caleb

I get that most parents who haven't grasped the dedication it requires to raise a needs child, by age five--won't. You've gone into complete rejection of your situation. Caleb is obviously functional. You have pretty much refused to adjust your lifestyle to accommodate the needs of your child and you've treated him like a burden since I've been here. The fact that he's -functional- still puts you leagues in advantage. You're not counting your blessings and trying to ignore your stress factors with immersion therapy. You're being a selfish bitch and postponing the idea that any chance he has at being a remotely self-sufficient adult means you have to take the full-throttle initiative and keep him engaged. Since I've been here, you haven't attempted to take him out to social gatherings with other needs kids. There's entire organizations built and designed to help parents who struggle with needs children and exposing them to each other so they have a chance to understand what they're capable of, for their own sake. And to give the parents a chance to rely on each other. You need to realize that needs children need social stimulus, even more than regular children. The only way they can hope to grasp how to function in their own is by the exposure to difference kinds of people. That if they can't comprehend something one way, not only one person can teach them how and that the different methods give them a chance to understand themselves and others. Needs children physically can't comprehend that one person neglecting them is just -one- person, out of -billions- of people they could possibly ever interact with. They will only be able to hone in on the -one- person. That's all they can comprehend at one time. And if it is their only repeated stimulus the child will ultimately become completely terrified of -anyone-, always comparing them to the -only- example they have.