The Decline of the Easy Child

You know you’re really a special needs parent when the child psychologist hands you not one, but two sets of questionnaires for you to fill out.

One for each child.

Ari has always been my easy child. Anyone reading this blog certainly knows that, just by comparing the number of entries about Max to those of his sister. He simply produces far more material.

But I have been having concerns about Ari for some time now. Even though her apraxia has been considered resolved, she’s been continuing speech therapy to help with other issues—working memory, sequencing, word retrieval, processing. As fabulous as her speech therapist is, Ari continues to struggle with these areas.

She’s also been showing signs of attentional problems: she’s easily distracted, doesn’t remember what I ask of her, and has required no less than three trips to the emergency room in the past year. Her injuries—goose egg from falling on sidewalk, stitches from hitting head on playground structure, bruised finger (thankfully not broken) from closing our back door on it—are not the result of clumsiness, but rather, her lack of awareness of her immediate surroundings.

Her issues are subtle. Everyone who knows Ari, including teachers and parents from school, just love her personality. My concern, however, is that as she gets older, her positive qualities will be perceived differently. And soon my outspoken, confident, social, energetic child will be described as intrusive, bossy, overly talkative, and exhausting.

Although Max is who brought us to Dr. I. in the first place—some three years ago—it is now Ari who gets discussed in his office. And as he hands me the parent history forms to fill out, it’s hard not to think, “Here we go again.” It’s hard not to mourn—just the littlest bit—the loss of the easy path you had hoped at least one of your kids would travel.

Trying to Cool Off

Max asked Dave to help him make some origami. Dave had been in the middle of his own paper folding—he was reading the newspaper—so he told Max he would be able to help him in thirty minutes. Considered a reasonable response by most, but not Max, who quickly got bent out of shape.

It’s hard to describe the screaming/moaning/grunting that often results when Max doesn’t get his way. But I’ll say this—it’s not pretty.

Unable to wait the half an hour, Max came to me, not asking for help, but demanding it.

“Max, I will help you, but not when you’re screaming,” I told him. “When you can calm down, I’ll help.”

“I AM CALM,” he bellowed back.

Max continued to carry on, hitting me, yelling and calling me names. I continued to remain calm. (NOTE: Don’t be too impressed. Sometimes I yell back.)

“Max, this isn’t working. You’re not getting what you want this way. You need to stop screaming,” I said. “The whole neighborhood can hear you.”

“No they can’t,” he countered. “The windows are closed.”

“Max,” I said, “the windows are open.”

Still not believing me, Max walked over to the window. Discovering that it was in fact open, he closed it. That was his solution to our problem of his out-of-control screaming-—to close the windows so the neighbors wouldn’t hear.

The muffled sound that followed? That was Max trying to get me to stop laughing.