Today, Kelly shared how her daughter is a human compass. I’m amazed by kids - ALL the time. I’ve blogged on a number of occasions how they are often the greatest teacher when I am a willing student.

A few weeks ago my 9 year old daughter approached me with two of her friends, asking if they could please plant some of my seeds in a few containers they saw in the garage. My first instinct was no as it was messy and I didn’t want to stop what I was working on, but I quickly reassessed that this was a great activity and wouldn’t take long. They were delighted and have been watering and watching their pots for a couple weeks looking for the first signs of success. In the past week, the first seedlings have begun poking through. My daughter was excited, but dismayed that they weren’t growing at the same pace. I pointed out that they are different seeds. She pointed out that even within one pot of the same seeds not all were growing at the same pace. She never ceases to amaze me with her quick response to observations. She doesn’t miss a beat or hesitate for a moment.

On Saturday at her soccer game, she saw one of her teammates get injured. While the rest of the players and refs took several moments to notice a player was down, my Cid nestled in by her side - standing and immovable until recognition was given. At the tender age of 9 she’s already mastered the most important lesson - that it’s not about us crossing the finishing line, but about the people we’re responsible for helping cross that same line being with us when it happens.

This weekend we caught a program on TV about Kim Peek, who exemplifies that just because we’re different doesn’t mean we’re less. It was amazing to watch, to see how much we don’t understand and to gain respect for it. At first, my daughter said, “I wish I had his brain” as she listened to him ramble off so many facts and details. Clearly he is genius at this level. Then as she continued to watch and see the price he paid for his abilities she said, “You know, I’m not so sure I would want his brain.” And I was reminded about those plants that were growing at different paces.

Ironically, my daughter shares some things with Kim. She’s had people scratching their heads for years trying to map out her learning style and abilities and make it fit with her social skills, although for her it’s like the reverse of Kim as her strength is social and not academic. This past week we met with her wonderful team of professionals at her school who are doing their best to help her across the finish line too. And I want to give them a special shout out for how they do what they do. For the first time, I feel like I have teammates in this game and my faith in public education is slowly being restored. This time we weren’t simply told she didn’t qualify for special education programs and assistance because they couldn’t define a learning disability, and sent on our way. This time we were given an IEP (Individualized Education Program) - look at me go with acronyms and definitions of this jungle! - by using the OHI (Other Health Impairment) of her ADD to qualify her. And all that means, is that she can now have an aide help her during math and receive some special instruction and help with her writing. Amazing how many hoops have to be jumped through for something so simple isn’t it?

As we sat around the table, the results brought on several intrigued faces and responses. A gap was identified between her verbal and non-verbal skills but not in the more common area. We were told most kids do better with language, non-verbal skills that use associations with pictures they can identify words to. But she was much stronger in abstract association of geometric shapes and concepts that didn’t have word associations. Although it was pointed out how sneaky she is with her endearing quality, of trying to sidetrack the activities/tests to avoid doing them through pleasant conversation. So language is clearly something she has mastered….LOL The areas she was weak in last year of reading and reading comprehension are now some of her strengths which is amazing to me given that it’s only been one year since these were major concerns. Math and writing are her areas of concern this year. And they found something new this year. They found that her processing speed is considerably advanced, especially compared to her other areas of testing. In fact is was a jump of more than 10 times what other scores were in other areas. And we’re told it factors in accuracy so it’s not just her hurrying and getting things wrong, it’s her ability to correctly process things quickly. It was determined that she breaks down details almost immediately, but has difficulty putting them back together to form a general picture/concept or commonalities. I reflected on my broken record refrain of trying to get her to slow down since birth. I’ve never been able to keep up with her - she’s always 6 steps ahead.

All I could think about was how I want to learn how to help her continue to develop her amazing gift of processing speed. She shows this advancement with social aspects, and I’m confident that she will one day have the foundation to do the same with academics too. I just wish we were more innovative as educators to try to learn how to help develop these very different learning styles instead of stifle them because they don’t fit our “standardized” tests or intelligence measurements. She’s like the first bean plant that poked through and is already several inches tall - but we’re all calling to her to slow down and take more in because we can’t understand how she skipped some of the first steps that got her where she is. It’s a head scratcher to be sure, but at least today we’ve got one more set of results to help us work on that understanding. And more importantly, she’s now got the strongest advocate in me and I won’t let her gifts become detriments.

In the meantime, I revel in her social abilities and the joy it is to be her mother. Truly the things we work hardest for are what we appreciate most. *wink*

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