Part 2: Little Princess – The Story of a Special-Need Child
The Ill Fated Accident | Facing the Problems | Sarah’s Present Life
Part II – Facing the Problems
She is full of praise for her second husband, Alex, who has showered both her children with all the love which they needed and deserved. Alex shares a special bond with Sarah. He himself was a ‘slow’ learner when he was a child which makes him sensitive of Sarah’s needs. Though not learning disabled, he understands her situation and relates to what she goes through. Happily, she points out, “Alex is a very outdoors-type person, another thing he has in common with Sarah. My son and I are both computer-nuts and spend a lot of time indoors. Sarah likes to tag along with Alex, picking up sticks & rocks out of the yard, burning brush piles, feeding our animals, etc. Anytime shes not helping him, shes riding her bicycle or her scooter.”
Michele and Alex, together give Sarah all the attention she needs. They take proper care of her medication and ‘LD’ classes. They also devise innovative ways to help her. Michelle shares one of her very effective tips: “Because Sarah struggles with thought organization, we keep directions simplified for her. We dont give her more than two steps to follow at a time, otherwise she seems overwhelmed. Weve made a game out of cleaning her room. Well let her pick a color, such as pink, then say Ok, now pick up all of the pink stuff & put it where it belongs. Then shell pick another color & do the same. And so on. It makes it really easy for her, and a lot less frustrating for us. If we simply told her to Clean her room, she wouldnt know where to start, and would most likely just give up. But with the game, she gets it clean, we dont have to yell, and she feels good knowing she did it herself.” Incidentally, this tip proved to be very helpful to other parents and went on to win a prize in the ‘Mommy Knows Best’ segment of ‘The Dot Com Mommies Contest’ held by Dot Com Women to celebrate July, 2003 as Purposeful Parenting Month.
Toilet training was also a problem which, fortunately, took care of itself. There was a time when Michelle could not take Sarah to a nearby grocery store without worrying about ‘an accident’. Jacob has his share of problems with Sarah for he feared being seen with her. Michelle was about to resort to use ‘pull-ups’ training pants but luckily, Sarah considered herself too old for those, and soon grew more responsible with her toiletry habits. Proper school education posed the next problem. In that small town, people were unwilling to co-operate in Sarah’s unusual learning process. The best she could get was a wonderful grade by just showing up in her class! The school management and staff took little attention of Michelle’s pleas for their co-operation. With continuing persistence, however, Michelle discovered several institutions who worked for educating special need children. Thus, Sarah, finally received a challenging environment conducive to her needs.
Continue to Part IIISarah’s Present Life
