Yesterday was the last session with the psychologist. Last session was all about the results of the finding that I was waiting for.
The results from the questionnaire as from parent point of view, he is normal and within the range.
The results from the questionnaire as from his class teacher point of view, he is having problem at school.
According to the results, his temperament depends heavily on his moods.
According to the results, my stress level as a parent is within the normal range.
Basically he is normal, just slight delay in this social skills & emotional. These 2 delays are our fault as parent.
As for social skill this is because we are pretty much on our own (meaning we are seldom social with others, Saturday & Sunday are more like family days meaning only the 4 of us without any strangers/circle of friends to go through it). Children learn everything from the parent through observation, his comfort zone is when he is at home with us but when at school he is force to interact with strangers, force to work with other kids, force to adapt to the new environment. Apparently he does not adapt very well in school.
Suggestion from the psychologist : bring him to the park / cousin house when he will learn to interact with others / learn to adapt to new environment within his comfort zone. Always prepare him what to expect, what will happen, how to react when things happen.
As for emotional delay, we as parent only focus on learning skill. We make sure he is well equipped with knowledge and we ignore this little thing called emotional. We never teach him how to express himself, maybe we take thing for granted or maybe we thought he will learn someday or maybe we are just not sensitive enough on this emotional development. Apparently, it is important to his growth. If he does not how to express himself, he gets frustrated easily because his needs is not fulfil and this will contribute to his bad mood and this will lead to his misbehave.
Suggestion from the psychologist : breakdown the emotional to the smaller pieces such as would you feel happy when all your friends play with other and not you? As a parent, should show intimacy to the children – hugging, touching – sense of closeness, safe & belonging.
I learn a lot from this psychologist and I like the way she explained things. Sometime we thought it is a small little things but it is a matter when come to children.
She gave this example and we are guilty as charge: Why children do not have eye contact with talking? When you talk to a baby, you will go close (basically in front of the baby) and talk, but when the baby become toddler specially when he knows how to walks/runs, we as the parent do not talk to them with eye contact. (for eg: you ask a child to do something when you are doing dishes/cooking – no eye contact, when you speak to a child – do you go down to his level and speak or you just speak at your level)
She did ask whether my expectation towards JC & his class teacher towards JC are the same. For me, he is only four and I do not like when his class teacher compare him with other 23 kids. He may not be vocal smooth but he is good at other skills. He will everything learn at his own pace. But apparently his class teacher has a different point of view, she expects him to have a longer attention span, she expects him to sit still, she expects him to do what is asked for….. she expects a lot of things from JC.
The psychologist did mention JC is only four and children at age four have a very limit attention span.
She suggests we talk to the class teacher and get the mutual expectation and how to help JC at school otherwise his learning & growth is limited as too much expectation & pressure on him – which will not do him any good.
I am glad God answered my prayer. At least now I knew the problem is not lie on JC but on hubby & me. We are the parent should guide him the way it should be, we should be more sensitive to his needs. We already moulded him to what he had become and hopefully when this assessment, hubby & I can do better to mould him to a better person but first thing first both of us need to change in our social & emotional skills before we can help JC.
I pray for strength, hope, faith, patient & guidance from God.
We will do better together, JC. We will!
