppose to be able to... and she does, wonderfully, easily, socially, happily etc etc etc etc... Yes, science is beyond her at this grade level, math probably is too, but sometimes you have to simply put it aside and go back. Who says she has to master it at 11... why not at 15??
I've done that with the younger, we moved to special ed from integration. Did I want to - NO! Am I happy about it - NO! Was I forced to do it - NO! BUT, it wasn't about ME and my wishes and my wants. It was about an 8yr old boy in the wrong classroom, with the wrong teacher, with a new VP who got hit with a mess left behind by the outgoing one. Choices had to be explored, changes made.
We have found the absolute best classroom for him. The Teacher is amazing. He's thriving. The speech, the conversation, the 3R's, the sensory.... the... it's all coming along and so quickly. I'm now dreading returning him to integration at Gr 7 and let's not talk about highschool... will probably homeschool then.
Sometimes we have to accept what we wish and what they need are not the same. Doesn't make us bad parents, doesn't mean we failed. Doesn't mean... it doesn't hurt us to make those choices.
Time, to go classroom shopping and take your time at it. We did.
Rob, I hear a lot of the depression talking in your posts lately. Raising an 11 year old girl is never easy, certainly not one with special needs, and especially not an 11 year old girl with special needs in a culture like Plano's. However, I think on some level you know you're not actually a "failure", and it's painful to see you keep tossing that word around. You're doing your best, you're there for her, and you need to give yourself credit for it. Yes, you're making mistakes, of course you are, every parent does, and you've got an especially difficult set of situations to manage.... but you keep at it, and you love each other. You're not a failure.
Rob, I hear a lot of the depression talking in your posts lately. Raising an 11 year old girl is never easy, certainly not one with special needs, and especially not an 11 year old girl with special needs in a culture like Plano's. However, I think on some level you know you're not actually a "failure", and it's painful to see you keep tossing that word around. You're doing your best, you're there for her, and you need to give yourself credit for it. Yes, you're making mistakes, of course you are, every parent does, and you've got an especially difficult set of situations to manage.... but you keep at it, and you love each other. You're not a failure.
Rob, as a parent of a 13-soon-to-be-14 year old gal with autism, who loves the Wiggles and Billy Elliot all at the same time, I can relate to the sense of failure. I can also tell you that what feels like failure might be something telling you that the path needs to change - so everyone can feel better. A place where people understand Schuyler's learning and she does indeed, learn Science and matter and the like, the way SHE learns. And for you not to feel so frustrated with the entire mess. Maybe there is a different way. I'm not saying that I know what it is, just that perhaps there is a different way to slay this monster.
You are a sad sort. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Life teaches us lesson. Learn them. Get another job and stop asking for charity!
you are too hard on yourself.i actually overslept and missed my son's iep. feel better?
my preemie baby just turned 13 years old. holy crap. i worry that her will not be a good grown up, but seeing the paragraph above, neither am I ( a good grown up).
I'm sorry. Sorry this is so hard, sorry there are money worries on top of growing up problems and monster fighting and middle school looming. But you didn't fail Schuyler. When she isn't dealing with physical pain (which you have taken care of) she seems a lot more resilient than you (as kids often are). Middle school sucks and rejection sucks but she seems to have her own wellspring of content. Her pictures light up ... and I'm around clinically depressed kids a lot so I can tell the difference.
What you see failing is your vision of how you think things should be for her. What she should be able to do and understand. And letting go of that is hard even if your kid is neurotypical (why CAN'T she understand math when both her parents went to MIT). More so with monsters and with greater limits. As they grow the perceived divide between monster and neuro-typical often appears greater because of the language acceleration of the peers and the ability to express abstract concepts but it's actually not an increased delay, just one that is brought into sharper focus.
But these things don't care about how hard they are for you, as you know, and she will be on her path despite you and your best or your worst efforts. She will know some things you don't and some things you will never be able to teach her because monsters may not know astrophysics (or Brown's molecular movements at 11). The astrophysicists I know (and I know quite a few) are not all happy and not all unhappy. It's a toss-up really. I can't really tell you that Schuyler will be happy (I would be a liar if I said I knew) but it may not be her limitations that decide if she is or not, anymore than her gifts. I am probably not making a bit of sense. But here it is.
Rob,
If this issue continues, you have a case of bullying on your hands and there is no reason for Schuyler be subjected to that. . .
I hope that you and Julie read what Peter Wright has to say about the topic.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/bully.help.htm
I use this website when I teach bullying to teacher candidates at the university. Wrightslaw is a valuable resourse. He has won two cases in the Supreme Court as a disability advocate. Good man.
Thank you, Rebecca. I'm going to post that link elsewhere, too. That's good information.
You are not the only one. I'm used to teaching college students. Our first child could write 10 page stories at age 5. Our second child, in 4th grade, cannot write a coherent paragraph.
And I can't bear it. I can't bear to help her. Fortunately, my husband can. English was hard for him, too.
I started to write notes from Santa and I had to tear up the note to my youngest. Why? Because she can't read cursive.
It's too emotional. Don't beat yourself up about it. That's why I could never homeschool. (tears of hysterical laughter). That's why we pay taxes...so trained professionals can help our kids.
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