More About Music

Dear Kate,
It went like this:

Round 1
Me: tone: Overly casual. 
       words: What is it like when you listen to music?

You:  expression:  None.
          word, in a nutshell:  Ugly.

Me:  emotions:  Shock, incredulity, return to calm.
        thoughts:  Interesting, a visual descriptor!
        words:  None.

Round 2
Me:  words: What does music look like?
        thought: Could you interpret music as colours or emotions?
You:  facial expression:  What's your game, lady?
         words:  Like a radio.

Me:  thought: Hmmm, not so colourful.


Round 3
Me:  words:  What does music feel like?
You:  another nutshell:  Nothing.

Me:  echoes in my head:  "Nothing, nothing, nothing, ugly, nothing."
        diversionary thought:  What lovey legs you have! Lovely, lovely, legs, lovely.


Round 4
Me:  words:  Does any music sound better than other music?

You:  words:  The Beetles and Pink.

Me:  word, of the singular variety: oh
        thoughts....gradual: Simple melody and rhythm + overflowing with angst and out to kick the world's  arse. That is something and not nothing.
        
That was how it went.

Love Mum

Einstein's Fish

Dear Kate,
You are Einstein's fish.  Does that sound a bit tacky, twee or maybe like a bad song lyric?  It is simply what I thought when I saw this quote by Einstein:

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid"

This is the reminder I needed, to attend to your gift, not just your disability.

I will start now!

*At 6, you had the working memory of an 11 year old.
*You are exceptional at mental arithmetic.
*You have determination and the power to endure and succeed.
*You are the kindest person I know.

You can do ANYTHING you want to do!  The educational psychologist told you that after you practically inhaled the WISC-IV and spat out a phenomenal result.  If only that one statement was powerful enough to undo the layers of anxiety and self-doubt that school has built upon you.

On the last day of school in 2010, I picked you up and felt the thick sludgy layers of stress slide off us both.  The  tranquility of the school holidays seemed surreal.  I could see you slowly recharging.  But then it was New Years Eve and a fresh onslaught of frustration and humiliation was visible to us both.

I sweated for three weeks and I know that you did too. 
I wished for the millionth time that I didn't have to haul you through another torturous term.
I yearned for your preschool years.
I wished I didn't have to watch you suffer. 
I wished I could feel calm and happy.
I wished I had space in my head for something other than you.

Then miraculously, the neurons that had neglected to fire over the last three years, did, and I connected the fact that homeschooling exists, with the knowledge that I was absolutely capable of doing it!

So, if you feel that you are a fish, I can't wait to watch you swim. And you don't need to climb any trees. Unless of course you want to.  And then I will stick a tree in your ocean or build a dam around your tree.  Whatever it takes.

Love Mum

'I Don't Like Music'

Dear Kate,

I feel lighter already, since I began pulling these swirling thoughts and emotions out of my mind and off my chest and putting them to rest on 'paper'.

 How do you get things off your chest?

And there are a few more things I would like to know:

What is it like to be you? 
How does your world look?
And more particularly, how does it sound?

I am still reeling from your stark announcement last week:

'I don't like music.'

The audiologist told me that you can't hear changes in pitch.  You don't know if the notes are going up or down!!!

What does a song sound like?
(And could Richard Stauss ever sweep you out of your chair, carry you through many modulations and then leave you resting 1cm above the ground?)

What does it sound like when we talk?
(What do prosody and intonation mean for you and if I am facetious will you understand me?  How do you feel about homonyms and are you content with this content? What do you 'read' from the context?)

Music is such a fundamental part of my existence. There is always music in my head.  When I am busy talking, writing, working or paddling it is playing continuously in the background, like a force that is driving me forward. When I am happy I bounce with it and when I am miserable I wallow in it and everything in between.

What fills you up with joy?

I remember the long car trip we took when you were 6 and you giggled the whole way because you were watching funny cat videos in your head.  And when someone tried to teach you meditation, you cried because they were trying to take the stories out of your head.  Is that what keeps your cogs turning? Videos and stories in your head?

