Reply to Just curious: you feel judgment about the sacrifices you make for your teens?

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Reply to "Just curious: you feel judgment about the sacrifices you make for your teens?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My son was born premature. He had a global developmental delay. I had to quit my job to feed him myself, because he wouldn't eat at the crappy daycare we could afford.

Then he was diagnosed with severe ADHD and learning disabilities. I'm pretty sure he has a mild form of HFA as well.

I've never gone back to work. I took this kid, who doctors said might not ever be mainstreamed at school, and taught him myself, organized a physical education schedule myself, so that now he's a senior in high school, has done multiple AP courses and has already been accepted to one college.

But no one can measure how far he's come except me, since I did most of the work. My husband taught him to walk, and tutored him in math, but he that represents a fraction of what I had to do.

I try not to write this out too often, otherwise I cry. I'm crying now.

So I don't care what others think about my sacrifices, and how people told me "ADHD is overdiagnosed, boys will be boys, why don't you get a job, blah blah blah". My sacrifices were so worth it!

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Did you homeschool him? Because not working while he was at school 35 hours a week for 13 years is not exactly a sacrifice. [/quote]

PP you replied to. My STEM field is stressful and does not accept part-time work. It's full time or more than full time. When he was in daycare, I was still working 10 hour days. My son needed constant accompaniment when he was not at school, to re-learn what he'd missed, despite one-on-one aides at school, and to go to his therapies or practice his skills. So I could not work. We didn't have the money to hire a nanny for the afternoon, but I wouldn't have wanted to anyway, because the point was that I taught him quicker and better than any paid therapist would have done. I pushed hard for years. It's only in the last couple of years I've been able to step back, and my field has advanced in technologies that I never trained on, so it's really doubtful I'd be able to find work in it.

Your question is why I don't even bother to explain in real life, PP. People don't understand the finer details of life with a special needs child, because every child is different, and for some it's better for the parent to take over and manage their care. Left to the psychologists' and therapists' own guidance, my son would have achieved much less, and would probably not be college-bound. It's not their child, they don't live with him, they don't see the potential. I didn't want that for him, I knew he was intelligent and could achieve if we worked really hard to power through his physical issues and his learning disabilities. I have a neighbor who is doing the same thing for her child. I understand her even if others don't. So we worked together every afternoon for all of elementary and middle school (and then high school was thrown off by the pandemic).

You can't imagine the things this kid has had to do to get where he is, and I am the one who made that happen. He wrote his personal statement on it. It was really interesting to read it from his point of view.

[/quote]

OP here and thank you for your responses. I am in a situation where the advice my therapist gives and the advice my child’s therapist gives conflict. [b]DD’s therapist talks about how much progress she has seen from various interventions and activities and says it’s really important that we keep it up, and I trust this therapist. My therapist on the other hand heavily implies that I’m sacrificing too much for DD and I should drop some things because teens require less time.[/b] I just can’t seem to convince him that it’s very valid to live my best life within the constructions that raising my child places on me instead of rejecting the advice of DD’s therapist. He talks abojt learned helplessness and it’s very frustrating. (Pretty sure I’m ditching the therapist after this conversation)
[/quote]

I wouldn't be so quick to cast your therapist as an enemy of your kid's progress.  Both things can be true - you can be making amazing progress and your kid could benefit from taking point more often instead of you handling everything.

Not to mention, many times moms find their breaking point by passing it.  If your therapist consistently tells you you're sacrificing too much, you might want to frame the conversation as what you can do to support yourself so that you can continue to show up for DD, not as a way of pawning her off.[/quote]

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