My middle child is a boy who rocked long hair, pink capris, and earrings for most of his elementary years. We allowed him to explore his own personal style–he was anything but your average male child.
But for someone who prides themselves on ignoring gender norms, I missed the boat when it came to academics and the “typical boy” moniker.
When my son began struggling in school, it was easy to think he was being lazy, or that his disorganization was just him being “a typical boy.” Articles and internet research assured me that boys mature later than girls, that boys could be sloppy, or lazy, and that girls did better at school as they headed into their teen years.
But while I was frustrated thinking my son didn’t care about schoolwork, he was silently struggling with a nonverbal learning disorder. The right side of brain, which processes auditory and visual information together, was the one that was being lazy.
In the third grade his disorganization was already becoming an issue, as evidenced by the state of his backpack, which abounded with papers smooshed into any available space. I tried to sit with him weekly to sort it out, and it became a battle of wills.
I didn’t realize he was embarrassed because he thought he must be stupid.
By sixth grade we figured it was just his norm. I made him carry an agenda book. It got left behind in classrooms. He was always putting his science papers in his music notebook, his English notes in his Math binder. The guidance counselor allowed him to join an organization group that worked on getting binders manageable. The binders were a mess again by the time the last bell rang.
But I was repeatedly reassured he was just being a “typical boy.” His grades were decent, he was in Concert Choir and Anime Club; he was holding his own.
Until eighth grade, when not only did his grades slip, but he was having increasing peer issues, when he came home almost every day was a bad day, and he was struggling in every way.
I wondered if it was because he was late to puberty, and all the other boys had physically shot past him by about a foot, voices deepening and muscles bulking. I wondered if I had been a bad parent, failing to give him a proper sense of what boundaries were.
It was my therapist who finally opened my eyes to the possibility of something else. She asked me questions about his habits, and suggested I might want to have him tested for a learning disorder.
I was shocked. I’d never really thought of a learning disorder, because he was so bright I assumed a lot of his behavior might be laziness or what I had heard so often were “typical (teen) boy” behaviors (i.e. when I asked him to clean up, he would wander around the things he had to clean and procrastinate. It took hours to get him to straighten up a 5 by 8 area of the room.) I started studying everything I could about learning disorders, believing he had similarities to ADHD.
But while NVLDs are similar to ADHD, they also have differences in both presentation and treatment options.
I tracked down a neuropsychologist while the school worked on testing my son academically. She was certain within ten minutes of meeting my son that she could help us, and more importantly, help him.
He was anything but a “typical boy.” After testing by the school and the neuropsychologist my eyes opened up to a whole world that my son lived in and the rest of us intruded upon from day to day. He doesn’t recognize a new face nine minutes after he meets them. He can’t process auditory and visual cues at the same time.
Nuance is not in his wheelhouse—which also means he didn’t recognize sarcasm, and in a family like ours, it suddenly occurred to me that all the times he snapped, “Because you think I’m stupid!” and we responded with a sardonic “Yes, because that’s what I said…”, he thought we were literally saying, “you’re right.” My heart broke.
But testing by the school showed high academic scores—because students with NVLD are often bright, and in his case, his high intelligence was working overtime to make up for his slower processing, and in doing so dropping him “under the radar.” He learns better through auditory means—aurally, as opposed to being able to write it down and recall it that way.
Testing showed his anxiety level was at nearly the highest it could be. And no wonder…every time there was a crowd in the hallway he was surrounded by a surging sea of faces he didn’t recognize. When someone raised their voice, he couldn’t identify emotions, so he assumed they were either angry or disgusted. And, as his brain struggled to do too many functions at one time, he panicked.
He wasn’t a typical boy. But we would work so hard over the next year to help him be one. (Physically, he’ll never be a “typical boy,” and we love him all the more for that. But by typical I mean one who only has to deal with the simplest struggles in terms of social activity, academics, and self-esteem.)
We signed him up for a social skills class, while keeping him in his challenging mainstream classes. Researched methods of resolving conflict that worked for NVLD children—a lot of which involves us identifying our own emotions and then verbalizing them to him.
Over the past year, he’s made great improvements, learning how to say what he’s feeling so we can help him navigate it. He now understands that not everything that someone says is what they mean, so asking for clarification is appropriate. And most importantly, he’s learned to advocate for himself in school and other settings.
The other night, he spent a few hours at a friend’s, and I worried that such a prolonged period of time in the company of kids his age might result in arguments or misperceptions, as they often have over his life. As he came in the door, I waited to hear what problems he had, who he argued with, why it was not as fun as he thought it would be.
He told me what a great time it was, how they geeked out playing Dungeons and Dragons, and he made a mistake and they had to work out how his group would get out of a tree. He’d eaten pizza and been sad when it was time to leave. He’d been, for all intents and purposes, a typical boy.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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