Squinting into the light

I think the best possible session yet happened last week, in a different way. I recently started to see a toddler that presents like an infant. He usually has pretty low affect, very hesitant with unfamiliar people, high anxiety. Had dad play with him, and then I joined in. That worked...he allowed me to touch him, he reached out to touch me, didn't let me guide his movements, but good enough progress for that day! I had him in a bucket swing, with dad pushing him...he started laughing and making the most sounds I've ever seen him produce. And his laughter, giggling was the cutest thing that I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a bit of unique laughter come from many different kids. I felt a connection, a soft spot, a miracle in the making in this child. It was hilarious, it was heart-breaking. Clinically speaking, this session was one of the best, and the best yet in a while, because I got to talk to the parent a lot, gave the what, how and why to help his child's communication skills along. I just hope he's buying into it, so to say...we had a practice session, that made me realize more practice sessions were in order. He is a great dad, very willing and knows his kid too. Personally speaking, this was the best session since I got here, because I saw myself breaking away from I never want to have kids to, yeah, kids are pretty awesome miracles. The laughter, and the way the dad and the child looked at each other was priceless. I think that was the first time since I got to CA that I came up with that thought, and it was authentic, not an attempt to try to convince myself that I would like to have kids one day.

Tears

There has been quite a bit of tears going on these past few weeks. Man, this field is such an emotionally charged area. I've become quite calm and collected when these moments happen, but tears always do make my heart ache. I believe these tears came from frustration and misunderstanding. Frustration because of the limited ability to communicate a message and therefore understood and also limited shaping of a desired outcome (be it speech sound, social skill, etc.). Misunderstanding due to limited ability to receptively grasp verbal cues. As you can probably guess, it's kids that are doing the tearing up. But sometimes I do push the kiddos and I feel sad that they have to be thrown in an adult-like world at such a young age. We make it as child-like as possible, but who are we kidding? No kid should be going from one appointment to the next day after day.