Yes, that would be me......that mom. You know, the one with the screaming kid walking through the store just trying to get my grocery shopping done. It's just amazing how much people look past my other three well behaved "normal" children and have a dead bullseye stare at my one special needs child because......he's screaming. Some of the people who stare have good intentions, they want to help but aren't sure if it's their place to step in and offer assistance, but then there are others who just give the stare like, "you need to control your kid" or "they are horrible parents" and so on. While I understand some of their thoughts, the problem is that it is easy to judge when you are looking on the outside. So many times I wish I could say, "if you only knew what it was like to be him, maybe you would be more compassionate".
So the history of our son is that at 3 1/2 he started having seizures out of nowhere. He was the kid who never got sick, perfectly healthy and then everything changed. He has so many different types of seizures and they have been unsuccessful in treating the seizures with medication. He is now 8 and severely developmentally delayed. He went from being able to tell us so many things, to now losing most of what he knew including how to write his name, ABCs, and being able to say what he wants to play with.
Now, if you could only image what it is like to go from being able to communicate your wants, needs, and feelings to all of a sudden you couldn't.....that has to be frustrating, especially when you know what you want but you just can't say it.
As a special needs mom, all I hope for is that people would be willing to come up to my son smile and talk to him or give me grace on the days that life is just a little more difficult for him and us. Try not to judge. We are doing the best we can given the circumstances and yes we love our son so much and he brings so much love and joy to our lives.
