Hearing Families

Robbie was almost 15 years old and was much bigger than his mother. She sat and read the paper while Robbie took part in a research program on children with cochlear implants. Robbie was the oldest child to participate – it was hard to call him a child, since he looked and acted so very grown up. Robbie’s mother explained proudly to the other parents waiting in the suburban speech therapy office that Robbie was an ice hockey player in their local traveling league. The parents of the younger children looked alarmed and one spoke all of their minds and said “Isn’t hockey dangerous?” Robbie’s mother smiled and answered “yes, it can be, but his older brother Gavin plays too, so I guess we got used to the idea.” The dad worried “how do you protect his processor?” Robbie’s mother again smiled and replied “it’s a bit of a problem, Robbie wears a helmet and the kids on his team understand about his cochlear implant. It only broke once when he fell and hit his head on the ice.” By this point the parents of the younger children were freaking out, shaking their heads and, I’m sure, swearing that they would never let their precious children play anything more dangerous than board games!

But Robbie was exactly what parents of children with hearing loss hope their kids grow up to be. He was articulate about how he had to work hard in school to keep his grades high enough so he could stay on the hockey team. He had to be responsible about chores after he did his homework so that he could go to early morning practices every weekend and two days a week before school started. He was a valued member of the team, a responsible student, and a great kid. He was an amazing example of a child with a hearing loss who was doing great – he was doing what he wanted to do and was successful in so many ways in his life.

I asked Robbie if he had trouble with other kids in school, since he was the only child in his school with a cochlear implant (and with a hearing loss). He said that when he was younger kids used to tease him but he learned how to deal with it. His mother taught him to look those kids in the eye and say “you don’t bother me” as forcefully as he could. He said that it worked back then in 4^th grade, and since then, he hasn’t been intimidated by the one or two dumb kids he has encountered every once in while. Robbie’s mother could have come to school screaming threats or called some parents and raised hell. Instead, Robbie’s mother empowered him to handle kids who teased him on his own.

His mother had an important lesson to teach us that day in her quiet and unassuming way: our children are not our “project”. Yes, we, as parents, will devote incredible time and energy and love and attention – but then our children need to go be their own people and do what they want to do, to go where life takes them. And we need to hang back and let them go do what they want to do, without us.

This is a really difficult transition for parents to make. Our children with hearing loss truly needed more attention to learn language, more advocacy from their parents at school, more concern about safety. We inevitably feel so involved in our children’s lives and their successes and failures. But the time comes when no matter how much our involvement has helped, we need to stop helping so much. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mean we let our 2^nd grader “sink or swim”! But rather, as our kids get older and more able to advocate for themselves, we need to make sure that we are not preventing our kids from making mistakes and then figuring out how to make up for them – having the learning opportunities they need to have to grow up to be healthy and successful young adults.

It means that we need to ask ourselves “are we really helping our child by getting involved here?” when our children get into disagreements with friends or teachers, get a bad grade on a test, or can’t find the permission slip for the class trip. Even younger, we should ask “do you really need me to do this?” when, perhaps, our kids can get dressed alone or pour their own bowl of cereal in the morning or play by themselves for a little bit with no major catastrophic repercussions. Yes, some milk may spill, but we need to view that as an opportunity to teach our children where the paper towels are and how to wipe it up.

Since, the subtle messages that we send to our children start at the very beginning, we need to take care that they are the messages that we really mean to send. By doing too much for our children, given their age and ability, we risk giving our children the message that they are not competent or capable. We are only trying to help – but helping too much isn’t really helpful. If our children can do it themselves, then helping them isn’t really helpful to them in the long run.

We really want to send the message to our children that they are able and competent and capable. If they need help, we want them to know that their parents will be there for them to help them and support them. But we need to stay alert because we don’t want them to get the message that they don’t have to worry too much because “if anything gets really rough, Mom and Dad will come clean up my mess.”  This will inevitably mean that we will need to watch our children suffer a bit – because making mistakes is painful work. But we need to remind ourselves that growing up isn’t easy for kids – and it won’t be easy for us as parents either – nonetheless, its what we need to let our children do.

“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.” – Ellen Goodman

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Tags: adolescence, children, cochlear implant, deaf, encouraging independence, hearing loss, outlook on life, parenting, parents, positive outlook, realistic expectations, social and emotional development