are we teaching and reaching ALL kids?

This is from a friend who shared this on another site that I visit. I asked her if I could share it on my blog and she has graciously obliged. When the youngest was going through his severe anxiety five years ago, this friend's child had similar issues and thus, she provided for me the ability to not feel alone and reassurance. When your child is going through something that so profoundly effects your family, it's easy to feel alone and to feel very inadequate as a parent.

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I'm the mom of a child who's been diagnosed with a smorgasbord of emotional disorders, and I often have to hear how these "disorders" are fake because "they did not exist in my day." Yes, they did. Remember the kid in class who couldn't sit still? Remember the one who was too shy to even mutter a word? Remember the socially awkward nerdy kid?

Remember how the teacher could divide the class up and have different kids do different things? Remember clapping erasers? Being a milk money runner? Being a messenger or a audio/video helper? Now with everything computerized, there's no need for a kid to take a note to a teacher on the other hall. Smart boards have no erasers to clap. Recess is often done away with to make more room for reading and math instruction to improve those all important test scores. At least in my kid's experience, there were very few projects -- even in art. Everything they did was to get ready for the test. My child went to public school from Kindergarten through sixth grade and never made a pinch pot or a shadow box. Never.

When I was a kid we were moving and doing and helping and making things. We were not sitting still and bubbling in. I was the bright kid who finished early and started getting into mischief by talking too much or making funny noises. There's a reason I like throat singing, I was apparently attempting to do it myself in fourth grade. I didn't get labeled, but I sure did get to help put a lot of bulletin boards up. If kids struggled the teacher could slow down. If I child were bored, the teacher could give a more challenging assignment.

But I think that now, when everybody is expected to be the "same," the differents stick out. The labels ADHD, Asperger's, OCD, etc. weren't around when I was a kid, but the symptoms were there. I know. I had a smorgasbord of them too.