Too Much of a Good Thing

When our Callie arrived 9 1/2 yrs. ago she had severe attachment issues.  One was that she hold up her hands to be picked up and within about 30 seconds was pushing away.  It was up then down up then down over and over again.  It was exhausting, but slowly and surely she spent more time being held and received touching in a soothing way rather than an uncomfortable feeling she resisted.

She never became much of a snuggler and the times she would actually sit in my lap or close by me were pretty rare.  This is why one of the behaviors we're currently dealing with is a bittersweet problem.  She is working on personal space.  She doesn't have great boundaries and her closeness and sometimes inappropriate touch makes many people uncomfortable.  Lack of boundaries is another consequence of attachment issues as are a lack of social skills.

Tolerating touch was something we worked long and hard on with Callie and now we find ourselves trying to teach her the difference between who she can touch, how she can touch and when she can touch.  Trying to explain to other typical kids in middle school, let alone adults,  she doesn't mean anything when she taps them on the chest besides - hey pay attention to me - is difficult.

As so often happens with Callie, it's a good "problem" to have.   It's a lot like when speech pathologists  exaggerate a sound knowing that once the person has it, they can back down on the exaggeration. Similarly we will continuing teaching Callie when and how to touch others.  It's a bit of the "too much of a good thing" problem, but considering the alternative that she might have never allowed touch and always been defensive towards any physical affection - I choose to deal with this.

Shhhhhhhh

Yesterday I found myself doing something that still surprises me.  I had to shush Callie.  Since our Callie was completely silent when she arrived and it took about 2 years before we got to the point where she could answer our questions with a yes or no.  She was nearly 5 when she achieved that great milestone.  That was huge progress and immensely helpful in meeting her needs.  FInally she could make choices.  Rather than throw her food across the table she could answer yes or no before we set it in front of her.  The simple ability to answer yes or no opened up many doors.

We had an amazing speech therapist and learned so many skills to use at home by sitting in on her speech sessions.  Amy helped us take Callie from a silent little girl to one who was non stop talking yesterday as the public health nurse was doing her yearly review for personal care attendant support.  Amy also became as outraged as we did when the school speech pathologist wrote, "Callie has no functional speech" in her report.  That speech pathologist had already written Callie off - that was a terrible mistake and her great loss.

So, as I sat there trying to have a conversation with the public health nurse over Callie's exuberant playful conversation I couldn't help but smile.  The nurse commented about how great she was at entertaining herself and I told her the short story of her speech and language development.  It's a story we will be repeating for a very long time and one I'll never tire of telling.