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The Dilemmas of a Parent

Peter Watt tells a touching story of a father's love for his daughter.

By Peter Watt

7 Nov 2011, 10:00

Being a parent is always difficult; you worry about them and what will happen to them.  You want the best for them and fear the worse.  We have children aged from 20 down to 3.  They are all loved and fretted over.  And all in their time have, and no doubt will continue, to give us both joy and sleepless nights in equal measure.  If you have a child with special needs though then all of this is somehow magnified.  Our Ruby is 5 years old and is very special.  She was born with problems with her hearing, her eyesight and has some mild learning delay.  She has some problems with her speech and her balance and she finds socialising with other children a bit tricky.  But most of all she is loving, generous and fiercely protective of her little sister.

Just recently we were faced with the dilemma of which school she should attend.  On balance we wanted her to attend a mainstream school.  But it was pretty finely balanced.  In June she secured a place in a local primary school.   We were nervous but pleased.  How would she cope?

In early September we attended the meeting for parents with children starting at the school.  The staff explained the curriculum and routines.  All the parents listened excitedly and no doubt nervously.  I sat there and began to dread the first day at school for her.  It all seemed so daunting and I was worried.  She would need constant help and support getting from the classroom to the playground.  She would need help with her lunch and even with playing.  Could the school cope with her?  How would the other kids feel about her when she began to play up when she didn’t know how to play like they did?  Would she get picked on because she has glasses and hearing-aids?  It was all I could do not to cry at the meeting.  But I also knew that she had to face this and that probably the issues were more mine than hers.  But I’m her Dad, I love her, it’s my job to worry.

The first day at school grew closer and we kept encouraging Ruby to be as independent as possible.  She can get dressed by herself but it takes a long time because she gets distracted.  She can feed herself but again it can take a long time and she gets distracted.  We decided that she shouldn’t have school meals but should take sandwiches as they would be less messy.  If she had a hot meal then she would probably get it everywhere and we worried that she would be laughed at.  Her school teachers came to see her at home to say ‘hello’ and she was polite and they were warm and reassuring.  The ‘welcome Ruby’ book with photos of the school and classroom quickly became a favourite.  She was looking forward to going to big school – I was dreading it more and more.  I made myself be excited for her and I hope that she didn’t pick up my worry.

And then school started.  The first week was a bit of a blur and actually seemed to go really well.  She was tired but was clearly proud of her achievement.  The school were great and the staff fantastic.  But by the start of the second week she was more stressed and by the third she seemed somehow not herself.  One day she got upset that she had PE.  We asked why and she said because she kept falling over.  She has dyspraxia, she is clumsy and falls over her own feet.  But suddenly she had become aware of it.  It nearly broke my heart.  And then we noticed that she wasn’t eating her lunch.  School said that she was taking the whole of the lunch break to eat and was hardly eating anything.  We talked to her and it seemed that she was frightened to go out in the playground.  Part of her condition is that she finds big groups of people too much.  It distresses her and so she was doing everything she could to avoid it.

Some mornings it was getting harder and harder to get her to into the school.  We continued to be positive and encouraging and the school were great.  But routine is important to Ruby and so she needed to know that the same teacher would meet her at the gate and when they were able to it was fine.  But if they couldn’t then it was awful for her.  We began to worry that we had made the wrong decision in terms of school.  Was it better that she was at a school that could specialise in her needs after all?  Smaller class sizes and so on.  We didn’t know.  The school by the way continued to be fantastic.  She had one-to-one support and they were working with a range of professionals who knew Ruby to make sure that they were doing their best for her.  Are we neurotic parents?  Possibly, but it has all made me think long and hard about the future.  I found myself waking at night and worrying about what happens to Ruby when we die.  It may sound weird but I couldn’t bear the thought of Ruby being vulnerable and unprotected.  Thank God she has so many brothers and sisters who will look after her.

She is actually doing OK at school since half term.  I sat and did homework with her tonight and she was able to recognise several letters and their sounds.  She enjoyed telling me a story using a picture book and she was proud of some art that she had done.  But as her Dad I have felt a fear for the future that I suspect will never go.  She may have some extra needs but she deserves the best, I just hope that with our support she gets it.