As a society we encourage our children to be different and that being different is a good thing. When different comes with a diagnosis though, we long for them to share the same simple joys in life as other children, at least I do.
Since finding out about SPD, realizing my son has it as well as having an OT and Pediatrician agree, I have done a lot of research. Throughout the research I have seen the term “special needs” being used to refer to children with SPD. For my son, I don’t see that. To me he has EXTRA needs and has had these extra needs since the day he was born.
We have to take extra time picking out his clothes, from buying them to actually wearing them.
We have to take extra time during a haircut to get the fallen hair off of him.
We have to take extra time going to the bathroom, making sure there isn’t toilet paper in the toilet since the sight of wet toilet paper makes him gag. …continue reading
When Head Start started nagging us about finishing our enrollment paperwork, we got really anxious. The form for the doctor I could send in easily. It was the blue form that made me worry. The blue form was for the dentist.
Though four and a half and with one minor tooth injury, Simon had never been to the dentist. He balked at the doctor’s office, requiring cajoling, bribing, and major distracting to get him through a basic check up. He has spit on us, thrown his toothbrush at us, slapped, head-butted, and kicked us on occasions we’ve tried to brush his teeth or show him how to do it himself. And now we had to take him to the dentist, where he would have to lay back in a vestibularly uncomfortable way, have bright lights pointed at him, and loud, hard things shoved in his mouth. We hoped to get out of there without any one being bitten.
I made him a social story, and we got ready to break the news to him. Simon wept. And whined. And begged me not to “let” him go to the dentist. He threw his story. I left the story where he could get it and didn’t mention the D word again. As he remembered it, he would cry and whine all over again. Simon kept asking when he was going, so I wrote it on the calendar. April 9th, dentist. …continue reading
