Tuesday, August 18, 2009

On Expectations.

When we become parents, we have expectations of our offspring. We expect that they will do certain things at certain times and end up growing into certain people with certain strengths and weaknesses.

We were talking the other day about how any expectations we might’ve had for Dominic have been completely shattered. Frankly right now all we want is to raise a person who is capable of living independently as an adult. Its really hard to put this into words, but we’re living so much IN THE MOMENT right now, that its impossible to see past this week.

We have friends whose 5 year olds are riding the bus to kindergarten. That will not be Dominic. We have friends whose child with a birthday one month before Dominic’s is doing math and reading. And we’re fighting to be able to get him to be able to speak. We have friends whose three and four year olds are doing basic math. And Dominic doesn’t even have the basic concept of counting. All he can do, and this is an accomplishment of the summer, is repeat back the number one through ten when someone else says them. The underlying concepts of counting or of quantity simply aren’t there. His peers are writing their names. He’s struggling to imitate a vertical line with actual hand positioning help from a therapist.

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