So Saturday saw me taking Jasper to the birthday party of one of his kindy classmates. MAN it has been quite some time since I’ve hung out at a 5 year old birthday party and whoooeeee they are as fullonathon as I remember them.
In Jasper’s class there is a little boy, J, who has special needs. I thought that perhaps it was albinism with learning difficulties but have since found out he has Prader-Willi Syndrome. But this is all a mute point. The kid has special needs. He’s in a mainstream pre-school setting at a community pre-school with huge longstanding credentials in inclusive teaching practice. But again, that is by the by.
Maintain that for a couple of years.
So you hit 3 or 4 years of age and suddenly your happy, goofy, compliant little man gets to the threshold of the speech therapist’s room, utters the one sound he can utter on request and refuses to budge, screaming blue bloody murder if you so much as try to coax him into that room.
And you have hit the wall.
I could see it in front of me in this woman. This mother doing everything right. Everything expected of her plus more. And I could just see it in her eyes, that if someone had given her a hug and said, ‘it really really sucks and it doesn’t get any better but you just get used to it and that is totally OK‘ the facade would have fallen. Perhaps not then and there, maybe in the car on the drive home or maybe later that night when she finally got some time to herself.
Because dudes, those early years are so goddamn scary, and lonely and isolating and overwhelming and man, did I mention scary?
And through all of that I realised something. I realised that I’m not that woman any more. That I have grown, changed, softened AND hardened.
So what? What would I have been like if I knew then what I knew now?
– I would have let Oscar hang at that food table because to him, that was being at the party. That was being a part of it. That was fun. *
And that is totally OK.
– I would have let Felix eat his way through that table because you know what, it’s two hours of one day of one weekend in one week in one month of one year. OH sure, there would be more birthday parties and sometimes even more than one a weekend but you know what? Reread that first sentence.
And that is totally OK.
– I would have let them be and gas-bagged with the other mums.
And that is totally OK.
It all sounds so simply doesn’t it, so, nothing. But man, it is everything.
I still have to work at it but I now know that my definition of inclusion, my definition of fun, my definition of anything is different to that of Oscar. I have learnt to look to him for how I need to react – is he happy? is he safe? is he involved in a way that he is comfortable? – then either let it be or intervene.
Do you know how fucking liberating that is? Oh sure, there are times it feels like free-falling but man, the load that is gone from my shoulders.
Take footy training yesterday. The first for the season. Oscar sat on the sidelines for a while (Felix is the one playing) and then off he went to the side of the coach. He got a ball. He occasionally joined in but otherwise just hung by the coach. Totally in.his.element. Happy. Â Yes, I have moments of worrying he’s being a pain in the arse for the coach but I have that quiet word with him later that if that is ever the case just send him back to me. It has never ever happened.
Take Felix’s cricket training this afternoon? Again, Oscar watched for a while and then he had a bowl and joined in the drills they did later. None of the boys care/stare. None of the coaches mind one jot. And there’s Oscar – happy and involved in a way that suits him.
It has taken me a long time to reach this point. To not hover, to not make excuses, to not be apologetic. Let him be.

It’s so easy to say it now. At four I wanted him desperately to be in there running with the pack, to be doing anything age appropriate. And that is totally understandable. J’s mum is on her own journey. I just wanted her to know she is not alone.
* In this mum’s defence (although that is not the right word) I am aware of the very real issues associated with Prader-Willi Syndrome and diet/eating etc and that adds an extra layer to her management in this regard. Absolutely.