Authorized reprint from weChat public account: Cai Ma and Qian Dad
Author: Le Le Mama
Recently, a mother said that her family treasure was suspected of having "autism"... From giving birth to conceiving a second child, this mother hit a copy of hard mode every time, and she could imagine every difficult time she saw her with her eyes closed. She recorded her experiences during this time and wanted to share them with more mothers.
The article is very long, but it must be very touching after reading it, and I hope you can take a moment to read it patiently. Most importantly, I want to tell you:
Every child is a unique individual, and every mother loves her child. Don't over-magnify some of your child's "shortcomings" or "deficiencies", and patiently give companionship and love to your child on the road to growth!
"Every child is different, so what does it matter?"
September 22, 2021,
It was one of the darkest days in my past life.
The day didn't look any different from usual, the autumn rains had been going on for a long time, and it was sunny and warm. I was in a good mood and had a good time with XiaoBao. It wasn't until the teacher at Lele Kindergarten called me at noon and asked me to go to school.
Before I went to school, I was nervous and scared. Although I don't know what's going on, it's not a good thing to be called a parent. I told my teammates and good friends that they all advised me to take it easy, maybe it was just regular communication.
I changed my shoes and went to the sunny road at the entrance of the community, inexplicably more panicked, my legs suddenly became weak, and I was particularly scared. I imagined all kinds of possibilities in my mind, was he fighting with someone? Or did you fall and fall badly?
I tried to force myself to calm down, stabilize my mood a little, and pulled my legs and ran to school. It was supposed to be a ten minute walk and I only took about 5 minutes.
01 · The day I was called to school by my teacher
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When I got to the school, I sat downstairs in the reception room at the front desk, waiting for the deputy director who called me. After a few minutes of uneasiness, the two principals and the teacher in charge of administration sat down in front of me.
The deputy director first asked me: How is the child doing at home? Is it good to eat and sleep? Did you play with the kids?
I said: Everything else is very good, eating is generally feeding, occasionally eating by himself, he is about two years old at home does not nap, has a fixed playmate, has a few good friends.
Then she said: The teacher with the class reflected that Lele did not eat or sleep in the kindergarten, nor did he want the children to contact him, except for the only good friend in the same community, others could not touch his clothes.
Lele is more immersed in his own world, does not love to laugh or make trouble, is not interested in playing with everyone, sometimes plays with his hands, sometimes turns in circles, and is not willing to talk to the teacher more, the little age seems to be worried, and it is obviously different from other children in the class.
The deputy director said that LeLe could not sit still when he did not sleep at noon, would walk around and affect other students and other classes, and asked me to pay more attention to Lele's mental state, before storing files, I saw that there was a second child at home, would there be a younger brother who ignored him?
The deputy director suddenly said that Lele's situation was still relatively mild, and if he did not intervene in time, he was worried that he would become worse and worse in the future. There have been children like this before, who will attack people, scream, roll on the ground when they get to the senior class, and finally have to be persuaded to retreat. If you can't go to elementary school, you have to accompany you, or even go to school.
Speaking of which, my heart had sunk to the bottom, and I asked her: Do you suspect Lele autism?
She seemed to be greatly relieved, and said: It is true that parents have some understanding, that is, they are worried about their children's autism, because he is small now, and it is too late to intervene in everything as soon as possible.
He then talked for a while about how he was doing in school and why the teacher was so suspicious. After that, we reached an agreement, and the next two weeks of morning to go to school, take home at meal time, and I will think of a way to re-cultivate the nap habit at home. I said to change his schedule as much as possible, shorten his nighttime sleep, and try to see if he can fall asleep during the day. If nothing else, at least solve the problems that affect other children.
The teacher took me outside the classroom, and I hid behind the door and watched him through the small crack in the glass, watching the little man sitting alone on a stool on the side of the classroom. Because he did not want to go to bed, he was only willing to sit on a stool by himself, and the teacher could only rely on him.
During the 2-hour nap time, it is normal for the child to be unable to hold back and forth, of course, I know that not sleeping is one thing, and it is really not right to affect others.
