Perhaps this says it all

Below is a beautiful video from you tube, that I think really just says it all.What a wonderful dedication from his family to this young boy and all that have been part of their journey...enjoy.....

oh have the kleenex handy...

Yet more of the same

So after the excitement of day 2, it was on to more of the same for the rest of the week....

For me as his mother the things that most struck me were just what a successful young man he is becoming and how all those things I feared would never happen and was almost too scared to dream might happen for him when he was stuck down with meningitis, were there on show for me to see right in the here and now.

The laughter he shared about funny stories his co-work experience partner had shared with him about her upbrining and some of the funny stuff that happens on holidays.

How between them they decided that having just the two of them at work experience was great. They had each other to bounce ideas off of, yet not too many in a group that they wouldn't each get plenty of hands on practical stuff to do.

The fact they took turns typing up the report, obviously when he was typing, he would not have been looking at his co-work experience partner, yet was still able to hear what she was saying and get it down in the document they were doing on the computer.

Morning tea with the post-grad students of the department on Thursday. Having the confidence to join them for a coffee and some cake (his first cup of coffee I might add, and one he made with 2 spoons of coffee and some sugar; no wonder he was on top of the world!). He was able to talk to me about some of their projects and that Thursday morning was regular coffee and cake morning for the department.

I was waiting for his train at the station on Thursday night when an sms came through.

"My train is going to be late, stuck at Mitcham, signal failure. I will get to the station but it might be awhile".

I messaged back that I was at the station and would just wait there til he got there.

He was about 20 minutes late....and when he and I were driving home I realised, how like me he is in some ways. He, like me, is your glass half full kind of personality, always looking for the positive side of things.

As he walked from the train up the platform and we walked together to the car, I said to him "oh well at least you got to experience the highs and lows of public transport then"...he smiled and replied "Oh I didn't really mind, it wasn't that bad. At least it happened when I was on my way home, so it didn't really matter. If it had happened on the way in and I was late for work experience I would have been very disappointed." Yep finding the positive in what was possibly a negative situation.

Later I asked how he knew it was a signal failure..with his best eye rolling teen look of "what are you stupid?" look he told me that he heard the announcement on the loud speaker. He went on to tell me that this driver actually knew how to speak clearly because he could hear all the announcements of the station names and the signal failure announcements, unlike some of the other drivers. I know what he meant because I found it hard to understand them when we were on the dummy run the week before!

The week wrapped up with some time spent with the lecturer for the courses and the head of the department. It was an opportunity to ask any questions and find out more about the courses they were interested in. Again another person whose speech he was unfamiliar with and was unfamiliar with him and his hearing loss, again piece of cake!

He came home with some written notes and proceeded to ask me about the equivalence of the maths in the IB course compared to the maths in the SACE course because if he didn't get them both covered off in year 12, he would have to do a summer school course, and he wasn't doing that if he could help it!!

On the last day their supervisor was recounting stories of some of the students she supervised, some who were partnered with bossy partners who answered all the questions, took control over all the pracs and let their partner do nothing. Their supervisor then shared with them that A and his co-work experience partner were the best 2 students that she had worked with so far. She really liked how they worked as a team sharing the work, the answers, the practical write ups evenly between. It appears A and this young miss felt the same about their week together too. That they both had similar work ethics, often forgoing break times to get the experiment they were doing finished on time. They both contributed to everything they did and perhaps best of all they did it with hard work and humour. They both laughed a lot during their time together and had a brilliant experience in their work experience program. The Uni department concerned also earned many accolades for the amazing, structured program offered to them over the week.

For us as his parents. the end of the week was a really brilliant opportunity to look back at far we have come on this journey. To think back to this broken little boy we took home from the hospital after meningitis nearly took him from us. The fears we felt at that time, and then magnified ten fold more when we found out it had left him profoundly deaf.

In the place of that tiny broken toddler now stands this amazing 6'5" young man with the world at his feet. The confidence, the maturity, the speech and language, the positive attitude and the hard work ethic - really anything is possible. I wait and watch with wonder to see just what the future holds for my young man. I have already seen so much that he has achieved both personally and as an amazing role model for younger deaf kids and as a breaker of stereotypes for those that might place limitations on kids because of a hearing loss. Those that have the pleasure and perhaps even privilege of working with him, know only too well that hearing loss or not, anything is possible.

