Childhood Skills Part 1

 Likely the first sign of future difficulties that my mother noticed was my lack of a dominant hand. I would use my right and left indiscriminately. My mum began to encourage me to use my right hand for fine motor activities. She believed, rightfully I think, that using both hands would decrease the amount of practice and skill development that children normally develop with their dominant hand. Later in my life, she wondered if she made a mistake in picking my right side - maybe I was supposed to be left handed and perhaps my coordination problems were because I wasn't using my dominant side. I suspect now that I didn't have a dominant side so I would have had the same problems if I was left handed.

The last month of kindergarten wasn't much fun. I spent an inordinate portion of my time trying to tie shoes and putting clothing with buttons, snaps and zippers on a doll. I don't know if there was a requirement at the time that children be able to accomplish these skills before moving on to first grade but there was definitely pressure on me to succeed. Naturally, I avoided these tasks whenever possible since they were hard. I did manage to accomplish these basic skills before the end of the school year. I didn't do any of it very well but I did manage to tie my own shoes and do up my own coat before the end of the year. I was devastated when my cousin wouldn't let me use her colouring books because I couldn't colour within the lines.

I learned reading and math easily enough but I struggled with holding a pencil.. At home, I had similar problems using cutlery. My parents, wanting their child to succeed, worked hard with me to acquire skills. I coloured a lot. I had my grip on a fork and knife corrected again and again. My problems became more obvious when writing neatly became important. I had trouble keeping my letters within the lines. I started occupational therapy at school to improve my skills. This helped a lot because the therapist always gave me a chance to do something I was good at the end of a session. I imagine that pick-up sticks and cutting shapes were supposed to be fun but they really weren't. My brain knows what to do, it's just the transition from brain to body where it all goes wrong. In grade three, I went crying to my occupational therapist because my teacher had declared that I couldn't learn cursive until my printing was better. I didn't care about the writing part but I was being denied the ability to read cursive. My OT immediately taught me the letters so that I could read what was written on the chalkboard. So even though there was intervention and knowledge about my difficulties, I still encountered problems with teachers.

Meanwhile, my parents worked with me at home. I got tired of using a fork because whenever I tried, I was corrected. Colouring and drawing weren't fun. I knew that I wasn't doing things correctly and it frustrated me. One birthday, I got a bunch of Barbies. My Barbies only wore swim suits because I couldn't get any other clothing on easily. One Christmas, I got the game perfection. The game involved putting shaped pieces into a hole that matched. If you didn't beat the time, a loud buzz would sound and all the pieces would fly out of the box. I knew that the purpose of the game and the Barbies was to improve my coordination. My wonderful parents spent an afternoon trying to teach me double-dutch skipping (my dad got pretty good at it). I loved the skipping part but I couldn't coordinate my two hands to the same speed and rhythm. The other girls wouldn't let me skip with them. I was frustrated and angry at myself for not being able to do such simple things. I was aware of my coordination problems but I still compared themselves myself to my peers and found myself lacking. While my parents help and the OT improved my skills, they also left me feeling inadequate.

Problems with later childhood next...