It's all my fault- Mother Guilt.

Here is the next section of my diary exerpts from over 7 years ago....

We are still at our wits end.  My tears flow heavily every day for the loss we have discovered. All I can think is “Why isn’t it me?” I so strongly want to take this burden away from him. The HUGE amount of guilt within me is overpowering. This is my entire fault. I must have done something wrong for this to happen to him. There is no other possible reason. I wake up thinking it’s a nightmare, but I soon realize this is something that will never end. This is real life, our life, permanent reality.  My family and friends try to comfort me, but their words don’t help. Their words can’t change my feelings. Their words won’t give him back his hearing. But slowly, I put the pieces of the puzzle together. It begins to make sense, this all fits into his behavior patterns over the last 3 years.

*Why did he physically turn my head to face him when I speak?

*Why did he never follow instructions at kindagym?

*Why doesn’t he listen?

*Why are his actions and words loud and boisterous?

*Why doesn’t he answer questions? Why is his speech clarity poor?

*Why is he the “naughty” boy?

Because he is deaf!

 But none of this makes me feel better at this point in time. I need more information.  What does this hearing loss mean? What does deaf mean? How much can he hear? Where will this take our future and his?

We are still frustrated with behavioral issues. We feel like we have gone around in circles 200 times. We talk to our family and friends. We are open to all or any ideas. We are mentally and physically exhausted. We have an appointment with a childhood counselor next week. She will come to our house and see Indi and speak with us. Yes we are now aware of his hearing impairment. But we have no idea what this means. We have been told the hearing aids will change his behavior. But I cannot for the life of me foresee this change. I only know one Indiana. I have known him for his whole 3 years. That’s just him. I speak to him louder now. He hears me straight away. But, he still decides to do the wrong thing. He still is extremely challenging. Even when the things going on don’t appear to be hearing related. His tantrums are horrible. They are becoming more frequent. Everything he touches is rough handled and done in the wrong manner. We cannot go to anyone’s house and enjoy their company. We are constantly on our toes chasing him, warning him, removing him etc. It’s not enjoyable. It’s not fun. It’s a task. It’s a responsibility. It’s our life.

We have to wait 2 weeks for the hearing aids. They are horrible big ugly things that look like they were made 50 years ago. I am extremely disappointed in this day and age that they still offer these as hearing aids to young children. In the meantime we have his third birthday next week. He is having a party at McDonalds. Let’s hope he enjoys it. The next 2 weeks will be extremely slow. It already feels like months ago we found out. I have been given a lot of literature to read. I want to find out a lot more information about hearing loss. But I can’t bring myself to actually reading it. I have tried a few times, but it hurts way too much. I just end up in tears every time. I just can’t do it yet.

Well here I am back again. It’s 21^st February. Indiana is now 3 years old. His birthday wasn’t too bad. He had daycare on the day, which he wasn’t very happy about. But I ordered him a birthday cake and they had a party for him. We had our family visit us that night, and we had cake and a small family party. He really loved that. Last Wednesday we had Susan Edge come over. She is a Specialist in children’s behavior between 0-5 years. She was very good. Indi gave her plenty of examples on how to defy my orders and blatantly not do as he was told. The things I learned from her were to make set rules in the house. And more importantly I MUST stick to them. The main example is no hurting. He goes straight to time out without warning for that. Other things that aren’t as important but still need to be listened to get the 3 point technique. First, I might tell him to (pick up his toy). He may ignore me or say no. I should then go over to him and physically, but calmly, put his hand on the toy and make him pick it up. If this works I praise him for listening and picking it up. If he doesn’t want to do this he then goes to time out. These are the basics. There is a lot more to it. But I really need to think before I ask him anything. Is it going to be an order or a request? If it’s an order I must follow it through. If it’s a request, it’s ok for him to say no. It’s about consistency, and meaning what I say. He has to learn that I mean what I say. So I feel a lot better after she visited. She made me feel that his behavior was actually not excessive, and definitely controllable, for an active 2/3 year old. We just need to get on top of it.