You know the myth about ostriches, right? They hide their heads in the sand. It's not true (they'd suffocate), but it's a good metaphor for something I encountered today.
I was surprised today by a fellow mom who was very strongly denying that there might be something "wrong" with her child. I don't feel that it's appropriate to share all the details here, but the impression I received was that she felt the school was bringing up some arbitrary educational standard that they felt her child wasn't meeting. There was a lot of conversation about how tests can't be trusted, how these children are too young to be able to diagnose any sort of condition, teachers just blindly follow orders or what they were taught, etc, etc.
I had to stop myself from getting immediately wound up over it, so I slowed down and read the conversation again, and again. The more I read, the more I remembered how I felt when my child's speech therapist called me into her office to discuss things she was seeing-he is preoccupied with the clock, he won't make a lot of eye contact-and to suggest that I have him evaluated for autism.
Now, when J was 2.5, I was getting nervous about his lack of speech, so I asked his pediatrician. Is he autistic? No, no, he's fine, the pediatrician said. Look, he plays peek-a-boo with me and smiles. An autistic child wouldn't do that. He just needs speech therapy. The nice lady who evaluated him for therapy didn't think anything was wrong beyond a speech delay. That delay was later re-labeled as a disorder, but still no one saw anything else. And I taught preschool aged children for over a decade, surely I would have been able to pick up on some hand flapping or something. I was certain that I knew better than this uppity therapist (I was pretty pissed and upset at the time). I had my education and professionals on my side!
After I calmed down (thankfully, I didn't actually tell his therapist she was uppity, or anything else), I looked at why I reacted that way. The answer was pretty obvious-I was scared. I was scared that this condition that Technohubby and I had revisited over and over, and had been reassured of every time, was back in our lives. I was terrified of autism, partially because it was my baby and I wanted him to be perfect, and partially because it sounded so freaking scary. So the hubby and I talked, and we decided to humor the uppity therapist (okay, I was still a little mad) and get an evaluation. We were going to rule it out. Long story short, ruling it out turned into confirming it. In the span of 6 months, we went from thinking we'd get laughed out of the exam room to navigating the waters of developmental disabilities funding. It was insane.
But the biggest changes in the entire experience were in myself and Technohubby. We went from pooh-poohing the idea to embracing it in the name of getting our boy all the help we could find. In that final meeting with the psychologist, I was almost eager to get the diagnosis, so we could get started. There's still a lot about autism that worries us. We know that there will be a lot of pitfalls and limitations as he gets older. He may need assistance to live independently. Hell, he may need to live with us for the rest of our lives. That realization made me kick myself for the times I'd whisper to his little toddler self that I wished he could be my little boy forever. I wasn't being that literal!
The whole point of my rambling post is this-parents, it may upset you to hear that your son or daughter might have a problem. It may scare you. You may think you know better than anyone else-I certainly did. But don't let those feelings keep you from checking it out. You owe it to your child/your family/yourself to look into it. Get that evaluation. Get a second opinion, or even a third. Don't be afraid to dig deeper if needed. A diagnosis doesn't change who your child is. It's just a label the doctors need to get you the help your child needs.
Your child is still going to be everything you love about them. Never lose sight of that.
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