The 'different' children

All children should feel at home in their environments, if they can run and skip, they should feel safe and comfortable running and skipping. If they can only walk, they should feel comfortable and confidant about walking. If they are wheelchair bound, they should be able to maneuver their wheel chairs to the best of their physical abilities, to be comfortable with and aware of their bodies. These sorts of things are called gross motor skills. Sometimes a child's gross motor skills are limited not by a visible physical disability, but by something we can't see- something cross circuited in the sensory area. They have heightened reactions to the way things feel, sound, or look. They find noises overwhelming, are overloaded by things like flashing lights, bright colors, and visually busy surroundings.

Some children are 'tactile defensive.' They don't like strange and unfamiliar physical environments and textures. They are, in plain terms, a little freaked out by the way things feel. Things we take for granted as fun and enjoyable, things like sandboxes, wading pools, grass, the bark of trees are disturbing to them.

I am not an expert, not by any stretch of the imagination. I am just another mom with another different child. All children are 'different' in that all children, like all humans, are unique and special. But these 'different' children are different in unique and frankly sometimes very difficult ways. It's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't get it that your child isn't just undisciplined when he falls down in a huddled mass of sobbing, snotty tears because the seams in his socks are not straight. It's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't understand that the fact that you never bothered with scheduled naps is not the reason your child is not having a meltdown at the beach and acting like the grains of sand on her body are acid eating into her skin. Unless they know a child like my child, few people who haven't been there are really convinced that when The Cherub refuses to stand up, wildly shaking her head and giving her eerie, gutteral, primal wail and pulling away from me, pushing me, and glaring at me furiously that it's really nothing more than that her foot went to sleep again, she doesn't know what causes it, how to stop it, it frightens her, and she believes that everything that happens to her is my fault.

Because these kids are so different, what works with one will be the worst thing you could try with another child. In many cases you can break down certain experiences, like a sandbox, into small parts. Introduce that strange and threatening substance in small doses. Rather than the beach or a sandbox, give them a small dishpan of sand to run their hands through. Rather than an entire yard of grass, place the child on a blanket with one blade of grass, gradually familiarizing her with this new experience and increasing the scope as the child shows comfort. Work out a plan of attack, going backwards. Start with your desired end goal- A. will sit in the sandbox without acting like it's torture. Break that goal down into steps. What would it take to get there? What is the most sand A. can handle now? Looking at it from the window? Start there. Stirring a cup of sand with a spoon? Start there. Putting one timid, tentative finger on the top of a pan of sand, barely pressing hard enough to leave a print? Start there. Add a tiny bit at a time to these successes. These are your objectives.

That's just one approach. Adapt it as needed, discard it when necessary. That may be the worst thing in the world for your child- only you can really know that.

If you don't have one of Those Children, try not to be too critical of those who do. Children on sensory overload often have mothers on sensory overload, too- an overload of too many disappointments, too much work, too many setbacks, too many questions, too few answers, too many setbacks, inconveniences, sacrifices of tiny things we take for granted, and too much criticism both spoken and unspoken. Are we sometimes overly sensitive? You betcha. Just like you don't toss a kid freaked out by water into the swimming pool, you don't help the harried mom by jumping in within your suggestions, ideas, tips, hints, opinons, criticisms and insights with a day or two of meeting her (or minutes, sometimes). You give support, a listening ear, a sympathetic smile, a plate of chocolate without judgement. You take time to observe, think and pray about the situation. You need to learn from her before you can be sure there is something she needs to learn from you.

And never, ever, ever tell the mother of a child with a diagnosis of 'retardation' that her child probably is much 'smarter' than she realizes.