for years i’ve struggled with jade having a learning disorder. i can remember when she was in kindergarten i said to the teacher “is it normal for her to transpose her b’s and d’s?” and was told it was totally normally. i think even back then i had an idea that there was just something. call it mothers intuition i guess.
but i pushed it aside and we continued through school year after year, struggle after struggle. some years were better than others (and i absolutely contribute this to the caring nature of some of the teachers she had, who were amazing).
homework was the worst struggle ever. EVER. it would start out okay and quickly escalate to her frustration and mine as well. many homework sessions ended in tears, hers and mine. i can clearly remember one specific night where i had to just excuse myself from the table, walk upstairs and lock myself in my room for a few minutes of mommy-break-down-bawling-my-eyes-out time. it absolute broke my heart to see her struggle. and i always felt it was soooo not fair.
i went through a phase of total denial where i was just SURE my child did NOT have a learning disability, as evident in this post. i finally came to terms with it and was ready to accept it with open arms to only be told she didn’t have one, as evident this post. that was in 2008. since then i had kind of pushed it to the back of my mind again.
since she was tested and we were told nothing showed up then obviously it was just her, or at least that’s what others thought. she has been labeled lazy, unfocused, daydreamer and unmotivated, just to name a few. she has had teachers directly tell her she should be more like her brother. she has had her heart broken and spirit crushed on many occasions. which, in turn, broke my heart into pieces.
finally this year, after watching her struggle, i said i wanted her tested again. there is no way it is still “normal” for a child to transpose letters at 12 years old. i knew in my heart what the problem was, i just needed it on paper to be able to get her help with it.
a few days after i told her that she was going to be tested we were in the living room watching tv, the disney channel of course. one of their short clips came on with bella thorne from shake it up. she started speaking about her dyslexia and how she has dealt with it. jade paused the tv and looked at me with this look of being shocked and in awe. right then i think it clicked for her. it’s okay to have a learning disability. it doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it doesn’t mean you have a disease…it just simply means you learn differently than others. it makes you unique 🙂 since then we’ve also learned of quite a few other famous people who have dyslexia, including tim tebow.
yesterday i went to the meeting to discuss the test results. i was totally prepared to once again hear that she was fine and nothing was found. but boy was i wrong (this is probably the happiest i’ve ever been about being wrong). they did find a “reading comprehension learning disability” (they don’t use the term dyslexic anymore).
of course, i took a ridiculous bawling fit in the meeting and i’m hoping they didn’t think i was a loon. it was just such a relief and like the biggest weight ever had been lifted off my shoulders. i held so much sadness in my heart for everything jade has went through in her school years and in that moment i just left it all go.
my God is an awesome God…the power of prayer is sooo great…
out for now
~kisses