To this day many people will say to me "oh you and hubby have done a brilliant job with him and all the hard work you have put into him"....my response is always the same. I smile appreciatively and graciously accept their kind words and then remind them..." thanks for that, but really it has been up to him. We could have worked our arses off with him but if he didn't want this for himself, he would never be where he is today. This is his doing, his hard work and his determination that his deafness was never going to stop him from doing anything he set his mind to."

And so it continues

OK so I got a bit slack - but back to finish this time - I hope!

After the very successful first day it was time for day 2. I told A he didn't need to sms me that he had arrived safely, I would assume he had unless he contacted me to tell me something different. We had also arranged that I would collect him from the train station at a certain time, unless he messaged me to say he was on the later train. It was a tight time line from finishing at the Uni to getting on the train to come home on the earlier train.

So I waited for him to arrive at the train station. It was kind of sweet, when I saw the train approaching, I left the car to stand near the platform, so he could see me and follow me to our car. I watched him alight from the train looking the confident, independent teen, well except for that quick scan to see if he could see me. When his eyes found me, I saw that slightest little look of relief sweep across his face before he resumed his, "I'm a cool teen" look. It kind of reminded me how much of a journey he was having on this week and how proud I was of him for doing it all, but how my just being there within view, reassured him that everything was on track.

As he jumped in the car, he told me that he had no problem getting to the train because they had finished early that day. Welll then the rest of the story came out. Their supervisor had some errands she needed to run during lunch that day so both the work experience students were afforded a 90 minute lunch break. They decided to walk up into the shopping precinct together and then A went his way to Gamesworkshop and EB Games, and she to look at clothes!

After awhile A headed back to the Uni tea room and was working on finishing up recording in his work experience journal, when his female co-work experience student came in looking crest fallen. It seemed that this young miss had found a gorgeous jumper on sale that she wanted to buy, but the sale price was $30 and she only had $26 on her. She asked the store to hold it for her as it was the only one in that colour, in that size with the promise of her return to purchase it the next day but the store refused.

Well of course this gorgeous young man, that has turned out to be so amazing, not entirely sure how that has come to be given his parenting from yours truly, but there you go! He being the chivalrous gentleman that he is, offered to give her the $4 difference so that she could get her jumper. Then together they negotiated with their supervisor to let them finish a little earlier on that day, and have a shorter lunch the next, so they had time to go back into the shopping precinct at the end of the day, to get her jumper and still make their respective public transport journeys back home! The supervisor agreed and so off they went to get the jumper. Coincidentally A also came home with her phone number too! Although I don't think the he has contacted her since though.

Day 2 was also another day of interesting work and write ups and he and his co-work experience partner seemed to be getting on well together and working well as a team.

what a week!

Hmm it has been awhile since I have blogged here - didn't realise quite how long!

I know it was the case for me and I know speaking to parents of newly diagnosed babies it is the case for them too, when you find out your child has a hearing loss, all you want to know is that they are going to be ok!





I can remember all those worries as if they were yesterday, would he have friends, how would he cope as he got older etc etc etc.





Last week was such a wow week and has made me reflect back to those feelings at that time, and how far we have come since then.





Last week A has been on work experience week. He chose to do it at one of the Universities here in the school of Chemical & Pharmaceutical Engineering. The work experience program itself looked daunting, but for us as his parents all the rest of the stuff was just as daunting.





OK so he is a teen, and maybe we have protected him just a bit *smile* but for one reason or another, it hasn't happened that he has needed to travel on public transport on his own. Being able to head into the city every day while we were working meant that this was going to happen during work experience week - a somewhat scary thought for his parents!



That and coping with people he didn't know, expectations of him from people that didn't know him and had probably never dealt with a person with a cochlear implant!! Oh it made me want to wrap him a in a hug and keep him safe with me : - )



Of course it was never going to be like that! Of course he would go, it was an ideal time for him to grow, take on some new challenges - I mean for goodness sake he is old enough to get his "learners"!



