Team Effort { Hard Words and Grasping the Situation)

It's been a tough two weeks for me. So much going on, but over all the hubbub that comes with this time of year is the task of wrapping of my brain around what is going on with Missy. She has been tested and evaluated in every way from large motor skills, play, fine motor, speech, academic, cognitive, reading.... and everything is coming up SHORT.

Today was the team meeting at the school. It's overwhelming. The child requires a team effort. Her needs are far greater than one person could possibly even begin to fathom. Things that children normally learn just by living she hasn't comprehended or picked up. She's missing the normal developmental things you would see in a 4 year old.

For an example of her work at the meeting, one teacher (PT) had this long strip of the alphabet that Missy had written out. . . while the special ed teacher had asked Missy to write the alphabet and had gotten about 4 letters and some undecipherable scribbles. The PT gal explained that under the right circumstances the kiddo can produce the letters, but she is missing some very basic kindergarten level skills that make the letters of any use to her. She only produces them because we have worked so hard with her on it. Kind of like learning multiplication facts by rote, but not having an true understanding of the concept. She knows them by sight. She can even tell you some of the sounds, but to produce them on paper without an example?....no. 

She's very pleasant at the school and the teachers told me that while they know it's true that I have some plenty big challenges with her behaviorally at home, they have a hard time fathoming it when working with her because she is so very sweet all of the time there, but they said they understand how this can be.

I've been researching what I need to be doing and I've come up with a few simple things so far.

I went and bought nice, square plastic containers. One for every day of the week and I filled them with activities for her to do. Monday's box might hold a board puzzles, a bouncy ball, a bean bag, sequencing cards, a memory game, some beads to string, scissors and paper, etc... Each box has a different assortment of skill building items. A lot of them are for her to do on her own without help. She has a tendency to wander aimlessly, jabbering for the sake of jabbering, so,  I will require her to do each thing in that day's box as part of her daily routine. If I'm peeling potatoes then I will have her take her bouncy ball and play with it bouncing and catching off the floor with one hand then the other in the kitchen where I am. There are a few things in each box that she needs me to do with her like the memory game which will be good for the one-on-one bonding building.

I have to admit that though I knew 

this child was pretty profoundly developmentally delayed when she came, 

and though I KNEW that she was still pretty delayed,

even though she has made tremendous strides in the last 20 months, 

it was a dash of cold water in my face when the words 

mental retardation

were used to categorize Missy a week ago.
(feels like a month ago).

  

I know it's true 

in the most precise sense, 

but somehow it blares  LIFETIME LIMITATIONS in those harsh, cold words.

The term was quickly exchanged for intellectual disability... 

but too late, 

my jaw had already hit the floor.

No one has used those words before,

no doctor, 

no social worker,

no teacher,

no nurse,

no one.

I've always been assured that with time, effort and the right environment 

she would eventually catch up.

The doctor, the head of the cranial facial team,

who has known her all her life

told us he believed her delays were all on account of her environment,

that now she finally had a chance to be who she was intended to be.

To be told, 

"Well, she has a good memory, 

so if she never learns to read then we're good because we can read to her...."
 . . .  A punch in the gut.

The gal was going off the cold hard facts on the stack of tests in front of her.

She doesn't know the little girl,

so,  I'm okay with her.
She has no idea she's the first to say these things.

It was just all very difficult for this mommy's heart to hear.

VERY HARD.

AND I now realize I have to change my thinking.

No,

not stop believing that she can overcome her mountains,

but change my belief that time and environment and love would heal all

and that she would absorb

skills and information naturally as she grows 

just because we have created a rich environment for her.

It isn't going to happen that way.

I have to work very hard to help her

and I need a lot of assistance... a team effort.