Ever since kindergarten, the school has raised some red flags about my son’s social skills. Of course, I’d always noticed that my son was rather introverted, that he liked to play alone with his cars, and that he wasn’t very fond of team sports, but I never worried too much about it, telling myself that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—since I’m quite a loner myself. In kindergarten, I was asked to have him evaluated for hypersensitivity, the new trendy diagnosis. I have to admit I wasn’t really convinced, but so as not to come across as an unfit mother who doesn’t care about her child’s development, I paid the $600 for the occupational therapy evaluation only to be told that my son is more shy than hypersensitive.
Now that he’s in first grade, people are bringing up his social difficulties again. He doesn’t speak loudly enough during oral presentations, he’s always the last to join a group, and he doesn’t always listen to group instructions. People tell me he has trouble following routines, so I buy a routine chart for home. I’m told he’s slow to get dressed—probably because his coat’s zipper is too hard to use—so I buy him a new coat. The final straw came when the principal asked me, “Doesn’t it worry you that your child is different?”
How should a parent react? Do we have the right to say, “No, we’re not that worried because we see ourselves in him”? Do we come across as completely out of touch with reality if we reply that as long as our child is doing well in school and is happy to go, I don’t see the problem? Is it acceptable to tell the principal—who wants us to pay yet more substantial sums to have our child diagnosed for autism (yes, yes, nothing less)—that we don’t really understand the necessity of going through this process? My partner thinks so, but I wasn’t able to bring myself to do it.
My mind was racing. Even though I’m convinced my child is just a shy, solitary kid, I don’t want to tell his principal that she’s wrong, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about—especially when, in theory, she’s supposed to know more about the subject than I do. I don’t want her to tell my child’s future teachers to stop paying attention to him because his mom doesn’t want to cooperate. Nor do I want to reach a point—maybe in several years, who knows—where we have to make up for lost time, when we might have been able to address problems before they arose by getting an earlier diagnosis.
So, I’ve personally come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t listen to myself so much and that I should just pay. Pay for foresight, pay for peace of mind, but also to avoid being seen as an unfit mother.