By ANONYMOUS
Right now I should be one of those annoyingly over-proud mums boasting about their child’s achievements at the school athletics carnival all over Facebook, complete with photos.
Instead I get to be the mum that comes home in tears. Why? Because I have a child with a disability.
To look at him, he looks perfectly normal. Two legs, two arms all working just fine, but he’s not ‘normal’. He’s different, and on days like today he just doesn’t cope.
So I’ll say it… what every mum is just not supposed to say. I’m embarrassed by him. It hurts to even write it, but right now it’s true. I just witnessed him attack a teacher and then attack myself because things didn’t go his way.
He knows he’s not like the other boys and the pressure is just too much, so he lashed out. He threw a monumental tantrum, which for a boy of almost 9 is just not fun to witness. And there were witnesses. Lots of them. Mums and dads of ‘normal’ kids all staring and wondering why I don’t control my kid.
I love him of course, he’s my firstborn and he can be funny and loving and amazing. But I’ll admit, sometimes I just don’t like him very much. I hear the gasps and see the pointing fingers from here… of course if I think this way about him then he is bound to misbehave! But I try, I try so hard every day to be positive, to give incentives and rewards and encouragement. There are consequences for inappropriate behaviour, and there is lots of love and fun and laughter too.