My kiddo has some mild special needs. He is improving, but I find myself finding it really hard to cope, and would love some suggestions.
I don't want to go too much into the special needs, but they are primarily speech/language based, and my child is 4. But this isn't a question about him -- it's about me.
My main difficulties are:
1. Uncertainty. Will this get better? Will this not? Will he thrive in a regular school? Will he ever tell me a story? I think if I had a firmer diagnosis with a prognosis this might be better -- but we're still in the maybe/maybe not zone.
2. Am I doing enough? We have therapists, but I am always trying to spend every second of my time with him doing something that push forward his development. It is exhausting and stressful and I find I haven't enjoyed any of my 1:1 time with him for a long time. (I try REALLY HARD to make this fun -- almost always learning through playing, and I try hard not to show my anxiety though I can't say he doesn't pick it up.) My parents were visiting us recently and they said that they could feel my stress levels through the roof about this.
3. Over-research. This leads to me spending hours every night researching new activities/new therapists/approaches/academic articles. This is exhausting, and it really bothers my husband, because talking about this eats up time that is supposed to be nice. (My husband btw does not think this is a big deal -- I want to agree with him, but he is really optimistic person in general and if it were up to him, we would do nothing at all. He feels that we overdiagnose kids who are just on their own path.)
4. Competition. My kiddo is noticeably behind other kids. He is doing great, and if it's just him, I can be proud of how far he's come. But this is totally different when we're around his peers. I have a lot of friends with kids, and we have a lot of playdates - I now find these awful because all I do is compare. My kid has a good time and enjoys his friends a lot, and I think it's good for him to be around typically developing kids, but it is painful. And my friends often tell stories about their kids that unwittingly hurt my feelings ("Amelia told me this crazy story about a planet in a far away world with day glo pirates . . .")
5. This also crazily makes it even hard to be with my own younger kiddo who is typically developing and catching up with her sibling. She is so delightful, but it is also upsetting. I spend less time with her because (see above) always trying to give 1:1 with my son.
6. I read too much into everything. When my kid is badly behaved, I think it's another sign of a disorder (rather than kid bad behavior.) He has lots of friends, great, but he can sometimes be inappropriate/rude with strangers (even poking them when he's tired) and this freaks me out even though it doesn't happen very often so I overreact.
I know a lot of this is about me being a perfectionist. I know that this is about me having an idea of what a person should be (I'm not proud of this.) I had PPD for well over a year, and I blame myself for a lot of this. I have done some therapy which has revealed the roots of this, but I'm still struggling. Maybe I should continue, maybe I need drugs, who knows? But it is sucking a lot of my joy out of being a parent (and inadvertently, my husband's experience.)
Would love personal stories, ideas for books to read, ways to cope, etc. that can help me accept the situation and work on it without it making me so sad. |
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