My son didn't go to preschool. He stayed home with me, because he was already reading well and doing math in his head and sometimes talking like a little professor and collecting new words to use in making puns and jokes that the other kids his age didn't get but his sister and his older friends and his parents got them and he loved to make us laugh. While other kids begged their parents to let them play outside, my son begged to be allowed to stay inside because it was too hot or too cold or the sun was too bright or some smell irritated him or it was too windy. We live in a rural area next door to my parents with a total of six acres of land where he could run around and play but I had to "make" him play outside because that was not his idea of fun. His athletic cousins stayed with us in the summer and they couldn't even get him to stay outside very long. They liked to ride bikes, he couldn't ride a bike. They could play games with balls, he wasn't any good at this either so it was difficult to find things they could do outside together.

I never made my son sit at a desk or table as a preschooler (except to eat) because he had so much energy then. He had so much energy that it sometimes looked like he was trying to fly when he got excited about something. He had to do something with this energy. This is one reason why grade skipping would not have worked for him. I knew there was no way he could sit at a desk for hours. When I read to him he was often bouncing around and doing something physical and I even encouraged him to do this. I found that he learned better if I let him move around while I read to him. When he was six and practicing spelling or multiplication facts he jumped on his trampoline or swing. I let him climb on furniture because I thought he needed to. When I told the developmental pediatrician about this she said I should make him sit at a desk, but when she saw the results of the achievement test the educational psychologist gave him the month he turned seven and she saw that he was grade levels ahead in all subjects, she didn't say another word about making him sit at a desk and she decided he was doing well enough that he didn't need OT or PT or anything because we could work on physical things at home. We told her about his difficulty with learning dance routines for musical theater but there was no advice for us. We told them about his difficulty with handwriting (the slowness and the fatigue issues and the difficulty with drawing and the letter reversals, but we got no answers except confirmation from the educational psychologist that he was probably highly gifted but he couldn't tell us how highly gifted unless we had him take an IQ test which we couldn't afford. I felt that my son didn't get help because he was smart and was able to compensate just well enough that he was not eligible for help of any kind.

A few years later, when we finally got our insurance to authorize OT (sensory integration therapy but she had to code it as something else to get it paid for) he only got a total of six sessions and he thought it helped him and his piano teacher noticed a difference. We couldn't afford to continue OT without the insurance and I don't have all the expensive OT equipment the OT has. We did put up a tire swing and the last time I talked to the OT, she told me I need to keep him walking because his ankles are very weak.

Now that he just turned 11 and is in the early stage of puberty I am noticing that he has more of a problem with sensory issues. He is not the active little kid he once was and has started gaining weight. He is not overweight yet but he could be if he doesn't watch it.

Last night, during a thunderstorm our power went out and while my husband and I have no trouble dealing with no air conditioning and no lights except for flashlights, for hours, my son thinks it is a big ordeal. My husband and I used to go camping. Not any more. We rarely take the jet ski to the lake because it just seems like more trouble than it is worth. He has trouble getting ready. He takes longer to get ready than his sister who manages to put on her makeup and do her hair in less time than he can find his shoes and socks and find just the right shirt and pants. No matter how much time we allow him to get ready, he manages to make us a few minutes late. When one member of the family has SPD it affects the whole family. But I'm not complaining really, his personality and the way he sees things I would have never noticed, especially his ability to point out humor and irony in things that I am having trouble dealing with, and just the way he thinks are so worth any problems the sensory issues cause. Once again I am trying to get help for him but it takes many months of being on waiting lists.

I would love to talk to a neuropsychologist about his differences. I am going to have a list of questions a mile long, but I will probably be allowed 15 minutes because they are so busy and won't really get all the answers, but if I get answers to a few of my questions, then I will be making progress.