My little boy’s speech-development, first mentioned in an
earlier post, didn’t catch up quickly as we expected. In the end, with mild
concerns of autism, I took him to see a speech therapist - just to check
everything was ok and to get some tips on helping his development.
It was reassuring.
He’s what they call “a child of his
own agenda” - while he can play happily with other people and pick up their language,
he’d just sometimes rather not*. Mainly because there seems to be something
else he prefers… Here are some extracts from the therapist’s report:
“He was reluctant to leave the toy farm and begin an adult-led
activity. However, when the toy horses were moved to the table top, he did come
and sit as required.”
“He happily attended an activity of his own choice (he
particularly enjoyed playing with the toy horses for a long period of time)”
“He produced many single words during the session e.g.
‘horse’ and ‘horses’”
“Less horse toys should be visible at future sessions”
He’s confirmed as showing no signs of autism - the
problem is just his small vocabulary, rather than any reluctance/inability to chat (which
is consistent with him not coherently being able to tell me he’s hungry, but
being fine telling me “Go big on Frankel’s final race Daddy, it may be the
softest going he’s encountered and the odds are a miserly 2-11, but he is just
unbeatable”**) So it’s a shame that he’s not going to rake in a load of money
counting cards***… but he’ll hopefully be a good jockey or tipster instead.
We're trying extra-hard to help him learn more non-equine words and our new childcare
arrangement, which gives him more 1:1 attention during the day, is also helping a
lot. The switch to a nanny came about when our little girl finished nursery and
started going to a new school, no longer the one where our child-minder’s
children go, meaning logistics of that arrangement wouldn’t work…
Our daughter initially struggled to settle at new legally-have-to-go-now
school. Getting dressed into the uniform and during the school run each morning
there were lots of tears. There was also a lapse back into bed-wetting and
sucking her fingers. We talked to her about both…
On wetting the bed, she was sad about it but didn’t know
what to do because she just kept having dreams about going to the toilet and
then waking up wet (I think we’ve all been there…)
The Internet tells me that, in dreams, “toilets can often
link to bad experiences we have just had, emotional situations, and intense
fears”. So it was hopefully just a matter of riding out the settling-in
phase. In the meantime, I picked her up and sat her on the potty as I came
upstairs for bed each night, meaning she was generally running-on-empty by the
time latrine-dreams came. And having the potty upstairs proved useful all-round
as our bathroom was out of action for a refurbishment at the same time.. (The only potty downside was this)
With finger-sucking, the timing was good as we had the
encouragement of less/more presents at her upcoming birthday depending on
behaviour (with the back-up of Christmas if it’s not totally nailed
post-birthday).
In the end, everything settled down again within 3-4 weeks. She was
soon running into the playground happily with her new friends, going on play-dates
after school and generally being back to her old self.
It was nice that all this coincided with a slow period in
my job, enabling me to be around for her more than usual (and to help my little
boy learn more non-horse words… like zebra). My new job starts next week. Back
to the challenges of two parents both working full-pelt…
* The irony of me having stayed home drafting this post
on my own, rather than going on a works night-out isn’t lost on me
** That’s how it happened. I didn’t work alone. Honest. He
made me do it.
*** Yes, all my knowledge of autism comes from the film
Rainman. What of it?
Learned Wisdoms
#43: When you’re in a museum or aquarium and are asked
for the hundredth time “Can I touch this?” by your daughter, your bubbling
annoyance can be reduced by thinking about the fact that MC Hammer may have
kids. And that this situation must be even worse for him.
[Looked it up, turns out he’s got five…]
#44: Caring about your children’s vocabulary and grammar
is important, but planning to concoct your own “No, More Tears” shampoo out of
lemon juice & vinegar as a lesson in the importance of punctuation is
probably going a bit far.
#45: It does feel early, but it turns out that November
is a fine time to start reaping the behaviour-improvement benefits of telling
your children that, when the red light comes on the motion sensor in the corner
of the room, "It means Santa is watching".
#46: If your daughter’s new class at school has 21x girls
and only 5x boys, it’s certainly just a chromosome-related coincidence. You don’t
need to start eyeing the admissions people with suspicion just because Jimmy
Saville’s in the news.
#47: The school run is pretty monotonous. But mixing
things up by dropping your child at a different school each day probably isn’t
the answer.
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