Did you know (by the way) that the word ruminate comes from the Latin word "ruminare" which means chew the cud? I knew that goats (and cows and other cud chewing animals) have rumens, and are called ruminants, but couldn't figure out what that had to do with going over something again and again in your mind...
After doing a little research, I get it now though. I've been chewing something over mentally this evening... and it's time to swallow it down and be done with it!
So, I'm going to talk about Girl Scout camp instead. Today was R's first day of camp this year... It's the third year she's gone to day camp, and it's still hard to leave her. You'd think after five kids I'd be used to my little chicks growing up and moving away from the nest. But it's still hard for me sometimes... especially with M and R.
My worry with Girl Scout camp is about the FASD piece of things. I am careful to make sure that the camp leaders know that R has special needs, filling in the medical form very completely and including her diagnoses. I also touch base by phone before camp starts to try to give them an idea of what extra help and/or supervision, R might need to be successful at camp. I explain that she has trouble with cause and effect and because of that she needs to be watched more closely than other girls her age. When I called this year's leader she listened politely then asked if that meant R would walk into a fire or something. (Huh?! What kind of a ridiculous question is that? Would I leave a child capable of walking into a fire at a Girl Scout camp??!!) I swallowed my sarcasm and said no... R wouldn't walk into a fire... (luckily she couldn't see me through the phone as I rolled my eyes) but R did need to be supervised closely and gave her another, more realistic example of what the trouble with cause and effect might look like. I said she might need a "buddy" of one of the teen helpers, or even just a typical peer, who could act as a "model" for R, helping her know what do to, and how to do it. (R struggles so much with auditory processing, and misses much of what is being said to her... especially if it's something that she doesn't already have a frame of reference for, but she's gotten very good at watching other girls in the troop and figuring things out that way). The leader said she would watch R, but was sure she'd be fine... So I dropped R off knowing that the leader didn't really hear, or understand, what I was telling her... and hoped that things would go well in spite of that.
When I got there to pick R up, I watched as she wandered... unnoticed and unsupervised... away from her group. Luckily she didn't go too far before noticing that she was alone and turning around to find the rest of her group. As I signed R out the leader assured me that everything had gone "just fine". Girl Scout day camp is a pretty safe, protected environment... I'm really not too worried about R's safety there. Even if she wanders too far away, she knows enough to be safe until she's found (camp is at the Plains Conservation Center which is basically just an enormous version of our big pasture!) .
What's frustrating for me is that, although I clearly inform the leaders that she has a real disability... they see how typical she looks, and often acts, and seem to believe that she must not really be disabled... since they can't see it.
This "illusion of competency" haunts children (and adults) with FASD, interfering with them receiving the supports they need to be successful. It starts young in little things like day camp, and continues in increasing bigger and more serious ways through their lives...
Yes, R can probably manage through the day without help... She won't understand much of what she's doing (she made a little windmill thing today, she couldn't tell me what it was, or what it was supposed to do... all she could tell me was that it didn't work) and will probably end up with some hurt feelings because she so often misinterprets what's going on socially, but she can make it through the day.
How much better though to give her some extra support... to trust me that she has a real disability...and give her a chance to have a really wonderful day. Give her a chance to experience the richness of camp...to make new friends, learn and experience new things, and have a chance at remembering what she's learned...
Sigh.... these kinds of things just make me crazy sometimes.
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Here's R ready for her first day at camp, followed by a picture M took at the Plains Conservation Center...
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