Learning to drive

Hi

I guess one of the key skills that we worried most about with Anthony was would he ever be able to drive a car.

It's such an important skill, for work, social networking, independence and general self esteem -but we thought his Dyspraxic nature would mean he'd never piece together all the attributes to be a competent driver.

Luckily we were wrong, but all the early indications were that he wouldn't.

1) He didn't like playing cars with his toys and wasn't keen on bumper cars (dodgems) , pedal cars or fairground rides - a truly terrifying experience when he stood up screaming when the ride was in full motion and the owner had to hit the emergency stop button !

2) Although he learned to ride his bicycle aged 6 - he was not (and never has been even as a teenager) keen on riding for fun .. and his road sense - judging speeds and distances - was not great.

3) In later years he was very poor at controlling video games involving race cars - crashing with annoying regularity. His right/ left and forward/reverse all seemed muddled up

At that time we were still of the opinion that he would grow out of this, ..... but my first major doubt was when he was 14 or 15 and we took him and his younger brother Ben to an outdoor GO Kart track in Spain. Ben was fine absoultely loving it zooming around the course, but Anthony was incredibly nervous and was going very slowly (5-10 mph) around the course and kept bumping into the safety rail.

The course operator ran out a few times to get his Go Kart straightened up and started again.

But worse was to follow as went round a corner .. tried to brake .. but hit the accelerator .. going at full speed over the banking and straight into a tree. He was shaken but unhurt .. although the race track manager banned him immediately. -Needless to say Anthony was very upset and definitely did not want to try again

2 years later we did persuade him on a holiday in Ireland to go again - first thing in the morning (with no-one watching him) - and he went round very slowly 10mph all the way with me beside him in a 2 seater GoKart.. His confidence was boosted

.....and when he was 17 he took proper driving lessons.

The manual gearstick (Stickshift) was too much for him so learned in an 'Automatic' Car... and after 6 months of lessons he took his first driving test .

He failed (which we had expected) - but not by too much - and within another 3 months he had passed 2nd time.

We bought him a fairly decent Rover car (as he was now attracting girls and needed the "right wheels") ... I was nervous and DISASTER within 7 days of passsing his test he had written the car off.

Luckily no-one was hurt and the "slightly" encouraging news was that he hadn't crashed by doing ordinary driving .. instead he's been egged on by some dubious friends to drive at high speed in a Supermarket car park late at night. - and had run straight into a lampost ( - we later found out that one of his friends was sitting on the bonnet (hood) and Anthony was driving effectively blind).

It was a miracle the other lad wan't hurt or killed - but he escaped unharmed .. jumping off just beforer the car hit the lampost

It was stupid, dangerous and costly .. but it was becuase Anthony had deliberately driven like a lunatic .. not because he couldn't drive normally.

The incident shook him up and since then he has become an accomplished driver , accident free for the last 30 months.

So I hope that shows that dyspraxia can be overcome - maybe they do grow out of it after all??

Thanks

Des

please post your comments below

Middle years and friends

After Anthony moved up to "Big School" aged 11, like most children he went from one of the oldest boys at Junior schoold to being tone of the youngest at Senior school.

We had looked at lots of different schools and managed to persuade the Head of a smaller school (700 children) to accept him, even though we live slightly outside the school's regional boundary.
Because he was slightly outside the regional boundary, he only knew one other boy in his class.

Even though he still suffered from OCD and anxiety and was physically smaller and quieter than average, the other students looked after him. He didn't seem to suffer any bullyingat all.

One example -playing rugby on a cold winter's day, Anthony became almost hypothermic. and went into something of a trance, ... the teachers didn't notice - but the other children did see that he was in trouble and "shutting down"

The whole group helped him get dry, warmed up, get dressed and bought him a hot chocolate drink.

Even the tougher boys looked out for him - his personality engendered support and assistance from a high percentage of his peer group.

By the time he was 15, his lack of obvious academic skills caused him to be placed in the lower teaching groups - but he was still quiet, diligent and tried hard in his lessons (which was appreciated by most of his teachers) - and won various awards for outstanding effort (if not for actual achievement).

However his final year at senior school (16) his best friends were in year below him and he was easily led and got into some minor scrapes (part of a gang who "egged" a house etc).

To stop that escalating, we manged to secure him a Saturday job at a local retail store, which kept him occupied at weekends and gave him increased self esteem ... and disposable income.

Today at 21 he has a wide variety of friends of both sexes and appears a very confident and likeable young man

early years sports and basic reading & writing

Hi there,

As Anthony developed in his first few years we noticed extremes .. things he was really good at .. and other things that he just couldn't fathom.

On the positive side, he was a very loving little boy who loved his cuddles.

He adored music and dancing , was a superb clear reader, learned his "times table" off by heart and was "champion speller"

On the other hand, he could be naughty and was always worried about things .. coming in late at night to our bedroom .. not having been able to sleep " .. Daddy ..will I be tired in the morning?"

Eventually it dawned on us that although he could read perfectly .. he had no clue what the story was about .. just reading mechanically ..

