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Hi everyone!

Found some time between tax returns to read the thread.

My daughter has a brachial plexus injury from birth and has limited use of her left arm. She may get better but if she doesn't she will have a surgery before the age of one.
I am really terrified about that. Hopefully she will heal on her own..we will know in 2 months whether or not she is recovering. The recovery time period is 6 months.

The prospect of your daughter having surgery is terrifying, no doubt, but it is much better that the surgery is done at an early age. I have hip displaysia which went undiagnosed until age three; by that time my bones had hardened. From three years until I was nearly nine I wore leg braces.

Children are cruel. Whether they are cruel out of being frightened by someone who is a little different or because they just don't know any better, no matter what the reason, children are cruel. I never let my parents know just how much I hated going to school because of the other kids incessantly picking on me. I told them recently--30 years after the fact--and they were shocked. My mom simply doesn't believe it--she thinks I'm just remembering one or two instances.

My oldest son Josh is different in his own way. He was reading at age three, reading at a third grade level by kindergarten. He loves fantasy, Star Wars and LOTR in particular. His school mates are all about Rugrats and YuGiOh, he's all about Tolkien. Last year was especially difficult for him. I would ask him almost every day who he ate lunch with, who he played with at recess, as casually as I could...one day he just burst into tears and said "None of the other kids will play with me. I don't have any friends at all." I have never been so heartbroken, ever. I had a long talk with his teacher who hadn't realized this was going on. She was very good about getting him involved in group activities during the schoolday (he's so far ahead of the kids in his class that he often studies alone). I also had a long talk with Josh, explaining to him that a lot of the other kids just aren't that interested in the kinds of things he likes. I encouraged him to try sharing their interests, not to try so hard making them share his. There was some improvement. This year has been much better--he has a best friend as well as a fairly usual gang of kids he plays with. I wish my mom, God bless her, had somehow intervened when I was young. Kids who are being picked on, bullied, and harassed just do not talk about it.

Am I the voice of doom or what??? Criminey!