"Josh is stupid"

[momof4inco]

How do you help a child who knows something about them is different, but they don't understand enough to explain to them what is going on?

 

DS1 brought me a piece of paper he found in our school room. Written on it was "Josh is stupid". At first, I got mad thinking one of my other kids wrote it. Then I realized DS3 (Josh) wrote it, and my heart broke.

 

His condition is hard for even his teachers to understand. We found out about 5 years ago that he has an epilepsy disorder called electrical status epilepticus of slow-wave sleep (ESES). His brain would spike between 85-100% of the time he was asleep, and around 50% of the time he was awake. Before he was diagnosed, we knew there was a problem because he would wake up screaming and disoriented 6-10 times a night. His preschool teacher said it best - it was like his brain was a file cabinet that was being rearranged every night.

 

The condition has improved, but he will deal with the damage it caused forever. Our epileptologist thinks there is another primary cause (genetic) of everything, but years of testing hasn't figured it out. He has lots of other medical issues going on. I would love to tie it all together to one named condition! He had a neuropsych eval done late last year, his IQ is around 72 but there were some big variances (for example, visual-spatial was 110). He has an extremely slow processing speed and his executive functioning is pretty low.

 

How do I explain any of that at a 5-year-old level? How do I explain to him that him being able to read is the most awesome thing I've ever seen? How do I tell him how excited I was that he spelled stupid correctly? Seriously, that made me proud. I'm at a loss for how to tell him he is not stupid, in a way that he'll understand that none of his difficulties in learning are his fault.

 

Sorry for the long post. It's the first time I realized that he thinks he's stupid.

 

 

 

 

[prairiewindmomma]

We handled it, at age 5, as "Everybody has something they are good at, and everybody has stuff they struggle with." As a society, we tend to value "smart", rich, beautiful, etc.  Teaching our kids to value kindness, friendliness, diligence and persistence has been a struggle, but really helpful.  I modeled failure quite a bit for my perfectionist, and my kid who had a lot of negative self-talk went into counseling (play therapy) with me along for the sessions.

[prairiewindmomma]

Wanted to add...the hardest thing for me about my kid with LDs is not that he has them, that they will affect him his whole life in significant ways, or that it's dang frustrating to work with him sometimes.  The hardest thing is that he thinks he is stupid.

[Rosie_0801]

I taught dd a bit about her brain and what different parts do, so amydala, prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are active words in her vocabulary. She knows she has certain learning difficulties- what they are called and what they mean. Then we shrug it off as her not being stupid, it's just that her brain has a harder time learning those things than most people's brain do, but no matter because we'll just keep working until she gets it and it's very good that she is such a hard working girl and not a lazy git. (If she is being a slacker, I can accuse her of wanting to have wimpy neurons :lol: ) I also tell her that it is important to keep studying so she doesn't grow up boring. :p She's big on social intelligence and now firmly believes that it is socially unacceptable to grow up to be boring, lol.

 

I guess if I was dealing with your issues, I'd tell him it was like his brain moved everything around when he was asleep (maybe I'd say it was like a strong wind blows around in his head) and it's not that he's stupid- the knowledge is still in there, it's just that when he wakes up in the morning it isn't where he left it so it takes a while to find it all again and tidy it up. Since you said the condition is improving, I'd probably say that as he gets older, the tidying up will get faster because he would have had more practice, just like you can wash dishes faster than he can because you've had more practice.

 

:grouphug:

 

 

[Guest]

I tend to approach it from a religious viewpoint, explain that just like how sometimes a person's heart doesn't beat rythmically, or their lungs are asthmatic, or their kidneys aren't completely efficient, that sometimes a person can have a brain that doesn't function its best either. But that God created each person exactly how He wanted them to be, that God doesn't make mistakes, and in His eyes ds is perfect. That God values the heart/soul of the person and not at what the world values.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Kinsa

[momof4inco]

Thank you for the suggestions, I have a good place to start planning a conversation. He saw me get sad when I asked him if he wrote it. I told him he's not stupid, it hurts mommy's heart that he wrote that because I love him. I didn't realize we had reached a point where he needed more explanation.

[kbutton]

:grouphug: , but nothing to add. I think you've gotten some good suggestions.

[MyLittleBears]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

[Terabith]

He is five years old with an IQ of 72 and can read and spell stupid correctly??? I would be seriously questioning that IQ. That's impressive.

[Julie of KY]

HUGS.

I tend to tell the kids that their brains are wired different and that makes them better at certain things and makes it harder to do other things.

 

[Pen]

He's having feelings. Probably he needs to be able to have those feelings and be able to work through them. And maybe you need to separately work through your own feelings so that he is not needing to deal with your own sadness or pain about his situation so much.  I'm not sure that denying what he is feeling or contradicting it, or telling him that him feeling the way he feels is hurting your heart and making you sad is the right direction to take.  The hug though and telling him how much you love him, do seem right to me.

 

I'd probably be more like, "oh, Josh, you're feeling stupid? That must hurt a lot. Can you tell me about it?" along with the hug, and be trying to let him do the crying and so on. And then to supply some limited explanations along lines that others have suggested.