This is How I’m Letting My Daughter Have More Space to Be Her
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), is only one part of my daughter. It is an integral part of her daily functioning and how she copes with her environment minute to minute. I have always been determined to not let SPD define her as a person and so I’ve begun giving her space to explore herself. We’ve stopped saying “no” and we’ve started to say “yes”.
During preschool and early elementary years, there were birthday party invitations that were automatically rejected based on the location. There were events at school we declined because the amount of potential noise and the large amount of people. I watched her struggle to fit in socially, and I knew we needed to stop saying no. I give my daughter credit; she always had a strong personality and many interests she wanted to explore. Some areas of exploration would end better than others and some, I knew in my heart would never work, but she wanted to try. The first interest was cheerleading and those of you that read an earlier article know how that ended, but she did cheer for four years. She cheered her heart at games. In the beginning, she loved it! She loved the learning of the cheers, and took learning very seriously. The downfall was when practices moved inside and the other children learned how to flip and cartwheel. I tried intervening with gymnastics, but her motor planning deficits would not her allow her to master it.
The next interest was learning to play an instrument. In our school district, all fourth graders are in chorus and they have an option of learning how to play an instrument. She came home and announced she wanted to play an instrument one day in third grade. I knew this one was never going to work! I countered with every argument possible. She had a better counter argument. My husband and I reluctantly agreed to attend Musical Instrument Night. I was shocked to find almost every parent from three elementary schools in attendance. I sat and listened. She announced she wanted to play in the band, but wasn’t sure what instrument. I approached the music teacher after the presentation intent on making this end that night. Before I turned around, we were signing my daughter up to try out the instruments with her Dad the following week. The teacher assured me she could try for a couple of months and we could reevaluate in December. I very reluctantly agreed to the clarinet, but knew we would not make it through the year. Unfortunately, I was right on this one, the clarinet was returned in December due to the large amount of noise when the band got together. The best part was she learned to read music which has made learning to play the piano much easier.
Over time her interests have changed and she is starting to figure out who she is as an individual. Dance changed from the structure and technique of ballet to the free form movement of modern dance. Art and science are being explored in various ways. Somewhere along the line, I realized I needed to give her a little more space to grow, explore, and sometimes fail. I wondered if I spent too much time saying no and not letting her try. Was this the reason she interacted with boys better than girls her age? There were parties at school that I knew would end in sensory meltdown, but instead of saying no we started saying yes. We waited in town for the panicked text pleading “Please come get me!!!!!”, but she learned she could go and we would be there when all coping went out the window. I held my breath when the middle school chorus had their first after school practice and she called me in a panic. She learned she would be ok until I got there and the next time she made sure she had her earplugs. She will continue to struggle, but I will not let SPD define her as a person. She will maneuver the path of life with our help the best she can, but now that she is in middle school I need to give her a little more space to figure herself out as an individual person and not a diagnosis.
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Kim Jacobs lives in the state of New York with her husband of 21 years and currently works in an urban school district. She has a wonderful family of three children, two girls and a boy. Their ages are 15, 10, and 7 respectively. She is a teacher that has worked with toddlers to fifth graders in her twenty year education career. Over the years, she has developed a passion for advocating for children with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and anxiety due to the diagnosis of her daughter. At the age of two, her daughter was diagnosed with SPD followed by a diagnosis of anxiety at the age of nine years old.