Education | Lessons from my daughter

Emily did it…. again!

She has amazed me beyond my wildest dreams!

This morning was the day. She got up feeling ready to present her syndrome to her classmates.

For you and I that would be the equivalent of opening up about our well kept secrets to the world. Or stripping in front of a crowd!

She didn’t hold back anything. She stood in front of her classmates and talked about how her doctors told us she would never walk or talk! She talked about how she’s missing part of her 5th chromosome, she showed the cri du chat awareness video and talked about our upcoming trip to New York City and our attendance to the 5p- society conference…

I was less nervous for her than I was nervous about her classmates’ reactions.

A class of 13-14 yr old kids reminded me of most of the meetings I have to attend. Some kids were listening, some were looking but were not listening, others were not even pretending to be listening…. Quite fascinating to see that regardless of the age group or situation, people in attendance are almost always the same.

Emily stood tall in front of the class and did her thing.

Her brochure, which she designed with her EA didn’t fit on the smart board properly but they managed with what they had…

She asked for questions, there was only a couple which she answered and although the teacher tried to get the conversation going it didn’t happened. Not sure if she will get questions later but if she does, I know she will be able to answer them.

Sometimes, for her to be so aware of her syndrome, is hurtful. She will tell us that she wants to be normal, to be popular and have friends… We started a journal last year where when she feels blue we track how amazing she is. We have lots of stories in there that we read together and it helps her see that she is extraordinary. That normal is boring! That she has overcome more in her life than most people will in their lifetime.

I wish people could see how much she has achieved before they see how far behind or different she is…

I wish kids would give her a chance… Even when she disconnects and can’t quite engage in their discussion, if she could really be included and not just standing or sitting alongside her peers, they would discover a really fun girl who has traveled and seen lots…

They would see Emily the way we see her!

In your life, do you take time to get to know someone before you decide if they are worth getting to know? Do you pre-judge people or do you give them a chance? What do you teach your kids to do???

What made me think of Thomas today??? I truly don’t know!

Back in second grade, Emily convinced her teacher that she had a brother named Thomas who was in 3rd grade.

To us, Thomas was the tank engine who happened to be Emily’s pretend brother…..

See, Emily doesn’t make friends easily, to be honest, she doesn’t make friends….. so she has pretend friends.

Apparently, these conversations about her brother went on for a little while until the day I had to review the information on file at the school. The school send you a copy of the information they have on file and you need to let them know if it is still all the same. Parents living together still? If not which house does the kid live in…. contact number, address, siblings….

Emily doesn’t have siblings…..

I truly believe that her teacher clued in on the fact that Thomas didn’t exist the day I returned that form to school.

🙂

I have mentioned in another post that I used to take Emily to school every morning, I walked her to class and got her set-up for the day. I would leave once her teacher or T.A. would come in.

That morning, as I walked Emily in class, her teacher asked me about Thomas, so I answered that he was the tank engine and Emily’s pretend brother…. Made sense to me!

The teacher admitted that Emily had them believe that she had a brother. I had to confirm again that she doesn’t have a brother…. I wasn’t sure where that conversation was going until she told me that the school psychologist wanted to meet with me to discuss Emily’s telling lies…..

I call it imagination but that’s not how they saw it!

I agreed to call the school to make an appointment. As I walked out of the class, the school psychologist was waiting for me and introduced herself…. I had been ambushed!

🙂 LOL!!! OMG!!! I was in the school system for years and that never happened to me.

….. I was never ambushed and walked to the office before but here I was on my way to the psychologist’s office to discuss my daughter’s imagination.

…..

The discussion started with Thomas, the brother. I once again explained that he doesn’t exist… the psychologist said that Emily now needs to say pretend brother… Ok, I can live with that. She played them and they are obviously insulted so I am not going to add to it.

I got up to go, I had to get to work but she wouldn’t let me leave. WTF?

Now, we had to discuss Emily saying that she plays with horses at recess…. She should say pretend horses…. Now, that bothered me and I had to say something.

There are no horses around the school, it is obvious that they are pretend. If the school was doing a better job at helping her make friends, she wouldn’t have to play with pretend horses. The psychologist didn’t seem to like this. I also had to add that when I was in elementary school we used to go to the moon during recess…. we never really made it there and we never had to specify that we were pretending…

She disagreed, Emily had to say pretend before anything she said that was not real… otherwise Emily was lying.

Fine, I wasn’t going to win this argument and I had to get to work.

One more thing needed to be discussed, Emily told the class she had a pet snake named NoFeet, the psychologist wanted Emily to admit that she didn’t have a snake, Emily needed to tell the class that she lied about that too.

…..

That one, I disagreed with all my heart and I had to make this psychologist understand. Emily wasn’t a liar, Emily had and still has a great imagination. She doesn’t quite connect with kids her age, her speech was not great and most kids wouldn’t take time to listen to her… So it was easier and less lonely to revert to her imagination, to cope and get through the days…

Emily wasn’t going to do anything about her pet snake……….. she wasn’t going to tell them she lied because she DID NOT LIE!!! She had a snake named NoFeet…

With that I got up and left the psychologist’s office.

I have seen her from away after that but she was never someone I felt like I could go talk to about my daughter.

I was hoping she would have suggestions on how to help Emily make friends but instead, she told me my daughter was lying and needed to say pretend before using her imagination… That was disappointing!!!

……

That night I had a chat with Emily.

Me: Emily, at school when you talk about Thomas, you should say he is your pretend brother

Emily: OK

Me: And when you go outside to play with horses, you should say they are pretend horses

Emily: OK

Me: Do you understand?

Emily: Yes!!! Preeeeeteeeennnnd……!!!! she stretched the word to put some serious emphasis on pretend.

As the days go by, I kept reminding Emily to say pretend.

As the days go by, Emily kept saying pretend.

I haven’t had to be called in to the psychologist office again and once in awhile Emily would say something at home and I would ask her: Emily if you were at school, you would say…..?

Emily: Preeeeeteeeennnnd……!!!! I know!!!!

Over the years, I have seen Emily “play the game” on various occasion where depending on who was interacting with her, she would change a little something here or there and made sure she had them in her back pocket…. 🙂

For example: Made her newest TA open and set-up lunch for her (anyone who would like to do that for me, please let me know!) she would change how she answered questions to give the speech therapist what they wanted so she could get out of there faster….\

🙂 Brilliant!!!

Pretty impressive for a little girl who wasn’t supposed to communicate or understands emotions.

How would have reacted to the lovely psychologist point of view and theory…?