What Came Next

It’s been 5 years since that first visit. Yes, he did end up attending that center. There are many things that I would do differently, knowing all that I know now. You see, the very reason Jitter Bug was starting daycare was so that I could start and finish my degree in Early Childhood Education.

The first time I was approached by a staff member concerned about Jitter Bug’s development was when he was about 2 and a half. I was dropping him off at the center in the morning. It was during finals, and I was running late. Some genius ECE decided this would be the best time to approach me about filling out a parent questionnaire.

 “We’ve seen a lot of behaviours from Jitter Bug that lead us to believe he would greatly benefit from Early Intervention Services, which are available to us here. They can provide assessments that would lead to a diagnosis, and open up a lot of doors for him”

Diagnosis? Pardon? I stared blankly for a minute, looked at Jitter Bug. There he was in his Diego overalls, sitting on the carpet, playing with a car. He looked like any normal child his age. How dare they suggest there was something wrong with him? I swallowed the lump in my throat, fought back the urge to take him with me and replied “I’ll think about it”. The worried/judgemental look that flashed across the ECE’s face said it all for me. I’ll show them, I thought. We had the whole summer off together after this week, and I thought if I just parented harder, in a more organized fashion, the problems would disappear.

Summer came and went and Jitter Bug started preschool in September in a new room. The new ECE was wonderful. She commented on how much he had grown and the progress he had made. Ha! I showed you. Yeah, that’s right I was victorious. We just needed an established routine, some slow down time, and now he was fine.

The months went on and so did Jitter Bug. Only now we were starting to receive “incident reports” about his behaviour. True he had epic tantrums sometimes when we dropped him off. I would literally have to hand him over kicking and screaming sometimes. If someone pushed his buttons, he was prone to physical aggression. He didn’t sit still for circle time, play time, snack time. Hell he didn’t sit still at all. I thought it was a cause for concern that the terrible two's were now the throttling three's. I thought he was just one of those rough and tumble boys that needed consistent consequences.


 So I parented harder and harder and harder.......