the joys of aging..

realisticdreams

P is now referring to herself as being, "sick."  

Example: "mommy that little boy is sick like me" (child at SB clinic, who was there with his sister, but I think he had CP)

Example: "mommy why am I sick?"

Hello deer in headlights!!!  

I told her she isn't sick, I even told her this morning that she has tethered cord syndrome (she is really smart..) and that it makes some things harder for her & causes pain.  

That was enough earlier but the fact that it's happened a few times in the last week, I really don't know how to handle it.  She already knows it's harder for her to do things with one side of her body, and it makes her pretty mad.  

Hello almost 4 year old! 

realisticdreams

-auntie-:

It's a four thing. This is the age when kids start to articulate the differences they notice- skin color, weight, physical differences of the sexes and disabilities. DS was four when he told me he wasn't "like those other kids" and that he didn't care about what they liked and didn't find it particularly easy to fit in.

It's funny, because the first post I read this morning was one of parenting where another female four attempted to pee standing up like a boy. Ah, for the first world problems and pearl clutching of the Parenting Board. Fours are trying to make sense of their world. For P I would imagine she's realized how much harder some things are for her. Like in the dance class.

Given that your siggie has 6 lines of what is "wrong" with P, one would assume she would eventually figure out something's up. Bright as she is, she doesn't have the vocabulary to articulate her differences/challenges pretty well, so "sick" was the best she could do. I think the word probably carried a lot more emotional content for you than perhaps for P. In any case, you did the right thing by giving her the words to use and validated her reality without judgement or lowering your expectations for her.

I don't know how it applies to your situation, but when DS was younger he pulled the "God gave me Aspergers" crap to get out of attending an event he preferred to skip. I thought for a minute, and said "God also gave your dyslexia, but that didn't get you excused from going to school or learning to read. It just meant we had to find the best way for you to learn and you had to worked harder than everyone else. But you did learn to read." 

I can only imagine the "fun" we are going to have with this as she gets older. The ballet class just had their recital I saw it on facebook today and I was kinda sad (kinda glad to have one less thing to do too!  I talked to the physiologist about it at spina bifida clinic last week and he said just keep trying things, that she may like, and that we did the right thing by pulling her out if it was bothering her that much.  He also said we could get her back into PT and work on specific goals (like what she couldn't do in ballet) but she's pretty..head strong and we both agreed at her age, their was little we could do to MAKE her use the other side more and the fight probably wasn't worth it at this point.  

Also, I heard from the county preschool and do to budget cuts they aren't allowing any neurotypical peers this year, so her slot that was oh so promised to us is gone.  

We don't talk much about religion/God in our house (although my grandma does) so I don't think I see her using that type of excuse as easily as some other kids would.  We hung out with our friends from Georgia whose little girl as SB and also has a J tube now bc of other issues and she was so happy to be around her. I also found a local mom whose about an hour away whose little girl has the same dx as P and has to cath so we are going to meet as well.

Keep on truckin'!