Yellow Belt-The Rising Sun

On Tuesday this week Alex earned his yellow belt. As his Sensei explained, he is now a rising sun. The whole family attended the test to watch Alex earn his belt. It was an emotional morning, and a day we will never forget. Alex is such a performer and so in love with the stoplight that he was totally focused and performed the best we have ever seen him. He recited the belts backwards, and performed his moves with ease. At one point he lost focus, and later told me that he was trying to get his dad's attention because a big FedEx truck was passing by the karate school. He is, after all, only 4.

Martial arts, taught by the right Sensei, has been one of the most beneficial therapies and self-confidence builders of anything we have tried. If your child has CP, get him or her into martial arts. But don't just go with any teacher. The teacher needs to know his (or her) marital arts, but also give a nice mix of praise and challenge, discipline and understanding. Alex was 2 when he started karate at the Y. It was a chaotic mess, but the kids loved it and Alex fell in love with the sport. By 3, we found a school we liked and soon realized that a group lesson was too distracting, so he started twice weekly private lessons, first thing in the morning when he was freshest and most cooperative. Children with CP spend up to 5 times as much energy getting through their day, which means anything after lunch time should be easy, fun, and low pressure, because they won't have the energy for focus and self-control. So, you set your child up for success, as we did, and get him into his most challenging part of the day right after an early breakfast.

In the last two weeks, we have seen Alex blossom in other ways. Taking him out of his preschool was our first step. He was so stressed out about going to school every day that we had begun to think he had a learning disability. We were in consultation with a behavioral therapists, who was very supportive, which is important when making big decisions for your children. But once we took him out of school for a few days for a trial run, he returned to our normal little boy, and we realized things were not going well at school. He had such an antagonistic relationship with several of the boys who had bullied him on the playground, that he had begun to have terrible nightmares and meltdowns before and after school. There was no option in this particular school than to pull him out. But, we needed to put him into another social environment quickly because he feared he had failed. So, we started him at another preschool, where he is completely content. Dealing with schools is one of the most stressful issues when you have a child with any special needs. But as a special needs parent, you have to toughen up, let negative people and comments roll off your back, and hug your children because they and only they (well, and your spouse!) need your positive energy.

Our two days a week in Mommy School has been amazing. We consulted a homeschool professional who advised us on some curriculum. Right now we are using Singapore Math and Institute for Excellence for reading and writing. Both are excellent. They require some study on the teacher's part, but Alex is excelling academically. He loves the challenge, the one-on-one, and is building tremendous self-confidence. It is amazing how making a few changes in a child's life will change his state of mind, and yours. Special kids require special attention and creative thinking to find the best possible set-up for success. Really, that could be true for all of us. Having the courage to make the change may be all that is required. The value for this week, incidentally, is courage.