Posts Tagged "child development"
Is he a bird? Is he a plane? Actually, he’s both.
Before Christmas I had a lovely email from the people at IKEA offering something to review that they thought would be especially suitable for my imaginative boy as part of their ‘Make the World Play More’ campaign, a sentiment Kai and I were more than willing to get behind.
A couple of weeks later the LOMSK swivel chair arrived, a bright red half-cup shape wonder with an orange pull-down hood that pulls all the way down, and that made an extremely funky addition to our front room.
As you can see, it went down a storm.
He loves it. It is absolutely perfect for him.
Kai soon got stuck in thinking of things he could do with his new chair. It’s been a car, a train, a space rocket, a handy receptacle to burst from whilst doing your best Buzz Lightyear impression… (see bottom right photo!) My absolute favourite has to be the other day when he pulled down the cover to hide and then started tap tap tapping from the inside. All of a sudden, Kai thows the hood back to run round the room flapping his arms and squawking to land on my lap. He now rather adorably refers to the chair as his ‘egg’.
Needless to say, we both think it’s brilliant. The LOMSK has a heavy swivel base meaning that it can stand a fairly hefty toddler throwing himself into it and spinning around – I have no worries about it tipping over. Kai loves hiding and dens, and it’s big enough for him and a cushion and toys with the hood pulled down, and with the sun shining through the cover it makes a really cosy, calming place for him to sit. It’s not that comfortable, that’s the only thing, although I’m planning on getting a bit creative and making up a seat pad for the bottom. I am even told that the spinning action can help develop a child’s sense of balance too. (Actually, maybe I should try it since I still routinely fall over in flat shoes).
So thank you IKEA! Definitely a hit with us.
As part of IKEA’s’ ‘Make the World Play More’ campaign they’ve launched a whole range of fun initiatives and projects for families, all of which you can keep track of through their Facebook page
My favourite is the ‘Your Fridge Door’ – where you can upload a photo of your child’s artwork and each week a winner will be chosen who will win a fab MALA art set, most of which we already own and use almost every day. Details of how to upload a picture and take part can be found on their Flickr page.
They’ve also launched a brand new project called Toy Stories, a Facebook application that allows children with their parents to create and share their own book featuring some cute characters from their soft toy range.
So there you go. Go forth and play more. Now I’m going to go and have my go spinning in the chair before Kai wakes up and throws me out.
Read MoreRight Now
You have all been so lovely the last few days. The comments on my post about the Health Visitor’s worries about Kai have been endlessly comforting and supporting and I am so grateful for you taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. Thank you.
I had a bit of bad day with it all yesterday. Actually, I had A LOT of a bad day. There were moments there were I could genuinely have opened the front door and run as fast as my legs could carry me.
I didn’t, obviously. Instead I wrestled the ferocious ball of frustration and bad-temper that is my son till bedtime, put him to bed without a bath and went downstairs and cried. And cried. And cried some more.
I doubted everything yesterday. EVERYTHING about myself, about Kai, about my abilities and suitability as a mother, about my perception of my life and how perhaps that differs from reality.
And do you know what scared me most? That maybe there is absolutely nothing wrong with him at all. That he is just spirited, and wilful and frustrated with the world – no different from most other toddlers.
And weirdly, this made me feel like shit.
I convinced myself that every toddler is like Kai, that all mums have to manage behaviour like his, and as such, the fact that I’m struggling to cope with it so much means I am just weak, neurotic and failing miserably. You probably have three children like Kai. Ten. And you still manage to do normal things like brush your hair, and eat, and go out.
Everyone tells me he is delightful, and fun, and charming and he IS! Maybe what I endure behind closed doors I have blown vastly out of proportion.
Maybe I am just not cut out for all this at all.
No, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want there to be anything ‘wrong’ with Kai. It’s just that the thought that it is supposed to be like this, supposed to be so impossibly hard and feel so unmanageable ALL THE TIME just made me go cold.
Luckily, I have good friends. Good, kind, honest, supportive friends who listen (and I could list hundreds of you, thank you so much).
I have a husband who has been through it all with me and keeps me grounded.
And after being told an awful lot of sense, I realised this.
Do you know what? Kai is hard work. He is really, really hard work.
I’m not saying its some kind of competition about ‘who has it the hardest’, or that other parents don’t find it hard either,but the reality of life with Kai is incredibly challenging and I don’t think anyone could question that.
He’s always been hard work – early months of constant crying and refusal to be any where but attached to me, followed by endless battles getting him to cope with transitions and change and him resisting everything. The speech delay and the near-constant tantrums and the freak outs at the slightest thing are just a continuation of something that’s been going on from the beginning.
He can be lovely of course. He is obviously bright, and can be so much fun and entertaining. He charms everyone around him and can be fabulous company. He plays beautifully, when in the mood to, and if you get it right with him you get it SO right and it is wonderful.
But this is offset by the most rigid personality I have ever come across. It is offset by moods completely dependent on things being just how he wants them to be and endless frustration and tears and anger when they are not. And I can honestly say? The hard times far outweigh the good times right now.
I am not enjoying motherhood right now. It’s not much fun to be honest.
A vast proportion of my day is spent ‘coping’ with Kai, managing his moods and single-minded determination and enduring the frequent screaming, crying, hitting, pulling, outpouring of his emotions. Every single day involves a good deal of time listening to long bouts of crying. It’s incredibly draining, exhausting. And I defy anyone to not find it hard.
