Sensory processing disorder causes you to doubt your ability
to parent. People wonder why you can’t control your child. You share what
happens in your house with friends who have the same age kids and they say the
same things happen at their own home. You pause for a second and think “Really?
And you don’t think anything is wrong?” Then you witness that one time their
children explode and you realize they have no idea what you are talking about. The
explosion that you just witnessed is what you would consider to be what occurs
on a calm day in your house. It is in that moment that you start to feel alone.
You begin to doubt yourself. Maybe you aren’t the great parent you thought you
were. Maybe, you are doing something wrong…
Then, one day you decide to have a second child and
everything is different. Washing up after lunch doesn’t involve kicking and
screaming bloody murder. (A daily routine that I am sure makes the neighbors believe
that I use acid rather than water to clean my children). Transitions are not as
hard and his temper tantrums are laughable. My second child can be stepped over
and left on the floor if need be or dropped in time out without breaking a
sweat or stopping a conversation.
Somewhere after the birth of the second child (or at least that was when ours arrived) comes the fateful day that every sensory parent talks
about; the day you will never forget. The day where you realize beyond a shadow
of a doubt that something has to be done. You are faced with the understanding
that what you are witnessing is beyond the “spirited child” posts found all over
Facebook and instead the life of a child constantly in survival mode.
Everything changes on that day. My moment of awakening occurred in the middle
of a crowded bathroom at an outdoor museum in front of an audience of 20 pairs
of eyes. My daughter was melting down because the bathroom was crowded and the
hand dryers were really loud. To make matters worse, the changing table was not
in a quiet location and instead in the middle of the bathroom because most
people are not still dealing with diapers when their children are 3. I
carried my sobbing daughter out of the bathroom and back into the quieter lobby
with the dirty pull up still on. The minute we reached the quiet, she relaxed
and within a few minutes was calm again. I’ll never forget when she told my
sister “That room was too loud. It hurt me.” As I changed my daughter behind a
bush outside of the museum and made my sister, who runs a nature center, promise
me to never put loud hand dryers in her bathrooms, I thought, “I need help.” I
have over eleven years of elementary teaching experience and I can’t do this on
my own.
The thing is, I don’t want to take the sensitivity out of my
child. It makes her who she is. Her sensory processing disorder makes her so
empathetic to others emotions. It makes her see colors brighter and think
outside of the box. It has helped her become one of the most imaginative children
I have ever met. I just want her to be able to swing with her peers and go to
the bathroom without screaming. I want the world to be not such a scary place. I’d
also like to be able to trust my gut instinct again.
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