We have all heard them. Those short comments that make such a huge impact they stick with you forever. I think any comment that questions your parenting no matter what kind of parent you are hurts 10 times more than anything else.
Well known fact, I'm a pediatric Speech Language Pathologist and developmental milestones are a huge perseveration/ hobby of mine. I like to know a majority of the gross motor stages, (rolling, sitting, crawling, walking) and of course the speech/language ones (totally not enough time), and fine motor (grap patterns, sensory, writing and other stuff). When it came to these milestones I was, well, hypersensitive to these things. Watching, observing, not pushing too soon but knowing to push a bit more as we came close to the end of "typically" developing range. I pride myself on the fact that Elijah has hit almost all skills within age range and never too early. I didn't push potty training until 2.5 years even though he probably could have done it closer to 2. Stair climbing/both feet leaving the ground, not his strong point, but he can play on the playground fine and I don't have fears of broken bones in my future. We're all good. I do confess though, I did bring him in for a speech screening because I'll be damned if my child shows up at school and needed speech services!!
That comment I was hinting at? Oh you know, when I knew the independence of my 2-3 year old was more important than skills that are too advanced for them and allowed Elijah to have Velcro shoes/boots/sandals. Here's the comment, are you ready?
"All these kids with these Velcro shoes these days, no one ever takes the time to reach them how to tie. Kids and parents are just so lazy now days."
It would be one thing if I over heard this in a store, but I didn't. It was in my home, made about my son's shoes. I kid you not, it took every ounce of strength to not turn around wave my developmental milestone knowledge in their face. It hurt. I did though sit on this until 7 days before my son turned 5. We have started shoe tying. It's a hard thing to learn and teach. The number of steps, the fine motor, it's a lot for a little kid.
To make matters worse for the poor boy, everyone is teaching him a different way. Giving him their extra two cents on "how this will make it easier." We only started yesterday, my goal is for him to get the shoe lace cross, under and pull tight. STOP. That's it. The loops need to be done on longer laces than what he has on his shoes, but he doesn't stop trying.
Tonight ended in tears out of frustration. But he is so motivated. Probably because he can't wear his superman shoes to school, until he can tie them myself. We will keep trying, we will get this and he can wear those shoes on the first day of kindergarten.