After observing for a while, he stood up, but was stopped by the teacher, and sat back down by himself, helpless and pitiful, and when I saw this picture, my tears came out instantly.
With the teacher's permission, I entered the classroom. When he saw me, his eyes lit up, but as cold as he was, he didn't shout.
We walked quickly toward each other, and I squatted down and hugged him, and he wrapped his arms around my neck, kissed my face, and said, "Mom, how did you come to me?"
I said, "Mommy wants to come and put you to sleep." I hugged him, asked him to close his eyes and gently do eye exercises for him (because his eyes were inflamed these two days, and after dropping eye drops, I would do some eye exercises for him), close his eyes for a few minutes and fall asleep.
I slept with him in my arms for about ten minutes, and it was time for the nap to end, during which time I kept talking to the life teacher about his situation at school. When everyone woke up, I asked him: Do you want to play at school for a while before your mother comes to pick you up later, or do you want to go home with your mother first? He said I wanted to go home, and I said okay.
When I walked out the door, I met the head of the kindergarten, a teacher who has been engaged in early childhood education for more than ten years, and I asked her: In her experience, is lele autism more likely?
She said: In the past, there were children diagnosed with autism, the situation was much more serious than this, lele should not be. She saw the closeness of our time together and said that maybe the child was just slow to adapt, but it was better to be able to check it out, at least she could be more at ease. We thanked the director and went home.
02 · Suppress emotions and make an appointment for a check-up
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Sending messages to teammates on the road, it is difficult to cry. Teammates said how to do it, he has a lot of ideas every day, go out to play everywhere, but also communicate with other children, will tell other children that this game shows me, coin-operated motorcycle for me to ride it, just a little timid. I was a little weak enough to continue communicating and told him that we would come back and talk about it.
On the way back, he thought of going to the door of the small shop across the road to take a rocker car. I wouldn't have agreed, but that day I did. I feel sorry for him, if the teacher has such doubts in his heart, will he show an attitude when facing him, and will also make him feel different? He is a super delicate child, feeling the disgust of others, how hurt. Now I just want to make him happy, he can play anything he wants.
Unfortunately, the opposite shop closed the door, the shaking car did not have electricity, I let him sit up, the manpower pushed forward, as if he had played it, he had no opinion - in fact, my baby is a good communicative child, how can he be autistic?
I just wanted to hold him and cry on the street for a while, but unfortunately I couldn't cry at all, and I didn't want to and couldn't put bad emotions in front of him. I tried to control myself as much as I could, giggling with him and walking slowly back with him. Passing by the fruit shop he wanted to buy a box of jackfruit and a box of cookies, of course I bought it.
Taking him home, I immediately contacted my friend Cai Ma and asked her if she knew a better expert in the field of children, and she immediately replied to me to help me find it. Fortunately, my luckiest thing is really that I met my vegetable mother and a few good friends a few years ago, and if it weren't for them, I would have collapsed in a desperate situation.
Cai Ma helped us find our local more authoritative hospital, specializing in children's autism doctors, unfortunately the online registration can not be registered, but when I contacted the doctor to explain the reason, the doctor agreed with us that the next time she went to the clinic to let me directly help me add the number.
The appointment was a week later, and this week seemed to me like a century. I wish I could have a result right away, with an authoritative professional doctor telling me that my child is by no means autistic.
03 · Sorry, it's all my fault
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Earlier, I made an appointment for Lele to go to class, and we had a little meal in the evening, and we went out to go to class with his good friend before five o'clock.
The other moms were sitting leisurely in the lounge playing with their phones, but I couldn't help but walk to the classroom window again and again to see him when he left me. After class, I carefully asked the teacher about his performance. The teacher seemed to see my concern at a glance, saying that he had no problems, performed well, answered questions very positively, and only occasionally could not sit still, which is also a characteristic of children of this age. After receiving such a very positive reply, I was not too at ease in my heart - maybe the teacher just wanted me to enroll my baby in a big lesson.
