She was reading at college level and flunking math because of her learning disabilities. She is so self-possessed and speaks so well, people treated her like a MUCH older child, but she’s really quite socially immature and I’d also say, emotionally. So it caused problems.

8 months of that and she was having migraines every night, throwing up, losing weight and miserable. I took her out. Now she is healthy, thriving and starting to deal with kids a little more successfully on HER terms, which I am glad to see. She is growing into herself a little.

I think that parents just…. we do the best we can. We make the best choices we can and we try really hard to walk that line between protecting our kids and helping them grow into the world. Nobody is walking that line with *us* after all! We’re on our own. But sometimes we find other parents on the same line and it’s reassuring. Like, I am reassured to read about you and Noah because there are parallels there.

You know what I’ve found to be the most reassuring of all? In our new homeschool group, most of the kids who are Em’s age are not as precocious as the kids from her school. The older and younger kids have a little more in common and seem to interact more easily. Rather than the exception, that weird ’sensitive’ kid, Em is just another bright, unique kid in a group of kids who are being allowed to develop on their own terms. It makes me feel better when I see that and I don’t worry as much.

My husband is the shy introverted type, and he won’t really talk about his early experiences at school. They were terribly painful times. My son, however, is completely the opposite. Mr Social, not at all sensitive, rebounds from any minor upset with incredible speed. I was also “there for him” constantly as an infant, and rather than “creating” a clingy child, he was independent and wanted nothing to do with me. You didn’t “create” Noah’s temperament, unless we’re talking biologically, and there’s not a whole lot that you can do about it now!

Now this part is just assvice because my kid isn’t old enough for it to be an issue at all. So right now it is just my unpracticed, quite possibly idiotic rambling… But I think the ability to deal with teasing and sarcasm has been one of my greatest assets in life as a teenager and adult. In retrospect I am glad that my parents never made a big deal about it when I came home crying after the kids on the street teased me. As hard as I am sure it was for my mother to do cause she is the ultimate come to the rescue kind of parent, they pretty much just brushed it off and didn’t let me get all dramatic about it. (On a side note I think there is a big difference between teasing and tormenting. Tormenting can not be tolerated period and is a different matter entirely.) Now I grew up with older brothers who could dish it out with the best of them and I learned early on that I got a lot more respect giving it right back to them then running away crying. To this day the ability, as we Irish say, “to take the piss” loosely meaning to bring someone down (in a friendly, playful way. This is reserved for people you know and like) is highly valued in my family. In addition to just hanging out with my older brothers and their friends I got a lot of exposure to that kind of stuff from movies and sarcastic cartoons. And that is why I will most likely let my kids watch The Roadrunner and The Bad News Bears even though they aren’t exactly politically correct or culturally sensitive in this day and age. In some ways I think kids can learn more from The Roadrunner than Barney. Because life isn’t all about sharing and being nice and following rules. And maybe learning a little of that from a cartoon before being confronted with it in the real world will soften the blow just a bit. Or at least I hope it will. I guess I’ll find out in a few years when my kid toddles off to the playground for the first time.