His writing was very spidery .. and still won't win any prizes - but has improved with lots and lots and lots of practice.

Also the times table although he knew 6 X 6 was 36 without even thinking..... He couldn't translate it into real life ...

So if we said "Anthony if 6 children are given 6 sweets each .. how many sweets are there?" .... The question was met with a blank look .. or often a complete guess 13, 42 , 27 etc. Desperately hoping he would find the answer by luck

I played a lot of back garden ball games with him constantly practicing catching and kicking .

At firts he found it very difficult .. I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t do what I thought were the simplest physical things .. was he lazy?

And suddenly (maybe it was all the practice .. or something clicked in his brain.. but) at age 6 he learned to catch fantastically well, kick a ball properly and learned to ride a bike (Although he was never keen on cycling .. even to this day).

*** Rock climbing on holiday
He wasn't a big fan of Swimming ..but did learn to swim quite well - and at the same time lost his fear of water... which had included large puddles on the beach !

Didn't have the physical power needed for Competitive sports (although became a tough competitor in his late teens).

If anything strikes a chord please post your comments below.

Thanks

Des

Anxious toddler

During his first year Anthony continued to be very anxious.

I remember doing the vacuum cleaning (which was very noisy) .. and it was only when I’d finished - did I hear the sobbing from his room .. running up the stairs - I found him lying traumatised in his cot .. with tears streaming down his face - thinking he’d been left alone.

Welcome to the joys of being a parent !! How to get a guilt trip for life !

These memories I’m digging up - still make me feel bad – but if your children are experiencing similar anxiety. You should know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and to 95% of people whi meet Anthony now , he displays no obvious signs of anything being wrong.

They say Dyspraxia it is the hidden disability - because nothing is visibly wrong.

What is true is he has made massive progress over the years through the time, help and patience from a lot of caring people at school and home
.. and his own perseverance of course

You may know there is quite a lot of unintentional peer pressure amongst other parents .. so there is always some degree of competition around .....whose child walks and talks first etc.

Anthony didn’t walk unaided until he was 14 months .. and when he did .. he was Bambi on ice personified.

With a 5 weeks premature handicap – he was much smaller, weaker and anxious than the other children. He did not enjoy the rough and tumble of other toddlers and was very shy, he would not join in .. preferring to be a spectator on the outside looking in at the games.
He would get very excited at the games the other children were playing .. but didn’t want to participate.

He was clumsy, had poor balance and couldn’t do the ordinary physical activities that seemed second nature for most other kids.

Climbing the ladder of indoor plastic play slides was like scaling Mount Everest for him. And climbing-frames a nightmare - he could never figure out where to put his feet or hands.
I found it very frustrating - “he’ll grow out of it” was the usual response when we voiced our fears.

I had my doubts but we practiced and practiced these physical activities, although it clearly made him stressful.

I remember him standing on a small brick wall in the back garden .. no more than 9” high and him screaming in panic .. thinking he would fall.
It seems funny now .. but at the time it was gut wrenching stuff wondering what the problem was.

There was also the time he must have been around 18 months - he was in his baby seat in the back of the Car .. when I decided to take the car through an automatic carwash. – Big mistake!

I thought he’d find it exciting … but when the noise started - the water jets pounding the roof and the huge cleaning brushes enveloping the car .. he became hysterical - screaming in terror, despite all attempts to placate and comfort him.

It was just like that scene in the classic horror film ‘The Omen’ when Gregory Peck tries to take the young Damien to church.

My Dad was in the passenger seat was totally shocked - his face white. “Something’s wrong with him”

On the positive side Anthony had (and still does have) a fantastic long term memory of events.
When he was only three he knew all his numbers and would take great delight reading the numbers on all the houses in the street.

And from an early age certainly when he was three he could read very clearly … we thought we had a potential genius on our hands … But what we didn’t know was that he was not understanding the stories he was reading

… But that’s a topic for the next post.

Post your comments below.

Cheers

Des

Walking and Talking

Hi,

Now that we had Anthonny home, we did start to have some serious problems.


It's always difficult with a first child because:-

1) It's all new and you don't know what is / isn't normal behaviour
2) There is no parenting manual
3) Everyone else is an expert .. and insists on telling you ... that you are doing it all wrong.

So you get all the helpful hints like ...

Let him cry himself to sleep .. turn the radio up .. you're not giving him enough milk, ...you're too soft with him. Oh my little Johnny is much better at that ... Isn't he crawling yet??? Oh isn't he shy ...

Now to be fair we had a lot of good advice and support from various friends and familiy - which is really important.

But it does knock your self confidence when other kids seem to be doing better .. one part is ashamed that you aren't a great parent .. and the other is ashamed that you haven't produced a budding Beckham or Blair ... maybe not the best examples ..... but you get the idea.

