Reply to having a hard time accepting DS for who he is

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "having a hard time accepting DS for who he is"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thanks for the helpful replies and I agree I probably need to talk to a therapist to work through this. My child is not 7 - he is almost 12 - but still very young in the big scheme of life. And while I realize he could be very different some day, I do think you can tell a lot already. I have always been very sharp and driven and I've always been drawn to that same type with regard to my spouse and friends. So it is hard for me to connect with my child or admire him. But I really really do love him and I want to be a better parent to him. This has been the most shameful post I've ever typed. [/quote]

Don't add guilt to your list, OP!

It is normal - and healthy - to grieve the loss of something or someone. Let that process develop within yourself, but always do your best to project confidence in his abilities.

I constantly have to make adjustments to my expectations for my GT/LD son, who frustrates the dickens out of me. I love him so much, yet he makes me crazy, because he can make highly intelligent remarks and get perfect grades one week and then get all wrong answers and seem apathetic the next. DH and I have no idea what the future holds for him, since his performance is so unequal. 
Loving him for who he is? Well, who is he??? For some children, this can be really hard to pinpoint. I am his mother, I know him best in the world, and yet I don't know him very much at all... Parenting my other children is so much easier!

Don't worry too much, OP. You don't have to be a perfect parent, just a good-enough parent. From one type A, perfectionist personality to another, I know that is tough to hear :-) 
[/quote]

I wrote the above and wanted to add that having a special needs child really was the best thing to happen to "me", personally (not him, obviously!). 
Parenting such a child taught me humility and grace under pressure. It made me practice being tolerant. That intelligence, as measured by IQ, and academic achievement are not as important as I thought they were (his IQ subscores range from gifted to way below normal, the psych. told us his total IQ, being the average of subscores, was therefore meaningless). That other abilities are just as precious and important in life, namely, seeing the glass half full. That I really want him to be independent and happy, not to go to the most prestigious university, especially since it is not a guarantee of financial success or indeed of happiness. Our partly-Asian families place a stratospherically high premium on academics, grades and labels in general. My mother scorns "underachievers" and "stupids". They don't understand DS at all, since he can't be measured by simplistic, traditional methods. DH and I are his safe zone, where he can be himself, whatever that means, free from criticism and anxiety.

So see this as an opportunity, rather than a burden.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics