On the Flip Side

So, the other day I got a little nudge.

Kristin got her cousin to send me a hint. Where's the educational SLP? Isn't he suppose to post things as well? His he permanently stuck writing progress reports and IEPs?

Well, yes. He is.

So, I am going to blame the same things I always blame... parenthood and netflix. What can you do?

Anyway, I wanted to talk briefly about my experience on the flip side. What is it like to be a parent with a child who has special needs, at least from my perspective.

My son, Logan has always been a bit rambunctious and a little behind his sisters when it comes to many developmental milestones. Yet we didn't right away recognize that he might have special needs. Many people had told us that boys are more difficult than girls. We just assumed that they were very right. Once our little boy became mobile then he learned real quick how to get into just about everything. He also demonstrated many characteristics that were similar to students with ASD. At the time he was very echolalic, he wouldn't socialize with others, he couldn't handle any changes to his routine, and he got hyper-focused (obsessed) on particular items or topics.

Sometimes parents get a blindside to their own children which was definitely the case for us. It wasn't till our child was old enough to go to the children's class at our church when we began to realize that our child wasn't like the other children his age. He was the only kid who couldn't sit still during class. We had the "problem child", the kid that people tend to question what the parents are doing. Were the parents doing any discipline in the home at all? Don't get me wrong, most of the people at my church were very nice about it, trying their best to help Logan participate in primary
. Yet, we knew that something was wrong, or at least suspected.

I called up my sister-in-law and point blank asked her, "Do you think my son has a disability?"

She replied, "I would never say anything negative about your son. You know we all love him, but to be honest, none of my kids were ever that hard."

I felt like I was kicked in the stomach. What did I do wrong? I was suppose to know how to fix children who had problems. I was suppose to be a better father. Did we not give him enough attention? Were we not consistent enough in our disciple? What did we do wrong? My wife took it equally hard. She felt that everybody hated our son. She felt that people thought we were bad parents when he was melting down in public over one thing or another. My wife also has Special Education background. So, she also felt the double guilt that I was feeling. Not only were we bad parents in our minds, we were also bad professionals.

Its easy to tell parents that it isn't their fault that their child has special needs, but its difficult as parents to listen and believe that simple truth. That nagging feeling of "what if I just did this differently?" clings to our minds. It's difficult to shake off.

We had Logan tested. The local elementary school's preschool team gave him a variety of assessments including developmental, cognitive, expressive and receptive language, social, etc. We had to wait even longer for special Autism testing.

Several labels were thrown around willy nilly. I started to realize why first person speech was so important. We could tell who saw our son as a disability first and who saw him as a little boy first. It was a huge difference to us. Parents are a lot more perceptive than you might think. They can tell if you really care about their child or not. It makes a big difference to have people working who want the absolute best for your child, people who will look at their strengths as well as their weaknesses. I found also that I didn't care about the label; it seemed much more important to other people.

This experience has completely changed how I see my profession and how I interact with students and with parents.

There is much more I could write about this, but frankly I need to get back to my family.