Thursday, May 19, 2011

Grandchildren and Disability: The Battle

I have 5 children but I also have 3 granddaughters. I love them all very much. It is always heartbreaking to have a child with a disabilty, any disabilty, Autism. It is even more heartbreaking to come to the realization that something is going on with a grandchild.

I had noticed between one and two my last grand daughter dis not speak alot. As that year went on I became more and more concerned and mentioned it to my daughter in law and my oldest son. I was told many times she was just a little slow.

Eventually I realized at about two that this was not going to be an accepatable answer to me anymore. Because the response I had gotten from my son was pretty harsh, I started to talk to my daughter in law about it first.

Well, I have to admit, I started to lean on her pretty hard about calling what in our state is called EarlySteps. It is the early intervention program for our state. My son kept saying no and I kept insisting.

Finally I had to have a discussion with him that he had a mother who worked in the disability system and two sister's with disabilities. I feel bad because I told him I could not believe that he did not want her to get help.

We have finished the first year of EarlySteps. My granddaughter's speech has grown by leaps and bounds. We are in the midst of evalutation for services from our school system. Here I am fighting the same battle with my son though...

Do any of you have older, typical children? Grandchildren? Do you have similar problems?

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