Wednesday, September 28, 2011

What If….

…my child has special needs? What if he is not ‘normal’? This is a question that has been going through my mind of late. It is not something that I really talk about to anyone other than close family members… but I feel that I need to share my struggle. About 7 or 8 months ago I started to be concerned about my son’s speech. He had been saying certain words without being prompted, and then he stopped saying those words altogether, regardless of prompting. I was not sure if this was normal or not so I asked the doctor about it. I explained that the other child his age was a girl so I did my best not to compare, as girls I know tend to talk earlier than boys, but I wanted to voice my nagging concern. My doctor is great, he listened to me, and said that he currently is within ‘normal’ range but if it is something I am really worried about, he would send him for evaluation. We did an evaluation, which indicated that he was on the low end of the scale, not anything to be too concerned about, but it did warrant further sessions of speech therapy. We did a few of them, but I choose to stop, when he seemed to be doing well. I also choose to stop due to his lovely temper tantrums when we had to leave the sessions. In fact he bit me twice upon leaving. Initially I was not concerned about the tantrums, they seemed within the norm. But as the months went by, and I started watching my friends little girl of the same age… concerns started mounting. Other things, that individually might not cause concern, began to add up to something that just was not right. I still can’t put my finger on it… and do not want to go into detail, but upon his speech therapy appointment yesterday, my concern was echoed in the therapist. She says that although she is not trained, she feels there is something more to Ronin’s speech issues; we reviewed all of those things that just weren’t ‘right’; and decided that we are going to see about getting him evaluated by a range of specialists. There may be nothing major wrong, he may just need guidance that I am unsure of how to give. Please be praying that this journey not overwhelm me. I know that what ever God puts in front of me, he has given me the power to overcome… but no one ever wants anything bad to happen to their child. I love my son very much, and do not want him to have to struggle… and it scares me a bit to think that my child might have issues that will set him apart and may cause ridicule later in life… yet, he is a special child, with a place in this world that God created just for him, and regardless of any special needs he has, God will use him… then again, he may not have any issues and just may be slow at accomplishing those milestones.

Followers