I have met a lot of parents and all we talk about are our children in general. And everything in Hong Kong is related to education. How the culture wants their child to read at age 3. Some child can but obviously for a normal happy child you should be worried if they are not playing. And I came to a conclusion that SPD is a modern day disease, because we want so much for our children to act normal when what is "normal" isn't it just a perception of average say? Every child develop at different rate and there to could be a reason for what we don't know. We cannot always look at a timeline into the future, but like Steve Job said in one of his speech to a bunch of Stanford graduates:
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
We do all lack the guts because we follow the trend and the normalcy of things in our lives. And you as parents have to be advocates for your child with whatever condition that is hindering them, but not for long. Why are we treating SPD like it is somehow bad for society. How many percent of our brain do we use? The 10% say is only a myth. We use 100% of our brains, but to what potential that is another story.
And when it is the best time for a child to learn at school? We are talking about maturity and ability to adapt new ideas into use ... like writing, reading and comprehension. Children are not suppose to do those things with ease at age 3, 4, 5 ... maybe at age 6 when they learn to control their hand eye coordination and emotionally ready.
I am at a half point when I want to give up to even to have him go to mainstream school in Hong Kong where the standards are set high when the child is literally pushed to the limit to cope with studying two languages and 10 homework assignment and tutoring back to back. Is that really worth it? If you want the same outcome to go to college or get a decent job, I think anyone in the right mind would guide a child into their potential capacity when he is ready.
And a child's brain soak up facts and they love asking questions. I never seen my son question so much and he is in love with science. He wanted to talk about the human body so I got him a book about the human body. A five years old wants to learn about virus, cancer cells, bacterias and why white blood cells are the only things in the body that essentially defending the body. And I was literally going back to my favorite biology class and re reading facts so I have to give him the right answers to those great questions.
And do you know that there are 5 different type of white blood cells? And I did learn about Natural Killer cells by just watching youtube videos with my son. And it is very fascinating, like going back in time but learning more. But not at age 5. I remembered watching E.T. at age 8, I didn't know what was going on with all the hoopla scientific talk about DNA. Somehow at age 12 or so it clicked and I re watched E.T. again and all that I learned came together like missing puzzle pieces.
My children are different and sometimes they drive me mad, but they can't really help it. With therapies, those will make them aware and cope, but do not loose guard on potential and always be an advocate for them to make them be the best that they can be without comparing to cultural pressure and the so called "normalcy."
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