On improving symptoms. · Wednesday January 24, 2007 by Ann
Lucy has turned into a real teenager, she sleeps so long now!
Alice got up early and went off to college but Lucy and David were asleep all morning. Both got up at lunch time and David went off to college for his only lesson of the day which was in the last session. we are lucky because the college is on split sites, partly in our own town and partly in the next one. David and Alice walk down to the bus stop at the site here and catch the college bus across. The bus runs backwards and forwards all day.
When Lucy got up we spent some time adapting some of her clothes so they look different and can be worn in a different way. She did some work on the laptop-alongside chatting to her friends on MSN. She has now set up her own space on ‘My Space’ and has helped a few friends to do the same. Nothing too spectacular you might think, but given the severity of the dyslexia diagnosis she was given, I am cheering inside! She is doing all of this with so very little help from us. Occasional spelling requests come our way and then queries sometimes on why the word is spelt like that-and we are back on the subject of the roots of words and language bases again. We have also been talking about onomatopoeic words and grammar rules. One to one conversations are great, you can clearly see if the child has ‘got it’ without needing to see an essay about it! I’ll let you know if she talks me into having my own ‘myspace’
Last night on the way home from choir Lucy was commenting that she knew all aspects of her ‘special needs’ have improved. Since dancing has improved her co-ordination and balance, she is able to join in with all sorts of games confidently. We think that dancing has made a big difference to her sequencing ability too. She is no longer so ‘twitchy’, there was a time when she didn’t sit still for a second, literally. Her foot would be tapping or her hands flapping or spinning a pencil-or she would be bumping into me repeatedly. She always said she couldn’t help it-and we accepted it as just being part of Lucy- although the repeated bumping into me drove me nuts some days. Lucy hardly ever does any of that now, except for occasional ‘twitchy days’. She had an over sensitive sense of smell too- we certainly couldn’t walk past somewhere like a ‘Lush’ store that sells all of those smelly soaps. If we had to pass it, it would be at a run, with her taking a deep breath and pinching her nose. She couldn’t tolerate the smell of most of the eczema creams-not even on other people. All of this has improved although she is still very fussy about the smell of shampoo/soap/toothpaste/antiperspirant etc. Indeed Alice has a Saturday job in a smelly soap shop and Lucy can pop in and talk to her without any fuss now. Clothes ‘feeling funny’ has improved too, it is still there, but not as bad as it was in the days when we’d buy six garments from a shop and five would have to go back. And these days she is very conscientious about cleaning her teeth and taking care of her hair, this is a very long way from the days when she couldn’t bear to do either. I clearly remember my mother’s despair when she asked me “Are you going to make that child brush her hair?” And I said “no”!
Her spelling , reading and writing are all improving- she has been so motivated to improve in these areas to be able to do as well as everybody else does, without effort.
The home ed community has been brilliant-if we have been out and I am not there to read something for her, one of the other children or adults has done so if she has asked, with no snide comments about her being stupid- which is what happened all the time in school. This learning to read with no pressure in her own time, has been so much better than conforming to someone else’s timetable. That way just led to the destruction of her self belief. If you are told you are stupid long enough, you begin to believe it.
because we are autonomous home educators Lucy’s education has been able to run ahead whilst waiting for the reading and writing to catch up in it’s own time.
Some of you may have heard her singing in her own spot at Hesfes- when she sings ‘Mad World’;
“Went to school and I was very nervous.
No one knew me, no one knew me.
Hello teacher, tell me whats my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me.”
it make me cry because she is singing it from the heart -this was her reality at school.
We were so busy this afternoon, enjoying ourselves together just talking about a million and one things, we forgot the time again and had to rush to dancing -again!
Three hours of dancing later she is back here, at her laptop again, right behind me as we type this, this time looking up Annie Lennox singing live.
I am off to works head office in Milton Keynes tomorrow. I sell ladies clothes these days-to a few ladies at a time in their own homes. Tomorrow I’ll be seeing the spring/summer collection. Working this way has meant that I can look at the children’s activities first every month and plan to work around them.
Lucy has arranged to go over to a friends house whilst I am away tomorrow, so I will probably be back here over the weekend. I’ll be too busy to blog on Friday as we have another home ed meeting and then we are off to see my Mother in law for her 80th birthday. On Saturday Lucy has the audition in the morning, ballet at the Dance Exchange at Birmingham Hippodrome in the afternoon and we see Richard and his wife off at the airport as they emigrate in the evening!
Hopefully I’ll catch up again on Sunday.
PS-when I asked Lucy to tell me the words to Mad World, she confidently took over and typed in the words -spelling everything correctly except for the word ‘through’!!! She could not have done that even a few months ago ;o))
A level exams and other stuff. A long post, catching up with three days of activities!
Missed the live performance but saw a tape. It made me cry too. It was brilliant – and spelling, yippee!
Oh – and found the bloglines feed. Thanks -it picks it up, but in a slightly unusual way!
— Carlotta Jan 25, 08:43 am #
Teenagers do need loads of sleep – it has now been scientifically proved!
My son, 13, is a real teenager now, and is catching up with years of lost sleep. He has always found it hard to fall asleep, it always took him hours, always well past midnight, regardless of how early he went to bed, so waking up early to school used to be a total nightmare… all that is now gone, what a relief!!! It’s lovely to see him catching up – I remember sleeping until late at his age – my school hours were 1 to 6pm, and that really suited me.
— Paula Jan 27, 12:45 pm #