Me, my kid and the system

by Kimber ~ 2003

I have a 4 year old son. He just turned 4 in November. Ever since he started the daycare/preschool he is now in when he was 18 months old, everyone has told me how smart he is. Not that I needed to be told that, I'm his mom, he's a genius. But as I try to look at it objectively he does have better verbal skills and vocabulary than other kids in his class. He knows a great deal about the things he is interested in; animals in general and dinosaurs specifically. He seems to be able to grasp certain abstract concepts I wouldn't have expected him to be able to do; make correlations that I've seen some adults have trouble doing, that sort of thing. But...

There's always a but... . He prefers to play by himself. Now as a mom, this has always been a blessing to me because I could get stuff done, occasionally read a little bit or do some crafting. (Well, before his little sister came along anyway.) Not all time, mind you. He sort of goes back and forth between playing by himself and wanting to play with me and his Dad. But at school he is just happy playing off in his own little world. I have been informed by his teachers that this is a bad thing. They tell me it is such a bad thing that he needs to be evaluated by an agency to determine if he needs to be seen by a psychiatrist to be given a diagnosis. And I have also been given the feeling by these same teachers that if I don't have this evaluation done, I am a bad parent for not wanting to make sure he is ok.

So after much soul searching and talking to folks and my hubby, I agreed to let him be observed and screened. The woman from the agency comes, spends 20 minutes observing him, 20 minutes screening him and sends us a letter stating that she thinks he has Asperger's Syndrome and he should be given a Psychological Evaluation. This is exactly what I feared from the beginning and why I didn't want to have the stupid thing done in the first place. This, of course, sends me all in a panic. They are going to tell my wonderful, happy, friendly, loving, caring, perfect child that there is something wrong with him and that he needs to be fixed. Which isn't true. He's not a broken toaster, he's a child who likes to play by himself. Of course, when I bring this up with the woman she tells me that I'm the mother and I'm too close to the situation, I don't see the same things because I don't want to. If I'm a really good mother I will have this test done for his sake to make sure he's ok.

Well, being the stubborn ol' cuss that I am, I try to make a deal. She needs to come out to the house and observe him. The things she is saying about him in that letter are just not the child I have living in my house. She agrees and we set a date. She comes out to the house and my 4 year old is in "Perform for company" mode, of course. The woman sits and talks to my hubby (since I'm at work) and finds out that for the first year or so while my 4 year old was in the Toddler Room, he was pushed, bitten, threatened and intimitated by two other little toddlers who would take his toys. He used to get all kinds of boo boo reports on which Zachary bit him or hit him or pushed him over. He told me one day that Zachary told him if he went and told the teacher about getting hit Zachary would push him over again. For some reason they failed to mention that at the school. The woman asked if he exhibited any licking behaviors at home. My hubby says "Well, it depends on what he is being". Of course my 4 year old hears this and goes about the room licking stuff. My hubby asks him why he's licking things and my 4 year old says "I'm being a cobra and cobras smell with their tounges". Then he was a cat cleaning himself with his tounge. When he started bumping the bathroom door with his head she asked him why he was doing that and he said "I'm trying to open the door with my antlers" He was being a reindeer.

Is this normal behavior? I don't know. He's my first kid. I don't have training in early childhood behavior. Is this a bad thing? I don't know either. I didn't used to think so. So now I am making a decision. Do I let them shove my beautiful, creative, imaginative little boy into a societal mold to please the masses or do I risk him being singled out by teachers and peers as being weird or Autistic and perhaps ostrasized for the whole of his young life. Well, being me, I am looking to make a compromise. We are going to have the psych eval done but we are going to work on a plan wherein my 4 year old is helped to separate "school" behavior from "home" behavior in a way that he isn't given the impression that either one is wrong. Just different.

And I am forced to deal with more professionals telling me that if I was a good mother I would "help" him become more "normal" all the time. For his own good. To make sure he's ok.

Well, he's ok. He's fine. He's perfect.