And the speech thing IS worrying. The constant, weird, babbled gobbledegook? The fact that has somehow ‘forgotten’ how to say the odd word he could say a few months back? That he makes NO attempt to imitate words yet will copy the sounds he hears himself making on recordings? Of course it’s worrying. I’m not saying it won’t right itself, I’m sure it will, but obviously it’s going to be a concern to me. What kind of mother would I be if it wasn’t?
Whether he fits some kind of ‘label’ or not, whether he is like other kids or not, whether I find it harder than you or anyone else? It doesn’t really matter. Deep down I know it will be fine. I know that he will be fine, that he will grow out of most stuff, and we will survive. I know that really I am very lucky, he is healthy, so am I. I know it could all be so much worse.
But it doesn’t change how hard it is right now. It doesn’t change how much I am struggling.
What matters is I love him. I love him so much it actually hurts me to think about it. I see so much positive in him, despite all the bad stuff, and I am so enormously proud of him, of his fierce strength and passion.
I know I am doing the best I can, I know I am doing a good job, even, because I care about all this stuff and I think about it and I want to make Kai happy.
I just want to be a better mother for him.
I want to figure out what is he needs that I seem to be missing.
Mostly, I just want to see him happy.
And I want to see me happy too.
Read MoreAverageness and Appropriate Worry
I’m not a neurotic mother.
Ok, I’m a slightly neurotic mother but generally I think I have my head screwed on OK. If I’ve learnt one thing as a parent it’s that children tend to do things in their own time, in their own way and there’s not an awful lot you can do to change that.
I try not to worry about stuff. Or I try and worry an appropriate amount anyway.
But for a while now there have been some concerns about Kai’s speech. I’ve had that awful balancing act of not over-reacting and accepting his speech was developing slower than other children but that it would all happen in its own time, but at the same time not burying my head in the sand and missing the opportunity to pick up any REAL problems nice and early.
I was told a few months back to get in contact with my health visitor if Kai hadn’t shown any progression in his speech development by 18 months. And he hasn’t to be honest, at least, not in terms of recognisable words. Ironically he is the most chatty child you could ever hope meet and babble and sings in his nonsensical language all day long. But at nearly 19 months he doesn’t really say ANY proper words. And the odd ‘real’ word he used to say he’s now stopped saying at all, or says them once and twice and then not since.
So I phoned the health visitor this morning, and after a few questions she asked to come over this afternoon.
She stayed for over an hour, observing his play and our interaction and asking lots and lots of questions. And she tells me she is concerned, not so much about his speech but about his speech coupled with his behaviour, wanting to see him again in six weeks and possibly regular checks after that.
I don’t know how to feel. On one hand I think she’s probably just being very cautious, wanting to stay vigilant and ensure any problem is picked up early – that she’s doing a good job. On the other hand I think she’s hugely over-reacting, that surely 19 months is way too young to be worrying seriously about this kind of thing, and that most things can be explained by Kai’s temperament and personality and will work themselves right in time.
Either way I’m left feeling a little worried and upset.
On the positive side she thinks that Kai is very bright, and that his comprehension, imaginative play and concentration is very advanced for his age. He has an excellent internal vocabulary, understands very complex instructions and ideas, and a very good memory for detail. She suspects that he may actually be perfectly capable of talking properly if he wanted, but can’t see the need, or doesn’t want to. Despite knowing what a huge number of words mean he makes absolutely no attempt to say them and has no interest in trying to imitate word sounds. In fact, he just laughs if you try and ask him to.
She predicts he will talk when he decides to, and that he may need some help in the future but that long term he’ll be absolutely fine.
What she’s worried about his disinterest in speech coupled with his behaviour, more specifically his very obsessive and hyper-attentive nature, his complete inflexibility and fixation with things having to go a certain way and refusal to compromise or be distracted, and his general anger and frustration when things don’t go how he wants (which is most of the time!).
She’s also worried about his difficulty socialising. Admittedly he does find socialising with children very difficult, getting very easily overwhelmed and upset. He’s fine with younger babies where he feels safe and in control, but really struggles to handle and relate to older children that do their own thing. He tends to keep away from them, rarely if ever initiates play, and is usually that child at playgroup sobbing hysterically because someone else is playing on the bike that day. He barely last more than an hour before getting completely overwhelmed and asking to go.
I don’t know whether any of these are real ‘problems’.
I don’t know why this is concerning.
I thought all these things were just Kai, part of all the things that make him unique and special and wonderful. I LIKE that he’s different and quirky and strong willed.
I don’t want to change him.
I don’t want to be neurotic.
But I also want to be responsible. If there IS a problem I DO want it picked up early.
I guess we just have to do as the health visitor suggested. Watch, wait, and see. And try not to worry too much. She says we’re doing everything right, which is reassuring, and that we shouldn’t force anything. Just wait. She was lovely actually.
But I’m a little sad that already, at not even 2, my boy is being told he doesn’t ‘fit’ and that he is different. Why must we insist that all children fit a certain box? That they all be the same? Is there no room for individuality, personality, temperament? Or is everything ‘not average’ a ‘problem’?
Do I really want an average child anyway?
Read More