So the last week of the school holidays, A and I did the dummy run on the train into the city, walked to the Uni and even met one of the people of the work experience program when we went to find the office he had to meet at the following Monday. It nearly killed the both of us being up early enough to catch the train just after 8am!



That Sunday night we chatted before he went to bed that he was a little nervous about the next day, not so much the train trip on his own for the first time but more so work experience and what it would be like.



Of course I made the mistake of opening my mouth and letting B know that - no he didn't tease him - read on to find out why that was a mistake!!



I didn't sleep well Sunday night - you know worrying is part of the mum job title! I kept dreaming that things happened and he was stranded in the city! I mean really he has a mobile and all the wonders of modern technology at his disposal - so why was I worrying???



Monday morning came, B and I headed off for school, hubby and A left for the train station. I had asked A to sms me when he arrived at the Uni just so I knew he arrived safe and sound. A short time later hubby called to say he had deposited A at the station and offered to let him sit in the car awhile, but A was having none of it, he was out on the platform ready to go.....so hubby drove off leaving the image of a lone soul at the station in his rear view mirror.



Then around 9am came the sms, he was there no worries, and of course I was under instructions to sms hubby when I knew that our "baby" was safe!



I had to be in the city that first afternoon for a meeting so I arranged to meet A at the Uni and drive him home - well I don't think he shut up the whole way home, except the momentary stop in order to draw breath.

First he started talking to me about a friend "Ben" on the train - I thought at first it was another school friend going to work experience that happened to catch the same train. Nope Ben was an arts student at the Uni, and apparently he had to make a mad dash sprint for the train because he was running late and nearly missed it - oh and that was because he had one of those mornings when you keep hitting the snooze button thinking to yourself "just 5 more minutes, just 5 more minutes" and next thing you know you are running late and have to sprint for the train.

Of course this information was gleaned in a mutual conversation on a moving, rumbling train with less than brilliant acoustics chatting to some guy he had never seen before, but who between the two of them, had struck up a conversation on the way into the city!

After we exhausted that subject it was on to the supervisor and the photos of the 2 dogs she had at her desk in the office. He was suggesting to me what breeds he thought they were but that he didn't get a chance to ask because there was so much work experience related stuff.

Then it was on to the student paired with him for work experience "Tatiana". He shared with me, what school she was from, some stuff about her parents, and her country of birth, the subjects she was doing at school blah blah blah blah...

Here was me worrying about how he might do dealing with people and what if he had trouble understanding them??? Trouble understanding them, sounds like he drove them nuts involving them in conversations all day!

Although I did ask about him and his haste to get out of the car in the morning at the station...."oh mum I love Dad, but he WAS DRIVING ME NUTS!.....asking me if I had this, had that, did I know this, know that....I couldn't stand it, I had to get out!

Oh and telling Master B of A's nervousness about day 1.....turns out I was not the only one that didn't sleep well..apparently he tossed and turned all night worrying about his big brother going on the train by himself for the first time and into the city and work experience and all that...what a beautiful soul my son has, his sensitivity and caring takes my breath away some days.

And that was just day 1 - I have 4 more days to post yet!

But there are more lessons..

This blog was set up to write about our experiences raising a child with a hearing loss and what that journey has been like....

But there are 2 kids in this house and there have been many more lessons from the younger sibling of the household.

B was had just turned one when A was hospitalised with meningitis. It was a crazy, crazy time and he was cared for by a variety of friends and family during the days and then with myself or hubby in the evenings. Then came the months of follow up appointments, cochlear implant candidacy evaluations etc etc. My mum was a godsend and was the one that spent much of the time with B during the times that I couldn't.

In fact I watched the video of A's cochlear implant activation and I love that B is in there having just woken up from his sleep and walking around. making himself known. I love that there is footage of him from a time when everything was such a blur including all the beautiful things that were happening in his life.

Did he miss out during that time? Does he have any memory of that time or feels like he did? I don't know, but as a parent there will always be a level of guilt that maybe he did. Yes the rational, science brain tells me that there should be no guilt, since it wasn't like I had any choices about it at the time!! But it seems that guilt goes hand in hand with maternal instinct, you just can't escape it.

