Pemberley, you've described it perfectly - parenting a 2E child is quite the ride, a true rollercoaster of emotions. You'll find it gets easier as you move forward, but there will be times when the emotions are right out front and raw all over again. I can still remember how I felt like my stomach had dropped to the floor the first time a professional mentioned to us in a very matter-of-fact voice the word "disability". Never in a million years had I imagined that my adorable quirky obviously extremely intelligent cute little boy would have a "disability". Even now, years later, many accomplishments later, there are still days it's sad, overwhelming, frustrating. Just yesterday we had one of those days - but it was one day and it passed. I do wish so much that my ds never had to deal with any of his challenges, but now that he's in middle school I can also see that there are ways in which those challenges have made him stronger in ways he never would have been had he sailed through life and through school. Would I have purposely chosen this path? NO WAY. But all in all, it's been ok - and while my ds may never be able to do some of the things that come naturally to other people, he is going to be ok.
When our kids are young, and we're surrounded by families with young children, it's so easy to focus on school - that's what life is so much all about for everyone. When you're parenting a high-IQ kid it's full of thinking about accelerated learning, gifted programs, all that - and it can be full of parents who are all about thinking about how "gifted" there own children are. All that emphasis on school etc can really feel painful at times when you're parenting a child who struggles in some way. It's helped me a lot to put it all into context - this is one part of my child's life, and one day it will be over. It helps me to focus on just my own kids and try to not compare with where everyone else's child is at or what other parents think is important. It took me a few years to really get it, but after enough professionals had mentioned it I got it - most of ds' teachers, most of the professionals who work with him, haven't seen a kid with his extremes before and probably won't again.
We've also started to realize that there are older members of dh's family who most likely have some of the same challenges with expressive language that our ds has but were never recognized as having challenges. One has been particularly poignant for me - I don't want to go into it on a public forum, but it's made me particularly sad as it's impacting a relative who is extremely dear to me. It's not like I walk around sad all the time over it, it's just terribly frustrating to realize that there was so much her parents and teachers didn't understand about LDs just 15 or so years ago, or maybe it was the school she was at or whatever. It's just been tough to realize that our ds is getting help that she probably would have benefitted from in a big way.
I'm sorry if I rambled - my dds are in the same room with me working on an art project and making a ton of noise and mess.... so I'm having a bit of a tough time focusing lol! I hope some of this made sense.
Best wishes,
polarbear
