My 11yo has always been on the immature side, but then he is the youngest of 5, the eldest is profoundly disabled and we've have been fearful that as the children grow up they won't want to play with her anymore, shes loves rough and tumble just like a toddler. Peter and I haven't had any children together and that has always been a sad point in our relationship, but the kids are all ours despite regular contact with their dad and occasional interferance form their mum.
We have family words that we use, to our own embarrasment outside the family home..such as puter and saying duck instead of stuck and can you do this undone for me...all the little things the kids used to say that made us laugh...unfortunalty the youngest feels he should still use these for real and accompanies them with his best baby voice, I think he thinks that we like it.....
The youngest is 12 in less than 2 weeks, he has a large collection of Pandas on his bed and a fireman rug, he also has a blanket that if we move he goes mental about...yeah, yeah I can hear you all, it's my fault, wanting another baby so keeping him as one etc etc.....but meet me and my family and you'll see that's not the case.....
We've spent lots of time with the psychologist and self referred to psychiatrist for concerns in regards to youngest, his toilet habits and his lack of educational progress, spend time with him and you'll see what a difficult, yet, intelligent child he is, spend too much time and you'll see his issues.
But the light bulb came on this morning....we've worked it all out.
Since moving into the estate on the 1st of March the youngest child has changed, we no longer have the blanket, his teddies have been put in the cupboard and his rug removed from his room and dumped in the laundry, he's making a real effort in school, despite being on permenant catch up, he is officially dyslexic. So why the change?
My son has been in private school since the beginning, he boarded for 2 years (years 2 & 3) and continued to board as and when he wanted to, he spent all his weekends at his dad's house of with grandparents...he didn't have friends....despite the school only being 4 miles from where we lived, his friends travelled from so far away it wasn't convienent to play....his friends nearby had trust accounts, granparents paying fees, mummies and daddies that I couldn't bare to spend time with and so much competition for Alex he felt the underdog and out of place.....
Since we've been here, despite still being in a private school, his friends come from normal families or they are ex pats with the company paying the fees, they live on the same estate, they go and play on the tennis courts or football on the fairways, they wander in and out of everyones houses and they don't need to compete, but it is impossible to do so here.
'I'll see your pool and raise you a golf cart'
