Author: arlanadya

A hare in piano, but obviously a tortoise in any other activities with physical movement.

But, a good thing about tortoise is he never quits.

It’s been three years since the last weekly training period then long absence during pandemic until we could see a big jump on swimming.

As once stated in this post, swimming is not a sport. It’s a must life-skill to master yet it’s a hard one too, especially for one with certain condition. It is such a relief and totally grateful to finally arrive at this point.

Obviously not a finish line, still many to improve, so the 🐢 will keep going.

After school conversations have always been full of entertainment.

Most days it was the cheerful tone and bright facial expressions telling stories about school. Few rare days, it was the gloomy face with flowing tears over the small things.

Last Wednesday was one of the rare days. Right after the door closed, tears were flooding. Unlike the previous two days of final exams which she was quite confident, that day was the opposite.

Asked her what happened and she said she couldn’t answer one question (which is the translation of one of the daily dua🙄) and it made her frustrated.

I asked back so what, it was only one question.

“But, I’ll get less than 7 and get the consequences”.

We (okay, I) set clear expectations about the minimum score that she should aim for each subject in final exam. Some were no less than 9, few were no less than 8, very few no less than 7.

Expectation is not about giving pressure. It’s about being rational. It’s about managing your precious time and energy where to focus more without neglecting the less.

Setting the expectation clearly means you understand you can’t be good at everything yet it’s not an excuse to not give your best shot in anything you’re responsible with.

“What’s the consequences?”
“Study more?”
“Yes, that’s it. Eat your apple pie,”

Out of the blue, the tears stopped flowing knowing an apple pie was waiting.
——————————————-

Getting at least 7 is actually the minimum standard in national curriculum called KKM.

I had done my part helping her study. Since last semester, I was being a loud parent who criticized how come a 7yo could memorize all those bulky and irrelevant Islamic studies materials and expect them to answer the questions regarding those things. A session/week for 30 minutes hearing a boring lecture which doesn’t help at all. Not to mention the language used in the insctruction gives so much headache, even for a normal kid without any disorders.

Kind of problems we deal with the outdated 9-years-old national curriculum with old school way of teaching.

But, surely, we couldn’t expect an overnight change. So, the only way is studying and deal with whatever we have to deal with.

Until now, I have no slightest idea about how bad or how well she did in her first sit-in final exams.

What I know is it’s always ‘fun’ to get direct feedback how the kids react about anything we do, we tell, or we model, conscious or unconciously. Like she has to deal with the consequences if she fails to meet the expectations, which is ‘just’ study more.

In parenting league, a real tiger mom would roll her eyes out hearing the expectation,”what kind of parent expect minimum standard for a test?” Or “is 7 even a score?”

While the permissive one would claim, ”it’s just a test, that doesn’t define anything, just let it be”.

It is easier when you’re really clear which side to pick. Balancing between those two, that’s quite hard work.

But, I am clear about something.

I love how she took the standard set seriously. That precious tears were beyond hilarious.

Whether she made it or not, let’s deal with that later when we know the answer.

Few weeks ago, one of the internet celebrities who lives in one of the countries in Europe, whose son is autistic wrote a note on her feed about how complicated life has been, with her son situation.

Few months ago, another internet celebrity, also with an autistic son, moved back for good to her hometown in Bandung after four years lived in London. She said how it broke her heart to lose all the support that had been given enormously to her son there. How they would try to find ways to return so their son could get the support he needs, something that is quite hard to find here.

Although my daughter condition is quite different with them, but I totally could relate to both of them.

How (more) complicated life when you have a special need kid who needs support (no matter how low like mine or how high like them) and how hard and heart-breaking it is to get a proper one in this very country.

What missing here is not a literal support. Therapies centres are available, especially when you are in big cities like Bandung or Jakarta.

The biggest and the most important thing that is absent here, is THE CARE.

In general, many people who works in this field, from the doctor to the therapists, they don’t lack in skill or knowledge, but they have problem with LACK OF CARE AND EMPATHY.

Recently dropped little girl’s therapy sessions in Bahasa Indonesia with very much discomfort. It’s been running for few months with some notes, like punctuality, bad internet connection most of lessons time, and the same material that seems irrelevant. But, I still consider the other advantages too.

Until yesterday when it was almost 10 minutes from the schedule, she was still unavailable. Then I messaged the centre. Few minutes later she was on. Not for long, the connection was off again, and it happened for so many times. The little girl kept calling everytime she answered one question and heard no response. It was so frustrating.

At certain point, I really couldn’t handle myself to give some remarks about how annoying this bad connection was so she could heard it. Worse, her background was so noisy, people kept talking and passing by behind. I wonder if anyone could handle themselves dealing with such situation.

She seemed unhappy with what I did, her tone when she talked to little girl suddenly changed. To calm down a little bit, I started texting the doctor and threw my rant on chats.

Things seemed getting worse when the next thing she asked the little girl to do was making sentence through whatsapp chat, which was totally unless. It is a speech therapy session, damn it!

To add some more, she kept being pushy telling her to type faster. I started recording her facial expressions so I could forward either to the doctor or the centre.

Absurd task still accompanied with bad internet connection. Crazy.

I no longer could tolerate her when once she talked grumpily to the little girl while it was her who didn’t hear any answers she had been given. I snapped telling, “you say it if you think you can’t do it”.

I talked to the therapist right after the session and threw all my rants right in front of her face.

This one is a senior therapist that also teaches in the university for younger ones. How could we have good ones if the example of attitude set for them as low as this old kind?

Instead of being angry, I actually want to cry hard more. This is so frustrating. This is not my first time doing this. I once also threw tantrum in another centre three years ago because almost the whole session, that person didn’t do ANYTHING BUT LOOKING AT HIS PHONE. My blood was boiling watching from CCTV but still refrained myself from smacking the door.

It also happened five years ago when appointment had been made and decided to go home after being stood up for almost an hour. WITHOUT EXPLANATION, let alone apology.

Online consultation was no better. Once had a loooongggggg early morning conversation with one of the centre account which has a large audience, yet, the tone was so demeaning, so disrespectful, as if parents knew nothing and had done nothing.

This kind of thing we have to deal with and the level of care we have here.

I am too frustrated to try again but not doing anything is also not an option.

Let see if someday we could find what we’ve been looking for.