Today, I started to talk a bit more about some of the limitations that we experienced. Part of me hates saying that it was a limitation, because we've always had the mentality of "so what? we can overcome it!".
And that's great! that is fine!
But overcoming what? a limitation, right? lol
We don't have to be afraid of limitations, but we do need to honor them for what they are, where our "starting point " truly is, acknowledging the difficulties all around, and then, THEN we can move forward to the overcoming phase .
I'm saying this to all the parents out there, letting you know it's not limiting your child to acknowledge the limitations. It's just having your eyes wide open to reality and refusing to sugar coat (and also refusing to succumb) if that makes sense.
Find the balance between the two.
I'm focusing today on one of Mikey's initial limitations with language and then giving you a little insight into what he was dealing with. His mind was incredibly powerful, and even the longer we fought and the more he learned, the more I was impressed with his amazing memory.
Each word and phrase had less contextual meaning and more call/repeat words,phrases and sentences he had to file away in his memory and recall as needed. There were times I could tell he didn't understand the context, but he has memorized that THAT is what the answer he was supposed to give for that question.
When you think about that, and how you have to teach a new phrase for every possible sentence he can encounter,. you can easily see how overwhelming it can become as a parent. HOW is it possible to teach every combination of sentences? They change with even the slightest word combination. He would understand "how are you?" but when someone said "how are you doing?" it changed enough that he thought the response would change.
I would have to tell him, they're just asking how are you, to which Mikey would reply ,"oh ok. good."
And now, "how are you" and "how are you doing", was filed under "response = good"
Then someone would ask, "how's it going?"
Again, I would clarify what this means....it's just another way of saying "how are you", or "how are you doing".
"oh ok, good." (and once again...filed under....)
Add in "what's up?" and "what's going on?" and so on.
And that's just for "how are you". Think of all the idioms in our language. Think of slang. Think of every possible combination that happens when we understand the context and pick up on social cues and extrapolate - but think now about someone who has difficulty generalizing one thing into many.
But now be amazed....think if YOU had to walk through life filing away thousands of questions and answers and learn this language piece by piece. You might say "well I did! I was a child and don't we all learn that way?"
well no...heheh we all don't.
Some have wires crossed and need to have them uncrossed before they can. And while Mikey was working to get them uncrossed, we were all watching in awe. I thought his mind was amazing... frustrating ,at times! but.... simply incredible! We saw a warrior inside that little boy, and we were right.
I go into a few other examples in the podcast, and because I don't want these episodes to go too long, I am limiting as much as I can to give you an overview. Hopefully, it's enough to give you a peek and if you have more questions, feel free to ask and I'll be happy to try my best to answer!
