Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional I need a pep talk

Pemberley, while you're coming here for a pep talk from us, I also want you to know that by coming here and checking here *you* are helping us to - really! I appreciate that you've taken the time to keep in touch and reach out to us as you go through your journey. [/quote]


I've been where you're at to a certain degree with our schools and I know what a huge toll this can take on us as parents. For me, I had to "stop" - not stop advocating for my child, but I had to stop the path where we were looking for the solutions through the public school system. You've been very successful as an advocate for your dd, and you've grown (from what little I've seen through your posts) tremendously through the process. But fwiw, when we got to the point you're at (really a bit before that point), I did stop. Gave up. Quit the public school. It wasn't easy - it was like giving up what had been a dream of mine, or at least a vision of the future when I'd first had my child enter school. It was also hard to give up what I thought he had a right to (legally). And perhaps the toughest thing for me to admit was I was giving up a battle and letting the other side "win" - somewhere along the line, for me, it turned into too much emphasis on my advocacy vs the school's not complying... and took the focus off where it needed to be - ds. I am not saying you're there yet, or that you'll ever be, but fwiw - I can't begin to tell you how much easier my life was (and how much more effective my advocacy was) once we simply changed *where* my ds went to school. There are still times I am frustrated, emotional, sad, mad, etc. But now those emotions are where they should be - they are about things my *ds* is encountering in life, not about artificial walls put up by school.


I think it's important to always keep in mind that it's not that your dd has changed, but the world around her has evolved - she's experiencing things now through school etc that she didn't have to deal with previously. I've felt many of those same feelings with my ds - when he was very young he used to wow the socks off folks with his conversations and ideas, and even up through a bit of early elementary, when he was away from school, he was still sharing amazing out of this world ideas with us at home. And he still does. But wow, those early elementary school years were horrible - filled with anxiety, stress, reports from teachers weren't at all what we'd thought we'd be receiving way back when he was that small 3 year old talking like an adult. He also went from being very happy to being clinically depressed, all within two years of going to school. TOTALLY not what we'd had on our planned road map! And there are still days I wish it had all never had to happen that way. BUT - otoh, things really did start getting better once we hit middle school - better in a huge way. Part of it was, truthfully, pulling out of public school - but I think part of it would have happened anyway. Part of it was our ds becoming more self-aware - part of that was really tough - he spent years observing and taking in how different he was in the areas he's challenged... as well as taking in how extremely boring school was in his areas of strength. But he was also taking in something else - all the pep talks I gave him sank in, all the work we did privately and at home to help him... really did help... and he started to see that. And he saw me fighting like crazy to get what he needed at school, and he started to see that it was the school that was failing him, not his own ability. SO... all of those self-actualizations started helping to buoy him up. When we switched him out to a different middle school, he was able to be appropriately subject accelerated and that helped SOOOOO so very much. Afterschooling him through online gifted courses in his areas of passion also has helped too. And... by the time he was in middle school, we really did finally have his list of accommodations in place and working for him much better than in early elementary, and that helped tremendously too. SO - it will get better.


First, I don't think it's foolish to read about challenges that are similar but perhaps not exactly your dd's challenges. If one thing is clear (as mud) from my own family's journey through 2e, I'd say it's that no one child fits any one diagnosis lock-key - they are all individuals and more likely to fit bits and pieces of different diagnoses. Reading whatever you can about anything and everything, gathering information - it can be sad or frightening or scary or whatever, but it's giving you data that you'll compare against your own dd and eventually it's another piece of solving what is essentially a puzzle. BUT don't forget it's a puzzle that you know better than anyone else.

Re NLD specifically, I have only known two families impacted by NLD, but the predictions of things becoming worse and more pronounced over the years simply didn't happen for either. In one family, the person with NLD is now a young adult. He struggled in school, but his struggles became *less* as he moved through school. As a young adult (graduating high school, starting college), he had a rough year of knowing/defining who he was once he was away from his family for the first time - but it was not unlike what *I*, a most-likely-totally-NT person also ran into that first year away from home, or what more than half the kids I knew went through going into college. He came through that year and has a fine, happy, successful life. The other person I know is an adult, and wasn't diagnosed until she was an adult. She was not terribly successful in school but she did graduate, has a good career, and has always been very self-aware of her challenges. She was happy to get a diagnosis and better understanding of what her challenges are as an adult... but even if she hadn't - she's had a very very VERY good life. She's a mom with a career and a family and is happy.

Anyway, those are just two sample data points, which is meaningless as far as statistics go.... but they are enough to make me suspect it's not all doom-and-gloom. I feel certain your dd is going to have a very happy, very successful life. She's got the NUMBER ONE thing going for her that every story of every adult who's had a challenge I've ever heard mentions as being the key - a parent who was there for them, believed in them, every step of the way.

You're doing a great job Pemberley - hang in there!

polarbear

ps -


From my perspective, on the outside looking in, you don't appear to be running out of ways to make what needs to happen happen - you appear to be doing a *wonderful* job of making what she needs happen. No one is completely clear on what her needs are, but that's most likely going to be true for quite a few years to come. It's not unlike parenting a NT child either - no one can really map out at 5,6,7 etc what a child's needs will be down the road - we meet them as we get there. It's scarier to realize that with a child who has challenges when we know there will be challenges, but we still meet those challenges as we get there. You've done a wonderful job of meeting the challenges so far, and you'll continue to do so.