Who doesn't want to be special? From a very early age, we strive to stand out and be noticed. We yearn for approval, recognition and for people to like us. We seek praise from our parents, teachers and peers.
Special is good, right?
But what happens when you put the word 'special' with the word 'needs'. Suddenly, being special is not such a good thing. When you become a parent of a child that is a bit different and needs extra support, you feel conflicted about this term. Well I do. My child is special and needs a bit more help than a typical child his age, but that does not make him any less. I actually like the term 'tailored needs', because often our kids can do most things their peers can, they just need a few adjustments here and there. And how about instead of Special Education Units we call them Tailored Learning Centres? Or 'TLC' for short, which also happens to be an acronym for Tender Loving Care.
I understand that being different can make some people uncomfortable, but in most cases they are not bad or ignorant people, they just don't know how to behave or what to say. I am so proud of my son and will tell anyone who wants to listen about him. I will happily explain why he does not speak very well when they try to talk to him; why he sometimes suddenly squeals, flaps his hands and marches on the spot; why he looks off into space and has trouble looking at their face. I'm OK with that. If I can teach people about 22Q 11.2 and help create more awareness of this syndrome I will do it. Understanding and acceptance comes from being informed and educated. I'm all for that.
Special can create things never dreamt of before. Special is why we drive cars, build skyscrapers, fly to the moon and why I am sitting at my lap top typing this blog that you are reading on the other side of the world. Special is cool, who wants to be normal?
As we get near the end of the week, Sam starts to struggle. The heat does not help either. Every Thursday we have a Speech Therapy session in the afternoon too, so I try not to overload him in the morning.
After dropping Zoe off at school we popped into the shops to get a drink and something to eat and then headed to the park. Sam had fun, but the temperature soon crept up to the mid-30's and we headed home. Once we had cooled down, lessons began. Today I added new subjects to our schedule - Science/Social Science and Music. I also thought it would make a nice change to do our activities in the kid's play area on the mat. Sam has low muscle tone so he can find sitting in chairs for long periods a bit difficult. This lead us nicely into our Music lesson because the keyboard is also in the play area.
Here is what we got up to today.
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| We sat under a shady tree in the park and had a picnic before playing. |
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| Back at home, we did our lessons in the play area. Here's Sam cutting out the pictures for our first activity. |
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| Then a spot of gluing. |
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| And for a job well done, Sam gets a stamp and a sticker. He does tend to go a bit crazy with the stamp and I have to grab it back quick. |
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| Here are our finished activity sheets. I created four scenes - sky, park, under ground and the sea. Sam first cut up all the pictures and then I mixed them up. There were six pictures for each scene titled 'What can you see...?' I asked him to find the pictures of things that you would see in the sky, under the ground, etc. Then we talked about them. |
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| This was our under the ground scene. |
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| Ready for our music lesson - 'Old MacDonald'. Sam loves singing this song. I found a song sheet with letters rather than musical notes and I stuck letters on the keys. I helped him follow the letters and play the notes. Once he is confident doing it this way, I'll introduce notes on the staff with the letters and then hopefully we can drop the letters and he will just read the notes. |
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Sam LOVED playing the keyboard. He picked up the concept very quickly. It was great to see him doing something easily and not struggling.
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