In those early days we made lots of time for him to spend one on one with mum or dad, some special time of his own, and we still try to do that today, to make him know the he is as loved and as important as his brother in this family and the fact he doesn't have a disability doesn't make him less important.

It isn't as though we feel any differently about the 2 boys but the realities are that A's life has its share of complicating factors like appointments to audiologists, follow up information with school etc etc.

If it weren't for the fact they looked like twins in those Pixie baby photos they take in hospital, I would wonder if they are in fact related! They are like chalk and cheese - my boys.

A is the superconfident, assertive, positive, academic - loves learning and all it encompasses, very organised etc etc.

B is the flipside of the coin. For a long time he has had a low level of self confidence, he so desperately worries what his peers think of him, wants to just fit in! He loves music and is a great guitarist. He loves the hands on stuff, like tech, like science experiments, like sport...but the written..oh what a bore! Not his cup of tea at all, which of course doesn't mean he doesn't know the content, just means he can't be arsed writing it all down on paper - the minimalist approach as I call it. His organisation is greatly improving - and well, we had plenty of scope for that!

Often childhood experts will have chapters in books dedicated to sibling order and the impact of birth order on personality. One of things they regularly say is that the second child tends to find the niches not occupied by the first child. A way of making themselves different and not trying to compete in areas that their older sibling already shines in and has a couple of extra years practice at it!!

I can see that in someways in B but I see many other things too. I see that insecurity that plagued me as a child...if I walked into a room and someone laughed, of course they were laughing at me! That need just to blend in was so strong. I have shared this with B and that how when he gets older he will see how much this feeling is actually caused from within, but equally shared that I know my words won't cut it with him in the same way my parents words didn't cut it with me. It is one of those life experiences you need to learn from yourself.

I also see a lot of my brother in B. He was never that keen on school, writing or that stuff either...as for organisation, I will never forget the day the spaghetti bolognaise from home economics escaped his bag and filled all of his books on the way home from school - that was a keeper! Yet he has become the most amazing successful adult. He completed his trade, went on to study other more technical aspects of his trade with such understanding and application of difficult concepts it blew my father's mind! Now in a time poor of quality of tradespeople, he is on top of the game, being headhunted for positions left, right and centre.

As parents who both loved school and went on to be tertiary educated, there is kind of an inbuilt assumption that your kids will be that way too. An incorrect inbuilt assumption.

B has taught me about listening to your child! Listening to what they say and equally what they don't say. It is about acceptance and love of your child for who they are, the real enjoyment that comes from getting to know what makes them tick and celebrating with them the things that they excel at. It is about their dreams, their hopes, their thoughts for the future.

B is also on the fringe of becoming an amazing young man. He is starting to gain that confidence and step out from the shadow of his older brother which in itself is an amazing thing to witness. He is starting to think about what he might like to do and finally is comfortable with saying out loud that which I have known for so long - he isn't interested in going to Uni, he doesn't want a desk job or a career in academia. He wants to be out there doing things, experiencing life, at this point he is thinking about his music and guitar as a future pathway. He is a really loving, caring person, unless of course you are out and see his friends in which case it is 3 feet in front or behind, anywhere so long as it doesn't look like he is out with the olds : - )

B is yet another shining example of teaching me more than I have taught him on this journey. He is the one that has to yet to work out what his niche might be but the journey to that point will be an exciting time of discovery for all of us.

Truly blessed

Well this week has had its share of stresses, most of them generated by work...



However this week we picked up boy wonder from school on his return from a 4 day camp in the north of the state...he had a ball and came home with many stories to share.



Of course the funniest of those I shared with people that know the both of us and equally know his crazy sense of humour.



Quite a few times in recent months when I have shared a funny story or comment that A has told me, I have had similar responses from those around me.



Most of these responses revolve around the fact that I am a lucky mum that my almost 16 year old still shares this stuff with me....kind of got me thinking about that.



That and a recent post on a discussion forum I am on, in which another mother referred to her son and his character traits and how he had turned out a better person than she ever hoped to parent.



