My thoughts quickly revolved decades back to the first trip my newborn son and I took for his well baby check-up. I was nervous, to say the least. Nervous about what, not really sure, but I can tell you I hadn't thought the whole thing out. I guess I was worried about what the doctor would say, or find...on and on...but most of all, I'd never experienced taking a baby to the doctor. I should have been more confident in my own abilities because everything went well.
...except for one thing.
Even after my son's check-up I was still faced with a giant puzzle. A puzzle with neither a beginning nor an end. Okay, it wasn't really a puzzle, it did have a beginning and an end, and it was a tiny, newborn, baby sweater!
The visit was over, I went to the waiting area to put the little blue and white sweater back onto my son before we went out into the February cold, and I froze. How in the world was I supposed to put that thing back on him? Remember, there's not even a beginning here. That's how it felt.
Most of all it felt impossible.
In my anxious state I was immobilized. "Think," I tried to rationalize. "You put this same sweater on him before, surely you can do it now, " I told myself. So I started to figure this puzzle out. First the sweater went on upside-down and backwards. "Oh, my gosh, did anyone notice what I just did," I worried. It seemed an eternity passed before magically the sweater slide into the just-right-place.
I was so anxious about this experience of ---first-time mom/newborn baby/trip to doctor---that my emotions got the best of me.
And as that baby cried, in the middle of the service, I wondered if the mom on the other side of the auditorium felt like I had so many years ago. Was she anxious about how she would calm her baby? Did she have a plan?
I can barely believe I'm writing this story today because never, did I think I'd tell another living soul, how inadequate I felt that day. Heck, I was just thrilled to get out of that doctor's office that day with my healthy son (wearing his sweater), happy I'd survived the dreaded sweater experience!
Emotions--we think of them as something locked deeply inside, something hard to deal with in unknown experiences. When it comes to dealing with our children, particularly as they reach school age and beyond, what happens when it seems they are learning in a different way? When they seem to be learning at a different pace than other kids around us?
Here's what the National Center for Learning Disabilities says--
"The only "wrong" thing to do is to do nothing. If you wait to seek help for your child, her [or his] frustration and sense of failure will continue to erode their self-esteem...."
Here's a checklist for Preschoolers:
- Problems pronouncing words?
- Difficulty finding the right word?
- Difficulty making rhymes?
- Trouble learning numbers, alphabet, days of the week, colors and shapes?
- Trouble concentrating?
- Trouble interacting with peers?
- Difficulty following directions or learning routines?
- Difficulty controlling pencil, crayons, scissors?
- Difficulty with buttoning, zipping, tying skills?
Whether it's milestones that we encounter like taking our first baby to the doctor for their very first check-up, or we're trying to sort out the reason our child's struggling so much with reading, please know that at times it all can seem impossible.
There are answers, though, and at OnPoint Learning Center we are here to help you find the answers that will make life easier for you and your child.
This is a clay model of survive, meaning to continue as self.
Survive, even when things get tough!
Yes, we can survive this!
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