Therapy 101-Thankful for Therapy

Every Thursday, Nadine goes for her therapy session. It has come to a point where I look forward to Thursdays. It’s a Nadine day in that sense. She gets really stretched mentally while going through her sessions. Some days, she goes through simple his/her/it differentiation. Some days, it’s memory work of shapes and sizes. And some days it’s just 1 full hour of chatting. The range is wide, the work is hard.

That’s how it is for her. Hard work every Thursday.

For me? It used to be a day of kicking myself. When I see what the therapist does, and the activities they go through, I go “Why didn’t I pick that up about Nadine?” “Didn’t you notice she couldn’t do this?” “And look at that! Such an easy task, and you could have taught her!”

But I passed that. *phew* It was no point berating myself. It didn’t help me, and it didn’t help her. Guilt is not a part of therapy. It does hit you. I mean, which parent wouldn’t feel the entire responsibility of the child on his shoulder? I won’t even want to dwell on that, cos it depresses you, and it’s just going through cycles of “What ifs” and “I should haves”. This looking back mentality has gone on long enough.

Now Thursdays are a celebration days. We celebrate the new stuff Nadine can do, the achievements she has made and the milestones conquered. (Thursdays are also homework days. The therapist gives us—parents—work to do at home for the coming week) But it’s great joy.

I don’t focus on her being slower than her peers. I don’t sigh at how she has only mastered stage 2 when her friends can do stage 5 backwards. ohhhh but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the above. I am aware, and I have to be aware. Those are the yardsticks of society, those are necessary to measure her progress. But focus on them and push her to reach them? Nah…

I thank God daily for what Nadine has accomplished. And on Thursdays, I thank God a little more! I get to see in my untrained eyes (erm.. after 3 months, it’s a little more trained now), the little steps of progress. I stand amazed every Thursday at how God made us—that every tiniest little word/act plays a part in a person’s development. He’s really in control. There’s no doubt about it.

This is part of a series I’ve started – Therapy 101, to document Nadine’s developmental struggles and victories, and to journal my own learning experiences as she goes through hers.

And linking up with

 

 

Technorati Tags: children development,delay development,late bloomer,children therapy,kids therapy,kids speech delay,when to go therapist,early childhood development

Therapy 101–Does my child need therapy?

Nadine is Mei Mei in our family. We call her Mei Mei, so do the grandparents, aunties, uncles, church friends, neighbours etc. I know this was quite common, cos when we call her, “MEI MEI”, many little girls do look up! (guess it’d be the same, if we called out “BABY”)

Well, Mei Mei is 4 this year, and just two months ago that we found out she needed therapy to aid her cognitive development. This is a big word which simply means she needs help with “information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, & other aspects of brain development”. Now, that’s just about everything that our brain does ya? So how is it that we only found out this year?

We realised something was amiss when she was three. She was friendly and cheery but very quiet, and only spoken when spoken to, and even then, only answered Yes, No or Don’t Know. We always attributed that to her quiet introverted character. We did our due diligence and checked with the PD and her childcare teachers, and everyone said, it’s normal. She’ll speak more soon, she’s a late bloomer. Friends with kids said the same thing, it’s normal, don’t worry. And the big word. W.A.I.T

We had relatives who told us we were worrying over nothing. We had friends who cited examples of Einstein and his golden mouth at 3 years old. We had concerned personnel who told us we were pushing our child and expecting too much, and stop comparing. All of them told us W.A.I.T

Most people say there are children who are late bloomers. There are those who suddenly blossom at the magical age of 4 or 5. These are those whose parents are enthusiastic to share their stories, that it’ll all get better. Please. Don’t worry. W.A.I.T

But it doesn’t help at all. It makes it worse. I learnt that the sooner we parents get the answers, the sooner our child gets the help she needs.

You know, waiting is easy. It doesn’t require any monetary investment, it doesn’t involve my emotions. Waiting is optimistic. Waiting is just that. Waiting. You don’t have to sit a test with your child, watch him being scrutinised by the specialist. You don’t have to cringe in your seat when your child tries again and again at a simple mundane task. You don’t have to blink back tears when the therapist explains what’s wrong. And, you can go on life with no change if you just W.A.I.T

Some are asking, but why did the PD/Childcare educators say W.A.I.T ?

My all time favourite book that I’m referring to now Debbie Feit’s The Parent’s Guide to Speech And Language Problems has the answers:

1. They’re not trained to identify speech & language & learning disorders
2. Mild Delays are difficult to detect
3. They don’t conduct screenings
4. They don’t know where to refer you
5. They’re afraid of making you anxious
6. They already think you’re overly anxious

Don’t wait. Please don’t.