This is very much the case with A. He is most assuredly a better person than I had ever hoped to parent. He is sensitive and caring with empathy for others. He is a hard worker and applies himself with such determination to his studies. Yet despite being a hard worker he has a wicked and goofy sense of humour, and most of all the sunniest disposition, the real glass half full kind of perspective on life. There is not much that ruffles his feathers.

Whilst parenting has its share of challenges and parenting a child with a disability a few more, this blog's name comes from my life's experience raising A. I have learned far more from him than he has learned from me on this journey.

From A
I have learned what it is to be resilient.
I have learned what it is to believe in yourself.
I have learned that even in the toughest times, it is good to be able to laugh at yourself.
I have learned the true meaning of social justice.
I have learned trust, love and the power of maternal instinct.
I have learned that no matter what it is still possible to look at the glass half full and how much better that makes the situation and your life in general.

Many parents lament the difficulties parenting their child, or the things that don't turn out quite right in life.

For me, I am so truly blessed to have the privilege of having this young man in my life and to have the honour of raising him. He is truly a shining of light of just what is possible and a testament to the description I save for the very special people in life "one of the angel's that walk amongst us".

Bullying and the tough bits of growing up

When you stop to spend some time reflecting on your own childhood and those tween years to adulthood, there are not many of us that would say that it wasn't a tough time.

Often times it was tough because we made it that way for ourselves. We were so worried about what peers thought, when we walked into a room of people and someone laughed, well of course they had to be laughing at us! Truth beknown they probably didn't even see us come in, so engrossed in their own conversation.

I think it is harder for my kids than it was for us. The world is a changing place and not all those changes are nice ones. The precious childhood naievete that was there for my generation seems so hard to keep for our kids.

As parents all of us worry about our kids, will they be happy, what if they have no friends, what if someone picks on them? Add a disability into the mix and that fear goes straight to Def-Con4 (well that is what Michael Kyle of My Wife and Kids would describe it as!)

I think we all feel this need to protect our kids from the nastiness of life and that theirs shall be a life of blue skies, icecream and stuff like that. However is protecting our kids always the right thing to do?

Any parent you ask will either have a child who has been bullied or knows someone else whose child has been. Whether we like it or not bullying happens! No that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop it but it does mean we need to be aware and we need to support our kids should they find themselves being bullied.

Many parents of children who have been newly diagnosed with a hearing impairment are beside themselves at the prospect of their child being teased or picked on because they have hearing aids or a cochlear implant, or perhaps because their speech might be a little different.

As the parent of an older teen, I have to say that the reality is that bullies don't discriminate in that respect. They pick a target they think they can "beat" and they will find what it is that might upset that child. It could be a hearing loss, it could be red hair, a big nose, glasses, being too short, too tall, too fat, too thin - the list is truly endless.

When A was around 11 years old we had some real issues around bullying. There was a small group of boys making his life hell at school. He of course reported it to the staff who would deal with each incident. Unfortunately though they spent their time putting out spotfires rather than dealing with the culture of bullying itself. They didn't look at why the bullying was happening and proactively looking at ways to stop it, instead they just chastised the guilty each time that it happened. After awhile A gave up reporting it "what's the point, mum? They get told off, get shitty at me and then do it all over again the next time anyway?" How do you thwart that kind of logic from an 11 year old?

The kinds of things that were happening were pretty cruel. One group of boys would call his name and then when he turned around they would start speaking without their voices. Obviously the intent was to make A fear that his cochlear implant processor was not working properly - yeah real nice guys! Sadly for them they picked the smartest kid going around to try that on! "What they don't think I can still hear all the background noise around me and know there is nothing wrong with my processor and it is just them being morons?" Yep 1 - 0 to A!

There was one particular child who was the instigator of much of this behaviour. I have to tell you as a grown woman it took much of my self control not to give this kid a such a serve that it would be years later until his nose hairs decided it might be safe to sneak back out again. My blood boiled at the mere sight of this child.

He tried the group approach and got nowhere, so then he tried again going solo and calling A " a freak"...and then when that didn't work, he started in on A's younger brother, calling him "the freak's brother"....being somewhat younger and less sure of himself, this taunt did hit the mark and caused many problems at home as it created resentment of A by his younger sibling as he was seen as the reason for the teasing.