After playing with him and his friends at the playground until 9:30, we returned home, basically ending the day, and I could finally hold the little treasure that I had been humming and moaning, which was uncomfortable, and feed him a good meal.
After going to sleep, I had a good chat with my teammates, and he supported going to the hospital for a good check-up, but he didn't agree that the child was autistic. He said that he was like this when he was a child, only a fixed good friend, that is, he did not like to play with too many people, he did not like to be lively, and even now, he only had very few friends.
We also know that our children are sensitive, introverted, slow and delicate, and this part of the personality follows me, and I am the kind of person who will magnify the attitude of others to me many times.
We reflect on:
Is it because we are both so boring that we are not enthusiastic ourselves that he is not enthusiastic about anything?
Did he get upset when I got pregnant and didn't let him sleep on my stomach?
● Is it that when I was confined after giving birth to my brother, my grandmother was worried that I would not be able to sleep, locked my bedroom door, and did not let him run to my bed to disturb my sleep, and he felt that my mother had been robbed?
● Is it because I was too tired with my brother later, coupled with postpartum hormone instability, always yelling at him who didn't listen to instructions, and he felt that I didn't love him anymore?
● Is it that he was too busy at work during the summer vacation, and he thought about changing kindergartens, and he needed to change his eating habits as soon as possible, and he was too strict and impatient, so that he felt too stressed and lost the pleasure of eating and did not want to eat?
● He told me more than once that he didn't like the new home and wanted to go back to the old home he had rented before. Could it be because of the good times when there was a mother in the old family who loved him with all her heart?
And it seems that since moving to a new home, my mother has always been bad tempered with him, and my mother has become a bad mother - what have I done?
You can say my child is disobedient, say he's naughty, anything goes, please don't tell a mom that your child may not be normal.
This day of grievances, discomfort and trepidation, at this moment, I really can't bear it anymore, I hugged my teammates and cried out...
Mu Ne is like him, and he will only hug me hard. Comfort me and say no, Lele is so smart, at least much smarter than when we were children, we can all have food in this society, how can he not?
●●●
I recall that when he was first born, he was carried directly from the delivery room into the NICU because of severe suffocation, and he was given a critical illness notice. At that time, we were really afraid that we would damage our brains due to lack of oxygen, and I cried all day, and I couldn't eat or sleep. My teammates comforted me and said that even if it was cerebral palsy, we would raise him well together.
If we can even accept him who may have cerebral palsy, what is there to be afraid of? At least with his ability, there is no problem in supporting himself later.
After finding myself able to accept the worst, I stopped crying, I seemed to have courage.
To say that I have courage is only to stop crying. His teammate was a man who could drink a bowl of porridge when Thunder hit him overhead, and he quickly fell asleep. And how can I sleep?
04 · Sleepless nights
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I opened the Zhihu, public account, all the content that can be searched by entering autism keywords, one by one click to see. See things like the autism self-examination table, or the daily performance of autistic children, or the early detection of autism, what abnormalities will be in infancy, and so on, while looking at it and comparing.
I was shocked to see, for example, "I shouted my name when I was a child" because he often shouted his name and did not answer (later confirmed that this article was how much I thought about it, and the face doctor test said that as long as he had a response, it was not unanswered, he heard it but was too lazy to answer).
I was shocked to see that I said "will have the ability to go backwards", and suddenly found that LeLe could read the entire picture book when he was more than 2 years old, but now it seems that the content is not remembered, is this a regression in ability?
I saw that "autistic children are not willing to contact the outside world and are unwilling to make friends." I patted my chest and said to myself, that's definitely not, Lele has his own good friends!
Then I saw the article that said, "The diagnosed child has a small number of friends who have fixed himself, but is not willing to contact too many children", and I thought that it was over, is lele like this in school?
The more I looked, the more awake I became, and the more uncomfortable I became.
●●●
But I really can't control my own hands, I can't put down my mobile phone, I wish I could have all the knowledge at once, and I can know what the specific problem of the child is. Fortunately, I was not tortured to death by my own sudden heart this night, because my poor little treasure, this night vomited 5 times in a row, and by the end, we were all unable to clean up, put on the urine pad and clothes, and deal with the end of sleep first.
