Pemberley, your follow-up post made me smile this morning. Over the past month, I've been feeling anxious about my 2e DD13's decision about where to go to high school and which program to choose. This decision-making process has dredged up all of the struggles that we've gone through on her behalf. Your post reminded me to take a look at where we were and see how far we have come - and yes, I am using the word "we" intentionally. The years when DD was in K to 2nd grade were so hard. We were trying to figure out why our obviously bright child was struggling so much in school. DD was exhausted when she came home from school, often in tears. I felt like such an ogre trying to get her to work on reading or VT exercises after school. DD felt broken and like she was a disappointment to us. I worried that she would never function in the real world. I'm getting teary just thinking about this time again. It was awful for both of us. At times the rest of elementary school was pretty bumpy too. Now, my 8th grader can look at me calmly and say that she really hated me at times. She also thanks me for going through everything with her.
I sometimes wonder whether I did enough, whether we should have made some different choices in her education but I try to cut myself off from that line of thinking. With what we did do, we have a daughter who reads at a higher level than we ever thought possible, uses people and technology to help her overcome what she now considers relatively unimportant deficits (spelling), is a fiercely independent and knows that she is highly capable. The other day, she found a poem that she wrote in 6th grade. She compared her struggles in school to "swimming through crystallized honey." She looked at me and said "Wow, everything seemed so negative then. I was such a drama queen." It made me happy that she doesn't feel this way right now. I know that there will be more challenges ahead but I have to believe that all of our hard work in the early years has paid off.
