The trials of having a child with special needs in the family, translated…
Since my son was younger, he’d been extremely sensitive and active, holds strong persistence toward the things he’d encountered, he’d had severe troubles, relating to others. After we took him to the doctors, he’d been found with special needs, gladly, my husband was kind and understanding, and helped out with my son, and, although we’d weathered our fair shares of storms, we’d gotten into his last year of high school, working together alongside him. It’s just, that the heavy coursework of the last year of high school is already extremely difficult for regular kids already, it’d become a most difficult challenge for my son, and we can only use the signals he’d sent out to us, and adjust how we deal with the trials that were thrown at us, hoped, that we can be there for him steadily.
And still, for people with similar experiences, they’d known, that no matter how hard you’d worked toward being there for a special needs child, there would still be troubles every now and then. When my child was under pressure, he’d rammed around the house, and made those exaggerated gestures, and he wouldn’t reply to any of our inquiries either, if we’d tried forcing it out of him, then, my son would show his defenses, ready to fight, he’d even started, screaming at us.
And maybe, it’s because nobody ELSE can share my troubles, during this period of my life, I’d stopped heading home to visit my parents’ household. But, my parents showed care and concern, and missed my son so, and so, I can only, arrange for the gatherings on the weekends. In the meals, everybody had, tiptoed around my son, and only picked subject areas unrelated to testing and school, to help lessen the strains in the atmosphere, and yet, my son still went to the restrooms more times than expected. My father couldn’t understand it, raised his voice, “Just don’t pressure him then!”, after I’d heard, I could only smile on bitterly, my dad doesn’t know, that the stresses of mothers of special needs child is not only toward the child, but also, in response to the reactions like he’d given to me.
Actually, we’re glad that our son had this undefeated way of handling things, and we’d told him to take it easy on himself as well, to choose an area of interest that he feels motivated towards. But unfortunately, my dear old dad was even more nervous than I was, every time he saw me, he’d started warning me to NOT get on my own son’s nerves, to not do this or that, and this made me want to be like my husband, when his side of the family asks about our son, he’d said, “Not bad”, simple as that, to avoid all the unnecessary uneasiness.
I really wanted to tell my dad, we’re working very hard, and our son is very well-behaved too. I know that your anxieties stemmed from how much you cared, I hope that I can hear, “It’s been a difficult ride, and you’d done very well”, the next time, your encouragements will surely give us more strength, and it would make us want to share the goings on of our lives with you even more.
And so, there’s this communication gap between the father and the daughter, and the father’s standpoint was good, because he’s only showing that he cared a lot about the happenings in the woman’s life, and how she’s coping with her son, but, the way this elderly father does it feels more suffocating to the mother of the child, and that just shows, how sometimes when you show you care about someone, that may NOT be how the person who the cares and concerns were shown towards interpreted.
Life, the Obstacle Course 