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I’ll never forget a moment one of the moms from my work experienced and retold me. Her son has a severe developmental disorder. Parents said that he almost vegetated for the first 4 years: where you put him, that’s where he will stay. Later they started with sensory integration and communication and the boy lit up a little. I was working with him for over a year. Because of his state and inability to communicate practically in any way, parents used to talk about him in front of him. Until that one day! His mom started complaining about him and said how she felt to her friend while he was in the same room. The boy looked at his mom and started crying! Her heart was shattered. She felt so sad she hurt her son like this, but on the other hand she was so happy. She finally had a proof that her son understands language, that he understands and feels the same emotions, that he loves his mom. From then on, not only she stopped speaking about him negatively in front of him, but they doubled all of his therapies.
I was always careful not to speak negatively about a child in front of that child himself, but since I heard that story and felt that mom’s pain she has been causing her son for years, I changed, too. If I feel like I want to change the whole world for this child who has, by the way, grown to be such a happy and smiley boy, I can only imagine how his mom must feel.
Don’t take the risk of hurting your child no matter how sure you are they do not understand you and no matter what condition they had. It’s not worth it. Can you imagine science becoming so advanced that we can read their minds and souls and to find out our children understood every single negative thing and complain we made in front of them, can you imagine what pain we would come across? We all have to went at some point. Finding out your child is not of the health you dreamed of him to be is devastating enough. Not hearing his voice or words “mommy”, “I love you” or getting a hug and a kiss from your child is heart breaking. Grieving and talking about it is very good and healthy for the parents but choose an appropriate time, place and person to do it with. You never know if and when your child will start understanding you. When you finally figure it out, it might be too late.