Until dawn, I slept for about an hour in total. I have to get up early to bake egg tarts, because before going to bed I promised Lele to eat egg tarts in the morning. After eating and sending you to school, he didn't want to go, and I said mom would pick you up at noon today, and if you didn't want to eat at school, don't eat. He agreed, and we chatted for a while on the way, slowly waiting for him to finish drinking milk as he walked, and when he entered the school gate, he did not look back.
I said yes to the life teacher in his class, and took more videos of Lele for me, so that I could record them and provide them to the doctors as a reference.
05 · "Mom, I snatched you away"
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When it was time for dinner at noon, I went to pick him up at school. Bring his favorite QQ candy and share it all the way. When he walked to the door of the supermarket, he wanted to exchange two coins for a while to go to the motorcycle, and I suddenly remembered the hundred pieces of cash I had clipped inside the case of my mobile phone, and said to him: Well, you accompany your mother to buy vegetables, help me give money to my aunt, as a thank you, I will give you two coins. He said yes out loud.
We bought whatever we wanted, and when I cashed in, I gave him the money and he paid the bill, because he knew coins, and we got the money we got back together, and then let him take out two coins for his aunt, and he was done. I thanked him very seriously, and the cashier aunt praised him, and I could tell that he was very happy.
Calmly arrived home, I took out all my love and patience, accompanied him to talk, play games and read books, many times he walked away alone, did not let me accompany, I just silently stayed on the side, did not disturb him.
But I couldn't yell at him anymore, even if I was anxious and couldn't hold back the anger, as long as I thought that maybe it was because I made him like this, I regretted it. I persuaded myself to stabilize all my emotions, what postpartum depression, what hormone imbalance, are not worth mentioning now.
In the evening, the life teacher sent a video, saying that it was taken in the morning, in which Lele was running around and shaking his head while dancing with everyone, and he actually sometimes danced to the music at home, but because he was alone, it was not as obvious as in the group. I also sent the video to my teammates, and he said, what is this, is not that he is very happy, people come crazy ~ ~
The time came to the third day of waiting for the inspection, LeLe said last night: I want to go back to my old home, I don't want to be in my current home, this home stinks, I want to sell this home, I want to put my brother back in my mother's belly.
We talked to him for a long time, and once again told him the words he had told him countless times, Mom and Dad always love you, where we are, where is home. As always, he should have been down, but it was also obvious that he did not hear the heart go.
When I got up early, he suddenly started to coddle and asked me to smell his feet and smell his stomach. I arched him and kissed his feet as I usually did with my brother. He was in a high mood and was happier when he got up. On the way to school after breakfast, we talked as we walked, and when we reached the intersection, he stopped and asked me to smell him, and I crouched down and hugged him and asked him: Do you like to be like my brother?
He said, "I'm my brother now."
When we were finished, he suddenly said: I snatched you away.
Asking again is just saying: I snatched you away, only snatched you away, I snatched you away here myself, I only like you, I don't like my brother, put my brother back into my mother's belly.
You may not imagine the impact of these words on me, and it is difficult for me to express them.
When I went to pick him up at noon, the director told me again that according to her observation, Lele would not be autistic, so I should not be too anxious, and my relaxed mood would also make him more relaxed. Because she and Lele communicated about eating, if they ate 3 mouthfuls of food, they could send him a mysterious gift, he did it, and the director of the kindergarten also obeyed the agreement and gave him a clockwork toy, which he liked.
When he was playing by himself, I had been talking to the head of the kindergarten, and the director said that he was doing very well in other ways, and it was not as good as other children' communication, and he was more able to abide by the agreement after thinking about it. I can start next week to stop taking Lele home, let her try to slowly let Lele adapt to school, she comes to think of a way together.
I think he probably prefers to receive a reward from the teacher, so I immediately ordered some of the alloy cars he liked, and then handed them to the teacher, and he rewarded him when he did the agreed things.
