All special needs parents know that after denial comes the waiting game. Waiting for him to settle into his new routine, waiting for him to get used to the teacher/therapist, waiting for his receptive skills to improve, waiting for him to play with other children, but most importantly, waiting for him to speak...
"In his own time" are words that I hear a lot, and say a lot, and although most of the time I mean them, sometimes I just think the unthinkable..WHY? Why does my poor child have to have language therapy twice a week, occupational therapy twice a week and ABA therapy three times a week, to be able to say the simplest of sentences, that my four year old could say at the age of two? Why can't he be out playing with other children (which he finds difficult because he can't communicate very well verbally) or be in a swimming group instead of having to have a special needs swimming teacher, or be in a sports club?
Why do I have to wait for these things to happen (or never happen as in many cases)?
When I see the progress of my younger son, how he has the ability to have all these things, it really makes me sad, then frustrated, and then angry that my eldest has been denied them at the "appropriate age" or "milestone". That he has to struggle and work so much harder than other children in order to reach so much lower than them!
But then he smiles at me. And my build up of anger/frustration/misery subsides. What you don't realise at first, what takes time to see, is that in between the waiting... and the achieving... there is the understanding.
It took me a year to understand that my son sought solitude at school break times not to avoid playing with other children, but to recuperate from the sensory carnival that was his classroom (as he is hypersensitive to sound); or to understand that he is proud of the fact that he can now say four or five simple sentences because it means I comprehend exactly what he wants without him having to point at it or get it himself; or to understand that he loves having one on one swimming lessons because it means the attention is completely on him, and he doesn't have to spend time waiting for his turn.
I then pass on this understanding to his teachers and therapists so that all those around him know what I know...what he wants and more importantly what he needs.
So even though I hate the waiting game, I try to take a deep breath and wait for the understanding...
