In all of the time that we have been working with various professionals, I hadn’t thought much about a diagnosis for our son. I just knew that we were using our available resources to help him. When the school’s support team met last month to talk through next steps, they asked if he had an official diagnosis. While I knew what diagnosis meant, I wasn’t really sure what that would look like. I wasn’t even sure that any of the doctors had specifically named something as an “official” diagnosis.
And then the other day, I finally remembered to circle back to the doctor to see about an official diagnosis. And she had two: one that I suspected and a second one that we had discussed before in passing, but never as an official diagnosis. And then there I was, sitting with this diagnosis and I was a little shocked.
I guess I was shocked at the official diagnosis of it. I knew he definitely had the symptoms, but I didn’t know at what point the diagnosis would come - and I guess I figured it would be down the road more.
The benefit of being a teacher (well, one of them anyway) is that I’ve seen how this diagnosis can play out in the teenage years. And I know that it can go away if we can teach him how to manage his anxiety. And as far as diagnoses go, this one is pretty minor. And yet, it gave me pause.
I was discussing it with a friend and she asked if I had told him about the diagnosis. We haven’t. And then she asked if we were doing anything differently. We aren’t.
And when she asked those two questions, I had to explain to her, we aren’t doing anything differently, it’s just that psychologically my perspective is different. THAT is the part that’s interesting. Nothing is different except the words that we use around the same thing that we’ve seen all year. And, last week, the week that we got the diagnosis, he spoke to his teacher at least once each day for the longest speaking streak he’s ever had! What has changed is how I see him. Rather than being a person fully capable of stepping up and doing the things we ask, the diagnoses makes me hesitate. And that’s not right. It has me asking his future church school teacher if he will still be able to attend church school given his situation - but with no diagnosis, I would have assumed that he belonged there and just explained that he’s a little different than some kids, but does things mostly the same.
The real upside to having a diagnosis is that we have a justification for advocating for our son, but the things we’re advocating for are not meant to cater to maintaining this diagnosis and instead to help him grow out of it. My hope is that having this diagnosis will bring awareness to his future teacher and maybe create a little more patience and compassion, but not fewer opportunities to participate. And that’s what I need to remember: now that we have this little piece of paper, our expectations of him do not change at all, but we may need to have a little more patience and compassion around his timetable to sort things out.
So for now, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and challenging him to push himself to do what he can. In the meantime, I’ll be checking my mind’s desire to pave the way for him.
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