My son started out slow and uninterested in school. As a baby, he often had what was medically termed as febrile convulsions whenever he had high fever. I can no longer recall the reason that triggered my son's pediatrician to recommend that he be checked by a neurologist some years later. But he had to undergo 2 full days of psychological tests to determine his mental capability.
I remember feeling so tortured for days when his neurologist wrongly interpreted the psychologist's medical findings and told me that my son was diagnosed with mental retardation. He was given the medical report ahead of us. I cried the whole time while talking to the neurologist. He told us what to expect...that my son may never finish college but that children like him usually excel in other fields like music and arts. He said to encourage and enrol my son in such activities.
And because of his condition, we had to find him a special school. It took us weeks to check out several schools. In one of them, I saw a teenage girl come in with her mother. For no reason, she shouted while walking towards the school entrance. What so shocked me was that the mother suddenly slapped her daughter hard on the face and swore at her for shouting. The girl stopped just as fast as she shouted and continued walking towards the school entrance. Her face was serious...no tears, no reaction. I was filling out the school's Information Sheet that time and found myself so shocked at what I had seen that I almost cried. We left the place and I remember my husband saying then that it was better if our son stayed in his present school than move him out from there. He would only get worse and not better. I certainly didn't argue with that.
My son had regular sessions with his psychologist for several weeks. At times he was made to play games or do activities that improved his motor skills. His attention span was short and he easily got distracted. It was in the first parent-doctor session with his psychologist that the doctor clarified that my son did not have mental retardation but a condition called learning difficulty. That meant he was just a slow learner in subjects like Math, English and Science.
Before the psychologist clarified my son's condition, we had actually gone to some schools that weren't for kids with his condition but those exclusively for the mentally retarded.
We finally found one that was ideal for his needs and the most reasonably priced. He attended two schools since he was evaluated as qualified for Mainstreaming classes. I have mentioned these schools earlier in a previous entry...the Radiance School where he has his regular classes and the Abiertas House of Friendship where he held his one-on-one lessons for Math, English and Science.
He has improved so much that his teachers and the school Directress decided after 2 years to let him try regular classes with tutoring to help him adjust. What his teachers found admirable in him was that he showed effort in trying to do things on his own. During exams, students in Mainstreaming classes are usually pulled out from regular class and given one-on-one exams. He refused to do this after his first exams though we were told that he sometimes requested to have one-one-on exams (usually in the finals - practial kid, lol).
He is doing much better now though they still give him some consideration and are lenient with his grades because they are aware of his learning difficulty. Nevertheless, he has improved a lot and is more self-confident. From the last talk with his teacher, his classmates' impression of him was that he was conceited, lol. I think that means he shows too much self-confidence. But knowing him, it is also his way of showing that he knows what he's doing and that he is capable of making decisions and doing things himself, though I know he often tends to be unsure and needs to confirm things.
He still has a tendency to easily get frightened and panic. He still has a short attention span and easily gets distracted. But omg, he wants to be a soldier. Just the mere thought scares me. It even seemed ages before we could accept that he has grown up and allowed him go to school and come home alone using public transportation. Despite this, the fear that he may get hurt when crossing the street on his own will always be there. We still tell him to take the long route home so he doesn't have to cross a wide busy road with fast-moving cars. I will always fear for his future but I know I have to prepare him to be independent and to survive on his own... because I may not always be around to be there for him.
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