A long day- therapy and cups!

Yesterday was a long day. I had to take a day off work to take our youngest son to see an Occupational Therapist. So, as we are a one car family and my husband needs the car for work, we had to take the bus to St Austell. Its a journey of 12 miles as the crow flies but it took an hour each way due to having to visit every small village between here and there. Add on waiting times for the bus, a bus timetable that didn't really suit the appointment time and we were out for 6 1/2 hours for a 1 1/4 hour appointment! It was exhausting and dear Sean was so tired that he even fell asleep on the bus back.


The appointment went well. Basically Sean is very bright but finds it really hard to write quickly and tidily as he cannot get to grips with holding a pencil "correctly". Our concern is that his hand aches and tires quickly when he writes and so at school it is hard for him to write down all that he needs to to show his ability.  He was a totally left handed child until the age of five, then at the end of his first year at school we realised he was suddenly writing right handed. He is still left handed for other things such as throwing a ball and I think this is part of the problem as his right hand is not as strong as most peoples chosen writing hand. Our old GP said he had only ever seen two other people the same as Sean, and he called it an unusual form of bilateralness or cross laterallism- he explained it as a person who is neither solely right or left handed but is mixed handed or cross dominant- meaning that, as Sean was solely left sided for everything until he was five, his brain finds it hard to use his right hand for writing now. Anyhow, the therapists recommendation is that Sean undertakes the Speed Up writing program to help train his hand and brain to write without worrying about content. She said he should also learn to touch type with the view that, when his typing is faster than his writing, he should move over to typing rather than writing in school. Both could be done at school but I think I will try to do them at home so he gets the best chance of success.


Two hours after we got home we had to go out again. This leads us to our new definition of parenthood:- Spending 2 1/2hours at a Scout/Cub Gang Show to see your own son do his "act" lasting 2 minutes (and watching it all with a smile!). Sean has been practicing cup stacking all week. Then on Thursday he came home from Cubs to say he asked his friend Thomas to do the act with him as Thomas didn't have an act of his own- this is typical of him, he is so sweet at wanting to be kind to others. We are very proud of him! 

Practice makes perfect

Sean in his Cubs uniform

(I'm keeping the pictures small as they're not great quality)

Our oldest son was also there helping as a young scout leader but he really doesn't want us to show any pictures of him (he gets his wish this time as the photos of him were even darker than those of Sean.)

We had a lovely, if long, evening and the highlight was seeing how pleased Sean was with himself for stacking and collapsing the cups without knocking any over, even when he was very nervous.

Until next time

Gillian