Rarely Spoken Thoughts

David, my oldest son, has cognitive delays. He blends in quite well, so it is not always obvious. He is 14, but his brain ranges from occasional 4 year old reactions, to 7 year old  reading comprehension, to 14 year old curiosities. I don't talk about it often.

I am not sure why I don't talk about it. Am I embarrassed? Am I concerned that people don't realize it, and if I do say something I will embarrass him? Is is just private, and no one really needs to know? I am not really sure.

Somehow with the start of this school year, my struggles with his disabilities is harder for me. It started with cross country. David ran last year, but Grace was on the team with him, and I was confident she would keep an eye out for him. As we started to get David to train for the season, we tried to have him run around camp. Twice he got lost on the campus. The main road through camp is a big figure 8, and we have been here all summer, we have rode the tram at least a dozen times around the main paths, but still he got lost. So I didn't have him run much at all, and I worried. I told the coach of my worries. He promised me He would look out for Dave. Chad said I need to trust God, and let him go. So David is running cross country.

David was in a special-ed class at our old school. The change to Evart has given me concerns on two fronts. The first is his friends. His friends are good kids, from good families, but I still am concerned. Do they understand that David has special needs? Will they protect him? If they don't really understand his delays, will they discover them someday and make fun of him or trick him into doing stupid things?

In his classes I often feel that the information is too much for him. Tonight he & I worked on his homework on the Articles of Confederation. He was supposed to write a summary of the page. I read the first paragraph. I asked him what it meant, He had no idea. We talked about the page a bit, but in the end, I  had him write down a sentence I dictated to him. He could not understand the words of the page, so how could we expect him to be able to put it in his own words? Once we finished I e-mailed his teacher to let her know that I had helped him. I struggle to know how to best advocate for him with his teachers.

How do I protect him? How do I push him? What is my role to be as a mom? It seems so much clearer with my "normal" kids. I guess this is just one of those things that will just keep me coming to God, because that is all that I can be confident of.