Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Believe in Yourself!

     I am a member on the communicating partners forum.  If you have not been to this web site I highly recommend it.  Dr.  James Macdonald  has a wealth of information on the subject of speech and children with down syndrome.  He wrote this article the other day and just summed up what I have been feeling for some time.  

http://jamesdmacdonald.org/Articles/MacDonaldStart.html

Believe in Yourselves More than Professionals!

I say further that you need to do what evaluators only rarely do--
and that is focus on what the child can do.
Professionals often seem to think that to justify their job they need
to identify all kinds of mistakes your  child makes.

I claim that your child does not make mistakes, they are
developmental growth steps.

Professionals would go much further with our children if they would
take a developmental approach by identifying what the child can do and
have him do more of that.

Stop putting yourself down because you have a child doing less than same-
aged peers.
That does not make him wrong, and it does not make you wrong.
How often do you feel wrong  when someone accuses your child of being
wrong???

Don't be blown away by negative evaluations any more than
if someone said you have the wrong kind of car, or dress or house.
Be proud of what you have done for yourself.
That will help your child be proud of what he can do.
If he is not proud, he will do less and believe less in himself.

  Realize your child is learning from you all the time and he is
learning much more than what you say or try to teach him, he learns
how to believe and think by watching you.

STOP BELIEVING PROFESSIONALS KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO ABOUT YOUR CHILD.
THEY DO NOT.

In fact they cannot know who your child is and
what he does and can do unless
they watch him with you and get a thorough report on what he does at
home.

Also, professionals are usually asking the wrong questions.
They seldom know much about early development and
what children need to do before they're in school.
Skills such as social play, imitation, turntaking,
deliberate  communication, initiating, responding. listening, and
many others are seldom evaluated and yet they are the keys to learning
and communicating.

Realize that you often buy into a system that is keeping your child
down.
Start seeing how and when you are doing that, such as when
you push your child to do  things he is not ready for,
or making him avoid you and others by acting in ways he cannot try to
do.

Be more focused on what your child can do and get him to do it more.
At the same time, focus on what you do when he is performing well-
keep doing it.

Be sure he is your partner more than your student.

Begin to be convinced the your child is your responsibility much more
than the 5-26 professional who will flit by him and see only pieces
of his real development.

And ask yourself: WHOSE CHILD IS HE OR SHE ANYWAY?

We often act as though our children belong to the professionals and we
give them away.
Please do not give your child to people who focus on the negative!

Why do you think I have focused my 37 years of work on parents?  They-
you- are the answer.

Dr. J

     After all God gave them to US!  
Here is the reason I fight soo hard! 











      

IT'S ALL WORTH IT ISN"T IT?                                                                                                   
   


4 comments:

  1. Wow, those are powerful and VERY true words!! I may borrow this post idea in the next few days - I think everyone can benefit from it. Things we'd all do well to heed. Oh, that little girl is soooo beautiful! Love the pics. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is there somewhere I can find that blurb that you posted? I didn't see it on the site anywhere, although that site definitely has a wealth of excellent information!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My goodness Adeline is a little cutie! And such true words to boot.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...