breaking tradition

Penny has a speech disorder called Apraxia. It make it very hard to communicate. She has had 6 speech sessions per week for the last year. She has shown mucho interest in getting her ears pierced for that year. Clyde and I told her that if she could say, "ears pierced," then we would take her to get the done. She had come close several times, but not clear. Friday afternoon, she came into the living room with one of Libby's hoop earrings and said, "Holes, ears pierced." It was so very clear and totally unprompted. We were so very proud of her that we, as a family, took her to the mall to have her ears pierced.

She wouldn't stand still long enough to have a clear after photo. There were a few tears shed, mainly due to a malfunction with the ear gun thingy. But she Loves her "heart" earrings.

Obviously her ear piercing experience wasn't a horrible one...

We have broken tradition several times with Penny. She was the only Wardling that we found out the gender, while in utero. The big girls didn't like that we didn't make her wait til the usual 8 to have her ears pierced. Mad is a better word. However, we felt that she had worked so hard to even get the words out, a simple phrase to us, "ears pierced." that we had to break tradition. I recently gave a talk in our stake's Primary auxiliary training about LD's in children (Learning Disabilities) and addressing children with special needs. After doing some research on the topic, I totally agree with Richard Lavoie, who talks about fairness. "Fairness is when he or she gets what he or she needs. To treat them [children] fairly, we have to treat them differently." Hopefully the big girls will see that in the future. Penny, we are very proud of all your hard work, hours spent practicing repetitive sounds & drills, even when it is hard. We see your frustrations and know that you have a huge cheering section. Penny, we love you!

Below are links to a few of his conferences. They are very educational and were very enlightening to me.

Richard Lavoie F.A.T City conferences... F.A.T- Frustration, Anxiety, and Tension.

more Richard Lavoie.