When he left the garden, it was time for a daily snack, and the teacher brought a plate of cantaloupe and waffles, and unsurprisingly he took the waffles but didn't want the cantaloupes. The director said: Lele, will you eat some cantaloupe? He said, no. The head of the park said: Then you help your mother taste the sweet cantaloupe? He accepted.
The cantaloupe was indeed sweet, probably because he had only eaten 3 bites at noon, and he was hungry at this time, and he ate all the cantaloupes. I realized that maybe the way we used to let him eat fruit was not right, just providing him did not want, we did not do more guidance and trying, maybe I did not do enough effort.
On the way back, he suddenly said to me again: I snatched you away, I just want to take you away.
I asked him, where to grab it? From Dad? From my brother?
He said: From the East Gate to the North Gate (not very well expressed).
I said to him: You don't have to rob, I am your mother and your brother's mother, and it will always belong to you.
He said: Don't love your brother, just love me.
I said: I love you the most, I have loved you for four years, but I also love my brother, and you are all mother's children.
He was silent for a few seconds, then hugged me and said, "I only love you."
I hugged him for a while, I was crying, he hadn't told me he loved me in a long time.
After returning home, I played board games with him for a while, washed up and slept after reading books.
One day... It's finally over.
The next two days, it was almost the same, in the morning of Lele school, I tried to accompany Xiaobao, Lele came home in addition to feeding, accompanied Lele. In the middle, he also took Xiao Bao to see a doctor, because he coughed so badly that it lasted for a long time. I do feel very tired, and I am tired and tired. And then, unsurprisingly, I was sick...
The tiredness of my heart lies in the fact that when I accompanied Lele and Xiaobao looked at me with tears in my mouth shouting "mamamama", my heartache and guilt, this feeling I think only the mother of the second child can experience it...
When your children need you, I really wish I could have a doppelganger and hold them wholeheartedly.
06 · You see, your child is not normal
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September 27 was the day before we made an appointment to see a doctor. In the afternoon, the life teacher sent me a video in which Lele himself stood alone on the edge of the classroom, his eyes like he was staring at a certain point in the classroom, all the way in circles.
The video is 1 minute and 15 seconds long, and during these 1 minutes and 15 seconds, every second I watch the video is trembling with pain...
But when my boy sat in front of me, and I couldn't hold him and cry well, I could only suppress my emotions and ask him, is it not happy to drive a cart in the playground today? Do you prefer a cart or a pony crossing the river?
And my teammates are optimistic, I sometimes hate why he can't empathize with me, but sometimes I'm glad he's a very optimistic person, at least when I'm in a big mess, he can stabilize my heart. When I was hurt by the self-examination table on the Internet, he would tell me, how can it be autism? At most, 1 in 5 can be matched, who does not have some shortcomings?
●●●
Spending a few days in worry, fear, and guilt was also quite fast, and it was time for us to make an appointment to see a doctor. I confirm that I do not dare to go alone with Lele, because I have no way to objectively describe his usual behavior to the doctor, and my description may make the doctor have a wrong judgment.
The teammates took a leave of absence, we got up early to pack up our things, and LeLe insisted on taking the subway. We snuggled up to him because he was far away and he was prone to motion sickness.
All the way to the hospital, my heart beat faster, and all kinds of emotions mixed together. I don't know how to describe this feeling, I want to have a result right away, but I'm also particularly afraid of that result. When I was with him, I told myself most of the time that he was fine, but once he was out of my sight, many of the previously inconspicuous moments that I ignored seemed to have some situations in the self-examination table, and I grabbed my heart and was very afraid.
07 · Feeling apprehensive, he went to the doctor
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Came to the hospital and explained the reason to our team of doctors, she arranged a plus for us, after 12 o'clock, so we still need to wait for a while.
The whole floor of the hospital is full of doctors' offices and rehabilitation classrooms, and there are some children running around, and I pay attention to them to see them and find out from them what is different from Lele.
