Spending most of my time online, I find a lot of people that are very good with words and are able to inspire and motivate people simply with the words they say. Some are just random people on twitter or facebook, others, like Temple Grandin, are reaching us through film, news or other means that being a celebrity can bring you.
While I do enjoy reading the posts or watching the videos, I find that they don’t inspire me anywhere near as much as my own children do.
I think that most of us take reading and writing for granted, and just assume that our children can do it and so we practice with them. But when you really think about it, how difficult is that really? Especially with limited motor skills, much less understanding of language?
That’s just one subject, think of ALL the things being bombarded on children to learn… and sure, we help them as best we can, but it’s a lot! And most of the time, we go through the motions with them without usually giving much thought into just how hard it must be for them.
Then you throw something like Autism on top of all the other problems… you see your child sad because they have no friends, they get frustrated easily because none of what you’re teaching makes much sense, they feel overwhelmed very easily, they have even less motor skills than what you expect they should at their age… and yet, despite the difficulty and despite the odds, they keep trying.
My son has done his first 5 days of his second year at school and has yet to get a single thinking chair or time out. He’s been doing well at learning how to read 3 letter words and can write his name. He even does addition and subtraction on numbers under 10! He has been verbal for less than half of his life and here he is overcoming so much… I think about it and wonder… would I keep trying as hard as he does?
Yes, I find all people with Autism to be amazing, yes I do constantly find myself impressed with the amount of support that parents give each other and yes, motivational and inspirational people move me with their words… but the real source of my inspiration, the ones that truly makes me believe that you can do anything…. are my children.
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