Anyway as I remember there were some things that maybe pointed to Dyspraxia:-

1) He didn't sleep through for one single night - until he was 12 months old
2) He was a very anxious baby ... and would liiterally make himself sick in his cot if there was no-one in the bedroom with him when he was going to sleep or - if no-one arrived within 2 minutes of him waking up
3) A very fussy eater
4) He had very sensitive hearing and would wake up at the slightest noise
5) Had one favourite Dummy / pacifier - and wouldn't be comforted by any other new dummies.. In the end it began to disintegrate .. and we were afraid he'd swallow it .. so we had to chop it up and throw it away.
6) He didn't walk until 14months old ... but Unusually based on what we’ve read - he did crawl
http://www.growingkids.co.uk/ClumsyChildrenDyspraxia.html

At this stage ... we knew things weren't quite right

But the advice was always the same .. Don't worry .. he'll grow out of it.

Hmmm .. In a way it's true ... but was still tough to experience at the time.

Next post - things became more pronounced in the Toddler phase.

Cheers

Post your comments below.

Des

Finally getting him home

After the trauma of the birth, we wanted to get him home as soon as possible.

Unfortunately Anthony was classified as too small (5 weeks early and only weighing 4 pounds 5 ounces) to leave hospital.

So we had the unexpected pleasure of visiting him in Frimley Park Hospital 3 times a day for the next 2 weeks, while he stayed nice and warm in the SCBU intensive baby unit sunning himself under the ultra-violet lamp to fight off the jaundice that seems to affect premature babies.

For the first few days Anthony had to be fed via a nose tube .. which he kept pulling out ... and he really did look so vulnerable and pathetic that we felt terrible leaving him there each evening. But there was nothing we could do but wait until he grew a little stronger.

Debbie was stressed with the visiting .. and Anthony was too small and tired .. to be able to breast feed successfully. We tried the "expressing breast milk" trick .. unfortunately it never seemed to be a satisfactory way to stimulate the natural milk production and 95% of the time Anthony was much happier being fed powdered milk from a bottle .. even he did have to put up with his new Dad pouring some into his eyes - with my first attempt!

Finally after 2 weeks the Doctors said we could take him home .. and very proud parents we were .. even if I got no sleep that first night - spending most of it wide awake listening to him breathe .. and hoping he wouldn't stop.

For the record Anthony was officially a premature baby and throughout all his early years he was smaller than the average Apgar score
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score

and in the lowest centile region
http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/height-weight+chart

Despite all that - He's now almost 6 feet tall and weighs 12 stones... so he did eventually catch up with his peer group.

A traumatic birth

Hi there,

After 21 years you can afford yourself a lot of hindsight.

So I thought I'd go back into the mists of time, to when my eldest son Anthony was first born - to see if there are any obvious clues as to why Anthony was born with dyspraxia.

Certainly there is some evidence of Anxiety in the family roots, but for now I'll concentrate on the main events leading up to and just after Anthony's birth.

Always being an impatient child .. Anthony decided he'd turn up for duty five weeks earlier than expected - at 01.15 - on 15 May 1987.

I guess we'd done the thing everyone warns you not to do ..

Yes we had moved to a new house - earlier that same day.

I'm told that moving house is only marginally less stressful than family bereavement!... and after the events of that day .. I can certainly believe it.

Shortly after all the furniture had been moved into the new home, my wife, Debbie, who was a trained nurse decided to hang up the bedroom curtains - this was probably a bit too strenuous to do in her condition .. and unknown to me she went into the first stages of labour in the early evening.

I was too busy shifting boxes to notice anything wrong and Debbie despite all the signs that her pregnancy was now at a very advanced stage - remained in denial to herself, even when "the plug" came out and contractions started coming every 2 minutes.

And it was only as I was ready to collapse into our bed at 23.00 that evening, that I heard a small quiet voice say .. "Des I think we'd better go to the hospital ... now".

So in a state of disbelief .. and a Rover 800 saloon ... we made our way to Frimley Park hospital http://www.frimleypark.nhs.uk/


Every one likes the thought of a natural birth .... and the hospital was horribly noisy, the distinctive smell of antiseptic, and harsh lighting everywhere.. but at least you knew there would be a Doctor nearby if things became tricky.

As the Doctors' checked Debbie out - I was holding her hand tightly .. but making sure I was standing a long way from the "business end".

The Doctors - when they realised Anthony's foetal heartbeat was increasing - and he was showing signs of distress, they told us that they'd have to get him out quick ... and that meant breaking the waters and giving Debbie a pretty severe episiotomy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episiotomy

Anthony came out in one quick movement - head first .. and face down .. leaving me with the horrifying suspicion he'd been born with no face!

I focussed my attention on Debbie .. but was acutely aware in the background that Anthony had not cried for at least a minute after he was born .. and it was a huge relief when he eventually cried out and started breathing.

He looked like a tiny doll, weighing in at - a less than strapping - 4lbs 5 ounces (just 2 Kilos)

Who knows if that lack of oxygen in the first 45-60 seconds was partly to blame for his dyspraxic condition?

Anthony was wrapped in aluminium foil - looking for all the world like a hastily made picnic lunch - and rushed off to the SCBU intensive baby care unit.

Debbie was left - lying awake all night in the hospital wondering if Anthony was alive or dead.

While I made my way home at 03.00 to our new house - not sure if it had really happened or if it was a surreal video.

The journey had begun.