My husband thinks I worry too much. I worry about Frank's nutrition. (Well, obsess on it is probably slightly more accurate.) I worry about him wearing the appropriate coat for the weather...even though time and again he has proven to me that he is in fact far warmer blooded than I am in situations where I've been huddled up in a coat and he's been gleefully running around in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. (I believe this is a male thing and not a sensory thing, because my husband, my brother, and...well, yeah, every man I know, is always warmer than I am.) Frank also flat-out refuses to use a blanket at night to sleep, even in the depths of winter. I worry about what will happen if I lose against my insurance company and we can't get him OT regularly anymore. I also worry about kindergarten. Should I ask for an IEP? 504 Plan? Wait and see? Should we start him when he's five (his birthday is in September) or when he's six? What food will he be eating by then? Will he fit in, or will his classmates make fun of him for his quirks?
I should remind you that the boy in question is three, and will be four in September...which reminds me of another worry: what will happen if he doesn't potty train by then? Will he be able to still go into pre-K? And what if he's not toilet trained by age five- will they give us a hard time about kindergarten?
My husband, on the other hand, doesn't seem at all worried about any of these things. He's sure that time will sort through all these things. He thinks that I worry too much about how he'll be in kindergarten: "It's not like he's got the huge body problems that some kids with the disorder have." No, but we don't know what'll happen once he has to sit in one chair a lot during the day.
How about the rest of you with kids who have special needs- do you find that fathers have different (lower) levels of worry than mothers do?
Moving back
13 years ago
2 comments:
Wow! I think you just described myself and my husband! He's completely not concerned about our son's SPD and he constantly tells me I worry too much. According to the hubby, when our son misbehaves he's just being "a boy" and when he has meltdowns he's just "acting his age". It is slightly frustrating, isn't it?
Oh, I think mine believes in SPD. (I've read to him stuff from various books and websites, especially regarding eating, that sound too frighteningly like my son to ignore!) But I think a part of him still believes it's something that as Frank's body matures, he'll automatically handle it better and outgrow a lot of it. Which he may, because we have had him in OT since he was 17 months and have made a great deal of progress; there's a lot of things we do with him every day, too, that the OT taught me, and that should help, too. But he may not- other things may emerge as years go on, things that are unnoticeable now because he doesn't have to sit still for 45 minutes at a time.
My husband was MUCH slower than I was to accept that there was SOMETHING wrong at the outset. I was the one who took it upon myself to go to an OT. I think it took my husband nearly a year post-diagnosis to accept that this was a real thing. He only recently began coming with us once in a while to OT.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
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