Everyone is back in school, and I hope that all of the children are having great success in the classroom. Personally, we’re having to define success a bit differently this year. We’ve always been able to judge Mason’s year by grades, test scores, percentiles in standardized testing- and we’ve always been pleased with what we saw. All the numbers reflected the bright, capable boy that we knew we had. (The same cannot always be said for his homework!)
But once the twins started school, those numbers became
useless to us. They painted pictures of children so terrifyingly behind that
they had no chance of succeeding in school. Children that knew little to
nothing. They showed kids that were struggling. They weren’t entirely wrong-
our boys were struggling. But the tests
didn’t reflect what the boys actually knew, or how quickly they were learning,
so we’ve had to start defining success in a different way for Will and Hays.
The boys are developmentally delayed and they have learning
difficulties, this has been the case since preschool. Will’s ADHD makes it very
hard for him to focus, and both have trouble completing assignments without a
great deal of help. Independent work leaves them frustrated or wandering
aimlessly around the room. Their weak fine motor skills make it difficult for
them to do activities that involve cutting and writing. And kindergarten is not
what it used to be. It’s no longer coloring, and dress-up centers, and learning
colors and letters. Kids are expected to come in knowing all shapes, colors,
letters, and numbers. An understanding of historical literature and quantum
physics isn’t required, but is certainly encouraged. Okay, I’m kidding about
the physics, but only a little. Basically, school is hard and they’re behind.
And if we just focus on those things, kindergarten becomes one
huge depressing glob of poor test scores, incomplete work, frustration, and
fear for their future. So we’re not. We’re putting aside the tests for right
now and we’re looking in front of us, and what we see is progress. It may be
smaller and slower than the leaps and bounds other children are making, but it’s
progress. They can identify almost all the letter sounds, read a few sight
words, write their names (mostly) clearly, recognize numbers, count objects-
all things that they could barely do three weeks ago. Tonight Hays bit his
triangle of cheese quesadilla into a “k” shape and said, “Look, I made a K. It
says kkkkk. Katie and Kangaroo start with K.” And let me tell you, folks, that
is HUGE. They may not make a MAP test question for making quesadilla Ks, but if
they did, my kid would be in the top percentile!! So we are celebrating these
day-to-day accomplishments. And we’re
seeing them learn and understand more every day. How could that possibly be
anything other than success?
The test scores may say otherwise. If you compare my kid’s
work to some other kid’s work, it may not look like he’s doing amazing things.
But if you put all that unimportant outside comparison away, and compare his
paper today with his paper from three weeks ago, you will see something amazing
and beautiful. They are growing and learning at lightning speed and it is
awe-inspiring. I’m so very proud of them and grateful to the teachers and
early-intervention teachers that are helping make this happen.
I’m growing and learning too. If you’d told me a few years
ago that my children would need early intervention and special education
services- that I’d be sitting in a meeting with both teachers, the assistant
principal, the speech teacher and the school psychologist, I would have been
horrified. And probably cried my eyes out. But now I see it as the blessing it
truly is. We have a whole freakin’ team of dedicated professionals who will
help my boys. All these wonderful people that will work their butts off to get
my boys everything they need to continue to grow and learn and succeed.
My wounded mommy pride that was so quick to blame my
parental shortcomings for any problem my boys have ever had, has lightened up a
bit. This isn’t about me or anything I didn’t do. Plenty of smart, wonderful,
involved parents have children with learning difficulties. This is not an
indicator of bad parenting. In fact, the willingness to seek out every possible
program or modification to help your child learn, is the sign of a very good
parent. So I’m no longer beating myself up for missed flash card opportunities
when they were toddlers, or crying over poor standardized test scores. I am
focusing on the growth I see every single day, and how proud they are of every
accomplishment, and I know that they are having a successful year. They’re in
school to learn, and that’s exactly what they’re doing, and that’s good enough
for me.
