What happened after my child failed the 18-month checkup (Part 3)

When I try to write, I find I have so much to say that it gets long...
I feel like I need to practice writing concise and easy-to-understand text, so I plan to work hard on the Shinken Zemi writing course I'm starting in April myself.

The time has come for the entrance exam.

The kindergarten we chose is a very, very laid-back town kindergarten.
To give you an idea of how laid-back it is, when we went for the exam, most people were wearing jerseys and denim! 🥹

As for my son at the time,
I'm not sure if he thought, 'I come here often, but the atmosphere feels a bit different?'
At the very least, he was his usual self until we arrived at the school and entered the interview room...

Yes, until we entered... (ominous)

And then he became a clam.

This is my style of packing everything into the headline.

Well, that's what it boils down to.

To begin with, my son is a perfectionist who doesn't like conversation.
Once it started, he managed to sit in the chair under pressure from us parents, but then he slumped over the desk, covered his ears with his arms, and didn't move a single millimeter... Oh...

Naturally, he didn't react even a millimeter to the school's attempts to talk to him or our own.
There was no need to worry about whether he could answer questions.
The reality lying there was that he wouldn't even listen to the questions.

The interviewer teacher 👩‍🏫 looked at the application form and tried every trick in the book, like singing songs from content my son liked at the time or bringing out toys he had written down as his favorites to invite him to play,
but...
Well, since he was covering his ears and slumped over the desk...
He saw nothing and heard nothing.

I will consult with the management.

After struggling, the teacher stood up holding some sort of impressive-looking paper.
👩‍🏫 'As things stand, I cannot hand this over to you, so I will consult with the management.'
'We will likely continue the interview in another room, but do you have the time?'

Yes, they have a style where they prepare the admission permit before the interview.
In other words, it was a kindergarten that basically anyone could get into!

But even so, he couldn't even get that paper.
During the short time the teacher stood up and left the room, I thought about many things.

I can't connect with the support center because they judged his need level to be low.
My regular doctor is the same.
Can I find a developmental specialist on my own and get him seen?
If I go to another municipality, will they see him?
If he can't get into kindergarten and can't connect to support, what should I do?

The world went dark before my eyes with a sense of despair.

God had not abandoned us.

However, yes, as the title says.
Someone happened to pass by when the teacher left the room.

It was the teacher 👩 who was in charge of indoor play during the school open house!
👩 'Oh, is the interview over for you now?'
'It's time for the uniform fitting, let's go together! ♪'

The teacher invited us to the fitting with her usual smiling face.

Instead of us, who were at a loss for how to respond, the interviewer teacher
👩‍🏫 "They weren't able to do the interview...
It seems a bit difficult, so we are planning to have them go for a management consultation now.💦"
she explained.

👩 "Oh! Is that so?
This child has been coming to our open-garden sessions for a long time and has had no issues with being left in our care, so enrolling is fine!
I and the other open-garden teachers will take responsibility.
Moving for the uniform fitting also seems difficult, so I'll bring the uniform here."

Sakura🌸, bloom.

Well, that's how it went.
I learned after enrollment that the open-garden teacher👩 was the head teacher and the top person in terms of field operations.
She was the superior to the interviewer teacher👩‍🏫.
She was in a position to sit in on management interviews and was the person with the actual decision-making power.

I'm glad I went to the open-garden sessions.
I'm glad I tried the nursery care!
(This is an event where chosen (lol) parents and children who are used to the open-garden days spend about 2 hours in a separate room.)

And so, that's how it was decided that he would enter kindergarten.
After that, as expected, he couldn't really be measured for his uniform.
He cried and ran away during the later summer uniform fitting.
There were school closures due to COVID, and so on.
There were many things, many things.

But throughout his kindergarten life, there were no particular concerns raised regarding his daily life or group behavior, and he participated properly in school events like plays.

Looking back, what went well.

During the three years at the kindergarten, we as parents certainly felt he grew a lot, but he never caught up to the other children.
In any situation, he was at best "everyone's little brother"
and at worst, like a "cute pet."
He was taken care of not just by the girls, but by the boys too...

There are a few reasons I can think of for why there were no concerns raised about his development.
・He himself was not troubled.
→He is at his own pace and doesn't care much about his surroundings, so he enjoyed himself without worrying about delays.

