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But imagine if my son was always depressed. If he hated his life. If his talents didn't rise up, and his life was drowning in burdens. Then HE would want to be different. And, so, I would want it for him. If your child doesn't seem happy or able to function in any way in this world, you, as a parent, are going to want to do what you can to change that. It is our job, after all, to raise happy kids that will grow into happy adults able to stand on their own. Just how driven I would be would probably depend on what I believed my child wanted - I am, generally, highly child driven when I make my decisions, trying to be sure I do what they WANT for themselves, not just what I want for them.
So true, and isn't that in the end WHY we get our children evaluated? To help change the way they cope with certain things to make their lives easier.
There's a difference between changing the person and changing their lives.
As for me, i was (am) not diagnosed and i had what i call a crash course at life my whole childhood, particularly school since i could pretty much go to my own world once i went home, it was hard and especially the decade from age 4-14 it was painful and i was miserable, lonely and just general unhappy, i didn't ever fit in (even when i got friends at high school i was included and loved but didn't really "fit in") and i didn't understand why, i didn't understand myself or other people or why we reacted to each other the way we did, that's the most positive thing of my self diagnosis, to finally understand that one thing. As a smaller kid (5-9ish) i would come home from school and throw myself on the floor and sob, every day, because the experience was just not something i wasn't built to be able to cope with.
At the end of the day, i don't know that my life would have been better had we known all along i had AS, i am thankful that time in my life is over and many struggles i face now are much more under my control (i.e. i can choose to expose myself to situations or not for the most part) but i certainly wouldn't change myself to have avoided those hardships, as DW_a_mom said, NT or otherwise we ALL go through difficulties in life and changing who we are is never the answer to dealing with those hardships and would not prevent life from being difficult at times.
If someone is extremely disabled, then that is a more difficult question to answer. Example, my neice has spina bifida, her brain is perfect and she is a beautiful healthy normal little 4 year old, but her legs don't work and she can't control her bowels at all. So she is in a wheel chair, has a shunt in her skull to drain fluid from her brain (that would otherwise have her a vegetable a long time ago) As a mother of a child like that, i don't know how i would answer this question. I would want to change her body to make her life easier but would that change her strong willed personality?
At the end of the day, i'm a person of faith, i don't question the reason God creates people the way He does, i just know there is wisdom behind it and love these people who who they are and not what they can and can't do according to "normal"
Yes, I do think this is why we have our children diagnosed or tested so that we have some kind of explanation for their "difficulties" and so that we can make life easier for them and remove the barriers that might keep them from learning or making friends or just surviving in this life!
26 Jun 2009, 9:02 am
(joke)
