Why I said no to the Health Visitor

Last week was our follow-up appointment with the Health Visitor to discuss Kai’s speech and various other ‘issues’. The last visit had not gone particularly well. She had stayed two long hours during which time Kai either played obsessively, refusing to engage with her or ‘play along’ with her direction, or had had a huge temper tantrum on the floor. I was tired, overwhelmed, intimidated by the note making in her book, by the questions and by all the spoken, and more importantly, the unspoken conclusions about the situation. When she left I felt exhausted, judged, and more anxious about Kai and what his behaviour meant than I ever had before.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My health visitor is lovely. We are actually very lucky to have her take such an interest in Kai and offer so much support. She has been our point of contact since Kai was born. She helped with breastfeeding issues, and supported during the long phase of chronic sleep problems and separation anxiety. I can’t say her advice has always been particularly useful but it was well meaning and I feel like she genuinely cares about me and about Kai and wants to help.

The last time she visited she was very interested in everything about Kai. She wanted to know about how he was behaving, about the speech, about his acute sensitivity to things, and she wanted to know how I was feeling about it all.

And I told her. I was exhausted and struggling a few weeks a go and when I saw her I had poured out my worries and about how difficult I was finding it to manage Kai and his frustrations. And she had listened, and wanted to help, so had started to talk about speech therapy referrals and monitoring and affirmed that yes, I was right to be worried and yes, maybe we did need to keep a closer eye on Kai.

This was supposed to make me feel better.

It didn’t.

The next couple of weeks I found so stressful. Everything Kai did panicked me a little bit. When we were around other children I was acutely aware at how behind his speech was and how differently he expressed himself. The times he got overwhelmed by silly things, or fixated on his sounds and routines, little alarm bells kept going off in my head. I was confused: one hand I had my health visitor and my own worries, on the other hand I had everyone telling me “He’s fine! All toddlers are like that” which, when I looked at him, I didn’t think that was true.

I’ve done a lot of thinking since then. I’ve read books, and talked to friends, and been contacted by some lovely people who have been through similar experiences with their children. I made changes, in our routine and in my thinking, and although the situation hasn’t changed I feel like I’ve got my head around it all so much better.

So when the Health Visitor appointment loomed this week I vowed to approach it with a very different attitude. Kai was asleep when she arrived, and stayed asleep which helped enormously. So I got to concentrate on what I wanted to say.

Kai is fine. I really believe that. He’s not doing things by the book but then he never has. He is complex and incredibly sensitive but that doesn’t mean there’s anything ‘wrong’ with him, or necessarily anything that needs ‘fixing’. It had dawned on me recently that how professionals respond to Kai is probably going to depend entirely on me. My prediction is that he is going to sit on the borderline of diagnoses and labels and how much professionals get involved, how much of it is labelled a ‘problem’ is going to depend on me and how well I feel I am coping with Kai, and how much I feel Kai is coping with the things around him.

Right now we’re doing ok. It’s not easy, by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m well supported and, if given the situations and environment that suits him best, Kai is happy and thriving and enjoying life. Yes, that means avoiding very overwhelming situations and certain ‘triggers’ but that’s ok. We’ve been meeting up with other children in quieter situations, on a more one-to-one basis and although still problematic at times, it is working well and Kai is much happier and calmer around them. As you’ve seen, we’ve been using signing to give Kai a new way to communicate, which he has loved and picking up at a rate of knots (can’t believe we’ve only been doing it a month!), and although the speech is still an issue he is communicating his thoughts and feeling beautifully with signs, gestures, and his own language, which, once you know him and the way he thinks, is amazingly expressive. We’ve even begun to get some consistent sounds for things, that although don’t always sound much at all like the word their supposed to, sound enough like it for us to know what he means and show he’s trying to form words and copy sounds.

So when the Health Visitor asked, was I worried, did I feel like we needed more help, I said no. I said I wanted to wait and see.

And she agreed.

We’re going to give him time. Time to carry on figuring it all out for himself and doing things his own way. Problems don’t need to become problems unless they start affecting his daily life significantly. Perhaps when he gets to nursery age we will need to think again. I would want any remaining speech issues dealt with before they started interfering with his enjoyment of school, for example.

But right now it’s not necessary. They’re going to see him again in six months to reassess and even then we don’t have to do anything unless I or they feel that intervention at that point would be crucial, and I doubt very much that will be the case. He is so young, and I don’t think early intervention at this stage would be helpful or even wise. I’m not saying that would be true of other children in Kai’s situation or who have speech difficulties, but I don’t think it is right for him.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.

I feel like I’m looking at him differently. Stepping away from the big play groups has helped, from situations where we’re surrounded by other children and you can’t help but start comparing. When I look at him, it’s less through someone else’s eyes. I’m seeing less of what he’s lacking and more of what he has. I’m astounded and delighted by little things he does every single day. Bowled over by his perceptiveness, his imagination, his curiosity and determination. I could regale you with stories of all the astounding things he is doing every single day, and maybe I will. Not big things, not flashy or showy, but expressions of a rich and interesting personality and of a child that has an amazing way of thinking and engaging with the world

I’ve been overwhelmed these last few days with a new feeling and last night it dawned on me what it is.

God, this is going to sound awful, awful that this should be a new feeling after 20 months of motherhood! but…

I’m proud of him. I’m really, really proud of him. Not just of something he’s done, of course I’ve felt moments of this kind of pride, but proud of HIM, of who he is.

For the first time maybe, I don’t want to change anything about him. I’m not wishing for him to sleep better, or to learn to talk, or to stop with the temper tantrums, or to be less sensitive, or more easy going.

I just want him to be exactly who he already is.

Because it’s pretty wonderful.

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