in November 2021 Babies 🇺🇸

Feeling ashamed of my child

Hi Mamas. I need help to stop having this feeling. I feel such a horrible mom. My baby is 3 yr old. She has a speech delay and has gotten all the help with ST (living in a bilingual household ) I feel like she is in the spectrum. She is the only one not doing what all the other kids do at day care. She start screaming and gets on the floor if we don’t give her sinister wants. She’ll do this in public as well. I’m so embarrassed. Why does she have to be the only one not participating with the other kids and behaving like this. I had a disability when I was her age and my parents didn’t feel ashamed about me. I love her so much and she is so smart. She has gotten so far language, wise and social since you started daycare. . How do I stop feeling this way? Any words of encouragement?

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All kids are different. I’ve heard before that kids raised in a bilingual household are more likely to have a “speech delay” but it’s not because they’re not learning - they’re just learning 2 languages at once instead of just 1 so it takes longer and they often understand but just can’t speak at the expected rate. Idk if this is the case for you, but it’s something to consider maybe. I can tell you that I was worried my son (same age) was on the spectrum because he was having behavioral issues like tantrums, screaming uncontrollably….a lot of times I would start crying out of pure frustration. In my case, my son had A LOT of change in his life - losing his dad, moving to 2 different states in just under 2 years, and I was struggling emotionally too….so a lot of factors had to be considered. I realized that my son did much better when there was more routine, so I put him in a school with more structure and he’s been much better.

I also wanted to add that I stopped reacting so much to my son’s reactive behavior. I did some research and something that really stuck out to me was that kids don’t want to have a tantrum any more than you want them to. Think about yourself - how do you feel when you overreact in your own life? Probably bad (i know I do). No one “wants” to lose it and melt down and our kids don’t either. They just don’t have the tools yet to properly deal with their emotions. In my case, I leaned into it. When he would fall apart, I would take a breath and put myself in his shoes, and suddenly I felt a lot more empathy for him. I started reacting more with hugs and saying things like “I’m sorry, this must be really hard for you” and “sometimes when I’m mad I yell / cry too” and then I started to teach him better ways of dealing with his emotions with intention, like breathing or counting. Daniel Tiger is also a great show that supports this and the kids really listen. Hope this helps. 🩷

Thank you so much

All kids are different. I feel ashamed that my kid can’t sit still but tbh I had to adjust my parenting to her. They tried to tell me she on the spectrum and now she’s perfectly fine. Some kids just need to be taught different. My daughter was struggling with sentences and all. Now she’s doing great.