If you ask, WHEN is the right time to go seek help? Trust your gut feel. If you think something is wrong, go and see a therapist. Don’t give excuses like, “maybe after Christmas, he’ll be better”, “he’s just the not so active type”, “he’s like grandma, the quiet type” etc etc etc.

The author says this—to all parents who do not know if they should bring their kids for any assessment or therapy:

The difficulty lies in distinguishing between the kids who are delayed and the kids who have a disorder…The reality is, with nearly 3-6 million children under the age of eighteen with speech and language disorders in the United States…So if you suspect a delay or a disorder, it’s critical to have a qualified speech therapist make a diagnosis and suggest treatment if appropriate. Even if your child has only a simple delay, a good therapist will send you home with plenty of ideas on how to jump-start or improve your child’s communication.

I hope this helps. Please know that I am not advocating that all children need therapy. I’m just big on early intervention. It is something that I regret because I could have started earlier on Mei Mei but didn’t…and I can only do catch up now, and can’t turn back the clock.

This is a first on a series I’ve started – Therapy 101, to document Nadine’s developmental struggles and victories, and to journal my own learning experiences as she goes through hers. 

 

 

Technorati Tags: children development,delay development,late bloomer,children therapy,kids therapy,kids speech delay,when to go therapist,early childhood development

Why Moms Blog: When Daddy has his own blog too

As of tomorrow, I’ll be a one-month old blogger! Woohoohoo!

I looked at my posts and realised I covered quite a range of topics from Toilet Squats to Sex Talks to Living in the 80s. I’ve 12 posts in 30 days, does that make me a prolific blogger, an irregular blogger, or a moderate one? 

Well, it ain’t important. Honestly, the real objective of starting a blog has barely been met. Now that I’ve my own platform to voice my thoughts, I’ve not gotten down to really talking about IT.

Let me give you a brief background first. I’ve a wonderful husband, Edmund, who is, in his own rights, an avid blogger at Edunloaded.com. Since he started blogging, I’ve guest blogged once in a while, when I have an opinion about something, or when our family goes through some situations. It was good to give a mummy’s voice.

But as I continue on this parenting journey, I found out I had a lot to say, too much to say, my own emotions involved which doesn’t make sense if they were all recorded in someone else’s diary/blog. I should have my own blog, my own perspective.

So I started toying with this idea of blogging. For months, I thought about it. I didn’t want to start a blog that ended up with one post a month, nor did I want to start something that is a duplicate of Edmund’s. So what got me to click on blogger, create a template and start blogging?

Nadine. My little 4 year old princess.

In July 2012, we found out she has low muscle tone, which affected her speech, her physical motor skills and her learning abilities. We thank God daily that we found out early enough for the various therapies that she has to go through, and that we can do many many more activities with her that would intervene and improve the development.

This is why I am blogging. I wanted to share the experience, the improvements, the tears and the joy of seeing Nadine grow up. Along the way, I’ll throw in all the other experiences I have with my children. I wanna be able to rant & whine when things don’t go right, but most of all, I want to give thanks when there are victories.

So why haven’t I started blogging about her? Cos it ain’t that easy!!! We are still finding out and reading up more. Daddy freaked out when the therapist said she may have to go _{Special School}, SPECIAL SCHOOL, ^{special school}, special school.

The draft for that inaugural post has been brewing since Day 1. And I think with just a few bit more tweaks, I’ll post it. I can’t wait as I’m quite sure after that first post, the rest would just flow much easier! (with that one paragraph up above, it definitely should be much easier!)

Well, since I started blogging, I’ve met some really nice mummies who also blog. There’s a cool community of us Singapore Mom Bloggers who rally around each other—we’ve laughed at each other, offered virtual hugs, gave tips about parenting, shared little snippets about our little ones. That does boost my confidence to blog, knowing that it’s not a secret journal for my eyes only, but there are mummies out there who readily identify with what I go through, or are simply just around to cheer me on.

There you go… signing off as a half-newbie now on Why Moms Blog?

This is part of a blog train, hosted by Rachel from Catch Forty Winks, that would bring us to the lives of 15 Singapore Mom Bloggers.

 

Tomorrow, we visit Chrystal Lee who runs a blog at MotherofKids where she shares her experiences with her 3 children. She works from home and hopes to use her blog to help more moms do it too. She is going to tell us why she thinks dads like her husband will make bad bloggers!