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Happy Birthday Grinity's Son!!!!

Happy Birthday! I hope he had a great party at the camp.

Are you a little bit sad that you didn't get to see him on his birthday?

Thanks for the well wishes on DS12's birthday! It was a little sad not to see him myself, but it helped that DH did, and could tell about it! And it helped to see all the 'happys' for you dears!

Smiles,
Grinity

I got to see DS12 yesterday. He seems so calm and mature! We had a great time at visitors day, and DH and I were impressed. DS12 was so worried about 'making it on his own' and I can see that he is proud of himself.

Interesting tidbit. He plays sports and sleeps with agemates, and he loves not being the youngest one! AND he gets to drift over to the 15 year old boy cabin to play Magic Cards and talk music with the bigger, I mean older, boys. There is even talk of a counselor of the 15's starting a Dungeons and Dragons game during afternoon rest period starting today. Wow. no wonder he is having fun.

BTW - he is so proud that he hasn't touched a computer or TV in the past two weeks.

Smiles,
Grinity

Belated birthday wishes to Grinity's son! His birthday is one day after GS9's!
We spent GS9's birthday taking cattle to a county fair, we left that fair on Thursday and went to the next one on Friday. It's amazing how much our GS is growing this summer.

Two weeks without a computer or TV? I told my son about it and says he couldn't do it. Last week we went with my husband to a conference that was held at a state lodge near a beautiful lake and I thought there would be things for us to do like swimming in the lake and hiking. But with temperatures close to 105 degrees, hiking didn't sound like much fun to either of us and there were no other kids around. Part of the time we listened in on a the training conference. We heard them talk about different learning styles and best teaching methods. My son thought the instructors were only going over common sense learning methods that everyone should already know about and it was really a waste of time and money for the people attending the conference, but he did think the role playing games his dad had to participate in sounded like fun.

When we got home, one of his friends called and told him that he had just returned from a Boy Scout camp where they had to hike up a hill which he said was named "Cardiac Hill" in the 105 degree heat. He told my son, who has one more year as a Cub Scout, that he needed to stay in scouts so he could do this too. Somehow I don't think this will help me convince my son to stay in scouts.

I thought it somehow relates
Are any of you "guilty as charged" ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/nyregion/26camp.html?_r=1&em&ex=1217217600&en=add411fef8da74b7&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

Maybe I am guilty of this somewhat, but years ago, I was easily able to send my daughter off to spend a week with her friend's family on their vacation and I thought nothing of it. Her best friend was an only child and so was my daughter at that time. My daughter really enjoyed it and I enjoyed the time alone.

It is very, very different when you have a child with a disability like my son's. He would not be able to keep up with the others physically and he is not interested in a lot of the things his age mates are. Kids like my son are often targeted by bullies and I will not put him in an environment where he is likely to be bullied. He doesn't even want to go to a church camp and I will not make him.

If he could go to a camp with other kids who are gifted but have motor dyspraxia and hypotonia, I think he wouldn't mind going and I might be more inclined to let him go. I saw something on TV recently about a camp for kids with Tourette syndrome and these kids got to be with others like them and I thought this would be a really good thing, but there isn't anything like that available for my twice exceptional son.

Lori, I've been thinking of you this past week while we've been at our cattle shows. GS9 wouldn't(I think!) be diagnosed with anything other than being very uncoordinated and a bit weaker than other boys(or girls!) his age. I see 6 year old girls easily handling wheelbarrows loaded with manure, but I only let GS9 return it empty because he still tips them. He struggles to carry partial buckets of water, and still loses enough to soak his pants. He struggles to keep the cattle under control, while others his age seem to do it effortlessly.

All that reminds me of a friends son born with CP. He walks with crutches, but they were told he'd never walk. He drives, and works on their farm. He's now 29, but when he was a teen our pastor was so impressed with his determination to learn to ride a bike he asked the boy to talk about it to a small group. He didn't have much to say, just that he really wanted to ride with his brothers and he kept trying until he could. He was skinned up and his mom wanted him to take a break but he insisted on continuing until he learned.

That's the kind of tenacity I want my GS9 to develop, and I hope your DS has. Labels and limitations don't bother kids with that kind of determination. I'm sure what I see in GS is minute compared to what your DS has to deal with, so I wish you both the best.

But that's the thing. He doesn't have the desire and determination that is needed to do the physical things. He just doesn't care about doing more physical things. He says he would rather work on things that he has a better chance of learning to do well.

He does have the drive and determination he needs for learning things he knows he will need later in life and he is very willing to work on those things. Typing for instance. He knows this is a very useful skill and that he will need this ability later in life. Learning to type is more difficult for some people with dyspraxia and he is working really hard to increase his speed. But for other things that he doesn't think he will need later in life, he is not willing to put in the effort. He thinks it is a waste of time to learn to do something that he can never, ever be as good at as most other people. For example, bike riding. If he really wanted to ride a bike, he probably could since he has worked on his balance issues, but he knows that even if he learns to ride the bike somewhere, he might not have the endurance that he needs to get back. Another example is hiking. He could go on hikes with the other Cub Scouts and only go about half the distance they go and then have to turn around and go back before they had to and this makes him feel even more different. Boys his age are not kind to the kids they think are physically weak.

He was willing and worked very hard to overcome a fear of learning to swim because this is a life skill that he knows he needs. He is willing to continue working on this.

A lot of people with dyspraxia have trouble with spelling and he had not spent much time on spelling before he decided to try out for the spelling bee. He knew that he would have to learn to spell thousands of words and do well on a written test when handwriting is a problem for him, but he didn't let it stop him. He certainly had the tenacity to do what it took to do well in that, but it was something he wanted to do.

He just accepts that there are some things that he can't change and he thinks his time is better spent on the things that he feels are important.

He also knows that he can hide his disability if he isn't required to do anything physical and he is at an age now that this is what he prefers to do. He knows there are plenty of jobs that he could do later on that don't require the physical skills that he is lacking. He knows that he needs to get plenty of exercise and he says he can get enough of that by working out with a weight machine and treadmill at home. He is not overweight and he looks healthy and he rarely gets sick except for headaches so he doesn't see a problem.