・He had a high aptitude for group activities.
→When everyone had to do something together without a specific reason, the fact that he would just do what he was told without thinking too deeply worked in his favor, I think.

And finally, I think this is the biggest reason:
・He was just so small
Yes, my son is just very small.
In terms of growth charts, he is generally between -2.0 and -2.5 SD.
He is naturally at the front of the line when ordered by height.
When mixed with children one grade younger, he is a little ahead of the middle.
When mixed with children two grades younger, he is a little behind the middle.
That is how exceptionally small he is compared to his peers.

What is good about this is,
firstly, at the kindergarten my son attended:
・When moving as a group, the person at the front holds the teacher's hand.
・Play arrangements are made by height, so he was always right in front of the teacher.
So, it was a coincidence, but because he was small, he was in an environment where it was easy for the teacher's instructions to reach him.

Another reason is that because he was small, he was perceived as younger, so less was expected of him.

Compared to children of the same age, my son's way of speaking is clearly clumsy and faltering, but it matched his appearance.
If you think of him as age minus one, he was normal.
If you think of him as age minus two, he was a smart child.

Because he was a small and cute child, his slow development was not pointed out by those around him, and he was able to spend his time freely and have his growth waited for.

If he had been a large or mature-looking child, I think there is a possibility that he would have been connected to support services.

When you receive a suggestion of developmental gray-zone at one and a half years old, I think you worry about many things.
I also worried and researched various things.
And what I was concerned about was "what happens after."

For example, I think some parents of children who were connected to support services later on might keep records.

In my time,
there was nothing like "what happens to children who were in the developmental gray zone but weren't connected to support and are just getting by,"
so I decided to record it.

As I wrote at the beginning, my son, who was considered 'gray' at 18 months, grew up being told he was within the typical range by everyone except for me and the public health nurse who gave him that gray assessment, and he will soon be in the fourth grade.

He spills food everywhere when he eats,
he gets his mouth and clothes dirty immediately,
he often loses things, and his desk area tends to be cluttered,
his speech is still clearly less developed than his peers,
he is extremely poor at reading aloud and reading comprehension, and he is also bad at kanji,
and his personality remains at his own pace, sometimes stubbornly sticking to mysterious obsessions or closing the distance to others without reading the room.

In any case, his clumsiness in listening to others and conveying his thoughts is clearly below his age, so the scales of his developmental unevenness might tilt toward a diagnosis of a developmental disorder in the future.
The day may also come when he is pointed out for developmental issues due to adjustment disorders or similar factors.

I think he is the type of child who could be called a hard worker,
but he is truly unable to do well in liberal arts subjects.

However, he goes to school energetically without any reluctance, and even though he had to transfer schools midway, he overcame it and still goes to school every day.

It's not that I think, 'My child is perfectly typical, what was that 18-month checkup all about!?'
I still carry in my heart the fact that I was once told very, very strongly by the local government,
'Your child has a developmental disorder.'
Therefore, I think I will continue to be more concerned about my child's developmental balance than others,
and I think I will continue raising him while keeping the possibility of secondary disabilities in the back of my mind.

If anyone reading this is worried because their child was labeled 'gray' at 18 months,
first of all,
has the person who pointed it out spoken to you in a heartless way?
If you were told it was because of the sugar in store-bought baby food, a lack of mother's love, or because you didn't make dashi from dried shiitake mushrooms, please don't let it bother you.
(An example of the criticism I received)

Even if the remarks of the person who pointed it out are nonsensical and you feel nothing but rejection, try to see it as a chance to connect with support if you have been flagged.
I believe many of the professionals you connect with are decent people.

If you don't connect with support there,
and later, when you want a developmental specialist to look at your child's growth during the process of development,
my child, who had no major problems at the time, could not get connected to support simply because he was 'gray in the past'.

Preparing for writing and reading aloud for school entrance was very difficult.
There are many times when I think that if we had received support for his consistently clumsy conversation, we might have been able to help him improve more smoothly.

Please, take advantage of any support you can receive and any opportunities to consult with professionals.

This has been a long story, but this is our family's case of,
'He was gray at 18 months, but'
'he has made it to the upper grades with a typical assessment.'

That was our family's story.