Composition in Two Genres (Personal Essay)

When I Realized I Needed to Be an Advocate for My Son

by Chantysha Clifton

The first three years of motherhood was such a struggle, especially since I was a single mother raising a child in New York City, where everything was expensive. My apartment is rent stabilized but at $10 an hour, doing 40 hours a week, paying close to $200 in childcare and without government assistance, having stability for my child was nearly impossible. Since I didn’t make enough money to pay all my bills, my son was always in and out of daycares. I was never able to keep him in one daycare for at least three months, and the longest he every attended one was six months. I never thought that when raising my first son, not having a stable environment would have an effect on him, especially when it came to academics and learning. At the age of three, I was told that his behavior and lack of speech was signs of autism and that he should be evaluated to make sure. He was evaluated by three psychiatrists to see if he had any type of disabilities. A few months later I met with a case worker to discuss the psychiatrist’s evaluations, where I was informed that he had a speech delay. I was truly thankful that it was not something more serious and wondered what my next step would be. Mercury was in retrograde that day but for me luck was on my side and my case worker was able to get my son a space in one of the best schools for early learning development in the Bronx.

My child was put in a class with children similar to him, received speech, occupational therapy and counseling. He loved his teachers and was making great progress in a short amount of time, but about six to seven months in his original teacher left and was replaced by someone else. Even the teacher aide ended up leaving due to conflicts with the new teacher, which led to my son almost falling back into his old routine. My son didn’t even do a full year at the school and was graduating to the next grade. I was happy but was concerned with the fact that has was not recommended to do the summer program and the school psychiatrist felt he was able to be in a class that was bigger than what he was used to. I was totally against it, but felt that as a parent there wasn’t much, I can do without worrying accusing me of neglect. Even though there was growth, losing two teachers, getting a new teacher to then leaving the school to attend another was a lot for my son to process.

When he began kindergarten, it was in a public school and it was more students in his classroom. Dealing with such a huge change, my son reverted back to his old ways and was even trying to leave the school. Once again, I was questioned about his diagnosis and if it was correct and insisted that he be put in a smaller classroom. Now I felt that things were back to going my way and that my child would be back on track with his progress. He was making progress but not without a lot of difficulty in adjusting to the smaller class, his teachers from both kindergarten and first grade still believed that he was autistic even though I explained that he was evaluated by the best psychiatrists. I even had his first-grade teacher tell me that he may need medication due to his lack of focus and for a moment I did consider it. My intuition knew that it wouldn’t be the best for him because all of the recommendations and advice I was given was based off of not knowing my son progress and his backstory.

None of my son teachers asked me about when did his speech delay start and what led to it, they just knew that he needed to meet certain standards and he wasn’t doing so. That didn’t matter to me because I knew that he made a great amount of progress within two years. I made sure that anytime a teacher came to me with doubts I shot back with how much he has accomplished. I refused to let anyone dim his light or look past the progress that he has made from getting services and assistance at age four to now at age seven being able to communicate clearly with everyone.

I never stopped and thought about how I can support my child at home academically until I had to do a research paper and came up with the question. I thought about all the times his teachers spoke about how yes, he made progress but not being where he needed to be and even though they give me little tools here and there, it was never enough. After I did the research, I realized that as a parent raising a child with a learning disability, you must not only be your child’s parent but their backbone. You as a parent can take the advice that is given but must do your own research because not every child is the same. What may work for one child, may not work for the other. Granted my son’s teachers were giving me advice and it wasn’t bad advice; it just wasn’t working for him. If I took the time to think about it, I would have realized it wouldn’t have either since they never even took the time to get to know his story.

I know his story and that is why I want every parent raising a learning-disabled child to speak up for their children, do your own research. You know your child, their story and what may and may not work for them, don’t subject them to one thing because someone else told you. Follow you motherly intuition, you carried your child for nine months (some close to ten), you have a bond that others will never have, and which gives you a one up when it comes to knowing your child. Never be afraid to speak up on behalf of your child, do not let fear of what others may do or say. That fear will not only hurt your child but you as well by creating a form of regret for not advocating for your child when you should have.