01-23-2008, 10:27 AM
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pixie of the wood
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 10,575
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I like how we challenge kids to do more and give them more credit than we ever used to, but what I do find crazy is the way they make child (and parent for that matter) feel less than acceptable when they can't meet all the criteria. When I worked with K kids in the kid writing program last year, there were plenty who had most of it down, but not all, and yet they were not judged on their own individual accomplishments. It was all or nothing.
This is the same gripe I have with the CCIU here, and much of the standardization of acceptable behavior that the creation of these programs has spawned. They find out that our boy exhibits some of the symptoms for SPD, (and show me one kid who doesn’t have a few, and I’ll show you the child with abnormal behavior) and he’s labeled as having severe sensory problems. Thankfully, I’m not ignorant of the symptoms or the treatments. If I had been, they’d have us in fits about our “deficient” child, and enrolling him in every program or therapy they suggested, constantly worried that he’d never measure up to his peers.
I’m not trying to downplay the need for therapy for kids who need it or the great strides in early education that head start and similar programs have accomplished. But they are doing him no good by lumping him in with kids who have such severe SPD that they cannot function in day to day life. I’m sure our boy would have even more issues if we always coddled to his unusual quirks and never challenged him to do things he was uncomfortable with, but he has always been very funtional. When I talk to therapists about it, I am the one who gets coddled. They think I am only protesting because I do not want to accept that my child has a disorder.
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