Parently Exceptional Children

Would everyone buy a book by that title because we all think our kids are the most brilliant, advanced, fantastic beings on the planet? Except of course when they won't sleep - then we don't think too highly of their rank around the world.

I don't know how to explain it, I didn't do it. But I really think our kids are exceptional. The kind of exceptional that has another side of the sword.

So I'm about to go down the same mistake road with Abby that caused oh so much trouble with Jack a few months ago. But I just don't know what else to do.

Abby has ALWAYS been emotionally out of the park. Not out of this world, but out of the park. She used to gaze out the window as a three year old and say "Momma, look at the beautiful world that God created."

She has always had a sixth sense of sorts when it comes to when people need support.

And she has always had a bit of drama and fear in her.

Once upon a time she was terrified of the ocean. Until Steve made a game out of chasing the waves and that was that.

She's always preferred to sleep WITH a caregiver rather than alone - cuddling even in the hottest of CA summers.

When she's down, she's very down, but not necessarily consistently throughout the day.

She had some dark talk in Kindergarten because of a friend drama happening - you might even call it emotional bullying. AND as soon as her teacher got involved and stopped it - the dark talk was gone and the sun was shining.

Well some sad talk again. After weeks and weeks of struggling with fears with us (she's afraid of bees and it's causing disruption at school) and she's afraid of random things she might accidentally see (30 seconds of a disney channel show as we were waiting for the next show to come on - enter peanut gallery here about how scary and awful some of the disney shows are), that made her fear gardens or anything ancient.

SO... lots and lots of things we've tried. Everything from letting her talk it all out constantly thru completely until everyone is exhausted talking about it. We've tried NOT talking about it and just encouraging her to keep going, let it pass, fill her head with as many good things as possible.

The parallels between this and the sensory questions are many.

Just on the surface, I wonder if she and I and Jack are all a little sensory (and possibly my dad too who admitted to still being afraid of bees) and the bees buzzing just makes us climb walls.

NOT on the surface, Jack was struggling. He was probably going to grow out of it. ALOT of the people I trust (his teacher at the time, his teacher he was going to have, a couple other people) TOTALLY disagreed with me taking him to a therapist and having him tested for sensory stuff etc. etc. Of course the WEEK I started the whole process he seemed to make leaps and bounds (not as in it worked, but as in by the time I actually got him in, I was pretty confident that he was working through whatever it was naturally on his own in one big step forward).

Abby is struggling. She will probably grow out of it. I'm pretty sure the same people who disagreed about Jack would disagree about Abby. She IS extra emotional and I don't need that to change.

But I want to see if someone will help us. So... I'm going to jump thru the hoops again and at the end of the day I will be much leaner in the bank account, feel a little foolish, but at least be quite sure she doesn't need anything different than what we're doing. But you know, before I can be sure, I have to go down the wrong road and get turned around and come back.

Blah.