Every parent wants to think the best of their child. I'm no different. I always hope that my son will make the right choices and do the right thing. I try not to preach and lead by example knowing that I learned that way from my family. Jake isn't going to remember to hold the door open every time we go somewhere and he's always had difficulty waiting his turn. But these things are something you learn over time.
My son's capacity for love never ceases to amaze me. He's always been very affectionate; more so than myself and his first instinct is to share it! He's all about the hugs. When I talk to adults from school I get nothing but glowing reports about him. He's a people-pleaser and he thrives in a school environment.
Which leads me to the purpose of today's post.
A few weeks ago I received an email from his teacher. We normally email each other if he's had a bad day on either end so I'm usually not surprised to get a communication from her. The one I received on this particular day though made me extremely proud.
I had mentioned before that Jacob's teacher wanted the entire 5th grade to see the Hallmark movie Front of the Class. I had gone out and purchased the movie when I had first found out about it and was more than happy to let her borrow the copy. Ultimately, I ended up buying another copy for myself and telling her to keep the one she had. Jake isn't the first and probably won't be the last student to go through those halls affected by Tourette's.
So I start reading the email and I literally can't keep the smile off of my face!
One of the kindergarten teachers (Jake's in fact) had her class watch the movie. It's a perfect opportunity to enforce the Character Education curriculum that the school participates in so I was excited when his teacher said that other teachers were interested in the movie.
I’m going to assume the kindergarten teacher mentioned to the students at some point that there was a fellow classmate that was affected by the same disability as the man in the movie. They told her that they wanted to meet him so when Jacob was asked he, of course, said yes. He never passes up an opportunity to talk!!!
His teacher accompanied him and said he talked for a good 15-20 minutes non-stop. For any of you that know Jake this is not a surprise at all. He proceeded to tell them everything! How he felt, various statistics, how others treated him and about the movie. I know he’s eager to talk to other classes about it as well. In fact, when I went to his third quarter conference and we were talking about the possibilities of who would be teaching him next year I saw a ripple effect. One of the teachers that is being considered approached his current teacher for information. She wanted to know about the movie and the corresponding book in case she got Jacob next year. Again I feel completely blessed with the faculty at his school for rising above what they have to do.
It pleases me so much that he is embracing his disability and using it as a tool to teach others. I tried to point out to him in the beginning that this is an opportunity for him to teach others. To educate them on something that they might not normally run across in their lifetime again. In helping to teach others how to accept someone with a disability, no matter how severe, he is helping himself to grow in ways you just can’t teach with words.
He makes me very proud to be his mother.
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