Success, redefined

Did you miss me? Did you worry that I had fallen off a cliff and disappeared forever? Nah, I just got lazy. And I'm still trying to toe that fine line between writing my mind and respecting my kids' privacy. But for today, I'm saying screw those kids' right to internet anonymity. I've got something to say, and I'm shouting it from the top of the blogosphere!!! So, here you go, friends, my first (and, let's be honest, maybe last) post of the 2013/14 school year....

 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.