The Rose Tinted mum

I love how children communicate and describe their world.

The language and metaphors are raw, unrefined, imaginative, and insightful.

They portray their main emotions, happiness, sadness, fear, and anger.

And, sometimes they just say it how it is, with no thought to the consequences of their actions.

Or, other times they say nothing at all.

I have learnt if your patient, curious and show a little mirroring, that these interaction can be crucial to unlocking pandora’s box.

Especially with children that have been dealt a tricky hand.

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Billy was slow off the mark when it came to spoken language, but more than made up with intuitive sign, Makaton and picture boarding.

Billy’s first bomb proof word was ‘no’ at the age of 18 months.

And then Da, Ya and ma joined ‘no’ over the coming years.

This very small vocab became refined and moved to Dad, Yes and finally Mum.

By the age of Three and a half, Billy was under the Speech and Language Team (SALT) undertaking therapy.

At 4 years old we decided that the only way to get a robust SALT service was going private.

Once again there was lots of questions and minimal answers.

The hypothesis started to appear and new teams where introduced.

Unfortunately there were no logical answers to why Billy’s speech wasn’t progressing.

Until one day within clinic, I was told by one very respected liver doctor that over his many years of service he had seen many silent children like Billy.

He explained that he had seen a silent child at one clinic and by the time the child had returned 6 months later the child was fully verbal.

He assured me that this would work it self out and patience was the key.

I laughed.

He said trust me.

True enough, Billy went to school in 2022 and within that first year his vocab flourished to the point he was able to hold his own within a conversation.

With that in mind I’m going to share some of Billy’s stories.

Enjoy x

Remember you may not feel strong but you are.

Love

The Rose-Tinted Mum