We all knew that a change of schools was imminent, not just because of the bullying but due to the program pathways of the school as well. So we did what we could during that time.

So what did we do? All that we could at that time. We talked and talked and talked some more. A and I spent many hours engaged in conversation about bullying, why some kids bullied other kids. That yes it is unfair, and yes you want to smash his face in (stand in line because your mother is first!) but why that actually doesn't solve anything in the long run. The more we talked the more we were able to look at the bully in a completely different light.

The bully was from a family of ethnic origin that historically does not deal well with a disability, the kind of place where you might hide family member away rather than have them go to a mainstream school like everyone else. This child's father was domineering, arrogant and opiniated. So no matter what it took his boy had to be number one, he had to be the best at everything and heaven help anyone that suggested perhaps he was not. This boy was small for his age and he struggled with his school work. Fortunately for him his one saving grace was he was good at soccer so at least his old man was off his back for 60 minutes a week!

So there is the bully, under the hammer from his father for just about everything in his life, but especially being short and not doing well at school.......contrasted with A, who has always been tall for his age and who is academically gifted. Despite dealing with the pressures of listening in class with a hearing loss, A was top of his class for all his academic subjects. No wonder this bully saw red...he had perfect hearing and he couldn't come close! The jealousy he felt turned to rage that was vented at A in the form of bullying.

Whilst we were both still pretty mad at him for treating A the way he did, we get a chance to empathise with this boy, and have a think about how tough his life was trying to live up to his father's demands when he really didn't have what it took to do that.

Some years later when A and were deep in conversation (yep I'm one lucky mum this young man & I engage in conversation quite regularly still on the deep and meaningfuls of life and he is just shy of 16!) During our conversation we must have been discussing bullying or teasing or something. He went back to talking about what it was like when he was being teased and picked on. And then he shared something so profound I will never ever forget it...he said that the reason he made it through that time was because every day he had a safe haven to come home to. He said he knew he only had to deal with it while he was at school, once he got home he knew he was coming home to a house full of people who valued him for who he was and who loved him no matter what. That was the safe haven that gave him a break from the crap, the time to unwind and build up his inner strength to go another round the next day.

So whilst on the one hand it was really like someone took a knife and stabbed me in the heart and spun it around a few times, on the other hand it showed me just what resilience to the shitty stuff in life this experience had taught him. He had found strategies to get through the tough stuff and strong sense of self belief that with the support of those that loved him, he could get through anything! Pretty powerful stuff for a teenager to share.

Pretty powerful stuff for all of us as parents - keep those communication lines open, no matter what small drip of conversational response you might get. Make sure your kids know you love them warts and all. Hug them, kiss them (if you are allowed to : - ) or a simple ruffle of their hair on the way through - that subtle contact lets them know that you love them. Where you can, show an interest in their music (I know brace yourself and into the breech for some of you but you can do it!), their friends, whatever it is they choose to share with you. Don't judge them too harshly: you were young once too you know, did you always do what you were told?

Fast forward to his new school, loves it, heaps of friends never home, always out socialising somewhere. Last year a new student to the school joined A's class. In one particular class the teacher heard a group of boys telling another to "shut up". She thought it was teenage boys being teenage boys and told them to settle. At which point one of A's friends jumped up to report that this other student had called A "deaf boy" or words to that effect, which coincidentally A didn't even hear but his friends did. They were outraged and that is why they were telling this other kid to shut up. So for every bad thing that happens, here is the good that comes of it. A didn't need to say a word, his friends were the one to take this student to task for insulting their friend! His friends had understood that such treatment was wrong and should not go unchallenged.

So whilst it pains us terribly to see our kids going through the tougher stuff of life that ultimately we can't control, it is part of the journey of passage. Kids need to know that sometimes life just plain sucks and you can't change it, you just have get through that stage the best way you can and then move on to bigger and better things. Their life is not defined by the things that happen to them, but rather how they handle the things that happen to them.

As parents never underestimate the power of your love. They might not always show it, or wear their hearts on their sleeves, but in their hearts they know they are loved. They know that when they need them, their parents will be there for them, and that is the most powerful of gifts you can give your child.