I listen to a lot of motivational and business speakers and I read a lot of books on business, and there is always a section in the book or speech about when business goes bad. Business owners and people with certain problems often turn away from those problems. I was thinking about that this morning about how that applies to parenting and children. One example in a book I read gave an example that said, if you’re worried that your bank account is low, often our reaction to a problem like that is to avoid looking at the balance because we are afraid of what we’ll see. We are afraid that we’ll see that we really don’t have any money. That fear can be paralyzing and the avoidance of looking at the truth behind a problem can place you in a worse position than if you had dealt with the problem sooner.
I see a lot of that when working with parents of delayed and special needs children. There have been times when I began working with a child and his family when the child was 4 or 5 years old. The child clearly has a delay and it has been evident for some time. However the parent has been afraid to have the child evaluated because they are afraid of hearing that their child has a significant delay, or is autistic, or mentally retarded. And there are times that we have to give that confirmation that something is indeed wrong.
You might think that this would be detrimental to the parent, but most of the time the mom or dad begins to move forward a bit better. It’s great that they can do this, but it’s also sad as well, because if they had sought help when they were first concerned then things would have been better for them and the child and they would have had help from the many resources available to them.
My advice to any parent who is concerned their child is delayed: do not be afraid of the answer. Go ahead and take a look. It doesn’t mean that something is wrong. However, there are many people around you that you don’t know of who can guide you and help you, should you get that answer that you’re afraid of.
