Saturday, 18 October 2008

Being tired

There is differences between feeling physically tired and mentally tired. The first is easily cured by good sleep, while the second can easily trigger your physical fitness into a worse condition.

That's how I feel...physically and mentally tired! I just don't know how to put first thing first. It is mostly about my twins (or my all three sons in general). The twins celebrated their 6th anniversary on October 10, they are active as usual, full of demands and imaginations, but they can't read! They are very slow in remembering alphabets. Are they gifted children with learning disabilities? As a mother, I do not need label...either they are gifted or bright or whatever...they are still special creatures to me. But how should I "know" them? How can I help them? What approach should I take, and what therapy, or where should I go? Those questions are questions that hunting me all around while my emotion is not really stable to face their activities.

Yesterday I've got really sick, I think I was being poisoned by some expired food because my husband has got the same problem (we both ate the same food). Luckily I have my parents and my big family to help me, so now all those three kids are with grandpa and grandma...At least I've got a day to have a real relaxing time. Yet, my mind can't stop thinking. My hands are still trying to browse around looking for informations.

Some informations are really helpful in seeing the definition of learning disabilities and to understand it. It's amazing to learn how complex is the brain's tasks, and how many things that small grey cells performed to make us functional as a human being.

I read this:
The way our brains process information is extremely complex - it's no wonder things can get messed up sometimes. Take the simple act of looking at a picture, for example: Our brains not only have to form the lines into an image, they also have to recognize what the image stands for, relate that image to other facts stored in our memories, and then store this new information. It's the same thing with speech - we have to recognize the words, interpret the meaning, and figure out the significance of the statement to us. Many of these activities take place in separate parts of the brain, and it's up to our minds to link them all together.
Taken from

My twins are not easily connect the image to its sound, the possibility is dyslexia. Sisco, the younger in birth order, seems to improve his reading capability. But, Raphael is now seems to loose all his ability. He seems to lost his self confidence and refused to try. Sibling rivalry between these two boys is very tense. Each time I tutored one of them, the other will protests saying that I only teach his brother. Meanwhile my eldest son is also having a very huge decline in his school report. He is the one I was always concern of. He was a little bit over active and not communicative, but getting older and enjoying his guitar lesson made him better...yet not in his school performance. I was afraid that something was going wrong with him, but he can handle all the problem in time. For others he was late in speaking (but not for me, he was always understandable for my ears...even when he was still a couple of months old he started to have his special "ging" sound to ask for milk), he was never remember any songs or telling me a story from school in his kindergarten time. His brothers are a lot more different than him. They are talkative, transferring stories and songs from school or from home to school.

I was not worry about the twins ability to read because I saw that their eldest brother couldn't read until one day he seemed to be able to read in "a blink". So, I always thought that his little brothers are just like him...they are storing all the capability until they are ready to show it out. But, as they are now in the first grade, and the school is needing them to be able to read...then I started to worry...

The psychologists had different opinions. Their IQ results are both very superior, but why they can't read (or can't even remember some consonants' sound) puzzled me. Idea of having a Sensory Integration Therapy is also making me wonder as I do not really understand the connection between this therapy to their ability to read. Yes they are picky eaters, yes they are hypersensitive in tactile, perhaps they are not yet able to catch some balls...but how those facts blocked their ability to recognize symbol is not clearly informed to me. They can not swim and can't ride a bicycle...that's also true...but it is because we are not yet able to give them the facility to try it. I think providing a bicycle and a swimming lesson would be better than having a therapy. Yet, I do not want my personal feeling disturb my decision, it should all be based on the best output for them. Time is clicking fast and I do need to find the best way to teach them without being emotional. To leave all the other personal problems behind and dealing with them in a stable and mature emotion. That's how I've got tired mentally...


Anonymous said...

Sudah coba konsultasi ke LPT UI, Aku punya teman di sana dan kami sering diskusi soal kemampuan belajar anak2 (meski belum punya) :D

Inge Sundoko

Retty N. Hakim said...

Aku nggak ke LPT karena kejauhan. Sebenarnya yang pegang anakku psikolog senior juga, tapi mungkin sedikit beda pandangan. Teman yang psikolog juga banyak, tapi rasanya harus ketemu yang "jodoh" supaya bisa satu jalur komunikasi.

Mungkin nanti aku akan tulis lebih banyak tentang anak-anak, salam, Retty