defining a child

Aug 07

Today Eric had an “evaluation” by a team of various therapists and other assorted employees of the local school district, to help ascertain what Eric’s needs are and what is offered for him after he turns 3 years old in November and moves into a different category in terms of funding for his various therapies.

Apparently, it’s a whole different world.

We are a fairly private family. The older children attend a Waldorf school, which is consistent with our own family philosophies, some of which include: limited media exposure for young children; the idea that the parent is the child’s first teacher (ooh! That’s a title of a book! You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, by Rahima Baldwin Dancy); a sense of gentleness and protectiveness that surrounds young children, and many other things. In addition, we eat organically-grown foods. We don’t eat processed foods. We wear natural fibers, and the children are clad head-to-toe in woolen underwear from October to April. I knit. So do the children. My older son’s favorite activities are playing his cello and juggling; my daughter’s is drawing, and she’s writing a book. So we’re a little odd.

My older daughter attended public schools, some of them rated very highly. But at the same time, there comes with that the possibility of exposure to other family philosophies (guns as toys! poor grammar! Dora the Explorer!) that may not be consistent with ours.

Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing. The preschool they are recommending for Eric is a mixed group, some having special needs, some being part of a low-income program, and some being not definable as part of any particular group. That’s fine. I’m all for diversity, and I want that for Eric, want “inclusion”, whatever that is in reality.

The thing is, I see now that Eric is in a place of his own, just as he is a boy with a very independent sense of who he is, and his needs may not necessarily be identical to those of his older brother and sister. Makes sense, right?

Before Eric was born I made a complete plan in my mind for him and his life, thinking that this time, this time, I’d do it “right”, and have the perfect birth/childhood/education/life for this child, my fourth, because I’d finally put all the pieces together, no need anymore for experimentation, because THIS time it’d be PERFECT. And then along comes Eric, SURPRISE! I’M NOT WHO YOU THOUGHT I’D BE! and it all went out the window, because Eric seems to have his own ideas about who he is and what he needs. All I really need to do is listen, but sometimes it’s hard to let go of my own expectations, my own definition of who I think he’ll be.

And this evaluation is one more step in this process, one more really defining moment, because from here Eric can go in so many different directions.

Which one, Eric? Which one is you?