During the period, Lele saw a child playing with a mobile phone, he went up to watch with others, and when people were not very happy to walk away, he said to others himself: Brother, let's watch it together.
The parents on the side were very surprised and said: You are graduating, right? Have you recovered for a long time? This kid expresses it so well.
I said: The first time we came, we wanted to see a doctor to see if there was a problem. Several parents on the side said, how good your child looks, what problems can you have. My heart is set.
Waiting for a family to come out of the clinic, it finally arrived for us.
We were asked by the assistant doctor to the cubicle at the back of the office, and the doctor asked Lele to sit directly opposite her, and we sat on the side. She began to ask Lele, and from the name and age, Lele was very cooperative. We filled out the form and watched him talk to the doctor as we filled it out. He was very cooperative and answered them all.
The next test he also cooperated very well, there were times when he did not hear the doctor's requirements clearly, but when the doctor repeated it, he could understand, and we have always controlled ourselves to try not to participate in the doctor's communication with him, and try to let him digest it by himself.
At the end of the test, I asked the assistant doctor nervously, looking like autism? You see, even in the moments before I see a doctor, I was still afraid of this conclusion. The assistant doctor did not answer positively, she said, I will give a test result sheet, you take it to the doctor, she will give you a diagnosis.
So, with my fear, with the test result sheet, we came to the doctor together. After a long time, Lele was already a little impatient, shouting to go home, and during the communication, the doctor had been observing him and asking about our daily life, and we also gave the doctor a video clip of him at school.
Finally, the doctor said that Lele had some speech disorders, but he was willing to communicate with people and could not make a diagnosis of autism. We need to come to the hospital for language closure training for 3 months, and then review it. As for the behavior that he sometimes goes in circles, talks to himself, or plays with his hands, he needs to go to the behavioral intervention clinic to find a doctor to assess whether intervention is needed.
When I got the diagnosis, I let out a sharp breath, at least the diagnosis was not the result I was most worried about, not autism, right? This is already good news.
08 · Every child is different,
What does it matter?
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It was already lunchtime, and we went to dinner while waiting for the afternoon work to find a behavioral intervention doctor for an assessment. During this time, I talked a lot with my teammates and made a good deal out of it from the beginning.
We suddenly found that the 2-year-old will tell the whole story according to the picture book, from my pregnant xiaobao not letting him sleep on my stomach, to later I was uncomfortable during pregnancy and did not have too much energy to accompany him, to today, more than a year, his growth seems to have stopped...
I know what a sensitive person my child is, I know he needs more love than other children, it's been so long since I've ignored him... Hopefully it's all still too late!
After eating, we went to the hospital to wait. In the outpatient hall, we met a little brother, 6 years old, with my mother, pushing a particularly large box with her, and holding a small toy. Le Le looked closely at the box, which was a whole box of toys (should be teaching aids), he liked it, wanted to see, he asked his brother if he could touch it, the little boy only said loudly no, and when Le Le tried to communicate with him again, he lost his temper, shouted and walked away, fell into his mother's arms, and his teammates quickly hugged Le Le and walked away.
Wait for the mother to soothe the children's emotions, I stayed and talked to her, it turned out that her child is more serious autism, languageless, a year ago to do the rehabilitation, now can only carry out very simple communication, such as: no, is mine, the other is not OK, emotions are easier to agitate, difficult to appease.
She observed Lele and asked me: Your child is in a very good state, why are you here?
I told her that there may be a problem with the teacher's feedback after entering the kindergarten, and I need to check it out.
She comforted me: Every child is different, what does it matter?
I can't agree with what she said, where someone is perfect, the so-called "parenting" is to accompany children to adapt to the world, to live well in society, and to have their own place.
Later, there was no gap in the doctors of behavioral intervention throughout the day and recently, and we again found the team of doctors we had seen before, a young assistant doctor who was very, very good and talked to us a lot. She said that during this period, she was also observing Lele, which is not like autism, but now the child may indeed have some room for improvement and needs to integrate into the group as soon as possible, so it is still necessary to help him do training.