Maddie's Speech Therapy
So today was speech therapy visit #11.
I got frustrated today. Actually, a little angry. I do get angry a lot, I'll admit, but it's very rare for me to show it or display it in public. I'm overly polite out in the world. And then I come home and vent to you wonderful readers or to my husband.
I got a little lesson today on how maybe once in awhile, it's good for one to showcase one's frustrations instead of being polite for fear of hurting the other person's feelings.
We have been feeling for quite some time now, that Maddie's therapy sessions are, well, pointless. It's all about performance and not about whether she is capable of talking or making certain sounds. We've established that in therapy and at home.
For the last two weeks, a grad student has been shadowing Maddie's therapist and the therapist has been sitting at her computer doing I don't know what. I started getting a little peeved, because essentially, the student and mostly myself were conducting the sessions. I freaking do this every day at home, all day, with Maddie. So why go? Today, towards the end of the session, I let it out that I was frustrated with the sessions and I wanted to know what the therapist truly thought of Maddie's progress. Boom. She asked if I'd like to do a"vocab inventory" at home and bring it back so we can assess how Maddie's doing and then also said that if we really felt we needed a break, that was fine, too. Okay, so it's okay to take a break from therapy. Which mean this was never dire in the first place. I GET that speech therapists can't tell their patients that...it's their job, of course. It would be like me telling most students that they should quit violin (okay, sometimes, very rarely, I did do that if it was actually going nowhere). I know it's kind of apples and oranges here; something like violin lessons are more long term, whereas we knew speech therapy was temporary, plus, we are on a timeline.
But in any case, I'd imagine that if the therapist saw any red flags she would be acting more urgently. And she is not. In fact, she said "I see no red flags here". Sigh. So she couldn't volunteer that info to me...I had to draw it out of her. Isn't that life, though.
Ryan reminded me of a story from when he used to teach violin himself. He was teaching a little girl and unintentionally ended the lesson a few minutes before their time was up, due to there really being nothing else to do (the girl hadn't practiced and was being uncooperative during the lesson). That's happened on occasion to myself, as well. The dad, who was sitting in on the lesson, piped up and said, "Hold up! We still have 5 minutes...continue with the lesson!" So Ryan used up the rest of the 5 minutes--even though it was pretty pointless--and from there on out made a conscientious effort to make their lessons last exactly 30 minutes, even if it wasn't a productive lesson. Even though the dad was a, ahem, dick...his bluntness got him what he wanted.
So lesson is: be a dick! No, just kidding. But be transparent. I have a major problem with this, since I hate confrontation. But I also have a tipping point, as it turns out.
I got frustrated today. Actually, a little angry. I do get angry a lot, I'll admit, but it's very rare for me to show it or display it in public. I'm overly polite out in the world. And then I come home and vent to you wonderful readers or to my husband.
I got a little lesson today on how maybe once in awhile, it's good for one to showcase one's frustrations instead of being polite for fear of hurting the other person's feelings.
We have been feeling for quite some time now, that Maddie's therapy sessions are, well, pointless. It's all about performance and not about whether she is capable of talking or making certain sounds. We've established that in therapy and at home.
For the last two weeks, a grad student has been shadowing Maddie's therapist and the therapist has been sitting at her computer doing I don't know what. I started getting a little peeved, because essentially, the student and mostly myself were conducting the sessions. I freaking do this every day at home, all day, with Maddie. So why go? Today, towards the end of the session, I let it out that I was frustrated with the sessions and I wanted to know what the therapist truly thought of Maddie's progress. Boom. She asked if I'd like to do a"vocab inventory" at home and bring it back so we can assess how Maddie's doing and then also said that if we really felt we needed a break, that was fine, too. Okay, so it's okay to take a break from therapy. Which mean this was never dire in the first place. I GET that speech therapists can't tell their patients that...it's their job, of course. It would be like me telling most students that they should quit violin (okay, sometimes, very rarely, I did do that if it was actually going nowhere). I know it's kind of apples and oranges here; something like violin lessons are more long term, whereas we knew speech therapy was temporary, plus, we are on a timeline.
But in any case, I'd imagine that if the therapist saw any red flags she would be acting more urgently. And she is not. In fact, she said "I see no red flags here". Sigh. So she couldn't volunteer that info to me...I had to draw it out of her. Isn't that life, though.
Ryan reminded me of a story from when he used to teach violin himself. He was teaching a little girl and unintentionally ended the lesson a few minutes before their time was up, due to there really being nothing else to do (the girl hadn't practiced and was being uncooperative during the lesson). That's happened on occasion to myself, as well. The dad, who was sitting in on the lesson, piped up and said, "Hold up! We still have 5 minutes...continue with the lesson!" So Ryan used up the rest of the 5 minutes--even though it was pretty pointless--and from there on out made a conscientious effort to make their lessons last exactly 30 minutes, even if it wasn't a productive lesson. Even though the dad was a, ahem, dick...his bluntness got him what he wanted.
So lesson is: be a dick! No, just kidding. But be transparent. I have a major problem with this, since I hate confrontation. But I also have a tipping point, as it turns out.
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