When Your Genius Has a Learning Delay

We all think our children are geniuses, and I am relatively certain that William is a smarty. He can count to thirty, knew his ABCs when he was two (because some nights I sang him to sleep with them), pretend reads, engages in imaginary play with and without friends - all 4-year-old milestones that he should have met. And yet he is in speech therapy (which doesn't bother me too much; all children progress at their own rate). What does bother me is that when his language skills were tested, the result was that he only understands 75% of what is said to him. He doesn't know how to respond to "why', "what", and "how" questions. I asked him the other day to tell me what the word "understand" means and he told me a story about the cat on the kitchen chair. I can't tell you how many times I've told him to do something, asked him if he understands, he says "yes." And I go my merry way. Then the task doesn't get done, I ask him why, and he stares at me blankly. I took this all as defiance. But he just doesn't get it.

Which, of course, makes me feel like a horrible, mean mom. How could I be so insensitive to my lovey boy? I picked up on the speech delay early, but how could I have not figured out that he didn't get what I was saying to him? We mom's are champions of making ourselves feel terrible when we learn that our conceptions about our kids were all wrong. If we don't understand our kids, what kind of parent could we possibly be but a bad one?

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So all weekend I've repeating this mantra:"you are not perfect, give yourself a break." and "You are a good mom" (which I should have down!) He will have his speech goals revised and I will learn how to help him, he'll be prepared for kindergarten, and then take over the world (if I ever let him move out of the house, but that's a whole new post.)