Tomorrow
my troublesome middle child turns four years old. How did it take him so long? It feels like he’s been with us for decades!
The
journey to four with Henry has been much more difficult than it was with our
eldest child. Right from the start it
seemed like my beautiful, golden-haired littlest boy knew precisely what he
wanted and he wasn’t going to do things any other way. My eldest, Charlie, is snoozy and
laidback. He does whatever he’s asked
the first time and he’s as easy-going as they come. With Henry, if you ask him to do something once
then you’ll have to ask him another twenty times. Your voice will get increasingly high-pitched
and sometimes you might have to shout.
Very, very loudly. Even then he’ll
only do it if he wants to and only after you’ve threatened him with no presents
from Santa or cancelling his birthday party.
Whatever does the trick!
Henry
was due to arrive at Halloween 2010, but he surprised us by arriving 5 hours
early. The night he was born, he
screamed every time I put him in the little cot that was attached to my
hospital bed. I managed a few hours
sleep with him snuggled in my arms. Over
the next few months, I soon got used to him wanting that closeness, which was a
good thing as that’s the way Henry and I were to sleep every night for the next
two and a half years! It was a habit we
were told we had to break (of course I was making a rod for my own back!), but
we got used to it and there was no better thing in the world than waking up to
my gorgeous, happy baby.
Henry
settled in well and he was always smiling and content. Back then, everyone commented on what a well
behaved little baby he was. Big brother
Charlie adored him and Henry fed well and hit all those rolling over, sitting
up, crawling, standing and walking milestones that we parents pointlessly obsess
about.
It
probably took us eighteen months before we realised Henry’s speech was
non-existent. We tried not to be too
concerned about it as Charlie, who had a gluey ear, was a late talker too (plus,
I knew it was common with boys). It had
been a hard slog with Charlie and I didn’t particularly relish the thought of
going through it all again, but even at eighteen months Charlie had a few recognisable
grunts, whereas Henry wasn’t saying anything at all.
What
you find if your child has a noticeable developmental delay is that everybody
will have an opinion on why it has happened and what will put it right and that
these often unhelpful and occasionally hurtful opinions, fly in the face of
what medical professionals will tell you and what a few hours internet research
will bring to light.
So,
with Henry passing all the hearing tests, I then had to deal with not just a
child who was getting more and more frustrated that he couldn’t communicate,
but with the ‘world’ telling me what I had to do to
solve my “problem.” Why was my happy, gorgeous little boy deemed a "problem"?
“Henry still doesn’t have
any words, Elizabeth. You have to talk
to him you know? If you speak to him more
he’ll start talking back.”
“It must be awful for you
that Henry still isn’t talking. Katy was
talking more than him when she was ten months old. It must be so hard having a child who you get
nothing back from.”
“Hugo had 200 words before he
was two. My auntie’s best friend’s a
head-teacher at a primary school and she says this means he’s VERY clever.”
“Are you sure Henry’s ok,
Elizabeth? He’s just walking around
looking blank all the time. Why isn’t he
talking?”
“Can you believe that Poppy has just been scored by nursery in the 36 to
48 month ability range for language.
She’s so advanced for her age.
What on earth is she going to be like when she’s five, can you imagine? She’s
so far ahead already!”
Me: “Well, she’s been marked
at 36 months and she’s three, isn’t she?”
“Erm, she's not three for two
weeks actually!”
It was hard seeing
Henry struggle. He’s my strong-willed
one as it is and his behaviour was affected by his inability to make
himself understood. What I found even
more difficult was the assumptions that were made. We hear all the time that bright children have
lots of language early, whilst a child who doesn’t communicate is behind – and will
probably stay behind. I remember crying after reading a newspaper opinion article written by some woman (with no professional
credentials) who blamed late speech on lazy, uneducated parents with poor
vocabularies who never read to their child and who sat them in front of iPads
instead of talking to them. It hit me
like a brick. People who don’t know any
better, will assume my child isn’t talked to, that he isn’t read to or that his
parents are stupid. I could have punched that silly woman on her
self-righteous nose and I felt an urge to tell everyone who’d listen the truth that Henry’s
shelves were stocked with hundreds of books and that he had at least five
stories every night!
Then there was the
ubiquitous competitive mummy “friends” who saw Henry as a benchmark to compare
their parenting. Henry couldn’t talk, so
this made their child brilliant. I had
failed (twice) to produce a bright, chatty child, so this made their parenting infinitely
superior. The message came loud and
clear from many directions and it came to my face, as well as behind my
back. “Oh, we’re going to softplay with Elizabeth and Henry this afternoon,
but it’s no fun for Amelia. She get’s
nothing at all out of playing with Henry as he’s so far behind her. It’s so hard for her to have to play with
him.”
You may think that dealing
with such negative comments has knocked my confidence and in some ways it has,
but I never once lost confidence in Henry.
My little boy is bright, funny, thoughtful, loving and he has the
concentration level of a criminal genius.
He gets up to antics that Charlie would never have dreamt of. He dissasembles anything which will dissasemble
to see how it works and he can usually put it back together again. Henry is a physical, active learner. He’s a thinker and a do-er and a problem
solver.
Henry flew past every
single one of those early development milestones – except one. Just one.
The one that is deemed very important, but still just one out of hundreds. He was running, jumping and skipping when the
milestone charts said he should be learning to cruise around the furniture, he
was eating with a knife and a fork when the charts said he should be starting
finger foods and he was dressing himself and putting on his own shoes when
others his age were still crawling in babygros.
Did it really mean so much that he couldn’t talk?
Henry’s pre-school
have been fantastic with him and I am thankful that they appreciated all the
wonderful things about him and all the amazing things he can do without ever signalling to me that they thought
he has a problem or that his speech was an “issue”. Instead, I
was told he would talk when he was ready and it would be like flicking on a
switch. They were absolutely right. The Christmas following his third birthday,
Henry started talking and now at four years old (tomorrow!) he never shuts
up. He sings, he tells jokes and he does
impressions. He has almost caught up, precisely
as I knew he would.
So, the milestone charts have been binned in our house –
forever – because far more important than a tick in a box are all the things about
Henry that can’t be measured on a scale: the kindness he shows to his friends; his
eagerness to be helpful to Mummy and Daddy; his never-ending love of Batman and
Mary Poppins; his excitement at going on an adventure (whether it is on holiday
or just to the shops) and his smile which lights up the room when he gets a hug
from his brother or sister.
No comments:
Post a Comment