Limitations (11-23-11)

As a parent, you try hard to protect your child from knowledge or things that will upset them or cause them heart break. It’s amazing how one little person can make you want to throw yourself in front of a bus before you would see them hurt. Yet, you can’t protect them forever and you can’t always make it better. Those are the times you wish you could bundle them up and make the hard parts of growing up and learning easier and less painful.

Saturday, Cayden had his Little Gym class. He loves playing there and has always tried to do pretty much everything, except the air track. The class starts with a warm up of music, names, welcome, walking, then running, and another type of warm up activity. This particular day, the third activity was to gallop. Cayden was doing great until he heard his teacher say “Okay, everyone gallop”!

As soon as he heard this the super frown made an appearance and he started crying. He came rushing over to me and clung to me for dear life. It was then that I realized that for the first time Cayden realized his own limitations and was upset. I continued to encourage him to try, but he was having none of it. I never thought that my two year old child would realize his own limitations/delays and how horribly that would upset him.

It took all I had not to lose it then and there and run out of the building with my son. What do you do as a mom when that happens? How do you make it right?

Can you fix it?

We don’t dwell on the things that Cayden can’t do, rather, we celebrate all the things he can do and are thrilled as he makes progress on things that have been challenging for him. Maybe that has been part of the downfall for Cayden. He didn’t really know that he couldn’t “do” something because of the way we approach things. I mean, he’s seen other kids do things he hasn’t been able to do, yet, since the summer at Little Gym. We assumed, and maybe we shouldn’t have, that watching other kids was encouraging him to try different things and not be as fearful of new activities. Truly, watching other kids has helped, but it seems that despite the positives, our little boy has experienced a HUGE negative and realized the implications for himself. He’s ONLY two!

After that experience, I am 100% terrified of sending Cayden to school in January. Yes, it is a class for children with disabilities, but, there will be plenty of kids that are at a higher level developmentally than Cayden. I’m afraid that he is going to have more days like Saturday where he is heartbroken when he realizes he can’t do something the other kids can do. I think what makes it worse for me is that I can’t be there for him at school. I can’t sit with him and give him the love and support he is going to need. I don’t know how to fix it.

He can’t come home and use words to tell me what happened. I have to guess with the signs he does use and hope that I’m making the right choices and decisions for Cayden. I have to put a ton of faith into other people to care for my son the way we care for him. I have to hope that he finds ways to overcome his sadness and find the strength in his little fighting spirit to push forward and not give up.

As much as I want to be positive about his delays, the fact is, they are there. Cayden is not on par with kids his age in multiple levels. It’s easy to overlook or perhaps “forget” where his delays are until he is around other kids his age and even younger than him.

It’s hard emotionally for us to see the differences, so I can only imagine how it feels for Cayden now that he is recognizing there are big differences and he physically can’t do something. What is going through his little mind? Does he understand that we love him no matter what? We don’t care if he never learns to jump or completely use expressive language? Does he know that all that matters is he try and continue to push forward?

Tami

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