I have read the books by Sally Shaywitz, Norman Doidge, Linda Silverman, Ron Davis, Liz Dunoon and Robert Melillo amongst others. Academically, I understand that you are a right-hemisphere, gestalt, visual-spatial thinker and learner. 

But I think in words.
And I feel with music.

 How do you work?

Love Mum

PS Do you care that I can't watch videos in my head and are you disappointed in my disappointment?

PPS I love you.

The Rollercoaster

Dear Kate,

Yesterday, I got it wrong.  You were struggling with an activity and I told you to try again.  You said it was too hard and I told you to keep trying.  You didn't yell or scream or rebel. You sat still, staring directly at the wall ahead and tears slid silently down your cheeks.  I felt uncomfortably large and contemptibly mean.  You waited until I told you that when you felt sad you should cry, and then you collapsed into my lap and shook and howled. 


Then it was my turn to cry silently while I remembered that I was homeschooling you to avoid this very situation.  I was homeschooling you because I was the one who could teach you slowly and repetitively and patiently .  I was the one who would understand that you weren't  being lazy, but some days, certain neurological pathways just wouldn't work as well as they did on others.


When you calmed down, you told me that it was just like school, when you couldn't spell a word and the teacher told you to try again and again and then again....you just wanted someone to tell you how to do it, so you would know how.  You just wanted a kind word when you were trying hard, success or failure.

I apologised and told you I would be more patient and that you were allowed to remind me of that.  I fed you something that I shouldn't have fed you (bribery/future incentive/guilt gift) and we did an activity you enjoyed.  Suddenly you were smiling at me, and I felt at little less overly-inflated and  prickly and red.


I want to motivate you, not bully you.  I want you to approach new tasks with a twinkle of curiosity in your eye, the way you did before you went to school, when you had only experienced praise and admiration for your efforts, before school taught you that you could fail.


The next time we go to a parent-teacher interview (whenever that may be) and the teacher asks you what your goals are, I want to hear you say what YOU want.  Last time, you sat up straight as a bean pole and smiled a tightly-stretched smile and said with trepidation and rising intonation, "To be a good girl???".  You wanted so much to please your teacher but just didn't know how. For now, I am your teacher and I recognise that I must give you the space and kindness to take your mind away from pleasing others, so you can rekindle your love of learning.


This train of thought brings to mind a quote about learning disorders, that went something along the lines of,  "Just remember, that when your child entered school, she only ever intended on being successful and of making you proud.".


I know that you have only ever tried to make me proud and I am proud of you every day.

If you will keep trying, so will I. Or maybe, if I keep trying, so will you???

Love Mum

Dyslexia Diary

Dear Kate,

Today I know for sure that choosing to home school you is one of the best decisions I have made.  You work so diligently and you are so steadfast. How could you fail?  And yet, you did at school.  If not from the school's perspective, you failed your own high standards.  Your literacy levels did not live up to your superior cognition and hence the battle lines were drawn: giftedness vs disability.


Knowing that you are gifted with dyslexia has helped you enormously.  You were bright enough to know that something was wrong from the day you stepped into the classroom and into a sea of nonsensical symbols that were supposed to shed light on your non-literate world.  Instead, they brought confusion, anxiety and accusations of laziness and stupidity.  Now you know that you are amazing and that there is a reason that reading will take longer for you to learn than it takes others. 

But you will learn.


I don't know how either of us endured the year and a half that you were dragged from my leg crying each morning or the following year and a half when you were sick and morose every day, except for the school holidays, when you would poke your head up for some sunlight and a brief spell of happiness.


I am so sorry that I put you through it, and I regret that I did not trust my own instincts and ignore the people who said that you were just lazy, a slow learner or manipulating me. And I am angry at the school system that would rather just sweep the problem under the rug, than face a reality that involves teaching more than a one-size fits all model.


Beginning homeschooling has been so overwhelmingly positive; a lovely contrast to the last three years of schooling.  Of course we have our hard days, but you always rebound with a smile and I love that about you.  You have always been so emotionally mature and you have empathy in spades; your greatest gift.  We have an amazing adventure ahead of us this year and I am priviledged to share it with you.  I can't begin to describe how proud I am to be the mother of someone as wonderful as you.
Love Mum